Welcome back, it's day 28, and all is well.... so far.
@WildBill let me know if you can see any of the images this time???
Here they are as a group, with the Colorado Cookies on the left, Night Queen centre and the Blackberry Kush on the right.... all now in 25L airpots.
Avid readers will remember I had to get them out of the Solo cups and into larger pots back on day 16, but I didn't have enough Coco so I put the NQ in a 25L airpot and the other two into 5L airpots.
The Coco arrived last week, so on day 22 I moved the NQ and CC into their final 25L airpots.... not as easy as doing it with Solo cups.
I firmly believe
any fucking around with Autos will slow them down, that's why I usually use Solo cups to start off.... I cut the bottom off, and slit it up the side, and pop the whole lot in the new Coco filled pot. Then I carefully slide the old Solo cup out job done. This way there's no handling of roots, no light exposure to the roots, and it's very quick.... minimal stress to the plants.
Moving a plant from a 5L airpot to a 25L airpot was more difficult because of the indentations in the airpot itself. No smooth sides to slide the pot out this time, so as I unwrapped the pot from the plant, the Coco stuck in the indentations and crumbled away a little.
Petrified the whole lot was gonna fall apart in my hands, I had to plonk it in the 25L airpot and frantically fill it in around the sides.
The diameter of the 5L airpot left me with about 3cm around the inside of the 25L pot to fill in, so it all got a bit messy as I furiously packed the Coco down with my (gloved) hands.
I don't know why I just can't be more prepared.... I seem to do this quite often. My excuse this time was the difficulty in getting a delivery around the Christmas and New Year at short notice, but I have to say a big thanks to the Hydro store that sorted this one out!
You can see the difference in the plants... the NQ is much bigger than the other two, because she's had the least stress to go through.
Here she is...
Looking pretty good for day 28. I've done nothing except a little bit of leaf tucking to let the underlying new tops show through.
Inside there's plenty going on and enough space to let it all happen....
And from above you can see she has......
potential.....
The Blackberry Kush was initially the runt of the pack, but she recovered from the heat stress and repot shock quickly and is storming away.....
See how I've tucked that fan leaf in the centre to allow those new tops to pop out either side.
The air-pruned root tips from being in the 5L airpot literally took off once repotted.... that's why they call them 'rocket pots' over here, and it's why I chose to use a 5L airpot rather than a standard smooth pot.
The plants were only in the 5L airpot for 6 days, but had developed quickly in that time. Had they been in a standard pot, the roots would have started to coil up rather than air-prune and they would have had a slower start in the 25L airpot.
Again, she's got plenty of space underneath to let those new side shoots to develop...
And from above, she looks very healthy with nice big fan leaves sucking up the Skyline goodness....
The Colorado Cookie is the smallest plant of the grow. I've always found her in the past to be a bit shorter and bushier, and this seems to be much the same.
I've had to whip off 3-4 pairs of fan leaves from the mid region of the main stem (as and when rather than all in one go) to allow the new stems underneath to get any light....
From above you can see how the uppermost fan leaves at 12 and 6 o clock are pretty wide, stopping any light getting to what's underneath.
I'll be whipping those two off when the newer leaves at 3 and 9 o clock are more substantial....
Can you see the thermometer reading? It was only around 9am when I took the pic... it's even hotter in there now!
I don't like cutting healthy leaves off, I see them as 'solar panels' for the plant, so removing them can only be detrimental. Especially in the first 4 weeks.
Having said that, if the leaf is yellowing or not getting any light, I'll consider removing it to stop it from draining the plant's energy.
Now that they are 28 days plus, I can start to think about the impending stretch, so I have to make sure that every new shoot gets enough direct light on them so they can lift up from the main body of the plant and knock out some candy canes.
Getting a plant to focus it's energy on that will mean some light staking out and then clearing out anything underneath that looks like it won't get to the canopy. Stake first
then cut, not the other way.
A lot of growth can happen in the next 10 days, so I'll have to go in and do some surgery a couple of times to keep things in check.
Hope you're all doing well and keeping safe. Thanks for looking in, more soon!