New Grower Canna Coco goes to Mephisto’s Wedding

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Grow is going great! Most of the larger fan leaves were getting to large to continue effectively tucking so I decided to alter my original plan and do more leaf pruning. On days 24 & 25 I removed the main stem fan leaves and any branch leaf that was growing over or inside the canopy. After pruning I gave them a light foliar of rhizo, silica and Canna start and they carried on as if nothing had happened. Now on day 27 they have already filled back in and the lower branching has improved their horizontal and vertical positioning significantly, so I think leaf pruning was the right call.

Feeding steady at 9ml each canna A&B and have reduced rhizo to the maintenance dose of 2ml/gal. Current feeding EC is 1.5. They are not quite ready for fertigating twice a day so I am aiming for about every 18 hours. The exception is the overachiever Double Grape in the .5gal pot, she is 20 inches tall and already needs feeding twice a day. She is a little lanky but developed almost ideal branching without any training other than leaf tucking.

I had to ditch the 25 inch drain saucer I was using in favor of my 3 ft drain table. The plants were getting too big and I needed the extra corner space. The only drawback is I lost a few inches of vertical height to the drain table and the plant risers. I still have 5-6 inches of vertical height and I think that’s the most the plants will stretch at this point, so fingers crossed I don’t run into height issues.

 

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Cruising right along, all the plants are starting to flower now. They don’t quite have budlets yet, but the stretch seems mostly done and flowers are starting to form. Plants are pretty maxed out in height, I can probably allow them to get 1-2 inches closer, but the tallest plant is at exactly 24 inches below the light. I have the LED lights pretty well dialed in, I ended up needing to turn them down to get the DLI I was shooting for,

DLI across the top of the canopy is between 45-52 @17 hours of light. I am running lights 17/7 right now. I would have needed to raise the lights a little higher to get the DLI I wanted, and shaving an hour off was easier. They are not showing any signs of heat stress at this height, so I will keep it this way for now.

The Double Grape was showing signs of heat stress, and had been for a few weeks. I have grown DG before and never got such a lanky phenotype. It was taller than the other plants by 2-3 inches and I couldn’t get it any further from the light, so she has been re-homed into my second tent. I didn’t want to put her under the second CMH I have for the same heat/light stress reasons, and running a 315 watt light for one plant in a half gallon pot also seemed silly. As an alternative I got my old 2ft HO T5 ballast out. I am running it just a couple inches over the canopy and the DLI is a respectable 20-30 with a 20/4 light schedule. She won’t be a huge yield, but it’s a fun and low risk alternative to letting her be light stressed all through flowering. It was also getting just a little crowed in the other tent with 5 plants, so this may be for the best. I did a bend on the main stem to even out the canopy. It cracked a bit, but looks like it will heal just fine.

I have got the understory cleaned up and all the shaded fan leaves removed. On the early flowering plant I’ll do a bit more leaf plucking today or tomorrow, and then on the other three once the budlets start to fill in a bit more.

All plants are a pretty good size and have very beefy stems for their height. Now that I have a feel for these 2 gallon bags I think I will probably resume topping the plants next round and run 4 x 2gal bags per 3x3 tent.

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Finally had the first problems of the grow, both quite devastating. The largest of the Mephisto Wedding appears to be a hermaphrodite. The plant has been exposed to no significant stress, so I can only assume it’s a genetic hermie. It’s not the type of hermie I have seen before where the male flowers appear at random. This plant has the male and female flowers mixed all in the same bud cluster, and it’s uniform throughout the plant. The two larger of the MW started flowering about the same time a little over a week after the smaller plant. The early plant and the second larger of the MW both displayed typical bud structure, but the hermie plant looked weird as soon as it started flowering. I am still not 100% sure about it, but it definitely looks odd, it’s all I can come up with, and I don’t want a tent full of hermie seeds. A mixed flower hermaphrodite is a know thing I discovered after a quick google, they are less common, but not like a unicorn or anything like that. Yea for learning new things….

weird plant

The zoom on my camera is not very good, but in person I am just starting to see the pollen balls emerge from the flowers. I don’t think it comes through in the pictures.

normal plant

I set the weird plant on my back porch, it’s pretty warm for the next week so I should be able to keep and eye on it. At this point I am pretty sure about it being a hermie, the other plants keep filling in and this one keeps looking weird.

 

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The little Double grape is also having issues. When I moved it to the second tent with the T5 lights I also pruned everything except the top 6-8 inches of the plant since the T5 light doesn’t have very good light penetration. Then I pretty much ignored the plant and was just watering it with plenty of runoff but not checking the EC. When I finally noticed the plant was starting to look a little wonky and checked the EC it was 2.1!?!? Apparently the reduction in light and the reduction in biomass caused the plant to use A LOT less nutrients, the EC quickly climbed and the whole plant got nutrient burn. I flushed back down to 1.5EC but one day later it is already back up to 1.7EC. I will give it one more day to stabilize, but if the EC keeps going up I am going to cull the plant. I don’t have the time or patience to mix different water for it and check the EC with every watering all for a plant in a .5 gallon pot. Once plants are in this stable watering routine I always check EC and PH of the nutrients, but I only check the runoff every other day. The other plants have been steady with a feeding solution of 1.4EC and runoff between 1.2-1.4EC at every check.

sad double grape

Please don’t feel obligated to like any of the sad stuff in the last two posts…..

 

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Great news is the other three plants are all doing great! I have done some pretty aggressive leaf pruning on all plants and they responded with great vigor. Buds are already getting nice and frosty on both of the MW. Feeding at 1.4 EC right now. Soon I will add boost and PK. The PK I’ll only use for about a week, but the boost I’ll use until harvest.

Healthy plants!

early girl

big girl

SN x LiversBX1

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I did decide to abandon the funky Double Grape, the EC just kept going up. The other three plants however are doing wonderfully. I have started to add PK (up to 3ml/gal) and reduced calmag to 3ml/gal. Current feeding EC is about 1.6, runoff EC is on target coming out at 1.70-1.73. 1.8 EC is as high as I like it to go, so I’ll hold at this feeding strength unless the runoff EC drops a bit heading into peak flowering.

The early MW is really packing on the flowers. The larger MW was getting too tall (about 19inches from the main light) so I made the questionable decision to bend the main stem. She bounced back almost immediately so I think it was the right move. Whenever I have let flowers get that close to the CMH it cooks all the terps right outta them. SN x LiversBX1 is so huge for a plant in 1/2 gallon pot, She is about the same size as the smaller MW in 2 gal. I hope she can continue to get by on only 2 waterings a day.

Smaller MW

Larger MW

SN x LiversBX1

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Early MW is really starting to pack it on, both flower mass and frost. Bigger plant is really getting going and both are starting to show a little purple already. The color is possibly from the cool nights with lights off in my basement. The SNxLiversbx1 is so huge for such a small pot it will be interesting and to see how heavy flowering goes.

I backed off the PK, these plants just didn’t seem to want it. Even at 2ml/gal the EC was creeping up. I am also out of town the next 5 days and I am a little nervous….the house sitter has watched the house before and taken care of outside plants for me, but this will be her first time doing coco. I think I have her setup for success she has more than enough water has detailed instructions and I mixed the EC to just 1.25, so as long as she is getting runoff there shouldn’t be any nutrient build up.

Fingers crossed she can keep everything on the rails!

early MW

bigger MW

the shape of this plant is funny after I bent the main branch, but bounced back like nothing happened, there is a wicked knuckle there now where I bent it.

SNxLivers BX1

when I get back from this trip I am gonna get out my Nikon DSLR and take some real pictures, I am tired of whack phone photos.

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The house sitter did a great job! All the plants and animals were thriving upon my return. The only issue developing is the larger MW and the SNxLivBX1 are going to need a third watering every day until flowering starts to wrap up. Neither one has started to show any drought stress, but the big MW especially is drying back a bit too much between waterings and I think it’s slowing bud development a little bit.

All plants are very frosty, the big MW especially so, she’s not stacking huge flowers, shaping up to be loads of ping pong to golf ball sized nugs. The shorter MW and the SNxLivBX1 are both stacking big main colas with very nice satellite branches. I expected the shorter MW that started flowering early to be slowing down a bit by now, but she is still throwing out loads of new pistils and not starting to swell yet. Her main cola is gonna be so fat when it starts to ripen more!

I am going to hold the feeding EC at 1.25 for now because the runoff EC is still coming out a little higher at 1.4. That’s within my comfort zone but if it ticks up at all I’ll reduce feeding strength a little more.

Early MW

Taller MW

SNxLivbx1

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These MW are some of the frostiest and prettiest plants I have ever grown. The shorter one is especially lovely, mostly due to it’s attractive overall structure. The taller one is not much to look at due to the lanky branches and bent top cola, but so frosty, definitely more frost than the short MW. I think the taller plant started to need more water while I was out of town and being thirsty stressed it a little into some early ripening. The tops of most branches have mostly orange pistils and are plumping up, the lower buds are still mostly white and stacking flowers. My best guess is the setback while I was out of town triggered early ripening. Plant is healthy and so frosty, so if the quality is on point I don’t mind if I lost a little yield.

Long flower time on the MW 75-85 days, so still a ways to go. The shorter MW is gonna be as fat as a soup can before too long, and I still can’t believe how huge the SN x LiversBX1 is for a 1/2gallon pot. She is also getting super frosty now. I think the new LED strips I installed with my 315 CMH should get some of the credit for the extreme frostyness. The CMH already has UVA&B plus deep red spectrum. The UV and the deep red and IR from the strips seems to have really kicked things into high gear.

tall MW

short MW

SN X LiversBX1

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It won’t be long now, all plants are in the final stretch. Pistils have mostly changed color with few new ones forming. The larger MW that started to ripen a little early is getting pretty close, it might come down a little earlier than the other two plants which I am thinking will be done right around day 75. Getting a few amber on the taller MW and the shorter one and the SNxLiversbx1 are mostly cloudy.

Both the MW, especially the shorter one, are putting on a super purple fade and the SNxLivers is a pretty light green that’s still not showing any fade. Starting to get really stinky now, even with everything zipped up the smell creeps up the basement stairs into the kitchen hallway. The top few nugs of the taller MW are riper than the rest of the plant. I am planning on cutting a few of the top branches on day 70. I am dying for a sample, and I think the top few buds will be ready by then.

I have started to really taper off the nutrient strength, feeding and only 0.9 EC now. I like to have it down to between 0.4-0.6 EC by harvest, so should be right on track for that target range.

taller MW

shorter MW

SNxLiversBx1

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