A Wedding Cake grow in super soil

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IamN2pot

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There are several forum members here in Colorado that are growing Wedding Cake genetics that I was able to gift them. With that in mind, I thought I should do a show grow to help with any questions and give out the few tips I've learned about WC over the last 18 months of growing it. For free Colorado clones, click here.
I want this grow to be harvested just after Thanksgiving, so I can show full bloom flowers to the relatives we invite over. From taking the cutting to harvest is about 120 days for me. So I started at Nov 27th as my target date and count backwards. 70 days in bloom + 30ish days veg + 20ish days rooting and in cup. So I count backwards 120ish days and that's when I took the cuts. These were taken on July 31st and Aug 1st, so day 120 would actually be 11/28. Close enough. I am also keeping a spreadsheet with what and when I'm doing, that I'll post when it's complete, at the end of the grow.
So, let me get started with the pictures. Each picture is date stamped as it's name, so you can follow the timeline.

7/31 taking cuttings. Cuts were dipped into Foop and poked into Root Riot cubes. Misted with RO 6.3pH water and placed into my clone dome. (clone dome pictured with previous cuts for another member)
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8/14 2 weeks later roots had popped and were ready to 'plant' into 9oz cups.

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8/19 5 days later and the root system is developed well enough to transplant into their final 5gal pots. The white fabric on top of the cups is old carbon pre-filter used as a barrier against insects, mainly Fungus gnats. And yes, I can count. The 5th plant is the new, replacement WC mother plant.
A note on the super soil. I use the reciepe I found almost 3 years ago, (click here) and devide it into 8 bags, one for each bag of base soil. Then make a bag of hot soil in a trash can to compost at least 60 days and use as needed. Both my base soil and composted hot soil are The Bomb potting soil (click here) available in Colorado. As you see the explosive growth in soil over the course of this grow, I hope you will agree. I call this my JAWS system or Just Add Water Sorta system. I will add organid liquid nutes as needed. The 5 gal pots have 7, #1 pots worth od soil in them. 2 pots worth of hot soil and the other 5 regular Bomb, and oh yes, I LOVE the 50/50 coco peat mix. I tried the 100% peat mix, but like the 50/50 even better. Almost impossible to overwater.
Also note that the 5th, mother plant is in a 50/50 mix of Roots Organics Original and Bomb, no hot soil.
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8/21 Topped all 5. Before and after of each of the 4. No picture of mom.
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8/23 removed bottom branches. Only pictured one with before and after shots.
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Stay tuned for updates. They are only getting started.
 
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IamN2pot

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OK, I left off on 8/23. So here are the next set of pictures. 5 days later, a group shot. Notice that the 'mother' plant in the lower right is already falling behind because of the differant soil mix. I actually want the mother to grow slower. Faster she grows, the sooner I'll need to replace her... 🙃

8/28 group shot
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8/31 one month after taking cuts and time to remove a few more tops and bottom branches from the 4 that I'll bloom out. My mother plant is coming along as expected.
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and last for now, I ballanced my pots, literally. At this point it was time for a good and thorough watering. My pots weighed 13.6, 13.8, 15.0 and 15.6 lbs. I water with a 16oz cup so the rest was easy. When I finished, all 4 pots were at 19.6 lbs. I also tagged each plant with a colored clothes pin.
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I'll be back...... 😀
 
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IamN2pot

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A few more days have passed and today I seperated the 4 bloomers from the mother plant and put them into my 'bloom' tent with a SF4000 light. I took one last picture of the plants all under the SF2000 just to show how much slower the mother plant is growing (lower right in picture) as expected. It almost looks like one of those commercial pictures for that brand of potting soil that rhymes with emperical grow, LOL! Yes. I know it's in a slightly smaller plastic pot vs the larger fabric pots, but they were only transplanted into those pots on the 8/19, 17 days ago. At this stage of growth, I'm leaning towards that differance in growth rate being 100% because of the different soil mixtures. The 4 bloomers are in a 70/30ish mix of Bomb and 'hot' Bomb and the new mother is a 50/50 Roots Original/Bomb mix. My experiance with both Roots Original and Bomb lead me to think that the Bomb is about a 3 times hotter mix than Roots Original to start with, but it's just my opinion after 2 years of using them.

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The new home for the 4 bloomers and mom all by herself.
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IamN2pot

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Good morning all, This morning the 4 girls got their first dose of compost tea. Our local grow shop offers a free gallon on Mondays. I also did the final topping to the plants as the canopy is filling out nicely. The pictures are a before and after topping. If all continues to go well, I'll flip them to 12/12 next Monday and harvest will be on Monday after Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed all continues to go well.

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IamN2pot

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Time to check in again. It was a roller coaster week. My experiance with these genetics has been that it is 'almost' impossable to over feed it, until now. On Saturday, 9/10, I decided to give my girls one last big veg feed. Tomorrow I will flip to bloom. Anyway, 2 days later I gave each gal 32oz's of compost tea. Our local grow store gives away a free gallon every Monday. So I supose it could have been a bad tea mix, but I'm leaning heavily towards a nute overdose. FTR, it was Age Old Fish and Kelp @ 10ml pr gal. Wed the plants looked sad. Thursday the plant growth had noticably slowed. An hour after the light came on, the leaves were still folded downward, like the plant was sleeping. Not wilted, the leaves were pumped, but pushing downward, like they were sleeping. (see the pictures) Upon closer examination I discovered a noticable color change in the stems, getting redish purple. I decided to do a partial flush. I know, the 1st commandment of supersoil/living soil, never flush. Oh well, around noon Friday I added 13, 16oz cups of water to each pot to get 3, 16oz cups of runoff water. FTR, that runoff tested 6.8pH and 880ppm, rinse water was filtered tap and pH'ed to 6.3 and 175ppm. Saturday morning the girls were looking very happy again with their leaves outstreched and growing. How fast did they recover? Well, I took a picture at 7:15 last night of my temp probe hanging at canopy level. Tonight at 8:00, I had trouble seeing the probe to photograph it. 😲 About 2" taller canopy. Tomorrow I'll readjust the timer to 12/12.

3 pics of leaves down and red stem change Friday morning, before flush.
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next 2 pics are Saturday morning after Friday flush
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Todays growth measured on the temp probe. Keep growing. 😀
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IamN2pot

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Well, this week was boring! Best week ever!!! 6th day into the 12/12 flip and they are growing just wonderfully, and soooo fast!!!!
I did do some lower thinning and have attached the pictures below.

Before and after cleaning up the lowers.
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and the canopy.....
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IamN2pot

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Time for my Sunday pictures. The girls have done some major growth/stretch over the last week. They've grown at least a foot, maybe closer to 15" since the last pictures and are now 2 weeks into flower, 6-8 weeks to go. In short, another fantasticly boring week. I did add a first layer of trellis netting. Everything is growing as it should, ......for now! 😉
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IamN2pot

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3 weeks into bloom, 5-7 weeks to go. Thankfully, the last few days growth stretch has really slowed down. My tent is almost out of room. I know, what a problem to have. 😀 All I've done this week was to water and remove lower leaves and trim. Trichrome production has kicked into high gear.
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PK1

PK1

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put the clear plastic cups in a colored once and see what difference in root build
 
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IamN2pot

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Time to check in with another weekly update on my grow. I top dressed last week with insect frass and this week I discovered that my soil looks to be very much alive. I've got mycelium growing. I haven't grown mycelium since the 80's when I was on my psilocybin kick. 🙃
I do have an oddity cola growing. It stopped growing sun leaves and just kept producing bracts and pistils. Weird weeds!!! 4 weeks into bloom, 4-6 weeks to go!

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IamN2pot

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An interesting week this week. I learned about 'pot worms', no pun intended... ☺️ Here is the thread and if you are growing organically with composted soil, you may have them.
They look like supersize nematodes. Oh well, no damage done and I did arriate that pot with a screwdriver. Flowers are really putting on the trichromes!
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IamN2pot

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Busy, busy, just not with this grow. It's doing pretty good. I have seen some signs of potassium deficiency and began adding some Age Old Bloom 5-10-5.
Here is what they are looking like. Enjoy....
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IamN2pot

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This past 10 days have been HARVEST!!!! Hooraa! I took 1 of the 4 on the 13, 18 and 23rd. Those were days 55,60 and 65 of 12/12 lights. I'll post final weights as soon as everything has cured.
Enjoy the pictures.

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OK, LIGHT OUT FUN!!!
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N2 😲 😀 👍 😁
 
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IamN2pot

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As promised in the OP, a spread sheet log of what, when and how much. Mostly boring stuff. The total yields are at the bottom. 538 gr from 4 plants under a SF4000. I'm happy! I'll finish this journal in a week or so when I know what my processed oil totals are.

7/31/2022WC cuts taken
8/14/20225 cuts from 7/31-8/1 poped and put into cups
8/19/20226.3pH 75*fed clonex4 cupstransplanted into 5gal pots, soaked in good w/ 64oz water, light lowered 5000 to 14000 lums
8/21/2022topped,
8/23/2022removed bottom sucker branches
8/25/20226.0pH 71*2 pintswatered 32oz ea
8/27/20226.2pH 73*3 pints
8/28/20226.0pH 75*3 pints
8/31/2022topped and took bottom branch
9/1/20226.0pH 74*fed 4ml/1.5gal3/5 pintsBalanced pot water weight. Added RO to light pots and fed all 4
9/5/20226.4pH 72*3 pintsMoved 4 bloomers into tall tent w/ SF4000, set at 35000 lums
9/6/20226.1pH 76*3 pints
9/8/20226.2pH 76*6 pintstrimmed a few lowers.
9/10/20226.2pH 74*fed 15ml/1.5gal6 pintsyellow tipped leaves
9/12/20226.3pH RO compost tea2 pt T/ 1 pt waterfinal topping and removed lowers
9/13/20226.3pH 73*2 pints
9/14/20226.2pH 75*6 pints
9/16/20226.3pH 73*light rinse13 pintsred stems prompted rinse, 3 cups runoff each plant, 75% LED
9/18/20226.2pH 73*6 pintsgrowing like weeds again, 85% LED
9/19/2022bloomchanged light to 12/12 and raised light
9/20/20225.8pH 73*6 pints9/16 runoff was 6.8, so lowered pH temporarily
9/21/20226.0pH 73*6 pintsraised light, 100% LED
9/22/20226.0pH 71*7 pintssoaked
9/24/20226.2pH 75*8 pints
9/26/20226.2pH 73*compost tea7 pts w/TRaised light and watered with -free- compost tea
9/28/20226.2pH 72*6 pts
9/30/20226.1pH 73*9 ptsstems have greened up nicely
10/2/20226.0pH 71*7 ptshuge growth/stretch over the last week
10/3/20226.1pH 73*6 ptsraised light, again
10/5/20226.1pH 71*6 pts
10/6/20226.1pH 71*7 pts
10/7/20226.0pH 71*6 ptstrichromes beginning to sparkle
10/9/20226.2pH 72*7 ptsupward growth has slowed alot
10/10/20223 heaping tspremoved lowers, thinned, raised light and topdressed w/ insect frass
10/12/20226.1pH 72*7 pts
10/13/20226.2pH 71*7 pts
10/15/20226.0pH 71*6 pts
10/17/20226.1pH 72*7.5 ptsadded compost tea to watering
10/19/20226.2pH 71*6 ptsfound "pot worms"
10/20/2022aerated with screwdriver
10/21/20226.1pH 72*5pts
10/23/20226.3pH 70*6pts
10/24/20226.0pH 70*6pts
10/26/20225.9pH 71*7pts
10/27/20226.1pH 71*5pts
10/29/20226.2pH 70*5pts
10/31/20226.0pH 72*1.5pts tea5pts6.5pts total ea
11/2/20226.1pH 70*6pts
11/4/20226.3pH 71*age old 5-10-56ptsadded 5ml per 1.5 gal
11/7/20226.0pH 69*6pts
11/9/20226.3pH 70*5-10-56pts2.5ml per 1.5gal
11/11/20226.1pH 70*7pts
11/13/20226.3ph 68*7ptsadded gnatrol
11/16/20226.0pH 70*6pts
11/13/202255 days into 12/12125g1st harvest
11/18/202260 days into 12/12129g2nd harvest
11/23/202265 days into 12/12139g, 145g3rd harvest, 2 plants
 

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