Sugar Black Rose

Day 43 Flower (Day 85) Today is the first day of week seven of flower, and this is supposed to be the last week of flower for this fast strain, but I doubt that either of the girls will be done this week. That being said, it's pretty much a waiting game at this point since we're on the home stretch. The right girl should be done soon-ish, but the left girl will probably take a few more weeks. I just got my second Corona vaccine shot a couple of days ago, and as soon as it is entirely up and running, I'm off on vacation. After 1.5 years of this pandemic crap, I'm SO ready to go traveling again. To prepare for my travels, I installed a drip irrigation system in the left girl's tent. It's a simple system with a 10-liter water bag, some hose, and a few drip emitters, but once dialed in, it should be enough to provide the left girl with water for around a week. The system was a piece of cake to install, and I wrapped the water bag with some white mylar to avoid the water getting heated and also to reflect the light better. It's a bit ghetto still, but I'll make it prettier once I see that the system works as intended. I installed the system now already to give me time to dial it in. I'm hoping that the right girl will be done before I travel, but if she isn't, then I'll hook her up to the automated drip irrigation system that I use for our tomatoes. Come hell or high water. I'm going on that vacation, dammit! Lastly, I gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.5 water. Day 44 Flower (Day 86) I think those extra photons from the new light are starting to work their magic in the left tent, and the left girl is slowly starting to fatten up. In the right tent, everything is just cruising along and I gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.6 water today. Day 45 Flower (Day 87) The drip irrigation system in the left tent is working out great so far. Only been a couple of days though but yeah, so far so good. The right girl is packing on some weight into her buds and some of the thinner branches are starting to fall over. I've ordered some plant yoyos for support but they won't arrive until next week so I'll make do until then. Lastly, I gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.3 water. Day 46 Flower (Day 88) Not much is happening on a day-by-day basis this late in flower. I hope those plant yoyos get here asap as the right girl is struggling to keep some of her branches up under the weight of the buds. I want to go in and tuck some fan leaves in her canopy to allow better light penetration. Still, I can only tuck a couple without starting to knock over branches as other branches precariously support them. (Note to self: use a second scrog next photo grow to give support after the stretch.) I gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.5 water, and that was all for today. Day 47 Flower (Day 89) Woooo! The yoyos arrived today even though they weren't due until next week. It was a breeze to put up; attach the yoyo at the roof of the tent with a zip tie, pull down the hook and attach it to the branch, done. I ended up using only three since the other branches are standing quite well once those three worst offenders are supported. A fourth branch could also use support, but the branch is way in the back, and I can't get to it without getting my arms and hands all covered in resin as just about everything in the tent is super sticky now. The buds on the right girl are very resinous and have a strong smell. I should bring out the microscope soon and start to check the trichomes to see where she's at. I also gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.6 water. The left girl is just hanging out in her tent, doing her thing, and slowly fattening up. The drip system is working great so far. After four days, the water bag is about half empty, so it looks promising that it will last a week. I've been monitoring the soil humidity, and it has slowly been dropping these four days, but the drop is so slow that it is next to negligible. Day 48 Flower (Day 90) Today, the left girl's soil humidity did a small drop, but it is still in a great range. I guess it is because as the water in the bag gets less, the water pressure is reduced, resulting in the water flowing more slowly out of the drip emitters. Not a huge deal, though, as it is now five days since the last time I hand-watered the left girl, so this irrigation system will work just fine when I go on vacation for a few days. I filled up another 3 liters of pH 6.1 water in the bag, and I'll keep an eye on it to see if the soil humidity increases. Speaking of watering, I treated myself today to a new, better pH pen. As a living soil grower, I don't use any nutes, so I thought I might as well make sure I have a quality pH pen to make sure the water is on point. My old Dr. Meter pen has served me just fine, but this bluelab pen is a lot faster, and it has a backlit display which makes it easier to use in low light situations. A friend of mine recently started growing, so I'll gift my old pen to him as well as my old tiny, drying tent, and the ViparSpectra P600 light as I don't need that now when I have a much more powerful light for the small tent. The right girl got 3 liters of pH 6.1 water as I haven't hooked up the automated drip irrigation system to her yet but will do that in the next few days as I suspect that she won't be finished either before vacation. Lastly, I started to brew some compost tea to give the girls one final boost of microbes and nutrients. I used a similar recipe as previously: worm castings, rock dust, biochar, lime, bentonite, neem meal, kelp meal, and molasses. I upped the castings and neem, though and I'll leave this tea brewing for 24 hours and feed it to the girls tomorrow. Day 49 Flower (Day 91) The last day of the seventh week of flower, and all is well in the tents. According to the breeder, this week is supposed to be the final week of flower, but none of my girls are near ready. I took out the microscope today and checked the trichomes on the right girl, and I would guess she has at least another week, if not two, to go as her trichomes are still clear. I might even end up running her longer as I'm looking for a decent amount of amber this harvest. This strain is supposed to be a heavy, almost narcotic Indica, and I'm aiming to make her as potent as possible. A "last-smoke-of-the-night" kind of smoke. Lately, there has been a noticeable cannabis smell in my lung room, and last night I tracked down the cause. It turned out that there was a leak between the carbon filter and the fan, so the fan blew out partly unfiltered air. Nothing that some duct tape couldn't fix, and this morning the smell was gone. The right girl is sticky af and has a strong smell. Initially, there's a strong citrus fragrance with hints of lime and grapefruit, but once those terps have started to evaporate, there's an underlying fragrance of pine. The left girl has even longer to go, and it wouldn't surprise me if she takes another month. We made some guacamole last night, but a couple of the avocados had gone bad, so I put them on my pots. My loss is my worms' gain. All I did today was to feed the compost tea I started yesterday to the girls. Each one got 3 liters of unfiltered tea at pH 6.7.