With only a few weeks left we are closing in on the wrapping up this grow. The buds are filling out and getting covered in crystals. Though the orange hairs have only started to form in the last week or two. Soon I will start using a microscope to get a closer look at the trichomes and judge their "ripeness" depending on color.
With the orange hairs starting to form low down on the plant and working their way up lots is changing inside the plant. The terpenes are forming and giving the plant a distinct smell.
This is my first Afgani strain I have grown, the smell coming off is different from other cannabis grows I have done. I am really curious how the buds will taste when vaped/smoked. I love how every strain I grow smells and looks a little different. Its lots of fun growing cannabis.
Using the netting to grow these plants has been a learning experience. I think this grow the canopy came out much more uniform than the last blue dream grow I did the same with.
The netting helps support the buds and lets them get heavy without risk of falling over.
I see the leaves are starting to turn yellow, this happens late stage of the growth when the plant is putting all its energy into the buds.
Taking pictures of my plants during flower means I have to wait for the grow lights to turn off, so I usually take the pictures in the evening. The extreme yellow color makes it hard to judge the plants state. So I took these pictures after the grow light turned off.
We can see all of the buds in the lower canopy, I will save those for edibles.
Out of the many dozen colas, two stand the most grand... above is one of them.
Last I counted there were over 30 colas so that's around 7.5 per plant. They all look real tasty.
It was fun growing this sativa dominant strain during the summer. Saving my indica seeds for the winter I want more purple and black plants. But during the summer and autumn here its quite warm in their grow environment making it hard for them to change colors.
Besides the grow updates I have changed the way I dose out their fertilizer. Using these kitchen squeeze bottles I can pour into measuring cups easier than it was using the big jugs the fertilizers come in.
Every four days I feed my plants so its nice not spilling nutrients all over the place. Storing my fox farm fertilizers seems to work well this way and it has not clogged them yet.. Just requires a good shaking. I am using Grow Big and Big Bloom during the vegetative periods. And during the flowering periods I am using Tiger Bloom
So what's next?
With my plants around the 60 day mark in flower, it will be time to start checking for bud ripeness soon. I have a digital hand held microscope that attaches to my laptop I can view them in real time. I will be looking for milky white and amber colored crystals, at that time I know I should harvest.
My next grow will be something more indica dominant.
I have two strains I am considering:
Zebra stripe f3: They claim it tastes like fruit stripe gum.
Zsweet inzanity: A cross between durban posion and rainmaker and original glue.
Both should have the perk of going purple or black if I can get my tent temperatures low enough. Depends on how cold of a winter we get. Usually I need night time lights off temps around 50F to make this happen. So we shall see if we can get it cold enough to turn those indicas purple/black.