sorry I've been awol from my journal. I've been kinda busy and forgot to update it. I've succesfully grown one female plant to maturity and harvested it. I lost (misplaced) my digital camera for the better part of a month so I don't have a lot of pictures, but I have some. I harvested Sylvia at 8 1/2 weeks, almost all the trichs were cloudy with a very few amber ones. Nirvana claims that this strain is 8/9 weeks flowering. At 8 1/2 the calyxes were swollen and although I could have probably waited for more ambers, I was sick of waiting. My yeild was modest, but not bad for a first grow. The hand held 60-100x hand held micro from radio shack works great with a little practice. It can be difficult to focus at first and has a very small field of view. Once you get the habg of it, examining those trichs can be quite fun.
When I took a clone of each of my four plants to determine sex, I got 3 males and 1 female. I assumed that this meant that only one of the four plants was a female. Well, turns out that wasn't the case. I don't know how it happened, but I got two females. Sylvia, the plant I recently harvested, I thought was a male. I put her into flower "just to make sure" and lo and behold she started growing pistils like mad. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. In an attempt to sustain the genetics, I took quite a few clippings from her so that I could veg a crop of all females while she was flowering. Another lesson learned, cloning plants already in flowering is significantly more dificult than plants that are in veg. All my clones died, and all the areas I clipped off would no longer have buds growing there.
The second female I was blessed with was Lilah. I had trouble dialing in the nutes on her late in veg and she lost quite a few leaves. I also experimented with topping with her. I topped every side branch and topped the main shoot twice. I also tied her down. This made all the growth even and gave it a quite funny shape. As a result of all the topping, I now have 40 some budsites developing on her. She's been in flower for 3 1/2 weeks as of today. I think she's a little underdeveloped but looks promising with so many budsites. I will let her flower to 9 weeks or until I get maybe 50/50 amber cloudy trichs.
Now for some pics. The first pic is of a bud on Sylvia, 4 weeks into flowering. You can already see the trichomes, even on the fan leaves. The second pic is a lil "tester" bud at 6 weeks, trichs to the tip of the fan leaves yummy! The third pic is a weird green tint for some reason. Some setting on my camera, this is the main cola at 6 1/2 weeks. Fourth is the same pic but in normal color. Fifth is Lilah. This pic was taken about 3 weeks into flowering, there are over 40 buds on it. Sixth are Sylvias top four buds, most of the mass of the plant. These are also at 6 1/2 weeks. The last pic is from Sylvia as well, some smaller double buds from a topped side branch also 6 1/2 weeks. I must have lost my camera or forgot to take pictures after 6 1/2 weeks. Weeks 7-8.5 the buds really fattened up, they didn't grow much vertically but swelled and excreted more delicious trichomes.
Sorry for my incomplete photo-documenting of the process. I've now got got one female flowering at about 4-4.5 weeks.
I've only smoked a few quick-dried buds from Sylvia, so I haven't been able to see the benefits the a cure yet. From preliminary data collection, I am quite happy with the stone from the bud that I GREW! It's the most satisfying smoke I've had simply because I know that I helped guide a beautiful plant through the process of making it. I've heard that bud dried quickly tastes harsh but I didn't experience this at all. It is smooth, sweet and tasty. I'd say its better tasting than most any bud I've ever bought off the street, maybe only using organics had something to do with that. The buds smell citrusy sweet with a very slight hint of skunk. The stone is definitely an indica body buzz which is to be expected with a 70/30 indica/sativa hybrid. It's strong but not overpowering. Overall I'm very happy with the strain. With more practice I hope to increase my yield.
