Black Cookies photos by Seeds Mafia grow diary contest

[Cougar672]

My second tent will be available next week, so I started the 3 Black Cookies photoperiods seeds that Seeds Mafia sent me for free to compete in their grow diary contest.

On Sep 28 I soaked them in warm water for about 8 hours, then I planted them in solo cups. I’m using Promix HP with Dynomyco and an extra 20% perlite mixed in as the growing medium. The house temp was around 68 F, so I used a 40W incandescent bulb as a heat source, and after adjusting the height, maintained a temp of 80 F. On Oct 1 they started breaking the soil surface, and were all upright on Oct 2, though 1 still had her helmet on. At this point I removed the incandescent bulb and hung my seedling/clone light: two 2 foot long 24W full spectrum LEDs, on 14 hours a day. This is maintaining the temp at about 78 F when on. Once the second node starts developing I will gradually increase light to 18 hours a day, and start a light feeding.

I usually transplant into a 1 gallon pot once the leaves reach past the cup edges. At this point I will put them in my 3x3 ft tent with a MarsHydro FCE-3000. Once I see roots growing out the bottom they will be transplanted into their final home, 5 gallon fabric pots. For training, I plan to manifold these plants.

Black Cookies is a fast flowering photo period, estimated flowering time of 6-7 weeks. I like to run a full tent and wanted to run 4 photos this grow, ideally with a similar flowering period. I didn’t have any, but a friend offered a Green Poison F1 fast Version by Sweet Seeds, flowering time 6 weeks, so she’ll be growing alongside the Seeds Mafia plants. Green Poison is in the solo cup with the toothpick sticking up.
I am also growing some Jack Herer autos from Seeds Mafia. Check out the grow diary here.

 

[Mars Hydro Led]

Oh friend, love your kitty and look forward to watching your growing.

 

[Cougar672]

I've been neglecting this grow diary, 11 days since my last post. Unfortunately, the girls were neglected, too. I usually start feeding when the second node starts, but I flaked out and didn't. Second node was already pretty well into development when I noticed the cotyledons and first node leaves were yellowing, and I immediately started feeding.
Oh yeah, then the next time I watered, I gave too much. They are currently recovering from that overwatering.
Lights are on about 16-18 hours a day; not currently using a timer- they go on when I get up and off when I go to bed. That will change soon. Kinda of cool in the house so they are still kept on a heating mat. With lights on, temp at soil surface is around 75 F and around 67 F with lights out. Also dry in the house, around 40%, so I am keeping a small wet towel on the heating mat which has raised the humidity to about 65%.
I am a little disappointed in their size at 12 days old, but I expect a big part of that is my poor treatment. If they were autos with only another week before expected start of flower, I would toss them and start over. Fortunately, they are photos so I should be able to recover them and still get a good harvest. I'll be sure to give them more attention this week and hopefully they will forgive me.
BTW- the girls are kept under 48W full spectrum LED in my closet; only in the window to try and get a better picture.

 

[PoweredByLove]

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[Cougar672]

It's been too long since my last update. Thought I had updated around Halloween, but I guess not. Definitely took pics, but deleted them since (I thought) I posted them.
Been struggling with them. They are off to a VERY slow start thanks to me. I had overwatered while giving the first feed, which was late by at least a week. After they finally dried out enough to water again, I OVERWATERED YET AGAIN! I am usually very careful not to overwater, so not sure how I did that. After about a week of being much too wet, I transplanted them into 1 gallon pots and left them dry, thinking the dry medium would wick some of the water out. Of course, I couldn't feed them while waiting for them to dry out, and since my growing medium, ProMix HP, has no nutes they were really struggling and showed it. It was about 4 weeks of little to no growth, with the plants gradually looking worse and worse: poor growth, yellowing and browning of leaves, misshapen leaves.. Fed them again Nov 11, pics taken Nov 12. They are looking MUCH better. Thankfully these are photos, because I would have had to start over with autos. Probably should have started over again anyway as these plants are 6 weeks old today and should be much larger. Since SeedsMafia sent me these seeds for free for the competition I wanted to see it through, and maybe learn something in the process, too.

 

[Cougar672]

So far behind on this journal I’m just going to post a quick summary of the last 3 ½ months.

Usual watering schedule was every 2-3 days, giving nutes every other watering. The 3 gallon containers usually got 3 quarts, while the 5 gal usually got 4 quarts. After 2-3 days, the 3 gallons were usually drier than the 5 gallon fabric. In an attempt to keep them equally moist I tried giving additional to the 3 gallons only ran out the bottom and didn’t keep them moist longer.

I topped the 2 three gallon plants and performed LST using a combination of ties and plastic stem benders to keep a flat canopy. The consistently healthy plant in 5 gal was mainlined to create 8 main colas. However, I let them veg longer than planned and I did not keep up with removing other growth, so instead I used LST to keep a flat canopy of buds.

11/20 2 of the girls are still looking kind of sad. The other has been growing well, so I topped her and put the cutting into a jiffy pot; keeping it under a dome and misting a couple times a day.

11/26 No visible roots growing through the jiffy pot, but I accidentally pulled the clone out and found a fair amount of roots. I quickly stuck it back in and hoped for the best.

11/30 The 2 that have been looking rather sad have actually perked up a little, so I will keep them going. They were transplanted into 3 gal containers. The plant that has looked healthy the whole time was transplanted into a 5 gal fabric pot.

12/4 The clone has recovered from my butter fingers and is now showing roots growing out the sides of the jiffy pot so she was planted into a solo cup. Ocean Forrest can be too hot for seedlings so I put this on bottom, and surrounded the jiffy pot with Promix HP

12/25 was trying to keep the clone as a solo cup grow, but having trouble keeping her looking healthy so she went into a 1 gal container with FF ocean forest.

12/26 The girls are pretty thick with fan leaves so they received some defoliation before flipping to 12/12. In addition to removing large fan leaves, I removed all of the growth about 5 inches below the canopy top.

12/28 Light changed to 12/12 and moving into Bloom nutes.

1/18 Buds have been showing nice growth, and the canopies are thick again. It’s 3 weeks after the flip to 12/12 so time for another defoliation to open up for light and air flow. Again removing large fan leaves, especially any covering bud sites that couldn’t be tucked away.
Pics from 1/31

 

[Cougar672]

2/7 Seeds Mafia website gives a bloom time of 6-7 weeks, and tomorrow is 6 weeks since changing to 12/12. These buds are at least 3 weeks away from being ready for harvest, which is after the end of the contest. I thought these would be done before Mar 1 but clearly not gonna happen. Hoping to speed ripening I set the light to 13 hours of dark.

Alongside these 3 Black Cookies, I am also growing a Green Poison fast flowering strain from Sweet Seeds, which also has an estimated flowering time of 6-7 weeks, and looks like she is on schedule. Still a lot of clear trichromes so she will wait a little longer before chop-chop.

2/18 The Green Poison was harvested today.

3/3 After drying got 62 grams from the Green Poison. Still curing but has a piney, fruity smell.
The 2 Black Cookies in 3 gallon containers, which have never performed well look like they are struggling and at end of life. Many of the buds have been falling over even though they are not that big. Tied some of them up a couple weeks ago. Even though there are still about 40-50% clear trichromes I decided to harvest them. The girl in the 5 gallon pot is still looking pretty good so I am going to let her continue to ripen.

Will post again when these 2 are dry and the remaining is harvested. Thanks for watching!

 

[Cougar672]

The 2 smaller Black Cookies were harvested on March 3. My harvest/dry process is the following: Cut the main branches from the main stem. Each main stem is usually cut into a couple pieces, and each piece still has multiple smaller branches with buds on them. All fan leaves and any foliage that does not have a significant amount of frost is removed. They are then hung in an empty tent with and exhaust fan on about 25% and an interior fan to circulate the air. Conditions were about 66-69 F, 50-60% humidity. Hung for a little over 7 days. The buds were are on the smaller side and airy and should have been jarred at least a day earlier, but I was staying at my daughter’s babysitting my 5 grandkids so I was unable to jar it any earlier. A little over dry, but not crispy. In-jar hygrometers read 48-50%.

The third plant and the small clone were harvested March 14, and finished drying and jarred on March 21-22. Drying conditions similar to previously described.

Back to the buds- very disappointed. As I mentioned small and airy. Lots of leaf material. An overdose of trim jail with a disappointing result! Once the leaf material was removed little bud material remained. There was quite a bit of frostiness on the sugar leaves, and that along with quite a lot of small, larfy buds went into the bin for a near future hash making. The buds on the third (mother and clone), best looking and performing plant, were only slightly better.

Total veg time was 87 days. The 2 plants in 3 gal pots flowered for 66 days (total 153 days) and yielded 33 grams and 36 grams. The plant in the 5 gal pot which performed better from early on flowered for 77 days (total 164 days) and yielded 54 grams dry. That’s a total of 123 grams from the 3 Black Cookies seeds received for the contest. The clone also flowered for 77 days and gave 11 grams dry.

For comparison, the Green Poison that I grew alongside these Black Cookies, in the exact conditions with the same growing medium, nutes, etc., gave me much denser buds with much less foliage to trim off. This one also was in veg for 87 days, but flowered for only 54 days (total 141 days) and gave me 62 grams of dry buds. Seeds Mafia claims a 6-7 flowering time for Black Cookies as does Sweet Seeds for Green Poison. Green Poison was on schedule, while Black Cookies was not close to being ready for harvest at the end of 7 weeks.
Another comparison: a grow I started Dec 2022 I vegged for 61 days and flowered for 77 days, total days 138 which is less than the Black Cookies, and only grew 2 plants, each in 5 gal pots. That was only my second grow, and those 2 plants gave me 123 grams in less time than the 3 Black Cookies also gave me 123 grams. Based on the work involved with harvesting, the small airy buds and the total yield given the grow time, I would definitely not grow Black Cookies again!

Smoke report: I smoked a little of the Black Cookies that was harvested on 3/3, jarred on 3/12, and has been burped every day since then. I usually go 4 weeks before partaking, but decided it was long enough so I could finish up this grow journal.
I shared with two others, and we all agreed on the following: the smoking experience was harsh! I usually wait till 4 weeks of curing before sampling, so I wasn’t expecting the same smoothness, but the harshness was pretty extreme after 2 weeks of curing. Additionally, we all found it to be potent! First hits you in the head with a cloudy sense of euphoria, quickly followed by whole body relaxation and couch lock. Very happy with the effects, but hoping the harshness mellows during the next couple weeks of curing. Considering the effects, I guess I would grow these again if I had some seeds, but certainly would not buy them- there are too many other options available.
Thanks for following.