I ended News Joint Grow Journal 42 with a weak cliffhanger about how I nearly killed all five of my Green Crack plants with poor planning and how differently clones can grow in the same environment. In News Joint Grow Journal 43: Green Crack, Part II, I explain.
The two major hiccups during the grow came right before I flipped to flower. The first happened while I was on vacation, and the person who was supposed to water my plants could not make it. The five plants, especially the two topped plants, sagged as if disappointed in me. The sugar leaves dangled, like limp Christmas ornaments.
After saturating the soil with water only, all five plants slowly recovered from the days and days of neglect. After another watering and nutrients, the plants came back in full force and within a few days were ready for the light cycle to flip and flower them. That was when I also noticed I had been so preoccupied with preparing to leave for vacation I didn’t realize I had run out of nutrients for the flowering stage.
Luckily, the same day I was schedule to water and feed the plants, GreenGro Biologicals came through with exactly what I needed to get me through the flowering stage. I also added SLF-100, Fish Shit, and a few times, a microbial tea. I flowered the original and five clones under my BlackBird sponsored by HLG.
About a week before flipping light schedules, I lollipopped each plant, and as always, performed Kyle Kushman’s supercropping and “chiropractic” techniques, cracking the stem and branches from the bottom to the top by twisting them in opposite directions, as well as plucking out everything between the nodes. A couple weeks after flipping, I repeated the process. It wasn’t until later in the flowering stage that I noticed that the two topped plants were developing buds differently than the non-topped plants, which looked more like the buds of the mother plant.
The buds from the two topped plants grew way more dark-orange pistils, while the non-topped plants were covered in more trichomes, like the buds were from the mother plant. The larger the buds grew the more distinguishable the two sets of plants became. The aroma of the topped plants became sweeter and creamier than the citrus, mango, and skunk of the other plants. Once chopped, dried, and “mostly” cured, the flavor matched the aroma.
Though the buds have a couple more weeks to cure, the difference in the flavor profile has been more shocking than the differences in appearances. All five plants carried a creamier sweetness to the aroma and flavor that was not in the buds of the mother plant. The topped plants, though, expressed way more sweet cream, citrus, and pine than the other plants. The effects did not seem to be that different between the mother plant and the five clones. The head high was energetic, cerebral, clearheaded, and motivating. The body buzz was heavy enough to relax my body aches and cramps while working without becoming sedative.
Overall, I’m glad I grew my own Green Crack. From now on, one of the plants in my tent will probably be Green Crack. With this strain as my Work Sativa, I am flat-out more productive. And now, I want to manipulate the clones of these plants to see how much the expressions change. To follow News Joint Grow Journal, click here. To qualify and receive a medical patient card at a discounted rate, visit here.
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