Haha, sorry, @LoveDaAutos ! Tilraster is the name I gave one of your Double Grape seeds! I’m growing two DB and one HBSS.
I named it Tilraster in honor of @Til_Valhalla and @rasterman who have been immensely helpful and solid to me.
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I’m with you. 
My growing now is in fairly small batches, but I want to routinely be having 4 mature and 4 immature in the works, all the time. Gotta find a little more space and money.
Right now, I’m still going to a dispo to fill in the gaps, but I’d rather not do that at all.
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once you start finding some cultivars that work for you, you may wish to convert to perpetual grow and start keeping mom plants to clone. that way you’re only growing and harvesting your favorites year round. never run out of your best stuff.
(but you gotta kiss a few frogs to find those princesses.)
i will say there are some growing pains in rolling out a perpetual grow. but as with anything new, you will have your share of learning moments through failures. once you work those kinks out, the perpetual runs well. everything becomes predictable with your select strains and then you start producing some of the best flower you’ve ever smoked as you get everything completely dialed in.
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You and I are very much on the same page again, buddy.
Yes, I’ve been farting around with these smallish grows, learning. I need to find the tent a permanent home (in the corner of the garage, vented and lights hung properly) and probably swap my HID rig for a great 4x4 LED by the end of this year.
I’m trying to figure out some scheduling in the short-term, and running into a space and timing issue. For example:
My 4x4 has my two plants in it now, and I expect to use that tent to dry them. This process should be done by Aug 15, at which point the tent is free again.
I’ve got the seeds you see, plus one more on the way – the FSBC Jamaican Lambsbread seed from Upstate. 
Totally fired up for that one.
So I’m thinking. . .I could germ the Barney’s now, and have cured weed by Christmas day. But they’ll be under LEDs for three weeks old and only move into the tent on Aug. 15, which is fine.
That doesn’t even account for Upstate’s seed, which I’m gonna struggle to grow alongside any other plants, since it’s a 23 week sativa. . .
I honestly need a second space. Does everybody think that?? lol I can imagine they do. I mostly need a solid, controllable, permanent environment that can be a nursery and a drying room.
This is a typical “novice weed grower” problem, isn’t it?
It’s like when/how to put the car in gear – and get the perpetual thing rolling. There’s gonna be a few bumps in the road for a bit, unless I win the lottery. 
I think I know enough now to carry a full load of 4 to 6 plants at once.
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it’s not a problem per sae… the vast majority of people that get into growing QUIT after year 1. too much work, don’t understand, too expensive, excuse, excuse, excuse.
you need to think of it as it really is. it’s a GROWER who is trying to streamline his game. you decided it wasn’t too hard, you enjoy it, and you’re trying to correct obvious mistakes. you’re doing precisely what you should be doing… so don’t second guess yourself. you are growing for you. you’re going to find the best way to do that which suits your tastes and style. and that is ALWAYS the best way to grow.
you seem to like old school strains on the sativa side of things. i have some mexican landrace crosses you may be interested in that will most likely NEVER see my garden. some cheese and skunk strains also. i’d rather they be put to good use than collect dust in my stash box.
gimmie a day or two to get all that sh^t together for you. i am trying to maximize my time outside now that abuela is home and before it gets too friggin hot, so not spending a lot of time inside these last few days. i have 3 major projects i need to finish outside (100F today) and can take a break for a bit. get stuff ready for mailing.
= = =
and yes, if you’re planning to do perpetual you will need minimum of 2 spaces (3 would be best)
1 space for vegging moms and cuttings/clones
1 space for flower
in the 3rd space scenario you would have
1 space for clone moms and clones to veg
1 space to root your cuttings/clones
1 space to flower your clones
anything that fails inside get the “this is sparta!” treatment and tossed outside. if it lives, great. tend it and enjoy some sun-grown. if it dies, oh well. recycle the soil and pot and start another seed/clone in it.
it is going to take you some time to find your favorite cultivars (strains). so you’re going to be doing a lot of seed looking for your keeper moms. so yes, DO indeed consider a second space inside.
you could take your drying 3rd world like i do… hang em’s on hangers in your closet. keep them out of your grow spaces. you’re going to refine that drying and curing process over time as well. (again… whatever works best for you and your style) i think the dry/cure is actually the most important part. you can grow the most magnificent plants, but if you f^ck up the dry and cure the entire harvest is shot. crispy dry, sh^tty tasting weed (just like the dispensaries!) is the end result and completely undesirable.
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Thank you for saying that. It needs to be said more often. 
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Stunned. I broke the main stalk at 5 pm last night, trying to bend it. Near-total decapitation of my HubbaBubbaSmelloScope auto. 
The stalk was snapped. The tough outside layer was severed about 270 degrees around the stalk – , the squishy middle parts were utter mush and on my fingertips.
Xylem, phloem, everything, crushed. If I’d stopped holding it for 10 seconds logged, it would’ve fallen off itself.
I snagged a piece of duct tape and wrapped. The two parts of the stalk felt mis-matched. There were plant guts everywhere. I didn’t even attempt a toothpick split (reminder to bring those to the tent)
Went inside for a while, in despair. Went back.
It was d-e-a-d. Not drooping a little. Deader than dead. Hanging 180 degrees downward, felt like air, super skinny, kinda grey-ish.
Like a dead lizard hanging by it’s tail in a Texas July.
I WISH I had taken a picture then, but I figured, “Why?”
I held the stalk and grabbed the top and started to pull. Clean up the mess. Bury my shame.
And decided to wait til later. Just to be sure.
~ An hour later.
This morning.
I didn’t give it water after the break because they’d both been watered the day before. I didn’t think of it or want to do anything to disrupt it.
Only later did I think watering might actually be the thing that helps, so I did.
Should I have immediately? Splinting? Lowering lights for a while? Do I raise the humidity or lower it?
I saved the patient this time, but that was sheer luck.
What you see behind it is my tad-heavy defoliation effort from the day before.
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Sorry man, that really sucks. Usually if you tape it up immediately, it keeps right on trucking, but your description sounded pretty bad. 🤷
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i do that on purpose some times. it’s called supercropping.
these plants are tougher than you think. most of the time they will bounce back from a 50% break. as long as it has a bit of the main stem intact, it will still keep pumping fluid thru it’s system.
duct tape will help keep the “wound” sealed until the plant finishes repairing itself.
there is a dude named kyle kushman who has some videos online about supercropping. what it is and how to do it. recommend you give them a gander.
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Kyle’s chiropractic technique. I used to tie my canopies down and still do some of the time. But more often I just break and twist the way the master teacheth. 
It’s pretty quick and works well enough.
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Thanks to my Tilraster advisors. It’s funny you mentioned Kyle, because I’ve been watching him for a while. I’ve seen this video and it has intrigued me. I’ve seen this mentioned a few times. (Where do you think I got my “Bud Sweetman” handle? lol)
It makes me wince a little bit, but yes, this makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you.
I’m not saying I’m down with his schwazzing technique – although I can’t doubt him that much, as a novice myself. This is part of the defo/deleaf issues I was yakking about elsewhere, trying to learn.
My stem was REALLY torn. Torn. I tried to find two pictures that could represent it better than my photos did. I didn’t think Kyle was going to this extreme, and maybe he’s not, idk.
My main stem looked like the top guy, but the internals were wet and smushed. The only thing holding it together was the outside “skin” (forget name, too tired to look it up).
Regardless, your advice + encouragement was not only needed but is once again very appreciated.
All I can say is, if “stressing” helps the bud, I’m gonna smoke the dopest smoke ever in a few months.
For now I’m in a slump but those are temporary.
Thx again, mates. I appreciate you both.
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I’ve had plants break worse than that, and had them survive on their own without taping. It’s always worth a try, but if the bottom picture is your current situation, it looks most definitely fixable for future reference. (You will break more branches.) 
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This is one of my current outdoor plants. main stem split right down the middle. I won’t even bother taping it. It’s doing fine on its own. it needed/wanted to flex in the wind? well, now it can. it’s still pumping fluids to the upper reaches. in another 2 weeks, that split will seal itself up and become a fluid pumping super-highway. (one of the principles behind supercropping)
I’m certain the wind will snap more branches before the season is over.
I think the more you experiment with training techniques you will find the plants limits. You’ll know when it’s a dire break.
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Day 48 from germination. This non-flowering Double Grape auto now 30 inches tall from the soil. It grew 7 inches Friday until Monday. At this rate, it will be over 11 feet tall by the time I bring it into the tent in mid-August.
She’s happy as a lark, getting fed and watered very well. There’s something about sunlight that is the perfect grow lamp – even the branches and buds seem to know where the shade is and they avoid it with the way they develop.
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I’m shocked she hasn’t started flowering yet. I guess it happens. But she definitely should start flowering soon. Most of my photos except the ones from closer to the equator, are blooming.
Just read through this thread- May is a great time to start autos because they will flower in the longest days of the year. The explosive speed of flowering near the solstice is something to behold! Good luck rest of the way!
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Wow - she’d better be special. I’ve got a couple of autos her age that will be finished pretty soon.
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top photos. The Double Grape S1 from @LoveDaAutos is one of the two I may have defoliated/pruned a little more than I wanted. She’s been a solid, steady grower, healthy deep green, good structure and not picky in the least. She took training well but I freed her up too early and lost control of her for a bit, then had a few branch breakage mishaps. She is shaping up nicely to me and the buds have begun to fatten up over the past couple of days. Aroma is just barely out of reach – any day, I suspect. She’s at D54(ttl days)/F(flower)25 now. ETA: still Aug. 7ish.
bottoms photo. Her neighbor is HubbaBubbayaddayadda (HubbaBubbaSmelloScope, for the machine’s ref) and I can definitely see the sativa in her structure. I’m admittedly new but it appeared that her buds (with the white pistils) were more or less on the stem, directly at the nodes. It was so close (whether on the branch or on the main stem) as to be indistinguishable. I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t a malformation of some kind. lol Thoughts?
HBSS has seemed much more picky, less accepting of nutrients, kinda sluggish growth. It would see to go through periods where its leaves became a duller grey and more of a matte finish. It also had a few periods when it seems to thrive. I could not identify any correlations. Still not much scent. I don’t have huge hopes, but what do i know? She is D54/F23.
Outoor Double Grape is on Day 54, too, but Flower 5! She flowered at 39 inches AGL and is at 41 in today. She’s in the movie. I cannot believe I had anything to do with such a perfect, strong, health plant. This fucker just wants to win.
The DG has a lot of canoeing in the upper leaves and I’m lowering it as we speak.
Outdoors https://youtube.com/shorts/yaN_WnQXvOI?feature=share
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You’re doing a great job with your autos. That outside plant is sensational.
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