OK, after a NASTY week of illness, nutty work issues (people out from being sick, too!), and regular life, I'm back!

I've done NOTHING until today since last I posted other than lifting the lights and redoing the lights completely.

After being sick, I looked at the girls after 2 days without checking and found one with a burned leaf right ON one of the lights. OOPS. But it's just 1 fan leaf at least. Also, a few fan leaves' stems are a bit red, so I'm trying to make sure the CFLs are a bit further from the plants now. This is a bit of a conundrum though: The closer the lights are, the more efficient the lighting is - but the closer they are, the HOTTER the plants are! Sheesh! Instead of being 2-4" away, they are now 6" from the CFLs and about the same from the fluros (have to have that space so as the CFLs can have access to the plants, too).

So, for lighting, I have 4x4' 6500K fluro tubes directly over all 9 girls (they JUST reach from the center of 1 side to the center of the other), then 9 CFLs around the edges so far but more will be added soonish. 3 cfls directly on one end, 2 on the other, and the others in between on the back side. More will be added on the near side mostly when I'm able (need a few more parts and possibly more bulbs - only 3 are unused right now for lack of parts needed to use them). 12 on, 12 off of course.

The soil is still quite damp since last weekend, which is normal in my situation for some reason. So they are not going to be watered likely until next weekend. If any seem too light or dry during the week I may water then - we'll see. Very few gnats around now, although I did stir the soil slightly to check for larva - I did find some so I made a Dunk slurry that I sprayed on the top LIGHTLY (heavy amount of dunk ground up in there, though) to kill them. 1 spray bottle that fit 16 ounces was not even half-used over 9 pots.

One anomaly: #19 still is not "budding"! I SWEAR I saw tiny hairs on her, and I didn't look really close again... But there are no signs on her of being a boy either. So... I don't really know! It's been 25 days - TWENTY FIVE! - since I switched the lighting, but... but... I don't know! So the side that has the 3 cfls have them surrounding her in the hopes that the extra light helps. Two theories: 1) was a boy that the fruit around him changed him but not enough to throw flowers, just to stop the male flower production. UNLIKELY, but ya never know. 2) Something has shocked her that she's not coping with well, even though all leaves seem healthy, she's quite bushy, and she's not growing out like in the Veg cycle. 3) She's an anomaly which just doesn't flower properly - genetic malfunction. Most plant species occasionally have such problems, especially with inbreeding if there are any bad genetics - same with animals. It's possible that whatever strain this is, that there was enough inbreeding of the strain that the bad genetics just combined on this one plant to keep it from maturing. Most likely from what I know of animal biology, although I know little other than some theory of this in plant genetics.

With the single male, I've put him outside now as he was flowering. The tiny boy flowers are actually quite pretty in their own way before the pollen is released. I will be repeating this experiment with just the fruit next time. I am thinking it is likely that females show their gender more easily with increased outgasses from the fruit (but how much is enough I wonder? hmmm...), and it's POSSIBLE that a male will throw female flowers with it as well IF the gasses are in enough proportion and introduced early enough in the flowering process to work. Because of how late I started, I've given up for this time. BUT, next time I'll be using the fruit from the time they could begin to make preflowers - before I switch the lighting. Heck, I may even do it from the time they have their first set of true leaves just to see if it works.

I am letting him live a little longer for two reasons: 1) I got some pollen to create seeds on ONE bud site so if he likes this strain enough we can create more, especially if my reveg attempts don't work. 2) I'm going to keep an eye out on trics to see where "peak" harvest may be, just to see what quality they are for medicinal use for my husband - we'll see what he thinks, as he wants to try it. It's just for fun, and as he's outside I have no worries about more pollen going anywhere I don't want it to.

Also, as we have so many girls (8 or 9, don't know!) I decided to go ahead and strip the fan leaves off one girl that is nearly exactly like one other that was just next to it - same size pot, same number of bud sites, same height, same health from what I can tell, etc. JUST to see how things go. I fully get that more photosynthesis means better growth, but what sort of growth do the fan leaves promote? do they promote better bud growth, or would the lack of fan leaves allow more bud growth as they see more light and the bud's leaves get all the light then? I do know it goes against the SOG method in many ways since there is no sea of green anymore there, but... Well, we'll see. Also, when I was redoing the lights, one of the lights fell on that plant and snapped off the top of the bud - the top-most bud and the set right below it both came off. Because of that and because I wanted to see what happened, I decided to experiment with this plant. It's also the one that was pollinated - luckily the bud site I chose for that was below the break point! So I thought, oh well, since it's already trying something new, lets go all out! Heck, we still have 7 or 8 more girls after this one, so... I'll be keeping an eye on how it does. I also did mark the spot I pollinated just to make sure I know where to check.

Other than that, the only news is that I don't see much of a difference for me really between the effects of marijuana and alcohol - at least, past the first 20-30 minutes - other than I have a slightly befuddled brain in the morning. I don't drink much even when I do, so... My husband suggested trying marijuana for a nasty headache I had this week that my regular meds didn't touch. I didn't help, in fact. It may just be the strain, but unless we have a specific strain that helps generally for migraines, I doubt I'll use again anytime soon. Meh, just not my thing - I like my mixed drink on occasion. Heck, if we get a tincture sometime together and I have a migraine and don't work the next day I may try it then. But... *sigh* no real point for me. Alcohol hits me just as fast - I'm a lightweight!

(Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia! Love these stories - watching the end of the older movie right now... Can't help it!)

BTW, pics when I can. Seem to have lost the cord for the camera.