Introduction

Where do I begin? Simply put, there were no buds. Nada. Zero. Zilch. And with hindsight, I’m here trying to spotlight the gotchas of this Cannabis grow and where we’ll take this as we head into Series IV.

What Changed?

Unlike Series I or Series II, in this grow I decided on growing a single plant in one environment. My goal in doing so was to let the plant thrive and mitigate any risk of pollination. The settings were ideal and the ecosystem itself was the same. In essence my current indoor tent. That said, I had to wonder. Was it a male? Was it a female? If it was a male plant, how could I have caught it earlier? Those are other inquiries running through my mind as a write this retrospective out.

Grow Phases

Germination to Seedling

Everything was status quo. I kicked everything off as done previously, monitoring the first 7 days to ensure moisture and ventilation were available for this single plant. On the sixth day, I was a bit worried as seedling phase had not yet kicked in but on day 7, it all worked itself out. That said, perhaps this was the first indicator that things were off as the previous rounds all sprouted by day 3.

At this point, things appeared stable and my light interval was 18 hours on and 6 hours off.

Vegetative to Flowering

8 weeks passed and all seemed well. Roots were fully grasped into the soil, nodes and fan leaves were rich with green. It’s at this point where I decided to go all in and do 24 hours of light. It’s at this point where I should have realized things were amiss but I kept moving forward.

pH balances were extremely swayed to be far more alkaline than is recommended. I tried combatting the issue with sliced limes embedded into the soil but that didn’t work. It’s at about this time where flowering should have taken place but that didn’t happen. It was a constant hack with me namely uprooting the plant into brand new soil too. Still, no luck. I eventually had to suspend the grow. It started to become a waste in utility. In hindsight, another thing swirling my mind was the fact that this plant might have been a male. On that note alone, I am speculating but I’ll have to validate this earlier in the grow phases.

Conclusion

Needless to say, I am disappointed. But it’s important to get this right and mastery of growing takes more than three attempts. I have a few more seeds left before I have to re-up. Whether I go to seed bank or elect for a clone from a dispensary is TBD. I’ll keep true to one plant throughout this next series but besides due diligence (yes, keeping a watchful eye is a daily task), pulling back on the lighting interval and becoming a bit more proactive during the vegetative and flowering phases will be my main adjustments.