I’m taking a second helping of Wedding Cake from Seed Junky Genetics. I liked the way she grew so much the last time that I just couldn’t resist. Here are some pics from day 51:
This is a clone only cut of J Beezy’s Wedding Cake and not the seed version. I just put 4 girls into flower today. They are in 5 gallon pots with rockwool mini cubes or croutons.
I vegged these for about 6 weeks using New Millenium nutrients. They got Summer Shift and Lightning Start through out their veg.
I also added Roots Excellerator to the mix a couple of weeks ago because I was not happy with my root development using Recharge. It is expensive but at 1 ml per gallon a little goes a long way. I am seeing roots pop out of my pots for the first time in a while. I definitely think it was worth it. They are off to a very good start.
Taking A Second Helping Of Wedding Cake From Seed Junky Genetics Day 1
Grand Master Level Topping Technique
Here is an older video showing the topping technique that I started using. GML only removes leaf sets and there is no pinching or topping. The tallest branches get this treatment. It holds them back while the shorter branches catch up and helps the plant bush out.
He is a commercial grower from Canada. He does an extreme leaf strip on day 14 with excellent results and just switched from HPS to LED. You cant argue with his results no matter what you think about defoliation.
I wasn’t really sure if this would work well but it really does and to my knowledge he was the only one using this method. If you check out this guys grows it is obvious he knows his shit. Since the YouTube Cannabis purge this year he has moved to his own site and posts there regularly. I really recommend you check out him out at https://www.grandmasterlevel.com/
One Node And Flip
One node and flip is a defoliation technique developed by the Jungle Boys. The idea is to get rid of the lower branches and buds that will not reach the screen and will make small and larfy buds. By doing this the plant can focus on the buds in the optimal light zone and the result is fewer but larger buds.
To do this you would select the best 4 – 8 branches. You remove all branches on them except for the top 3 -4 nodes. Then you put the plants into flower. Here is a video from HiGrow Group showing how it is done. The quality of the video isn’t great but you can get the idea. This grower used to do a total leaf strip at 21 days which can be very labor intensive. Using this Jungle Boys technique he no longer has to leaf strip later.
Seed Junky Genetics Wedding Cake Day 7
Pistils are showing.Yay! I have been feeding these girls only [amazon_textlink asin=’B06X9Z7BZP’ text=’New Millenium Decision ‘ template=’ProductLink’ store=’buildkoipondc-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’efd8d1a5-9664-11e8-b13d-b32f8205d1d0′]during their transition week from veg to flower. I love this product. It helps hold back stretch and speeds up bud initiation.
Wedding Cake From Seed Junky Genetics Day 14
So today is day 14 and things are looking good. Flowers have been showing for a few days now and it looks like buds are starting to stack. The girls are being hand watered at this point and are drinking and drying out about every 2 days. Being fed about 650 ppm with New Millenium Autumn Gold which is their bloom nute.
LEAF STRIPPING WEDDING CAKE DAY 17
The girls got their bottoms cleaned out along with some heavy leaf stripping. I need to make sure light can penetrate down to the lower screen so most fan leaves had to go. Also I lowered the lights quite a bit which will also help the situation. I was getting PAR readings around 4-500 and that was at the tops of the tallest plants. Levels were much lower in the middle area and wouldn’t be enough for these lower buds to develop fully.
I know defoliation is controversial but I think it works and so do many other top growers. It enables air and light to penetrate through the canopy. So I think it makes less than ideal conditions for powdery mildew and better conditions for lower buds to size up. I also believe it tells the plants veg time is over and it’s time to concentrate on growing flowers instead. Since plants take a few days to bounce back I think it helps to reduce stretch which is why I like to do it a bit earlier than the usual 21 days.
Day 21 Wedding Cake Video
My day 21 video is actually a comparison between 2 closets. Wedding Cake is in both but my other closet is actually a mixed grow and about 10 days behind this one. So it is in a separate article and seemed redundant to post the video twice. So you can click on it to watch it there.
How Much LED Light For Weed And Is 750 W COB LED Lighting Too Much?
Return Of The Wedding Cake Day 28
My Wedding Cake is slowly returning to normal after being leaf stripped 10 days ago. Leaf stripping definitely shocked these plants and it took a while for recovery. Meanwhile my other closet trained with the one node and flip technique never even skipped a beat.
It’s too soon to tell which grow will turn out better but my money is on my other closet right now. The girls in this video had some other issues besides the defoliation. I think they had too much light which also resulted in some stunting.
Right now things look pretty good. After the leaf strip the pistils started to turn brown even though the buds were way too young for that. I am happy that there are new white hairs everywhere and plants seem to be on the road to recovery.
Wedding Cake Day 28 Pics
LEAF STRIPPING RESULTS ON DAY 35
Today is day 35 for the Wedding Cake. It got a full leaf stripping on day 17 and any buds developing below the screen were removed. So it has had 2 weeks to recover from the defoliation.
At first growth stalled and pistils on the buds stopped growing and started to brown. I made some adjustments by lowering the light intensity and growth resumed again.
On day 28 they were fed with [amazon_textlink asin=’B01EQDJ8WM’ text=’Plagron Green Sensation’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’buildkoipondc-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’577584fd-abc0-11e8-8fd2-e3f95af83d47′] at 4 ml per gallon top fed. Almost immediately there was an explosion of growth. The buds grew larger and the pistils got fatter and seemed more erect. It gave my girls a woody. This is one of the few bloom boosters that I have ever seen really work!
The grow is going well and the ladies seem to have made a full recovery from the leaf stripping. I will always use some form of defoliation but I don’t like the way a full strip stalled my plants out. It is a good technique used by some of the best growers I know but I think it should be used with CO2 in the room so the plants can recover faster.
Just my observation. I used the one node and flip technique in my other closet and it seems to be much easier on the plants with similar results.
When To Flush Day 42
Some people say flushing isn’t necessary often pointing out we don’t flush vegetables from the garden. Well that is true but no one tries to smoke a carrot. Until they do I am going to say it makes a big difference in the quality of the smoke.
My lungs are sensitive from years of smoking cigarettes. E cigarettes make me cough like crazy and so does improperly flushed weed. But the same weed properly flushed is smooth and does not make me cough at all.
So what is a proper flush? Plants have about a 2 week supply of food stored up. Even if you flush the soil to 0 ppm they still have that stored food. The trick is to start your flush while they still are making white hairs. That way they are still actively growing and can use up their stored food and by flushing the pots with pHed water there wont be anything in the grow media for them to take up either.
Wedding Cake Day 42 Pics
Wedding Cake Day 49 – Two Different Phenos?
So today is day 49 for my Wedding Cake and it really looks like I have 2 different phenos even though they all came from the same mom. I have a plant on the right that is taller and has more cookie shaped buds and 3 plants to the left that are shorter and have thicker more upright pistils.
Check out the video and see if there are 2 different phenotypes here. Look at bud structure. One clearly is showing a cookie influence. I believe this is what the plant should look like and the others are a different variation.
Wedding Cake Day 49 Pictures
I can’t explain why this happened but stress from cloning or leaf stripping may have been a factor causing some genetic drift to occur. The plant on the right was not affected much by the leaf stripping while the other 3 stalled out for about 5 days while they were recovering. It is also fading and showing color faster than the others.
These girls are being fed Winter Frost from New Millenium Nutrients and will get one more feeding around day 52 and following that they will be flushed until day 63 or until done.
Flushing On Day 56
Day 56 and fall is here, at least on some plants. These girls just got their second flush with just water. They will probably get 2 more depending on how fast they fade.
Some still are pretty green but they are stating to show some yellowing now and I dont think it will be long before my grow closet is full of pretty fall colors.
At this point I am pretty happy with how the grow is going. I am starting to see some nice purple coloration showing up in the buds as they mature. So here’s the video:
Day 56 Pictures
Wedding Cake Harvest Day 63
Today was harvest day for my Wedding Cake. They spent 2 days in darkness and were cut this morning on day 63. As you can see from the picture below there was a lot of purple in the buds.
I am kind of surprised with the colors on these girls. I was expecting mostly green buds with a bit of purple here and there but most have turned purple. And it’s not just the fan leaves but a lot of the small sugar leaves too.
The plants are very sticky and smell great. I am not that good on smells but they are similar to an OG to me but also a bit different. Sweeter and less gassy. Nothing about them even remotely smells like a wedding cake to me or even a cookie cross. But things can change during a cure.
So these ladies will hang for about a week and then go into quart mason jars to cure. Here is a video shot just before harvesting. I was able to remove the top net which makes harvest much easier and the plants are leaning now.
I have tried cutting the net but it still seems to get stuck on some stems and be in the way. This seemed to work a bit better and I was able to pull the stems down through the first net to harvest them.
Final Thoughts On Wedding Cake
So now that harvest is done the yield on these girls was only about 12 ounces maybe a bit more. Not a bad trim and quality is good. Would I grow it again? Maybe.
I only have room for so many strains and Wedding Cake has been very difficult to clone. In addition I am seeing some instability in this cross with one plant a different phenotype. You would be surprised at some of the strains I let go.
Wedding Cake is a good strain and all that but it is not that good. To me it is overhyped and there are definitely better strains out there. Still, I like the way it grows so I may give it another run.
