Critical Jack Vs. Critical+ (Dinafem)

<Day 66>

Thanks for the kind words everyone, I really cant wait to harvest this stuff! And the good news is im getting the canon back in time for harvest so I'll be able to capture that in better detail.

So on to the scratch and sniff.

CJ1 (Smell) Peppery, Wood, Spice, Dank.
(Smell when rubbed) Skunky, Spicey, peppery.
CJ2 (Smell) Citrus, Tangy, very strong odor!
(Smell when rubbed) Orange, Thai, Sweet, very strong odor!
CJ3 (Smell) Fruity, Tangy, Citrus, Sweet, Dank.
(Smell when rubbed) Fruity, Tangy, Citrus, Sweet.
C + (Smell) Candy, Sweet.
(Smell when rubbed) Lemon Candy, Sherbert, Perfume, Sweet.

I'm really pleased with how the smells of these strains have matured. CJ1 has a distinct peppery smell for sure. CJ2+3 share a similar tangy/fruity type of smell. The Critical+ is possible smelling the most inviting at this point. It gives of the sweetest smell of all.

CJ2 has started foxtailing, but all the other girls are looking either completely ready, or any day now. I plan to harvest on Saturday starting at lights off, for ease I'm going to fell them all at once and get it over with. I plan to hang the buds from a Scrog shelf in the tent they were grown in. I do find it hard to estimate yeild. Pretty confident thats 1+1/2 on average per plant though. Depending on bud density they could surprise me though.

Interested in them all but the Critical+ is what WW is crossed with for the White Widow Autos.

Nice work Morris, did you trim those fan leafs before harvest?

|B3RNY| said:

Nice work Morris, did you trim those fan leafs before harvest?

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Yeah I've been pulling any yellow leaves (ones that come off with a gentle tug) and snipping off any shriveled leaf tips. Two reasons for that being I want to keep dead leaf matter to a minimum as it could promote mold, and also it lets more light down the canopy. At this point I have little canopy left though.

T minus 2 days....

Go, baby, go!

Loving the grow so far! Got a Multistrain grow going atm and have Critical and Critical Jack from Dinafem as well so its nice to see the comparison. Im on day 52 today. +Rep

<Day 70>
HARVEST

Its been a staggered harvest over 2 days as it took longer to trim than anticipated. More on that later. Thats it over with though and all four girls are hanging to dry. So onto the details of the harvest Think I'll have to make a few posts for this.

The harvest started off with drama. As I lined the girls up to take the pre-harvest pics I noticed something...


Those of you who have suffered this before will be able to tell straight away. Bud Rot....I looked on in horror as my thumb sank into the middle of the crown of the main cola. My Frostiest plant, Critical Jack No.3 had succumbed to the dreaded bud rot. Had I let the plants go a day or 2 more I probably would have lost the whole cola, as it stood I got lucky and after ripping apart the main cola I managed to salvage some of the crown. I lost about half of the crown and the best part of two huge main cola buds. I wanted to get that out of the way and try to forget it happened. It was the only instance of bud rot in the whole harvest and is actually the first time I have ever had it at all.


(Some rotted bud, and the salvage from CJ3's crown)


So the next post will be the pre-harvest+trimming rundown.

Damn man thats so unlucky, I feel for you. I lost about half my last crop of Cheese to bud rot, it ruined the whole grow. But we all live and learn and I know I will never let it happen again.

Did you have your exhaust fan and air movement fans running constantly?

Hope the rest of the harvest was a good one. Peace

<Day 70>
HARVEST (continued)

So on to the good part. I'll look at each plant in turn.

Critical Jack 1
This is the plant that I dropped the water bottle on and super-cropped, and honestly it shows. She ended up the smallest of all the four but with some of the biggest sidebranch buds I have ever grown. An extremely robust plant that put more energy into side growth and ended up a sturdy bush of thick buds.

Trimming her I began to notice how time consuming it was. This plant was leafier than I had realized and actually dissappointed me slightly with the poor flower to leaf ratio. Everything was covered in resin though so the trimmed buds will still make for some good smoke. Feeling a few of the buds I could still tell they were quite dense and once hanging next to the rest of the crop, I could see this plant produced some of the biggest buds of the harvest. She finished up at 25inches tall, and was sporting 10 hefty sidebranches.




Critical Jack 2
This was the biggest CJ and I think probably the best yielding. She grew tall and with the same 10 hefty sidebranches. Trimming was almost as bad as CJ1 and again I was slightly unhappy with flower to leaf ratio. Apart from that this plant produced fat buds and a very reasonable main cola. I should note at this point that in the last 5-6days of growth the CJs have all taken on a purplish tint. its only really noticeable towards the tops of the buds and the underside of leaves but I'm hopping the cured buds will look, well interesting.

Canned food test!




Critical Jack 3
So this was the victim of bud rot. Apart from that she grew as the frostiest and 2nd smallest finishing at 27inches. This pheno was much easier to trim and had a higher flower to leaf ratio. The resin coverage was notably good and she did provide a good harvest despite loosing a bit to rot. The sidebranches were awesome and were noticeably heavier than the other two CJs. From what I can tell this pheno has significantly higher bud density. All in all a great little compact plant that finished with some very pretty buds.




Critical +

Well I made a few incorrect assumptions about this plant. Firstly I failed to note the incredible flower to leaf ratio in my thread. This strain was a dream to trim. It took me very little time to pick off the (mainly) single bladed sugar leaves. And secondly it quickly became clear she had yielded just as much as the other girls and actually I think I prefer the look of the buds. She did grow with a lanky aspect and particularly long node spacing, but in the end I think I preferred this plant over the other girls. The other girls just let me down a bit with their low flower:leaf.

Also I think this is my fav main cola. Sort of loomed over the rest of my crop with a sort of NWO thing about it.



Glitches with pic again. The attached thumbnail is CJ2's main cola.

My next post will show the trimmed bud

<Day 70>
HARVEST(continued again)

Now we shall see the results of the last 70 days















Problems posting pics - I'll have to edit this later.

Still though was a bountiful harvest. The stench of weed is intense!

I'll be following up with posts on the dry bud being weighed and cured etc. After that the smoke report ofc and a serious comparison of the two strains.

Kush2180 said:

Damn man thats so unlucky, I feel for you. I lost about half my last crop of Cheese to bud rot, it ruined the whole grow. But we all live and learn and I know I will never let it happen again.

Did you have your exhaust fan and air movement fans running constantly?

Hope the rest of the harvest was a good one. Peace

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Aww man half the crop, thats very unlucky. Its amazing how quickly it appears! I have good airflow at all times so I investigated with a dissection of the main cola. I noticed that there was a swollen fan-leaf stalk in the middle of the rot, and it seemed to be where the infection was spreading from. I had not properly removed a fan leaf, this then rotted in the bud and caused the problem I think (or hope!)

Damn mna, that's horrible, at least it didn't get you too bad though. I seen a lot of bud rot outside this year but I was lucky enough to get by without any..

I was indeed very lucky, I think what threw me off was that the main cola was going sort of shades of purple and I failed to notice the discolouration as quicky as I should. First and hopefully last instance of bud rot I ever get I'm still very chuffed though as the vast majority of the harvest is fine.

Update us man, I'm keen to know the quality and yield of Critical and Jack with plenty of good pics!!

I will be chopping my Critical and Jack in a week and can't wait, they smell so good!

Kush2180 said:

Update us man, I'm keen to know the quality and yield of Critical and Jack with plenty of good pics!!

I will be chopping my Critical and Jack in a week and can't wait, they smell so good!

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Will do man, I'll get something posted in a few hours. Iv just cut everything of the stems and prep'd them for sweating out the last of the moisture. Never did get the SLR back so going with the digi im afraid. I'll get macro stuff up soon though.

<HARVEST -6days>

That's the buds ready for sweating and curing, the stems were snapping. I've clipped a lot of the nugs off but have left some main cola action. I think the buds have almost reached their dry weight and after weighing it all up today I can say I have at least met my target of 1+1/2 per plant (on average). Just now I have CJ1 and CJ2 weighing in at over 2ounces each, but I think they have a significant amount of moisture to sweat off still. I'll hold back the numbers till I'm sure they are at dry weight. About 60-70% of the harvest consists of totally decent round buds, bigger than the vast majority I see round these parts. Frosty as F**k aswell, I mean not quite a 'white' strain level of frosty bust still very decent for an auto. The trim is almost bone dry so I might have a little hash to show you all soon

I'll post some bud and cola shots here and then do a post straight after with shots of the whole harvest.

I hope you like how I have sculpted the Critical+ cola.


CJ1's main cola next to a few of the biggest sidebranch tops.


Critical+ wins coolest cola prize!


CJ3's nugs, the densest of the three CJs, and very sugary.


CJ2's main cola, this plant is stinking the most by far, its strong odor became aparant later in flower


Critical+ again. She has actually dried the fastest out of the 4 girls. The smell on her has changed, its a very odd smell...cant think how to describe it yet.

Also I should add that I have already smoked the bits of the CJ3 cola that I salvaged from the bud rot, I speed-dried a lot of it because I was worried it might go bad if I slow dried it. Including popcorn I snipped of near harvest I have smoked about 12-14g or thereabouts.

Looking good man! I'd +rep you but I have to spread some around first..

Well done mate they look potent, nice job on the trimming as well. Cant wait to here the weights when their done drying. Respect

|B3RNY| said:

Looking good man! I'd +rep you but I have to spread some around first..

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i just got a bud boner......