Pineapple Chunk Grow Report: A Resin-Producing Machine

Welcome, fellow growers! Here’s my Pineapple Chunk grow report. Can’t say I’m especially proud of it because there are things I would have done differently, but at least I reaped a hefty harvest and the genetics was amazing.

My Pineapple Chunk grow took me 17 weeks in total and brought 8.5 oz (241 g) of dry bud. I grew her indoors in a 2’x3’ DIY grow box and controlled the height with topping and ScrOG. She was given nothing but fresh water in veg and only one generic fertilizer in flower. There was a lot of stretching—and, correspondingly, a lot of larf by harvest—but the buds were incredibly resinous and sticky, and the high powerfully euphoric and narcotic.

Growing Pineapple Chunk in Veg

The germination was a breeze: 48 hours to pop a half-inch taproot between wet paper towels and another 48 hours to sprout from the medium. I planted my Pineapple Chunk seed directly in the final container—an 18-liter airpot filled with a soil/perlite potting mix.

My Pineapple Chunk seedling worried me a little in the first week because I thought she grew not as fast as my previous plants. Maybe, it was because it’s rather awkward to have a tiny seedling in a big pot. I mean it’s hard to decide on the right amount of water and the frequency of watering.

Anyway, in week 2, she really picked up pace and started to grow like crazy. And besides, judging by any other Pineapple Chunk strain review out there, mine was among the best at this stage.

Topping and ScrOG

By week 3, I knew what type of pheno my Pineapple Chunk weed was: huge fan leaves, thick and fleshy stems, a lot of side branching, and a compact and extra dense structure. Maybe a plant like this is better left alone (in terms of training), but I topped her, getting a stocky bush that “overflowed” the pot but remained short and impenetrable to the eye.

In week 4, I installed the net. I should say that I’m using the automatic drip system in my setup. There is a kind of a “halo” ring around the base of the plant dripping water. Without it, watering Pineapple Chunk by hand under the ScrOG would be a nightmare.

The filling out of the screen was slower than I’d like it to be. It took the whole two weeks before the switch to 12/12, and still, there was some empty space left.

The canopy was as thick as before: a totally impenetrable ball of foliage. I tried to remedy that by heavily defoliating my Pineapple Chunk before the start of flowering, but after two days she grew back everything and with a vengeance. Maybe I should have dialed down the lights to let her stretch more in veg. I don’t know.

The Flowering Stage

As soon as I flipped to 12/12, the flowering stretch began. I stopped directing the growth horizontally and let the top simply grow vertically through the mesh.

There was an insane amount of branches, and they were all stretching like crazy for the first 4 weeks of flowering when the further growth stopped. Thankfully.

Already after two weeks of 12/12, the flower clusters on tops were well developed, and 4 weeks into flowering, the buds, and the sugar leaves were covered in “snow”. The trichomes were especially big and densely packed along the edges of sugar leaves. Beautiful!

The Growbox Gets a Bit Too Hot

All through my Pineapple Chunk grow journal, I was struggling with the temperature. It had been already on a high side in veg—28°C (82°F) during the day and 24°C (75°F) at night.

As Pineapple Chunk filled more and more space with her rainforest-style vegetation, the temps were climbing higher. In flower, they were 30°C (86°F) with the lights on and 27°C (81°F) with the lights off.

I tried to help the situation with my huge array of PC coolers. I had 4 of them below the canopy and two banks consisting of 9 pieces each above the canopy. And there was also an oscillating fan in one corner. They did a good job, but still, the heat issue would take its toll, drying up the upper leaves and causing foxtailing of the buds.

A Lopsided Diet

I only started giving my Pineapple Chunk any nutrients in the second week of flowering, and the feeding schedule consisted of only two items:

1. Botanix NPK 4-2-6. It was the main source of all essential nutrients for the rest of the grow cycle.
2. Botanix CALMAG. A calcium and magnesium supplement.

I can’t say I’m happy with the way it worked because this formula contains too much nitrogen (N), and I used it at a time when cannabis needed less and less of it. It probably served its purpose during the stretch, but when the buds begin to swell out, too much nitrogen only slows down this process.

There was also too little phosphorus (P) which, along with potassium (K), is a must in flower. Naturally, I would see the symptoms of both nitrogen toxicity and phosphorus deficiency in the second half of the flowering stage. It was a textbook case: leaves were the deepest shade of green and clawing a bit (N toxicity) and the petioles were red and purple while there appeared bronze spots on the leaves (P deficiency).

I wish I have used a diet more suitable to the needs of a flowering weed plant.

The Ripening Was Slow

I’ve already mentioned the issues with heat. It led to the foxtailing—when the buds, instead of staying compact and roundish, begin to send offshoots in every direction. Foxtailing also means that you get more and more white pistils (female hairs), and trichomes aren’t in a hurry to mature either. I was waiting forever to see some ambers.

The heat and the subpar feeding schedule worked together to spoil the plant’s looks. There were a lot of dry crispy leaf tips on top, and leaf edges were curling up. The buds, even those on top, could also have been bigger. What made me happy was the ridiculous amount of trichomes on everything, including upper fan leaves.

The Smoke Was Great

After full 11 weeks in flower, I finally harvested my Pineapple Chunk. The buds on top were nice although irregular-shaped and not really “chunky”. Those in the lower two-thirds of the bush were of course inferior in quality because there it was jungle and all those bud sites didn’t receive any light.

I knew by the moronic amount of resin that the effect would be superpotent, and it really was. It was overwhelmingly euphoric and made me sleepy when I smoked too much. I didn’t notice any pineapple or cheese in the taste, but it was very pleasant after a month’s cure.

Some Pineapple Chunk Grow Tips

At the end of my Pineapple Chunk review, I want to share with you some of the takeaways from this run. If I grew her again, I would have changed the following:

• keep the light farther away in veg to get more open bush structure,
• prune excessive branches so that the rest get more of the light,
• “lollipop” those lower buds sites that are in shade,
• use flowering nutes with more P and K and less N,
• deal with high temps.

I’m sure that this would have made my Pineapple Chuck grow amazing. That’s it, folks. Avoid my mistakes and Happy growing!

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