Ztrawberriez Auto Grow Diary and Strain Review

This run with Ztrawberriez Auto from Fast Buds started after a good previous experience with the same breeder. I wanted another fruity auto, and this one sounded right on paper: a sativa-indica hybrid with a sweet profile and enough promise to make the grow interesting.

25% THC

Ztrawberriez Auto (Fast Buds)

• Autoflowering
• Refreshing uplift
• 450 - 600 g/m² indoors
  50 - 250 g/plant outdoors

Pack (number of seeds)

1

3

5

$30.99 $88.81 92.97 Save 4.16 $137.2 154.95 Save 17.75

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Starting the Run

Grow Notes

I like to keep things simple in the grow room. While the seeds were soaking, I filled the grow bags with light soil and moistened the top layer with a bit of water mixed with a rooting stimulator. After 2 days in water, the swollen seeds went straight into the soil under cut plastic bottles.

Ztrawberriez didn’t waste time. The sprouts broke through after about 48h, and by the end of that first stretch, they were already working on the second set of true leaves.

Veg Week 1

After germination under 24h of light, I cut the day length to 18h. That kept the box easier to manage, with daytime temperatures around 25°C (77°F) and nights closer to 19°C (66.2°F).

I did make one small mistake. I misted the leaves right before the light came on, and one plant got rusty marks that looked like light burn. Nothing tragic, but it was annoying enough to teach me to check the timer before spraying. Apart from that, Ztrawberriez kept building green mass and looked lively.

Veg Week 2

Both plants had started to look like proper little bushes. They stretched a bit and filled out with broad green leaves, but one of them still had rusty spotting on the lower growth.

I took it as a possible magnesium issue from using filtered water. From this week on, I added Calimagic at 0.65ml/l and switched from spraying to root watering. Each plant got 500ml (16.9fl oz) with nutrients every other day, and the new growth looked cleaner after that.

Veg Progress and Training

Veg Week 3

The plants were getting bigger and clearly hungrier. I raised the watering volume to 1000ml (33.8fl oz), alternating plain filtered water with nutrient solution instead of pushing feed every time.

I also did a very light defoliation. The lowest spotted leaves were basically lying on the soil and bothering me more than helping the plant, so I removed them and left the healthy growth alone.

Veg Week 4

By the fourth veg week, the plants had shown sex and were clearly getting ready to flower. I raised the nutrient solution to 2000ml (67.6fl oz) while keeping the water/feed alternation in place.

I also started a weekly PureCrop treatment as a preventative step. With such a dense room, I didn’t want pests or mold getting a chance to settle in. Then I removed about 4-6 leaves from each plant to open the middle a little. Nothing dramatic, just enough to give the future buds better airflow and light.

The Flip and Early Flower

Flower Week 1

Flowering started after 4 weeks of veg, and Ztrawberriez moved into it nicely. Fresh pistils were popping up everywhere, while the side growth kept pushing out around the forming tops.

I did another defoliation and cleaned up the lower 3 nodes. That should help the buds get more light and keep moisture from sitting too low around the pots. Some leaves looked droopy in the photos, but that was just from watering before the shot. No panic, no mystery issue this time.

Flower Week 2

The magnesium issue came back on one Ztrawberriez plant. That phenotype was clearly more sensitive than the others in the box, even though they were getting the same basic feeding routine.

I doubled Calimagic to 1.3ml/l and started adding it not only to the nutrient mix, but also to the plain water between feeds. The rest of the nutrient plan stayed the same, with feeding every other watering.

Flower Week 3

The extra Calimagic seemed to work. The deficiency stopped spreading, and the plants finally looked like they could put their energy into the buds instead of complaining through the leaves.

The flowers had gained size by the end of the week, and the resin was already easy to spot. A pleasant fruity smell appeared too. When I rubbed the leaves, they left a sour-sweet aroma on my fingers, somewhere between fruit and fresh herbs.

Flower Week 4

There were still some leaf problems, probably from pH swings, but Ztrawberriez didn’t slow down in any serious way. The buds kept rounding out, and quite a few pistils had already turned brown.

Both plants were a little over 50cm (19.7in) and looked almost identical. I kept feeding every second watering, with Calimagic added to the water in between.

Late Flower and Finish

Flower Week 5

These girls definitely had character. They reacted to stress more emotionally than some autos I’ve grown, but once the routine stayed stable, they kept moving toward the finish without much drama.

At the start of the week, I removed the large fan leaves and the small lower shoots that were only taking energy. The colas looked packed with sticky flower from top to bottom, so I stopped using the main fertilizers and left only water with Calimagic.

Flower Week 6

The buds put on noticeable weight this week. They felt dense and sticky to the touch, with enough frost to make the plants look lightly dusted from a distance.

I started checking the trichomes with a magnifier. A few amber heads had appeared on the top buds, but it still felt too early to cut. I decided to watch closely and let the plants drink through the last part of the run.

Flower Week 7

In the last few days, the tops suddenly darkened and picked up a blue-purple tint. I think cooler outdoor swings would have made the color even stronger, but the indoor look was already nice enough. The smell was lovely too, leaning toward pastry with berry jam.

By the end of the seventh flowering week, around 10% of the trichomes had turned amber. That was my signal to harvest both plants. Wet weight came in at 668g (23.6oz), and after a week of drying, I had 162g (5.7oz) of clean dry buds.

Ztrawberriez Auto Yield and Final Thoughts

Harvest and Final Thoughts

Ztrawberriez Auto was a little trickier than the Apricot Auto I’d grown before. It sprouted fast, stayed fairly short through veg, and then flowered for 7 weeks with plenty of resin. Still, it was more sensitive to stress than I expected, so I’d rate the grow a solid 4 out of 5.

The finished buds smelled as good as they looked. The aroma leaned sweet and fruity, with that dessert-like side I was hoping for from the start. The smoke followed the same line, so this wasn’t one of those plants that smells great and then falls flat in the jar.

The effect was relaxing without turning sleepy right away. It didn’t glue me to the couch, but the body did get lazy and slowed down in a pleasant way. I wouldn’t call Ztrawberriez Auto a beginner’s plant, though. It suits growers who keep an eye on the room and don’t mind making small corrections along the way.

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