Strawberry Lemonade Grow Diary and Strain Review

Hi, everyone! This is my Strawberry Lemonade grow diary that I wrote some time ago. I’ve had a few runs with different strains since, but I still remember this one as being hands-down the most high-yielding. Hope you enjoy this read and find it useful.

My one Strawberry Lemonade weed plant brought me half a kilo (1.1 pounds) of the highest-quality buds. The whole cycle took 23 weeks, but the outcome was worth the wait, as the effects were exactly how I like them – 100% in the head, uplifting, and euphoric. If you’re looking for a daytime smoke with a beautiful Sativa head rush and a high THC level, the Strawberry Lemonade strain by Barney’s Farm is the way to go.

Strawberry Lemonade Grow Diary: The Seedling Stage

I germinated one Strawberry Lemonade seed the usual way – between paper towels – and when it popped, put it into a jiffy pellet. When soaking the pellet with water, I added some Advanced Nutrients B-52, which is a mix of kelp and seaweed extracts that provides cannabis with vitamins. I went on to use this supplement for most of the grow.

When the seedling emerged, I inserted the jiffy pellet into a net pot that was filled with expanded clay pebbles and mounted in the lid of an 8.5-gallon bucket. I use a two-bucket DWC system where one bucket is for the plant and the other contains the nutrient solution, with both connected via plumbing pipes.

Growing weed in DWC has a rather steep learning curve, but once you master the art of mixing in just the right amounts of nutrients and controlling the pH, you can sit back and enjoy growth rates that you’ll never see with soil. The reason is that the air pump operates 24/7, allowing the roots to float in water and drink as much as they need while having enough oxygen to breathe at the same time.

Strawberry Lemonade wasn’t my first hydroponically-grown plant, but I must admit that I didn’t manage to dial in all the variables right away. Until I did, my seedling looked small and stunted for its age. I’m talking about both the above-ground part and the root ball, which was actually just a couple of thin individual threads hanging into the bucket. It was only in week 4 that my Strawberry Lemonade weed finally picked up the pace.

Strawberry Lemonade

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A Very Simple Feeding Schedule

As soon as I planted the seedling into the DWC bucket, I introduced the nutrients (which I’d keep using until the final flush).

First was Voodoo Juice by Advanced Nutrients, which colonizes the root zone with beneficial microbes such as bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi. The former helps break down the nutes into a more digestible form, and the latter extends the root structure and increases its absorption capacity.

Second were the nutrients proper. I chose an organic two-part product by Accent Hydroponics to gradually increase the dosages and give my plants more nitrogen-rich food in veg and more phosphorus and potassium during flowering. Plus, I used the B-52 that I’ve already mentioned. As you’ll see from what follows, my Strawberry Lemonade plant thrived on this simple diet.

The Vegetative Stage: Getting Too Big for the Grow Tent

On day 32 from sprout, I installed a ScrOG net to start training my Strawberry Lemonade. The mesh was just a few inches above the buckets. For a soil grow with manual watering, it would be a nightmare to access the pot with a watering can, but in DWC, you have no reason to ever go below the net. Just check daily which tops have grown through the screen and tuck them under it, spreading the canopy wider and wider. When you’ve filled most of the ScrOG this way, you can flip to 12/12.

However, I didn’t go this simple route. After four weeks of training, I raised the screen by another few inches and continued with the veg. It was too late when I realized that my Strawberry Lemonade would be a monster when the flowering stretch was over and that it would need more space.

So, I proceeded to build a new flowering room. I equipped it with the original 100W LED plus two new 240W LEDs. It was week 16 from seed when everything was ready, and Strawberry Lemonade had turned into a huge bushy beast with too many tops to count. I immediately put her into flowering mode.

Strawberry Lemonade Flowering Time

The flowering time of Strawberry Lemonade is comfortably short at just 8 weeks, and the only reason the whole grow cycle lasted so long in my case was the protracted veg. So, you can have a much faster turnover if you like, or do what I did and get a monster harvest – it’s up to you.

An Accident That I Should Have Expected

One of the first things I should have done when the flowering started was to install the ScrOG back – not for training this time, but as a support for the branches. However, I thought my Strawberry Lemonade looked sturdy enough to bear the weight of the buds as they filled out. This was a huge mistake, as she toppled over in the fifth week of flowering, and many branches and even roots got damaged.

Now I did install the screen and had to manually thread each of the colas through the mesh. They were fat and resinous by this time, and you wouldn’t believe how they stank up the whole place in the process! Fortunately, the recovery was quick – after just 4 days of shock, the buds continued to fill out.

Profiting From All Those Watts

With so much light (580W) in my grow space, I didn’t really have to defoliate, but I did prune some of the lower branches. In fact, I lollipopped the bottom third of the plant, removing every leaf and bud site. All the branches that remained made it to the canopy, and all the buds on top looked huge and dense.

They also looked quite beautiful with those fat flower clusters, very few leaves, and thick layers of frost everywhere. The maturing orange hairs provided a striking contrast with the dominating green color. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any purples, even though I lowered both the day and night temps to emulate autumn weather (I got much more control over the environmental conditions in my spacious new grow room). After a short flush of my DWC system, my Strawberry Lemonade was ready for harvest.

Strawberry Lemonade Yield

One Strawberry Lemonade weed plant yielded me 500 grams (17.64 ounces) of dry flowers of the highest quality – large, tight, resinous, and very easy to trim. And she wasn’t even the only lady in my grow room! It was an epic harvest showing the strength and vigor of these genetics, and the motivating, creative, and happy high is just the thing for Sativa lovers like me. I highly recommend the Strawberry Lemonade strain to anyone. Happy growing, folks!

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