On my journey finding lemon-flavored “Work Sativa” strains, I grew Lemon Bubblegum, Lemon Cleaner, and Lemon Biscotti by 34 Mongrels Genetics. The Lemon Bubblegum turned out exactly how I hoped with a sweet, natural lemon flavor. The next News Joint Grow Journal is Lemon Cleaner, a sativa-dominant cross of Lemon Bubblegum and Mr. Clean.

I popped one feminized seed in a solo cup and eventually transplanted into a 5-gallon pot. I topped the plant early, about three nodes. The Lemon Cleaner grew tall and symmetrical, like a Christmas tree, and remained healthy with large dark-green fan leaves. During the middle of vegetation and right before flipping to flower, I performed Kyle Kushman’s supercropping and “chiropractic” techniques, including when I also lollipopped the plant about a week before flipping to flower. The plant needed little pruning.

As mentioned, I wanted to time a short break from growing, so I flipped this batch a little earlier than normal to better fit my schedule. During vegetation and flowering, I used Nectar for the Gods nutrient line, SLF-100, Fishshit, and Cultured Biologix no-brew microbial teas (all sponsored by The Apple House in Terre Haute) and grew under a BlackBird light sponsored by HLG. But Lemon Cleaner needed half the nutrients and water as the other plants.

Once flipped, the plant stretched 3-times (unlike of the Lemon Bubblegum, which didn’t stretch hardly at all), and the buds grew in thick with symmetrically spacing. The white buds grew into light green buds with rust-colored pistils flaring outward, shaped somewhere between a ball and Christmas-tree. The early aroma matched its Lemon Cleaner name with an added sweet skunk smell. The dense buds finished with a heavy layer of trichomes and were very sticky to handle.

I chopped the plant on day 65 of flower. I lightly trimmed the largest sugar leaves before placing the buds inside my Cool Cure to dry. Again, the Cool Cure by Cannatrol has been the single best improvement to my grow. Instead of worrying about the space and conditions for drying the plant as I had in the past, I dried the buds in four days and cured for four days in the Cool Cure before placing the fully-trimmed buds into Grove Bags and mason jars.

For Part II of this “lemon” Grow Journal and to see how the Lemon Cleaner smoked, visit here. For more Illinois cannabis industry news, subscribe to Illinois News Joint’s newsletter here.

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