La Diva

Delicious seeds have produced some fine genetics over the years, I am particularly fond of their Northern Light Blue auto, but with the arrival of their La Diva, a cross of their rapid auto Il Diavolo and a Blueberry which produces a plant with a surprising new aroma and taste, whilst maintaining a quick flowering time of around 49 days, well I had to check this strain and see just how things turned out.

Delicious seeds have produced some fine genetics over the years, I am particularly fond of their Northern Light Blue auto, but with the arrival of their La Diva, a cross of their rapid auto Il Diavolo and a Blueberry which produces a plant with a surprising new aroma and taste, whilst maintaining a quick flowering time of around 49 days, well I had to check this strain and see just how things turned out.

These seeds were no slouches when it came to germination and within a day of being introduced to water, warmth and darkness the two seeds were readily displaying their initial roots. It wasn't long until they were being transferred to Root Riot cubes and placed back into the propagator until they sprouted upward and threw out their cotyledon leaves. At this point they were both potted up into small 0.37L pots with light- mix soil, a good choice at this early stage of development.

Delicious Seeds recommend using light feeding for this strain and so when the time was right, these plants were re-potted into 11L square pots using Bio-Bizz Light Mix soil and then a feeding schedule was adopted that consisted of Growth Technology's Ionic Soil Grow and Bloom, with the addition of Essentials Bio Plus to encourage rooting and stave off any stress from re-potting.

The lighting regime was covered by a Maxibright Digilight 250w ballast and a compatible dual spectrum Sunmaster bulb set to provide 18.5 hours of light. The ventilation for this grow was provided by a Vents TT 100mm fan pulling air through a 100mm Rhino Hobby carbon filter. They were accommodated by a Hortilab 80 tent. One of the main let-downs of these smaller tents on the market is the drop in height that we often see associated with a shortening in length and width. This tent has a height constraint of 160cm and the addition of the extra 20cm as found in say; the Growlab 80 tent, can be gratefully utilised by most growers.

These plants grew relatively quickly and within 20 days they were teeming with leaves and pushing out a profusion of healthy, sturdy lateral branches. It was at this point that the plants began to grow in height in order to accommodate their future budding. Also at this time in their development a difference in height became most evident between the two plants, with one reaching almost double the height of the other and also being a wider, less compact looking plant. It was only a few days from this point before there were the first perceivable signs of flower initiation. The temperature and humidity throughout the grow varied, with a period of around a week where temperatures were rising to around 28°c, a point where the additional CO2 supplied by and Exhale CO2 Bag would have come into its own. After this short period of time however, the temperature dropped and from then, remained within a more suitable level. I can't say I saw any sign of stress from either of the plants during this temperature rise and things still seemed to be heading toward a positive result.

These La Diva beauties went into full swing, producing flowers with glorious white pistils, showing themselves at each bud site and they were increasing nicely in number. A process that was helped along by the addition of Dutch Pro Explode, utilised as a bloom booster. The advances that have been made with autoflowering genetics in the last few years has been impressive. Larger yields, tastier bud and faster flowering and La Diva plays its own small part in this story and continues to accentuate the fact. There appear to be at least two phenotypes of this quaint and quick strain, one taller than the other, with the smaller of the two being a very neat and compact plant, which in this particular grow produced a fraction more in yield. The buds on both plants had very healthy distributions of trichombs, giving a nice white frosting effect.

After harvesting the plants and looking at them hanging and drying, it was rather remarkable to consider the yields and to think that it had been achieved in just 56 days from seed to harvest. Okay, it was a little over the time of 49 days as stated on the package, but not enough to be of any concern and the resin-coated buds produced by these plants was rather impressive, all things considered, especially the 250w lighting. 

So once the harvest had been dried there was a return of 50.8g and 50.6g respectively, which was most pleasing indeed. These buds were dense and had a delightfully strong fruity/berry bouquet emanating from them, it really is a pleasant scent...but what of the smoke? Well, that in itself is a pleasure to behold, the aroma of this strain comes on though to the palate as a mouth-watering taste, with the high having a dual effect, fast and furious on the brain and also later as she has had more time to take effect, giving somewhat of a couch lock feeling. Oh and let us certainly not forget, it also seems to give a case of the munchies too, so snacks at the ready!

I had initially looked toward this plant as having a high potential as a bit of a quick-yielding filler, you know, one that would fill that occasional gap in the grow room, but following the grow, I realise that this strain should be credited with a much higher accolade. On the whole I was far more impressed with this Delicious Seeds strain than I had expected to be and should also say that everyone that was fortunate enough to have sampled her was very suitably impressed.

"What? Just 56 Days? From start to finish? Wow, what a beauty!"