8.8/10
GrowDiaries 
Gorilla Punch Auto Cannabis Strain Week-by-Week Guide
- 1. Grow specifications
- 2. Grow set up
- 3. Germination and seedling stage | week 1
- 4. Early veg | week 2
- 5. Mid veg | weeks 3-4
- 6. Transition (pre-flower) | week 5
- 7. Early flower | weeks 6-7
- 8. Mid flower (bulk phase) | weeks 8-9
- 9. Ripening and harvest | weeks 10-11
- 10. Yield and smoke report
- 11. In conclusion
With Gorilla Punch Auto, Fast Buds continues to extend its collection of hard-hitting strains and presents a smoke for those users who can take a punch without going into a standing knockout after a single puff. Apart from the potency, this is a very invigorating and motivating smoke perfect to use in moderation throughout the day. Another requirement for any state-of-the-art autoflower is its yield potential, and this is where this newcomer also shines. Of course, you need to know a thing or two about weed cultivation to get the most out of this wonderful plant which is exactly the subject of this article.
In our Gorilla Punch Auto week-by-week growing guide, we describe an indoor grow where this autoflower was just one in a bunch of 'testers' and the grower employed no fancy techniques but focused instead on the essentials. And this is the most important thing in cannabis cultivation whether you're a newbie or not.
1. Grow Specifications
Gorilla Punch Auto has one of those genetic makeups that are every grower's dream – an almost equal mix of 45% Sativa and 55% Indica. This means that you'll get a big and vigorously developing but not overly tall plant that can reach a height of 70-120 cm (28-47 inches) and can be easily trained for a shorter profile. This is a very comfortable size to work with indoors, but it's enough for you to harvest generous yields of up to 450-550 gr/m2 (1.5-1.8 oz/ft2). Outdoor cultivation will bring you between 50-150 gr/plant (2-5 oz/plant). It's amazing that you'll only need 8-9 weeks from seed to harvest to achieve such spectacular results.
Rest assured that your experience smoking the buds will be just as rewarding. The flavor profile of Gorilla Punch Auto is complex and combines influences as diverse as spice, lemon, wood, and pepper. You'd want to keep inhaling this delicious smoke but beware of its potency – up to 26% THC with a CBD level never going beyond 0.5%.
2. Grow Set Up
Out of a few dozen Gorilla Punch Auto grow diaries that there are online, we have chosen one that was done by an experienced gardener who ran this strain with three others – doing nothing fancy and focusing on the essentials instead. His grow tent was kind of large – 4x4 – but, of course, one Gorilla Punch Auto growing in a 3-gallon textile bag occupied only a fourth of it. The tent was equipped with a LED quantum board drawing 600W. The lights were running in a 24/0 cycle for the first two weeks and then 20/4 for the rest of the grow.
3. Germination And Seedling Stage | Week 1
Germinating cannabis seeds is a very simple and straightforward process. The three things that you need to germinate successfully are warmth, darkness, and the presence of water, so anyone can do this. However, experienced growers tweak these conditions to raise the success rate and to make the seeds pop and sprout faster. It can be the scuffing of the seeds with sandpaper, pre-soaking them in a glass of water, adding hydrogen peroxide, using rooting hormones, etc, but you don't really need any of that to see your seedlings come up.
| Plant Height: | 8 cm | Humidity: | 55% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 122 cm | Solution Temp: | 20°C |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | NA | Smell: | None |
This gardener chose a germination technique that is as straightforward as it is effective: he placed the seed between wet paper towels until it cracked and showed a taproot long enough to put it into the medium. Usually, when the taproot is at least half an inch long before you plant your seed, the seedling will be the healthiest.
When you finally plant your seed into the medium, you have two options: either choose a starter pot at first (with the intention of re-potting later) or put the seed straight into the final container. The first method is great for photoperiod varieties as it allows you to save on grow space during veg and makes watering so much easier. The other one allows you to avoid re-potting which is a potentially dangerous procedure that requires some dexterity and experience. So, if you're new to this game, start your autoflowers in the final pot from the get-go. Otherwise, you risk shocking your plant during the transplant.
This grower chose the safer option – he put his Gorilla Punch Auto into a final 3-gallon (11-liter) container that was filled with a simple potting mix. This is the kind of medium that you can buy in any horticulturist shop. It contains something like moss and peat, and there's also some perlite added. Most users prefer to buy and add some extra perlite – at least 10-15% of it – to make the medium even lighter and airier, but this gardener just didn't bother and got great results anyway.
If you look at your seedling at this stage and don't really know whether she develops as she should or lags behind, your benchmark is day 10 when the second pair of true leaves should be at least as big as the first one. It means you're doing okay.
4. Early Veg | Week 2
Ar first, a weed seedling doesn't grow very fast, but starting from the second week from seed, you will see changes every day. At this point, the seedling still likes it warm and humid, but she's not so vulnerable anymore, so you can remove the humidity dome (if you used one) or lower RH in the grow room with ventilation or a dehumidifier to something like 60% instead of 70-80%.
| Plant Height: | 13 cm | Humidity: | 55% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 122 cm | Solution Temp: | 20°C |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | NA | Smell: | None |
At this time, most autoflowers don't look like they need training – because they are still low and stocky – so you may just leave your baby be and not distract her from the serious business of extending her roots and working on the above-ground part (leaves and side branches). After all, any form of high-stress training or even low-stress training may shock an autoflower. On the flip side, it does allow you to keep the plant nice and short and thus make use of the light more efficiently, so it's always a trade-off.
If your vertical space isn't restricted and the lights are powerful enough, growing your autos naturally is probably the best way to take the genetics to the limit in terms of yields.
5. Mid Veg | Weeks 3-4
Starting from week 3 or thereabouts, autoflowers enter the vegetative stage when they grow the fastest. They develop new branches and nodes – where the future buds will form – so make sure you create the best conditions for them now. Later, in flower, it will be too late – flowering plants stretch whatever branches they have but hardly make any new ones.
| Plant Height: | 20-23 cm | Humidity: | 55% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 112 cm | TDS: | 450 ppm |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | 20°C | Smell: | None |
As you can see in the pic below, Gorilla Punch Auto became quite lush although still remained stocky. The grower decided to boost the growth of side branches by tucking in the biggest of the fan leaves on top. Put out of the way like this, they don't shade any important growing points.
As the plant grows, she will need more and more energy, and you can regulate that by either decreasing the distance between the plant tops and the light or regulating the dimmer if the light has one. And, of course, you can make sure every side branch is exposed to full light. Tucking in the leaves seems to be the least stressful way of achieving that. Other growers use defoliation, but soon after you strip your plants naked, they grow everything back with a vengeance and you're back to square one minus the energy spent by the plant on making all those leaves that end up in the waste bin. So, when planning to defoliate, think well if it's worth it.
When you grow in soil and use enough medium, it usually is pre-loaded with enough nutrients to last you for at least the first two weeks from seed. Probably, even for the whole veg. However, this gardener decided to feed his Gorilla Punch Auto from day one. He used such products as Silica Von Liebig Special to provide for stronger cell walls, Take Root to make a stronger rhizosphere with essential micronutrients and vitamins, and Multi Total as a source of humic and fulvic acids.
He also introduced V2 Vegetative Part 1 and 2 as the staple product rich in nitrogen (N) and would later add a Cal-Mag formula to make sure that his Gorilla Punch Auto doesn't experience calcium and magnesium deficiencies. These two deficiencies mostly plague coco grows but are quite common in soil grows too.
6. Transition (Pre-Flower) | Week 5
Most autoflowers show sex and transition to budding around week 5, and this Gorilla Punch Auto was no exception – she had the first female pistils during the fifth week from seed. When the flowering starts, you can make it a bit cooler in the grow room. Aim at something like 73-77°F (23-25°C), with the night temps lower by a few degrees.
| Plant Height: | 30 cm | Humidity: | 55% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 112 cm | TDS: | 450 ppm |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | 20°C | Smell: | Weak |
If you look closely enough, you can see the early signs that the flowering is about to begin. The first signs of sex are tiny white hairs that you can see at the nodes somewhere halfway down the main stem. As things progress, you'll see more and more of these at other nodes and most importantly on tops. Besides, the tops will slightly change color to more yellowish than before and have much thinner little leaves than before.
When the flowering starts, don't forget to change the feeding regimen. Usually, you will have two sets of nutrients: one for vegetative growth and one for the flowering stage. We've already mentioned nitrogen (N) as the macronutrient that is especially important for vegetative growth, but when the plant switches to flowering, choose a formula whose NPK is tilted toward P and K – phosphorus and potassium – as these two are needed in greater quantities now while N is of lesser importance and too much of it can even be bad for flower development.
7. Early Flower | Weeks 6-7
After an autoflower has entered the flowering stage, it will spend a part of its energy on stretching. Depending on the genetics, weed plants can double or even triple in size although very moderate growth of +50% is more common. With photoperiod strains, it's important to induce flowering at the right moment so that you don't run out of vertical space later. With autoflowers, you don't have this issue: they just start flowering when they're ready and this usually happens when they're still small enough.
| Plant Height: | 35-45 cm | Humidity: | 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 80-90 cm | TDS: | 650 ppm |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | 20°C | Smell: | Normal |
Of course, besides stretching, another important process goes on. We mean the formation of buds. At first, you may wonder how these scant little flowers can form long continuous colas, but most of the time they do – just give them a few weeks and they'll fill all the gaps.
As you can see in the pic above, Gorilla Punch stretched quite a bit, especially the central stem which left all the side branches far behind. With powerful lights like in this grow, it's not an issue, but if you're running weaker lights, you may end up in a situation where the top of the central stem is close enough to your LED panel to get a light burn but the rest of the bush is too far and so those lower buds will have a smaller size and airier texture. In this scenario, you'd be much better off if you had started to LST your autoflower very early and had a flat canopy by now.
8. Mid Flower (Bulk Phase) | Weeks 8-9
By the time cannabis starts to really bulk up, it usually stops stretching. It's the perfect moment to decrease the relative humidity to something like 40%. Low readings like this help prevent such high humidity issues as mold and bud rot which are all too common both indoors and out.
| Plant Height: | 55 cm | Humidity: | 40% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 70 cm | TDS: | 750 ppm |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | 20°C | Smell: | Strong |
While buds are fattening up and getting denser, they also get abundantly covered in trichomes, and since trichomes hold the majority of terpenes, this is the time when your garden starts to smell really strong. If you use a good exhaust fan and take the air outside through a system of ducts, you may get rid of the smell produced by one autoflower. Not completely, of course, but down to an acceptable level where it won't be too much nuisance to you or your neighbors. However, in larger indoor gardens like this one, installing a carbon filter is a must.
At some point, the flowering stretch stops completely, and it's the first sign that the harvest is not far away. The buds may continue to fill out visibly for another few weeks, and then you'll stop noticing any changes in their size as well. That's another sign of impending harvest. And of course, you'll notice new and interesting colors: the pistils that have been pure white before will start to turn amber or brown, and the calyces and leaves may start to fade and display some autumn hues.
You can see that Gorilla Punch Auto – though not as purple as some other strains – has a tendency to go purplish. You can facilitate this by lowering the temperature, especially when the lights are off.
9. Ripening And Harvest | Weeks 10-11
In the last few weeks leading to the harvest, you may stop seeing any evident changes in how your buds look and may start to wonder if it makes sense to wait or if you should just chop your plant. However, don't be in a hurry. Though the buds have probably reached their final size, there are invisible chemical changes still going on inside them. They still produce more THC, other cannabinoids, and terpenes, so the quality of the smoke gets higher by the day. Your goal now is to catch the perfect moment and harvest the buds at their peak.
| Plant Height: | 55 cm | Humidity: | 35% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to Light: | 70 cm | TDS: | 450 ppm |
| Day Temp: | 24°C | pH: | 6.4 |
| Night Temp: | 20°C | Smell: | Strong |
The most important tool for you right now is a hand microscope which will allow you to inspect the color of the trichomes. To the naked eye, they may seem just plain white, but under a microscope, you'll see that some of them are clear and others cloudy and some have changed their color to amber. Always harvest your buds when all of the trichs are milky and some are amber. This is the moment of peak psychoactivity.
Don't forget that to achieve the highest possible quality of your smoke, you'll need to flush the medium to cleanse it of the built-up salts. When you grow in soil, this process may require up to 2 weeks. In hydro and coco, it's much quicker – only one week. Try to time the whole procedure in such a way that the trichomes are at the peak of their maturity right when the final flush is over.
10. Yield and Smoke Report
While many modern autoflowers, including Gorilla Punch Auto, have the potential in finishing in just 9 weeks from seed, it's not every time that they do. This one took 11 weeks but all that extra time was spent on extra weight. Though the bullet-shaped buds weren't the biggest, they were remarkably dense and there were so many of them that the final haul was impressive – 195 g (6.88 oz) from just one Gorilla Punch plant.
The flavor of the smoke that this Gorilla Punch was giving off was sweet, with berry-like and fruity notes, and the effects were those of pure happiness as if this phenotype was 100% Sativa. Other smokers' reviews online paint a different picture of a more balanced smoke that starts in the head but soon settles in the body. Most users note the strain's potency.
11. In Conclusion
Our Gorilla Punch week-by-week guide is proof that this weed strain is a great way to get super potent smoke with a tendency to improve mood as well as provide focus and increase sociability. This is also a great autoflowering plant that grows vigorously and performs as a cutting-edge modern auto should. Whether you're looking for the perfect cultivar or the perfect smoke, you can't go wrong with Fast Buds' Gorilla Punch Auto. Happy growing!
