Had a busy week last week, not a whole lot of time to post incremental updates but here's a synopsis: turns out the soil was still a little too hot for a 1/2 feeding and a few leaves started to indicate nutrient burn/a slight N toxicity clawing. Ended up flushing with clean water after about 3 days and everyone is fine and happy. The damage is extremely minor, just a little frosted tips. Dumped the flush runoff into a bush outside that is looking a little sad.
Also, I ordered some 10" landscaping pins off amazon and tightened down the LST a bit. Plants were too strong for the shorter pins and 14 gauge wire that I had.
8/14
Lots of fresh green growth this morning, everyone bouncing back nicely from multiple toppings 5-6 days ago. I've decided it's time to put the screen in so I added the corner mounts (made from some pipe clamps and carriage bolts) at a height of 25" and stuck it in there. I have to go find a piece of paracord or something to tie the corners of the frame down but for now it can rest on it and still keep the plants held down. I made the screen from some cheap pine 1x2" pieces, a spool of nylon marking string, and about 100 small eyelets. Coated with a few coats of polyurethane and eventually sprayed it down with a 10% bleach solution prior to actually putting it in the tent.
SLH1 is a bit shorter than the others but still bushy and vigorous. I have little doubt it will catch up to the screen over the next couple weeks.
Planning on giving them one more water early this upcoming week with a tiny bit of just FoxFarm Open Sesame.
Doing a bit of defoliation and flipping to 12/12 next weekend seems like a good plan to me.
8/18
Tuck, tuck, tuck.
So I'm pretty certain I've got a little mag deficiency going on, which I guess is to be expected this many weeks in. The telltale signs are light green/yellowing around the edges and between the veins, especially on older leaves. Mag is a mobile nute so the plant begins to pull it from old growth and send it to the new stuff. I probably should have started supplementing last week.
It's ok though, I went over to my local indoor gardening/hydroponics shop and scooped up a bottle of Botanicare CalMag Plus and a little bag of Recharge (microbe stuff).
I also had a good discussion with the store employee about CO2 injection and I've decided to incorporate that into my setup. I already own the CO2 tanks from some kegerators and he showed me the type of regulator I need and a calculator for how to use it to get a reasonable estimate on PPM in a smaller space without buying a really expensive controller.
Watered with pH 6.4-6.5 water, ~1gal each plant with the listed supplements.
8/19
Doin' some tucks.
Ran across town to a nearby welding/gas supply store and had them fill/top off my CO2 tanks. Based on some napkin math, it seems like I'll probably have to go fill the larger canister (10lb) once more to make it to the end of flower. Since I have 2 tanks, I can swap in the smaller one (5lb) for a few days while I get over there again to fill the other. Seems to me the extra ~$30-$60 is a no brainer.
Also, I *slightly* shifted some stuff in the tent and managed to stuff my room-sized dehumidifier in there (barely) in preparation for flower. It's just short enough to fit under the screen and have enough space above it for canopy to exist. After reviewing data for a couple weeks, I've decided that using the exhaust to control humidity just isn't going to cut it for flower, especially if I'm spinning up CO2 injection. Kind of a waste if you're just exhausting 24/7.
8/20
Maybe it doesn't look so pretty in the pictures since everyone is getting tucked under the net frequently, but man there sure are a lot of tops in there already. Some of the nodes from the last topping began shooting out 3 or even 4 new "mains" instead of 2. Might have slowed down growth a bit for a week, but seems like everyone is healthily and steadily pushing out new chutes.
Not sure if it's discernible in the images, but I think they are responding well to the mag supplement. Visually, it seems like some of that light green fade is less pronounced/darkening again.
Amazon sent me a roll of saran wrap instead of the accurate cycle timer I ordered to handle the CO2 strategy, so that's a little annoying, but another is already on the way. I was planning on getting the CO2 set up and ready, and then flipping on Saturday but the new timer might not be here yet and I want that CO2 rolling for the flower stretch for sure.