Sugar Black Rose

Day 50 Flower (Day 92) Today is the first day of week eight of flower, and we're in overtime. According to the breeder, last week was supposed to be the final week of flower since this is a fast strain with Ruderalis in it, but the girls are still far from done. The right girl is still mostly clear, and the left girl has a bunch of fattening up to do before I'll even look at her trichomes. All I did today was to give the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.3 water. I did some bud photography as well, but I haven't processed those images yet. Day 51 Flower (Day 93) I'm starting to see a fade in some of the right girl leaves but nothing major yet. I gave her 3 liters of pH 6.1 water and called it a day. Tomorrow I have to hook up her drip irrigation system so I have a few days to tweak it before I'm off on vacation. Day 52 Flower (Day 94) Today, I finally got around to hooking up the drip irrigation system to the right girl. Setting it up was straightforward - put four drip emitters around the plant, run a hose from the emitters to a 120 l water barrel, connect the hose to a pump, set up how much water you want per day, done. For a long time, the right girl has been drinking 3 liters of water per day. One filling in my small 3-liter watering can. I figured, though, that I should first check if the can is 3 liters in the first place, so I filled it up and then measured how much water there was in it. It turns out that the can only contain 2.5 liters. Chinese quality... Anyway, no big deal when I've been hand-watering, but great to know now, as the system would have overwatered otherwise. I set up the system to irrigate 2.4 liters per day, slightly less than currently, but I think she will soon start to drink less as she matures and starts fading. In any case, I rather come home to a slightly thirsty plant than to one that has drowned. It's a bit clunky to use a timer-based drip system as it doesn't adapt to the plant. That's why I'm currently designing and building my own system, based on a Raspberry Pi, which irrigates based on moisture levels in the soil. The aim is to maintain the perfect soil moisture in each pot, no matter how much each girl drinks. This concept s precisely how a low-tech Blumat system work, and I even have one of those, but I can't use it for practical reasons, so I'm "stuck" at building my own hi-tech solution instead ;) The left girl in the small tent is just doing her thing, slowly fattening up. She is foxtailing hard, though, but I'm not surprised, considering all the stress she went through. No big deal, I'll turn those buds into a tincture instead. The flower that got burned a bit in my main tent is also foxtailing but way less. I also got delivered and installed a fire extinguisher ball in my small tent. Now each of the tents should be protected from accidental fire. I have to admit that the thought of leaving my tents up and running alone for a week makes me a wee bit nervous, so I'm taking the precautions I can. I never had any problems in the past, and I like to keep it that way. Day 53 Flower (Day 95) There isn't much to do this late in flower now when I don't even have to water anymore. Although, I am monitoring the soil moisture levels to ensure the irrigation systems work as they should. Today I also changed my Bluetooth Thermo/Hygrometers to WiFi versions since they allow me to remote monitor the tents when I'm off on vacation next week. They are currently showing the temps as high, but since I put them all the way up in the tent, it makes sense that it is hot up there. I will move them down to canopy level before I leave. I could also finalize our travel plans today after going back and forth, making plans, and changing them again for days. Next week, we're off to Iceland, where we will pick up a motorhome at the airport and then drive around as the wind and mood take us. We have been to Iceland before, but the place is so unique that we can't wait to return. It will be interesting (and a bit scary) to see how the girls will manage while I'm gone, but I believe that I've done enough to keep them safe and sound in my absence. A friend of mine can drop by our apartment and look at the girls should it be necessary, but I think they'll be alright. Day 54 Flower (Day 96) Last night, just before heading to bed, I checked the girls to ensure that the irrigation systems worked correctly. A good decision as there was a big puddle of water in the right girl's tent. Fuuuuuuu... So at 4 in the morning, I had to remove that water. Great. It turned out to be around 2.5 liters, and I guessed that the system wasn't working correctly by watering too much. Oh well, it was late, and I decided to deal with that the next day. When I opened the tent today, there was a new puddle even though I had turned off the system the night before. Huh??? I soon found the problem, though. Each drip emitter has a rubber membrane that keeps the emitter closed whenever the pump isn't running. That's in theory. In practice, however, the membrane doesn't close up properly, and water can flow through. I filled up my big 120-liter water barrel yesterday, which caused the water level to be above the level of the emitters. Considering the leaky emitters, we now had a water siphon system running, pulling water from the barrel and continuously dripping even though the pump wasn't running. Luckily I already had a low and squat 50-liter reservoir at hand, so I put the pump in that one instead, as it is lower than the emitters. That should solve that problem. I hope. (Yes, I know it is terrible with a white reservoir as it enables algae growth but it is all that I have right now and I'll throw a blanket over the reservoir before we leave.) However, from this experience, I decided to turn on the system for 24 hours, collect all water, and measure the exact amount. Honestly, I should have done that from the start already. Oh well, we live and learn. Anyway, I removed the system and taped it to the inside of a bucket, which collects the water, and tomorrow I'll measure it. Besides all this fun irrigation action, I didn't do anything else with the girls today. Day 55 Flower (Day 97) Things are looking better in the tent today. I left the irrigation system running for 24 hours, and there was no more siphoning happening after I switched to the lower water reservoir, so that's good. However, the system was still overwatering by half a liter. Not too bad on a daily basis, but as I'm gone for a week, I need it to perform better. I dialed it in by adding one more dripper but decreasing the frequency. I'm currently using five drip emitters, and they run for six minutes every 12 hours. I did three test runs (simulating a full 24 hours run cycle), and the average water volume is 2.43 liters per 24 hours. Spot on. Day 56 Flower (Day 98) The last day of the eighth week of flower, and everything is moving along nicely. A bit slow since the girls were supposed to be done already, but I'm in no real hurry. I'm off tomorrow for a week of vacation, and I hope I have taken all precautions to keep the girls safe and sound. They should be alright, but a friend will drop by in a few days to make sure. I haven't checked the trichomes in a few days, but that can wait until I return. All I did today was to check that the irrigation systems are running correctly. The cheap system for the small girl is a bit finicky to adjust, but the other system is running just fine now when I have the other water reservoir.