**Copying journal over from GrassCity**
Day 0: Feb 09, 2021
Soaking seeds 12-24 hour in 500ml Purified H2O + 3ML GS Plant Food Organic Liquid Kelp solution.
Day 1: Feb 10, 2021
After 14-hours of soaking in darkness, seeds have already sunken to bottom of solution and tap root is starting to emerge from each seed. Temperatures averaged 75F. Moving the seeds to tray with paper towels moistened with the soaking solution and will leave in darkness for another 24-hours or so.
Day 2: Feb 11, 2021
After ~24-hours of germinating seeds in paper towels, a healthy tap root has grown from all 10 seeds. Carefully moved seeds to root riot plugs. Also shredded an extra riot plug to lightly cover the seed holes to minimize light exposure to the roots. I did feel a small pop when trying to lightly tap one of the seeds into the plug. :( Fear I may have snapped it's root... Well, only time will tell.
Day 3: Feb 12, 2021
Temps have held around 72F (Low) and 78F (High) over the past 24-hours with humidity in the propagation dome ~60%-75%. Mixed a light solution with 500ML H2O + 1ML Liquid Kelp and applied 10ML of solution (PH ~6) to each plug. Noticed a few seeds started to poke up slightly above the seed holes. Hoping to see some cotyledons in the next couple of days.
Day 4: Feb 13, 2021
Several ladies decided to show themselves and start stretching their arms today :)
Temps have stayed 72F (low) - 76F (high) with humidity (60%-70%). Unfortunately, I suspect the seed I felt pop when placing in the plug likely severed the root and probably isn't going to sprout. Unfortunate error on my part. She had the longest root of the bunch. We'll see over the next couple days. A couple are lagging the other girls but trucking along. Plugs are plenty moist. Just lightly spraying dome to keep humidity up.
Day 5: Feb 14, 2021
All 10 ladies have sprouted. Two are still catching up. Several had roots running a few inches out of the riot plugs into the tray. Went ahead and transplanted to 1-liter SuperRoots Air Pots with 70% Coco Coir / 30% Perlite mix and added endomycorrhizal fungi to support root development. Conditioned medium with 5.8ph water with cal mag only. Added a second small 32w LED and decreased distance of lights to minimize stretching. Temps have ranged from 72F to 78F with humidity 50%-70%.
Day 6: Feb 15, 2021
Ladies are doing well. 8 Girls are looking healthy and strong while 2 runts are struggling but still pushing along. Medium is sufficiently moist, no watering today. Frequently spraying dome to maintain humidity. Temperatures have ranged between 72F - 78F and humidity 50%-65%.
Day 7: Feb 16, 2021
Unfortunately they stretched alot the other night. Lowered the lights to just a couple inches above dome. Girls are progressing nicely. First set of true leaves are filling out. Two runts finally opened up and are slowly catching up. Seems the seed I was worried about may be fine after all.
Mixed a light feeding solution:
1 Gallon H2O
5ML CalMag
2.5ML Buddha Grow
2.5ML Trinity
2.5ML Surge
3.0ML Ancient Amber
PH 5.8
Watered until runoff (Approximately 150ML per pot)
Look like Zinc and Calcium deficiency?
Watering with 5.8/5.9pH, 2.06 EC (Runoff 5.8pH, 0.78 EC)
Few leaves had small nutrient burn on the tips earlier this week. Nutrient burn appears to have tapered off.
@GuerrillaNo_4, Thanks! This is my first grow in about 9-years now. I grew for a couple years previously. Cut a lot of corners back then though and caused myself a lot of headaches lol Trying to be proactive this time around and maintain a bit more control on all the variables.
@greenthumbartisan, im presently in my first hydro grow and am using a torus hydro perfect ph balancer drop in and I haven’t had to adjust ph AT ALL as of this point. Might be due to large res with single plant but they make an inline version as well you might want to look into and could still add to your system at this stage. Was skeptical of their claims and am still in veg but appears to be working! Your plants looks great!
@TheCode, Gotcha, yea I've saw quite a few designs using PVC and scrog on youtube. I also saw a video on one Mr Canucks channel and grabbed the scrog nets he used. (found size that worked perfect for my setup) From there just played around with PVC pips to build a proof of concept for my needs and once I had the measurements down, I built 8x of them. Like 10 years ago I tried growing under 6x 600 watt bulbs and grew some pretty big trees; however, I spent two months having to army man crawl through the room to do basic maintenance lol. That experience was my biggest motivation to try and build something more modular this time around.
Still a few quirks I'm running into with my setup, but will hopefully get smoother and smoother over time. 2G per watt will definitely be god .
This is my first attempt using LEDs. Been a long time since I've grown, but the tech seems to have come along way since then. So far I've been very impressed. Hoping to see a good harvest them.
As far as the pens, couldn't agree more. For the bloody cost, you would think maintenance would be easy. They're a thorn in the side. Every time I test, there's always the thought in the back of my mind, is this thing even accurate? lol
Would be nice to not have to worry about pH (feels like its the bulk of the work)
Good luck with your goal! hope you hit that 2G/w bar
@greenthumbartisan, Well especialy for newbies when they start this hobby all ph things can look difficult I mean knowing what pen to buy how to keep it working it looks the TDS meter is much easier to maintain and use because it's simple device, but with ph pen it lil bit annoying lol for me i change those cheap pens every year ,every new grow try to calibrate it and when im using it and finish using it put it in distilated water take it out and just put the cap back so idk cant really keep it really nice i dont have a fckn laboratory it;s little bit annoying .