AK-48 Auto Feminised Nirvana

Week 4 She is still showing great growth and is looking healthy despite my relative inexperience. I'm learning a lot from the helpful and kind people on GD and I hope that in turn, I will be able to help others. The key learning point over the past week has been how to improve and better manage watering and feeding. My understanding now is that the term 'overwatering' applies to the frequency of watering, not so much the amount. I'm now waiting until the top inch of soil is dry and then watering / feeding to get a 10-20% run off which will help flush away salt buildup in the soil and prevent nutrient lockout. Looking back on my previous AK-48 grow, I realise that I was watering incorrectly, but I still got a decent harvest so I am hoping for even bigger yields this time with an improved watering technique. Week 4 is also an important week as I performed topping and started LST. Happy growing and howls to all 😎 👉 04 June 2021 (Day 22) - Performed topping of the plant to generate more than one cola. I cleaned a pair of nail scissors thoroughly and left a bit of the stalk before the node to prevent splitting of the stem. Growth rates will probably slow down for a few days as a result. I also began Low Stress Training (LST) on some of the lower branches. The top inch of soil was dry so I ran through 3.5L of degassed tap water at pH 6.75 and then ran through 2L of feed at 1/4 of the doses recommended by Biobizz for week 3 plants in Allmix soil. I collected 1.4L of run off which is probably about 24% so I will decrease the volume a bit on the next watering. The pH of the run off was also 6.75 with a TDS of 640 ppm which seems a little high to me 😕, but its probably all the salt buildup coming off, better out than in. TDS of the feed was 240 ppm. Light was raised to give a 48cm distance between light and top of the plant. Lux at the top of the plant was 9977. Please let me know if you think I am making any major errors. 👉 06 June 2021 (Day 24) - The scar from the topping on day 22 is healing well and new growth of the 2 new main cola branches is visible. Also spent some time reading about Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD). Very interesting and I will be ordering an IR thermometer now https://www.dimluxlighting.com/knowledge/blog/vapor-pressure-deficit-the-ultimate-guide-to-vpd/ 👉 07 June 2021 (Day 25) - Raised light to maintain the 48cm distance between light and top of the plant. Increased light intensity at the top of the plant to 11584 Lux (about 50% on the SF1000 dimmer dial). I am expecting her to start flowering within the next 7 days or so. 👉 10 June 2021 (Day 28) - Raised light to maintain the 48cm distance between light and top of the plant. Increased light intensity at the top of the plant to 12602 Lux (about 55% on the SF1000 dimmer dial). Also continued LST. Top inch of soil still has a tiny bit of moisture in it, so I think next watering/feeding will either be tomorrow or Saturday. Perhaps I will use 3 gallon fabric pots on the next grow as I feel a bit redundant at the moment as very little input is required from me...I like stuff to do and tinker with in the garden. Some of the lowest fan leaves have developed a small amount of yellowing on some of the tips. I don't think it is burn from over-feeding as I have been very lighthanded with feeding. I'm tending to think it might be a slight deficiency and the plant is taking what it needs from the leaf. Its not severe burn and I will be feeding again in the next 48hrs, so I am not worried. Same thing happened on my previous AK48 grow and she turned out fine. Finally, got a IR thermometer from Amazon and spent a while plugging the formulas into Excel to calculate VPD. Probably not massively accurate due to equipment errors, I got a VPD of 1.13 which is apparently OK for a plant in late veg / early flower. Which is nice.