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Germination:
Started germination on the 5/18. I germinated 2 gelato auto seeds, 1 zkittles and 1 weeding cake in separate mason jars. By the 20th one gelato and zkittles showed their tap roots. The other gelato and wedding cake were cracked but not a definite tap root was shown. I did some research and read that seeds should of opened roughly after 12 hours so i switched to the paper towel method and saw rapid germination after that. I left for the weekend returning on Saturday and noticed the gelato and zkittles that showed their tap root first were growing way quicker than the weeding cake and gelato #2. their tap root was about an inch long while the other two was less than a half inch.
Saturday:
I decided to go ahead and plant the seeds on Saturday to be able to start the week on Monday and keep track of my timeline with ease. I planted the Gelato and zkittles in 5 g pots while the two slower germinating seeds ( weeding cake, Gelato #2) i went and put in 2 g pots. i was worried some of the seeds wouldn't sprout so i said what the heck lets throw them in some smaller pots
Sunday:
After work i came back to check the seedlings to notice the zkittles and gelato #1 was already at the top of the soil zkittles looked healthy but gelato to me looked a little darker and seemed sad.... i dont know if i did anything wrong by watering too much, maybe too much light idk its my very first grow so i was micro managing a little too much for my liking.
The weeding cake and gelato #2 was still below the soil. i believe its because when i planted the other two the tap root were so much longer than the ones in the 2 g pots.
Monday:
week started okay. Zkittles and Gelato #1 were the only two showing any thing out of the soil. still waiting on gelato 2 and WC to sprout. so far pretty smooth, spraying with distilled water and using a little less than a L for all four plants with .5ml of the cal mag..... dont know if that is too much or too little????
Tuesday:
saw lots of growth overnight! Zkittles and gelato 1 are looking good. I do worry about stretching. i tried looking up stuff to prevent stretching so i adjusted my light to 24 inch above running at about 20% power. Wedding cake started to show some leave and gelato 2 sprouted but is covered by its shell
Wednesday:
Checked the babies this morning around 8 am and saw a good amount of growth. Still very worried about the plants stretching too much! i dont know if they are or not or if i am being paranoid. Or maybe i do not have enough soil in the pots????? IDK?!?!?!? I gently removed the shell that was hanging on to the leaves on gelato 2 with some tweezers, but the leaves look stuck together by a thin layer left over by the shell. so im letting it be still growing though so im happy i didnt kill her. Wedding cake is growing pretty fast in my opinion, its catching up to the first two girls that sprouted first. Hopefully she doesn't continue to grow taller. Ill hold off on water them until i get home from work later tonight around 10-11 thats when my lights turn on so its perfect timing for me.
Thursday:
Babies are developing real nice, I think. Took the suggestions from other growers about my concern of the plants stretching too much. I increased my light exposure to 20 hours a day and on top of that I dressed the top with some more soil on the zkittles, gelato 1, and WC to add some support to the stem. I am watering still about 2 rarely 3 times a day with the spray bottle and .5ml of cal mag plus. I see some leaf development in the zkittles, gelato 1, and WC while gelato 2 is a little behind in the process. I don’t know if I’m not giving her the adequate resources to thrive or what, she did take a while to grow her tap root and while the other tap roots grew fast and straight she was slow and started to twist and turn in her tap root growth don’t know if that correlates to anything.
Lighting, heat, soil content/nutrients/additives are the main factors in stretching, as they affect hormonal balance.
It's not just light that causes stretching.
Yours doesn't seem to be stretching particularly excessively, probably just wants a little more light. If you want to you can top up the soil a bit and it'll just grow some more roots from the stem.
Second week started technically on Saturday but Monday in my books.
On Saturday there was a catastrophe involving gelato 2. I had my two-gallon pots raised on a tiny platform and when I moved the other pots the one fell and knocked gelato 2 all over the tent. I was able to carefully put her back in and give her a tiny watering to settler her in, but she for sure suffered some shock and is now a little handicapped. I was worried I killed her but since then she seems to be growing ever so slightly.
On Thursday night of week 1 I added 1 ml of voodoo juice with .5 ml of the cal mag to 1L of water. I’ve been giving each plant roughly a little more than a half a cup of every morning depending on how much water they are drinking and how dry the soil is.
I don’t know if that is too much or too little that’s been a stressor for me the past couple of days, so any opinions feel free to share 😀. SO far I think the girls are looking good I bumped my light to 50% still at 18 hours a day and by the end of the week I’m hoping to be done with the voodoo and switch to the Big Bud nutrients!
6/3 Thursday:
Plants looking healthy. Gelato 2 despite almost killing it, its growing slowly but still growing. I stopped using cal mag and added 1ml of FF grow big to the mix. Still watering around 1/2 cup of water, will be increasing by week 3.
Week 3 started good; I think. Girls look like they are doing good in my book. But I do believe I am under watering them.
-Monday: I feed them 2ml of grow big, 1ml of Cal mag plus and 1ml of big bud. I was watering the girls almost every day before week 3 with only about 1 cup of water. So now that they are growing bigger, I think I’m going to give them up to a gallon for their watering since my watering schedule is every other to 2 days. I’m sure this is probably not the proper amount or schedule they should be on but it seems to be working. Haven’t killed them yet.
-Wednesday night after work watered the girls with a little over 2L of water with the cal mag, grow big and big bud. Next watering I’ll be giving the girls in the 5-gallon pots about a gallon of water for their feeding. So far so good all of them seem to be growing well, Gelato 2 is a lot smaller than the rest due to me spilling her during her seedling phase. Just hoping she produces some nice buds. Since I am using FFOF as my soil I’m barely putting any nutes in for the fear ill burn the plants.
-Friday: I decided to pull the trigger on LST the girls. Was very hesitant since this is my very first grow, I’d rather not jeopardize my yield and have my first grow be a bust. Decided to do it anyway. When I worked the main stem to bend it there was no cracking or snapping but the stem did have a film that started to shed from it. I don’t know if that’s normal or if that will eventually lead to shock and then death of the plant. Tied most of them down by the 3rd node, I believe they say do it at the 4th node but realized too late and didn’t want to keep messing with them since I already thought I was being too rough in my opinion.
On an 18-hour light cycle that starts at 10pm- 4pm. Gave the girls a good watering after I finished to have them start the day right, Ph was around 6.5-6.8 with run off between 5.9-6.4. didn’t have too much runoff in the 5-gallon pots and I was afraid to water anymore since some of the fan leaves were touching the soil.
Monday: Week started with just keeping up with the LST. I think im doing an okay job with the training. I am real worried with shocking the girls too much by constantly tying branches down i dont want to shock/stunt her too much. I defoliated 1-2 still on some plants, just the leaves that are shooting straight into the soil.
Wednesday: Still training and adjusting daily but i think im running into a cal mag deficiency, wind or nute burn i dont really know. It could also be bugs.
Thursday: Lst still going good. Minor defoliation this morning. I think i have a PH problem, my run off is reading 5.2 PH going in is around 6.5. when i water tonight i plan on just doing PH'd water and cal mag because I dont believe they look as healthy as they should.
What am I dealing with? PH problem, nutrient, light or wind burn? Bugs?
Lights are 20 inches away from plants ph going in is 6.5 run off is low at 5.2 ppm is around 700-800
Week 4 was a little rough for the girls. thought i had bugs but i think it just turned out to be nute burn from the waterings and getting some of the leaves wet. on gelato 1 i had the main stem snap off during training and i was unable to repair it but since it broke the lower bud sites are taking place of that one. I only fed the girls ph'd water to flush them and test the run off ph run off is about 6. just hoping i havent shocked the girls too much and that they will grow some nice buds.
Ps: i purchased a 600w led light to go with my ts 1000 hoping that would give me some bigger denser buds
They look good. Don't think you got anything to worry about. If your feeding a Ec of 1.8 to an auto you may run into problems as they don't tend to like strong feeds, but if your giving that and there are no signs of over feed then carry on as you are.
6/28 Monday: The girls are coming along good. All of the bud sites have a lot of pistils all over. They are taking up a lot more water, which is to be expected I know but wow they are sucking up that water. Earlier last week I fertilized with bloom nutrients, cal-mag and voodoo juice. This week I’m only giving them bloom with grow nutrients, I want to keep it simple and not burn the lady’s too bad.
Noticed some problems that I have to stay on top of. The grow lights paired with the disgustingly hot summer weather are making temperatures reach way over 30 degrees Celsius and on top of that the secondary Led light I purchased has a ghost current and won’t shut off completely so I’m increasing the ventilation and air circulation and looking for a new timer that may work for that light
I haven’t been able to keep up with my diary as much as I would have liked to. Through week 6 a lot of pistils started to make a name for themselves. I defoliated when I watered them but was very worried I would lower my yield since they are autos and photos.
The beginning of week 7 is when zkittles started to suck up tons of water! She also started to have her branches stretch up, I don’t know if this is normal or if she’s trying to tell me something. The following days is when the rest of the plants started to suck up a good amount of water fast too. I’ve been watering every other day one day with bloom nutrients the next with just ph’d water.
I fell really behind on my diary, have been working third shift so I’ve been super lazy and haven’t kept up at all. Around the beginning of week 7 I ran into an issue that being that I wasn’t being very precise and attentive in taking care of the girls and the zkittles auto stretched like a mother. Still making amateur mistakes in my first grow. My LST skills are still being honed so now I have no uniform branch structure and I’m running out of tent space. Zkittles was about touching my ts1000 in a 2x4 tent.
Also gelato 1 looks to be a little behind in the flowering process. im gonna tie this to the fact that the main stem snapped on a few weeks backs
7/12: Beginning of week 8 I see a lot of more bud sites forming. I tied a few branches away to let some more light penetrate more bud sites. I’m feeding the plants still about every 1-2 days, im alternating from bloom nutrients and ph’d water only for some watering’s.
7/15: Middle of the week. I finally think I was able to rearrange the girls to have a more efficient exposure for them. I propped the 2 gallon pots up on containers. I see a lot of buds forming! My only concern is if my buds are going to grow into bigger thicker buds or did I stunt or mess them up due to a lot of shock I may have caused them.
They are getting more and more thirsty water about every day. Thought about possibly stopping the FF bloom for a week and give them only advanced nutrients “Big Bud and some cal mag. I know it’s not a good idea to switch nutrients up on them but oh well.
I fell really behind on my diary, have been working third shift so I’ve been super lazy and haven’t kept up at all. Around the beginning of week 7 I ran into an issue that being that I wasn’t being very precise and attentive in taking care of the girls and the zkittles auto stretched like a mother. Still making amateur mistakes in my first grow. My LST skills are still being honed so now I have no uniform branch structure and I’m running out of tent space.
RinNohara
