First Grow Diary-Northern Lights Clone

BigBaldBuddy 2-weeks after moving the girls into the grow room. I was so concerned with the previous harvest, I missed photos up till now. Starting off with only the single 1000W LED grow light, but with VEG and BLOOM turned on.

BigBaldBuddy Photo of the girls right before “first” defoliation (before flower). I did some minor training up to this point, but not much. I was focused on root expansion and stalk girth. I wanted to see how big they could get before defoliating. So far they are bigger than the parents ever were, and they aren’t even to the “flowering stretch” yet. Added some moss as ground cover to reduce soil evaporation.

BigBaldBuddy Finally Switched to flowering. I waited a little too long since the defoliating and had to do a little cleanup before switching to flowering. (Although I did want to see how big they could get!) Installed a second 1000W LED light to balance out the light spread, but it also increased the heat exponentially. Had a little bit of a heat-shock issue the first week, but now it’s balanced out and the girls are showing no ill effects. Also switched out the moss for hay (to aid in the water retention).

BigBaldBuddy After two weeks of flowering, these girls are growing up fast. After switching to 12/12 they were hitting almost an inch a day! (The parents were half this height at harvest, so something must be working) Checked the soil and found roots in every corner of the planters. The hay is really helping to keep the moisture in. Canopy is really thick with minimum amount of light reaching the soil. I’m tempted to do defoliation/lollipopping before “20-days”.

BigBaldBuddy I’m excited about the development of this batch. The growth spurt, since the beginning of flower, has been crazy. These girls will need another defoliation in a couple of days.

BigBaldBuddy 😠😩😥 CRAP!!!! Ugggh!!! What the heck?!? Okay... I got over-zealous last week with some “free” bloom samples and adjusting my compost teas blends. (I need to better control my impulses to experiment and “tweak” everything.) Ugh. So last week, signs of leaf burn showed up out of nowhere!!!! I spent the whole week trying to figure out what was happening and halt the progression. (That’s why there is no pictures of that week) Re-tested pH, moisture levels, light intensity and read through every grow article I could find. My final diagnosis: it wasn’t caused from one thing. I basically added too much and too often of the “good stuff” and that resulted in nutrient burn. I ended up doing a soil flush and just using water-only for a while. Also reduced the light intensity and dropped the temperature some. Time will tell just how bad I screwed up, but it shouldn’t be a total loss. MORAL OF THE STORY: Patience grasshopper. Too much of a good thing is still bad.