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Hey all, I'm Ally!
I'm new to grow dairies but not terribly new to growing. I started with coco coir about two years ago and have upgraded to a top-fed deep water culture system a few months ago. I just came out of attempted a scrog for my last grow in this new system and I honestly did not like the method, (too time-consuming), so I'm going back to my trusted method of manifolding for this grow. Very excited to see the results since I've yet to attempt a manifold in this new system.
To start out, I used rapid rooters hydrated in plain tap water kept under Fluorescent lights 24/7 until cotyledons opened. I then transferred seedlings to 6-inch net pots with clay pebbles and added 5 gallons of seedling mixture with 2 airstones and a pump to supply a drip nozzle at each rapid rooter. Light is at reduced power to 25% and I have them on an 18/6 schedule. I plan to only grow one of these babies to harvest, so we will see which one is the strongest of the bunch in a few weeks! :)
Hey all, back for week 2 of seedling phase! The plants are still in the seedling phase so I kept them in the seedling mixture. Tomorrow I am going to kill the two side plants and put the middle plant in its final tub, as it's currently looking to be the biggest and strongest. The light is a bit far, but the lumens are dialed to the seedling phase. The only issue I had this week was keeping the water temp down, as I live in a hot area for the summer and it likes to creep up. The hydro guard should help with that and I also use frozen water bottles to cool the water down when it gets too high.
Hey all! Back for week two. This week I chose one plant from the three and transferred it to its final bucket. I use ice coolers as the final bucket because I live in a hot and humid area, its the only container I've found that works to keep the water temps at a reasonable level to prevent root rot. Overall, it's a great solution for anyone who has issues with high water temps. If the water gets over 70 I pop a frozen water bottle in it to cool it back down, and since it's an ice cooler, it keeps it cool longer.
Once she got to 6 nodes I used Nebula's manifold technique and topped her between the 3rd and 4th nodes. I removed the 1st and 2nd nodes completely, leaving only the 3rd node. I left the second node fan leaves for more photosynthesis power. Excited to see how this one turns out next week, so far she's looking healthy and happy!
Hello again! This week we did the second topping. I waiting a day and then super cropped to start to build out the manifold frame. The only real hiccup was a knick to the plant on the second cropping, but some plant wrap and she was good as new the next day. The manifold frame is looking real nice!
Back for week 3 of Veg! This week I finished the manifold from last week and have her frame pretty much done. I did some LST to keep the top nodes even as much as possible. I did some minor defoliation for any leaves covering the nodes, but left any leaves that were not in the way. I am now just waiting for her to get to about 12 inches in height before I flip her to flower.
Got a little busy this week. Just let her grow and didn't do much else. She got very bushy and big which is nice. I'll do a big defoliation on the first week of flower, right after she first pistols to get some light to the lower bud spots.
This week she got flipped to 12 hours to start the flowering. She started pistiling at the end of the week, so now she is in flower. I got a bit busy this week again and the pH started drifting hence the light green leaves in the last photo. I'm usually on top of pH drifts because I feel it makes a difference but life happens. I also turned the light up from 50 percent power to 100 percent power since we are now in the flowering stage. Excited to see some bud form soon!
This is the first week since pistil showed. I defoliated her a little bit to uncover bud spots that were hidden by the fan leaves. Even though a few days later and the fan leaves grew back. In another week or so when bud spots are forming, I'll strip all the fan leaves. She's stretching a lot more than I'd like, so I need to flip sooner next time. I also increased the light power from 150W to 300W.
Another week and I didn't get to do much. I was away and couldn't tend to her. Luckily she does pretty well alone with my setup. I didn't do anything this week other than maintaining pH.
This week she REALLY stretched. I flipped her at 14" and she's at 48". This maxes my light out and I literally can't raise my light any higher. I'm really unsure of how to control these absurd 3-4x length stretches and this has happened to me a few times.
I defoliated this week, and it took me a pretty long time with all the extra branches.
I missed some photos this week. I'm really not sure what happened. Bud is starting to form and I am very excited as they will have a long time to fatten up. I have slowly had to start LST'ing some of the taller branches away from the light, otherwise, they will burn from contact with the light.