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This is my second grow and i intend to avoid the mistakes i made in the first one.
Im germinating the seeds with the waterbowl- and paper towel method. After 48 hours i put the seeds in 1L Air Pots filled with peat based potting soil which is amended with the following amounts of fertilizer according to the manufacturer:
50 - 250 mg/l N
80 - 300 mg/l P2O5
10 - 350 mg/l K2O
pH between 5,0 - 6,5
I also added 2g/l Cal-Mag (70% CaCO3, 25% MgCO3, 55% CaO) in mineral form to the soil, as i had problems with low pH in my last grow.
The seedlings get innoculated with Mycorrhizae (TNC Mycorr Max)
The seedling didn´t sprout as vigorously as i expected and i feared that i might have killed it by overwatering.
Because of that i decided to germinate another seed a couple days later, just in case.
I really went over the top with the light as can be clearly seen from the curling leaves. Thought it would be best to give them as much light as possible, as autos have a limited vegging cycle.
I transplanted the first plant as it was already showing roots and the other one followed suit shortly after that. It was a bit to early for the second plant as the roots weren´t developed enough to hold the soil together.
I damaged the tap root of the second plant a little bit because of this. Hope it doesn´t stunt it too much.
Both plants got inoculated again at transplantation.
Notice the leaves getting getting deep green and shiny, probably because of the high nitrogen content of the potting soil i transplanted to which holds 8 weeks worth of slow release fertilizer:
230 mg/l N
170 mg/l P2O2
280 mg/l K2O
70 mg/l Mg
350 mg/l S
Both plants handle my light abuse pretty well (Added a second LED Bulb with 18 Watts and 6500K).
As you can see the first plant didn´t die as i feared but grows good. The second plant is catching up
Starting some light LST.
Plants are getting bushier and bushier while i try to encourage lateral growth with LST.
The trellis net is not for Scrogging btw but for mounting my 4 120mm computer fans which will hopefully provide enough airflow for when the canopy gets filled with fat buds :-S
I´m switching from 3 SANSI LED bulbs to the TS1000.
Plants have been getting super bushy and i was wondering if i should remove some fan leaves in order to let more light into the forming bud sites but i stayed with LST and tucking them away for the moment as i didn´t want to disrupt them.
Speaking of bud sites: The plants got into flower pretty much on point after 4 weeks
This week the plants have gone through some brutal stretch which i struggled to tame with LST (Forgot that i´m dealing with a Sativa dominant strain 😅)
I figured that i keep the longest branches to the side of the grow space as my grow light has a much lower intensity there.
I finally decided to give my ladies a haircut to bring some light into the jungle and expose the bud sites.
Although an Auto, i thought the stretch is over and it also helps with airflow (My last grow had moldy buds, so i try to be careful)
The longest branch got a bit burned by my grow light as i didn´t keep up with stretch.
I have recently measured the pH of the runoff which is about 5. The soil is 95% peat and rich in fertilizer which i think is the reason why it is so low. I have been adding good amounts of Biobizz PH+ (20ml per 5l water) but it only helps temporarily.
Now, the first plant on the left has shown an increase in pH to the 6.5 range which i interpret as a signal that the fertilizer in the soil is used up (runoff had only 350ppm)
So for the last watering i added about 2ml of 10-30-20 blossom booster which resulted in a 1000ppm solution.
I defoliated my AK420 Auto in week 7 and took at least 1/3 off in order to expose bud sites. Do you like it? Would you defoliate even more? Or do you refrain from defoliating autos at all?
Defoliation of healthy green leaves just reduces your plants capacity to make energy, slowing growth and potentially leading to smaller growth too.
Those "bud sites", which are really branches, were relying on the leaves that you removed to make the energy they needed to grow their biggest and fastest.
If your plant was a V8 race car at Le Mans, defoliation is like disconnecting 3 or 4 cylinders and then expecting the car to do the same lap times!
If your plant did not need those leaves, it would not have grown them in the first place.
Personally, I never remove any healthy, green, energy producing leaves, no matter if it it would be an auto or photoperiod plant, only removing the yellow leaves, for by the time they are yellow, they have served their purpose.
Just remember, -
Maximum amount of healthy green leaves = maximum energy production = maximum growth.
It is that simple, and basic plant biology too.
As you can tell, I am very anti defoliation, it serves no real purpose other than to slow growth.
Removing healthy green leaves and forcing the plant to grow new healthy green leaves seems incredibly inefficient to me, and no doubt, the plant feels the same.
Hope this helps, Organoman.
Today i measured the runoff after watering and i´m pleased to see that both plants are now in the 6.5pH range.
EC is 0.53 for the left plant and 0.68 for the right one. The left plant shows slightly burned leaf tips and an all around yellower upper foliage.
Weird, i already feared that i might have overfed the left plant when i was watering it 5 days ago with a 1000ppm solution.
Will need to think about this, i don´t want to burn the plants with nutrients.
Made one dumb mistake as i watered the plants with a leftover Biobizz PH+ solution. After i emptied the can i saw some, little moving larvae in the water which now have obviusly gone into the soil.
Hope this doesn´t bite me in the butt as flowering continues. Planted additional yellow cards into the soil.
Anyways the bud sites have kicked up trichome production and the smell in the tent has changed from herbal to earthy.
While lower fan leaves have been yellowing and some of them dying of, the upper fan leaves of the colas with good light exposure show additional dark spots, this developed in only 2 days after watering with plain water (runoff EC 0.53 / 250ppm)
Burnt tips were there before.
Hi there, Four things come into my mind.It could be one of your problems.1) phosphorous def ( purple stem and leaves).2)light burn ( top leaves which exposed to light longer than the others have this symptom.3)Run out of food ( if your run off ppm is 250, definitely running out of nutes).4)genetic ( some strain will show tips burn like nute burn.But on the other hand, they cannbilize themselves and the leaves will be turning into yellow even though you are giving enough food.Happy growing... ✌️
Cal msg them ladies. That is a nutrient lock my ladies did this at week three of flower and they straightened back out. But it’s cause of the soil ph not adding to the ph of your waters intake at root level.
Problems with the left plant are still ongoing. Feeding the plant with a 0.7 EC solution has slowed the problems down but not stopped it. I upped the Nutrients to an 1 EC / 500ppm solution now.
The right plant is living life and has no problems although i notice a slight purple/brown coloring on the very edge of younger leaves.
Both plants PH has dropped of to 5 again, probably because of the nutrients. Other than adding Biobizz PH+, which is mildly effective, i cannot do much against it.
The left plant looks bad but the flowers themself are fortunatly completly intact.
It amazes me how different they are although they are the same strain from the same package.
The left plants eats nutrients like crazy: You feed an 1 EC runoff solution and 2 days later you give them plain water and the runoff measures 0.5! At the end of flowering!
Probably the reason why the fan leaves rotted away like this, i was too conservative with the nutrients.
The right plant on the other hand really doesn´t need much and has no problems at all, just some purpling of the upper leaves and an overall yellowing.
I think i´m heading for harvest in the next days.
I took test nuggets from both plants in order to check trichomes.
It is weird how different the two plants are. The left plant´s buds are a bit bigger and denser, the smell is normal: herbal, flowery with citrus. Right plant gives slightly smaller buds with more hairs and not so dense, the smell is very different: Pretty sweet dank and skunky, i would easily think im dealing with 2 different strains if i didn´t know better.
Goenndalf
