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Topped Build a soil 3.0 with worm castings from Michigan Worm Works. If you are in the market for worm castings, you can not get a better source. https://michiganwormworks.com/shop#!/Premium-Worm-Castings/c/87804455
Topped this week and defoliated to expose new growth. Trained several leaders down to push bushy plant growth. VPD between .5 and 1.0. Now weaning humidity back to 65%. Girls going crazy in Earthbox Jr. Build a Soil 3.0; PAR 360. Rain water only. Will then top with gnarly barley, craft blend and build a flower to ready plants for flower.
Earliest I ever flipped. Attempting to push the plant to flower to save the nutrients for flower when really required and to limit the amount of nutrients and top dressings required. I think I will have to top dress again in week 5 after stretch is completed. Scrogged the canopy and flipped to flower after top dressing earth boxes with Build a soil craft blend, gnarly barley and build a flower. Defoliated leaves covering bud sites. Changed timer to reflect 12 hour light cycle. Removed humidifier as earth boxes are keeping humidity up in tent to 65% RH. Noted that plants are now emptying their 1/2 gallon reservoir daily. Fastest veg I have ever had before flipping. May have to bring in a dehumidifier later in flower. Would like to keep it 55-60% RH. First time creating a grow diary... let me know if I'm missing any key info.
Top dressing with Build a Soil Craft Blend, milled Gnarly Barley and Build a Flower compost. Girl's thirst has picked up but stretching has not yet occurred. Scrog net in place and levelling canopy as much as possible. Increased lighting by placing at 100%. PAR is around 600 and due to fixed light height, plants are increasing their PAR as they grow up to light. Still defoliating to ensure bud sites are well lit. Watering as required by earth boxes. Girl's are drinking up to a gallon per day. Backup includes an unknown strain that family has been maintaining since 2009. That is the spot in front. Growth is amazing and it appears plants are happy with my previously amended soil and the BAS 3.0. Will lollypop branches under the scrog this week.
I have a grow with two earthbox jr. in a 3x3 using BAS 3.0 soil, gnarly barley, craft blend and build a flower prior to placing into flower two weeks ago. I do not use a plastic cover for the earthboxes and noted that my humidity remains around 50-70% RH throughout the day with an AC Infinity 6" exhaust fan on continuously. The media is wicking the moisture and may require me to add a dehumidifier to keep RH lower in flower. The reservoirs are emptied daily (1/2 gallon reservoir for jr.) The plant growth is extremely vigorous. I check the plants closely, and last night when the lights came on, the floor was alive with black fungus gnats. I could see them emerging from an area by the fill tube where they were just pouring out. They lined the tent floor and around the sides of the tent sitting on the edge of the floor tray. I inspect my plants closely performing maintenance twice every day and perform duties such as defoliation of leaves to prevent occluding bud sites and scrog net adjustments. I would have seen this condition and noted nothing out of the eight hours prior. I had the sticky cards and placed several in the tent. I also had mosquito bits having seen a video months ago and had purchased some in case. I dropped some in the reservoir of both earthboxes and on top of the media of my grow. I keep negative pressures in the tents to prevent a problem like this from spreading but also treated all my plants with the mosquito bits and cards. If the bits and cards are not enough, I will also include beneficial insects and nematodes to control if necessary. Any other suggestions? The cards were covered by morning, and I will replace them to continue monitoring the condition. I was incredibly surprised how quickly this issue occurred. My thought includes the amount of wicking occurring into the environment which may have led to this condition along with the subsequent replenishing of the reservoir. Thanks again for all you do. I have growing for 2 years but this is a first grow with earth boxes.
UPDATE I have been allowing the reservoirs of the earthboxes to go dry as the soil is extremely wet measured with a moisture meter. I had placed mosquito bits to the topsoil and the reservoirs to allow the bacillus inoculation to take hold in the media. I have been cleaning the tent daily as well to discourage hatched gnats from roosting on the sides of the tent floor tray. I change sticky cards daily as well and created a IPM with the mosquito bits by adding some to water and then filtering out the solids leaving some of the bacillus behind. I then applied via sprayer to topsoil and tent floor tray lightly. Noted that this killed the gnats immediately on contact. Will repeat tonight if necessary, otherwise I will wait for next hatch cycle to eradicate them as quickly as possible.
Gnats are under control as I let the soil in the earthboxes dry out. The control method of mosquito bits and yellow sticky cards combined with modifying the soil moisture was key and I will continue to monitor. Girls are stretching and I am training using the scrog to ensure I maximize my canopy. As the plants are in the back, I trained the plant to come forward to utilize the maximum light in the tent and provide light to growing buds on the colas which appears to be helping the buds to bulk up. Nice little flowers developing. I have been defoliating as well as LST to move the stems under the scrog. Things are going so well I plan to top dress again with craft blend, gnarly barley and build a flower next week to make up for nutrients spent stretching.
Gnats under control. Let earthbox mulch layer dry out and now filling reservoir once a day until plants get what they need. In the mean time, I have some leaves showing the under watering necessary to vacate the environment from gnats. Top dresses with Castings from Michigan Worm Works (https://michiganwormworks.com/),Craft Blend, Gnarly Barley and Build a Flower top dressing mulch was accomplished. May need to accomplish this again later. Stretch seems to have stopped and Buds are starting to bulk up. Need to get rid of the suckers as the earthbox jr. are small and nutrients go fast! Next time I will use the full size earthbox like the one contained in the backup tent. Added backup tent photos as I placed these in flower two weeks ago and they are progressing a little slower as there is more soil capacity in a regular earthbox. Next time I will use the plastic shower cap mulch cover to prevent moisture wicking into the tent causing humidity to be difficult to control. Backup tent uses a MarsHydro TS-1000 and it appears the plants are doing very well. Need to defoliate and cut out suckers. Also scrogged and trained to maximize canopy.
Gnats in control, and I am attempting to keep the watering up as I had to disrupt it to stop the gnats. I made two changes when it comes to watering the earthboxes. 1st was I just added 1/2 gallon twice a day as the reservoir was empty. This caused the wicking to the compost used as a top dressing in prep to go to flower. The compost was saturated which brought the bugs. The rove beetles and other beneficials in the compost, soil and castings was the source of the gnats. Now I water completely until the reservoir is dry and I only water once per day. The 2nd issue I had was relative to drying out the compost which resulted in the soil to dry out to a point where the environment no longer supported the gnat lifecycle. However, this caused the plant to experience a sulphur and calcium deficiency in the leaves. It was a deficiency of water that was cause, and I lost a bunch of roots when the earthbox dried out. New leaf growth is green as I am confident the soil has the necessary nutrients to support flowering. As many of the leaves are yellowed and dried out, I am removing those instead of leaves covering bud sites to assist later in trimming and keep air flow and light to a maximum on all bud sites.
Pretty calm week. Accomplished daily inspection and defoliated, trained as necessary focusing on the removal of suckers that will never amount to much. Buds are bulking up nicely. Odor of plant increasing. Looked at soil in earthboxes and noticed that mycorrhizae and roots are throughout the soil bed. Plants loving the BAS Gnarly Barley, Craft Blend and Build a Flower compost. Backup tent is doing great as well but believe I need a bigger light than my MH TS1000. Maybe upgrade to TS 2000 soon for this tent or perhaps an FC E 3000.
Great uneventful week. Added Insect Frass ferment to all the plants and they really liked it. Placed an ounce in all the reservoirs and the plants drank it up. Added new light and fans to the backup tent relegating the Mars Hydro TS-1000 to my clone and transplanted 10 gal. Kosher Kush outside the tents. Keeping an eye on the fading and ensuring the boxes are filled and filling them only when empty is working out well as I have not had any additional issues with gnats. Buds are smelling great and are firm and tight. So far, so good. Will be adding MIGRO UV B light to run daily for a 20-minute period due to my tent height.
Another terrific non-eventful week. Watered only when earthboxes were empty and to capacity. No sign of fungus gnats, and I think my previous watering practices are to blame. However, I had the best VPD in VEG when occurring, so next batch I may water differently in veg to keep the high humidity and vigorous growth. Buds are getting bigger in both tents. I modified the timing for the MIGRO UVB lamp to a duration of 10 minutes pr day as I noted with 30 minutes I had some trichome head ambering occurring. So hopefully less time will promote oil and resin production without burning the plants. Girls are starting to fade and edges of some leaves are turning purple. The backup tent is going strong and I fed them some insect frass ferment, horticulture coconut, yucca as a wetting agent and aloe. Put some blue gold in as well and fed to plants in both tents. My source of rainwater is defunct due to the cold and now will be using tapwater after my supply of rainwater runs out. I dimmed the lights 25% to let the girls know to finish. Perhaps, next week I will harvest tent 1!
Great week. Plants odor had gotten offensive the last couple weeks and I was happy to cut down when trichomes were cloudy with a small percentage of ambering. Cut the two plants that were in flower first. I have two more plants in an adjacent tent of the same strain as backup. Although no need for backup now, I expect the backup flowers to surpass the flowers harvested as the earthbox is bigger and no issues so far. I pushed these to flower three weeks after the initial tent and will continue to document the diary until harvested and analysis of grow and buds! First completely organic grow and turned out excellent. Will also provide trimmed weight after drying. Also fed the final feed for the girls in the backup tent. Provided some blue gold, fermented insect frass, horticulture coconut, and some yucca as a wetting agent. Moved the UV b light over to the backup tent and adjusted it to 15 minutes per light cycle. 1st tent harvest are drying in tent at 68 degrees with 50% RH. Will keep my curiosity to a minimum and allow the girls to dry in the dark cool environment. 2nd tent is 2-3 weeks behind. Provided some insect frass ferment in reservoir. Girls are drinking as I placed 2.5 gallons in the earthbox 3 days ago. Trim weight is 233 grams. Not the biggest, but the best I have grown. Can't wait for the second tent in a little over a week.
Placed the last Kosher Kush in the open tent made by the harvest and drying. After placing the "bush" into the tent and adjusting the PAR (450) and adjusting the timer of the light for VEG, I trained to open up the plant and allow air and light in. I FIP 4" of growth to allow for a shorter plant and to push new tops from the trimmed branches. Watered prior to placing in tent and training with water, Recharge, Horticulture Coconut, Yucca as a wetting agent and some aloe vera. Put some EM 1 beneficial microbes as well to get everything going. Plant is in a ten gallon grow bag. This should be fun! Will use tent that is currently in flower to dry after harvest in a week or so...
A great week! Accomplished harvest of two plants which came to 233 grams. Not the biggest, but the best so far I have grown. These girls continue to beef up and have a healthy thirst as I replace the water every three days (2 gallons). I also use the MIGRO UVB light mid light cycle for 15 minutes. The girls are starting to change color. I see sugar leaves are turning purple. The Bracht/Calyx are starting to puff out on each flower. Crazy flower development! I really like the amount of trichomes, getting frosty! I have huge hopes for these girls! Will keep looking to determine best time to harvest. Now for the last of the five seeds that I purchased.
One lonely girl has been sitting it out on the sidelines waiting her turn patiently. I placed her in the space vacated by the harvest and FIM'd at least 4" of growth on her, before accomplishing some LST to open her up. I placed some barley straw at the base and watered it in. She is in a10 gallon grow bag and I plan on watching her closely as this is my first soil amended mix. She loves it so far, and appears to be growing very quickly after just one day in the tent. I plan to allow her to VEG for 2 weeks before I flip to flower. This will allow me to use a tent for harvest/drying before needing a new space for my upcoming plans.
Great week. Girls finishing up and taking longer to drink. Checked trichomes and this plant is ready with mostly cloudy and a spattering of amber. Will harvest tomorrow morning and will provide weights and measures after harvest. Will dry in tent without light and offset circulation. Will keep tent naturally at 67 degrees. I will need to assist with humidifier to get humidity to around 60 RH. Perhaps a wicking cloth in a bucket? Just thinking out options.
Update: Cut down the girls and hang them up to dry. Great thick hard buds. Can't wait to see what they smoke like, but it is going to take time to dry. Thanks to everyone that helped to make this a successful harvest. I will weigh the harvest before starting cure after a closer trim.
Harvest went as well as grow with no issues. Hung plants up to dry after removing fan leaves. Great smell and trichome development is great. Previous harvest sparkles like glitter. Great tasting bud as well! High in THC. Love it!
MarcGrows
