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I got these Colorado Cookies Autos as freebies on Black Friday, so I thought I'd try them out for something different. I looked at a few other diaries and I'm optimistic this will be a good crop!
Both seeds have sprouted and seem to be healthy. They went straight into the 5 gallon pots to avoid any transplant shock. Both sprouts are doing well under the cheap LED. They'll stay under this light until they can handle the Aries LED.
There's some unusual discoloration on these young leaves, they look like calcium deficiencies. I doubt that's the case, it's probably more likely from the light being so close. I'll keep messing around with the light and watering.
The orange spots on the young leaves were probably from bad PH on the water and light burn. Now that we have new leaves coming out everything seems healthy. I'm going to proceed like normal and try not to be bothered by those young leaves until I can safely remove them.
I'm beginning the weening process, or hardening off process, of the cheap LED to the FOHSE Aries LED. I plan to keep the cheap light on 24/7 still, then increasing the hours of FOHSE every couple of days.
I have completed the hardening off process and by the end of the week I'm using just the FOHSE light. There's plenty of nodes now so I'm doing some LST. These are some strong plants, they really don't want to stay down. I'm having to use multiple bonsai ties to hold down the main stems.
The LST training is going well, the plants are really bushing out. I've been increasing the Light hours, I'm just about to the full 20 hrs on/4 off that I will maintain through the rest of the grow. Now it's a waiting game and some training until the plants start to flower.
The first plant, on the left in the pictures, is clearly in flower mode. I'm calling this the first week of flower and the second plant will just be a week behind. So far so good, stay tuned for updates.
Plant number 1 is stretching and growing at a great place. Plant number 2 is definitely in flower mode now. I changed the FOHSE Aries light to Summer mode to encourage more bud growth. I've been slowly increasing the light intensity. I'm looking at DLI charts and taking my 18 hrs of light into account when I measure my PPFD at the canopy. I fried my last crop of autos, I don't want to do it again.
I finally got my Blumat watering system installed. I love the concept of the Blumats but I've been warned it doesn't work well when you water with nutrients due to clogging. My idea to prevent the clogging is to have a circulation pump to keep the nutrients suspended in the water. The plants are happy so far so hopefully this makes them even happier!
I've still been increasing the light levels every few days. My last grow never got to peak levels and I'd like to fix that this time. The leaves are starting to get less green. This seems kind of early for leaves to start losing Nitrogen and it's top leaves not bottom leaves. I'm a bit confused as to what's going on, maybe it's genetics?
I'm pretty sure my yellowing issue is linked to my watering method. I fill a 5 gallon bucket mixed with nutrients, and that lasts about 3-4 days. Over those days, I think the PH is drifting way too high and locking out nutrients. Halfway thru this week I checked the PH before I added more water and it was at 7.0. I was also diluting the nutrients by mixing (2) 1 gallon pitchers with nutrients and PH'd water then adding (2) more pitchers of water, assuming the PH was okay. Now I'll be PH the extra water and checking the 5gal bucket every few days to ensure we're in a good zone. The plants are already looking greener and happier now that I'm watering in the proper range and giving 3 pitchers of nutrient water and 1 pitcher of PH'd water. I also added an air stone to the 5gal bucket, that could be helping as well.
I think I gave them too much light and they're starting to die before they gets enough amber trichomes for a good indica effect. Or maybe this was more of a watering issuing and I need to tune the Blumats better. Either way I see all cloudy trichomes on plant 1 and plant 2 is just about there too. I'm thinking 1-2 weeks until chop time.
This strain seemed temperamental with PH and had serious leaf die back. Maybe the lights were too strong? It was also my first time using Blumat sensors for watering, and I had some white flies flying around. The real test will come after drying and I get a chance to sample the harvest.
Livewire99
