The Lab

The germinated seeds were placed into Jiffy Puffs. Once the seedlings sprouted about an inch, buried them in the dirt. They were a bit leggy (getting too tall) so I buried them deeper than typical into the soil and lowered light to about a foot and a half above plants and increased intensity from 50% to 80%. The Sour Kosher finally popped from seed after 5 days. Mistakenly placed seedling with taproot up and seedling down. The taproot emerged from soil then dried out. Performed surgery by opening up the jiffy puff, removed seedling and placed germinated seedling into a new jiffy puff taproot down and seed up. Hope she lives!

Tried to save the Sour Kosher by making a little green house, but no luck. So now there are three plants. I buried the sprouts pretty low to the soil because they had stretched. After lowering the light and upping the intensity, the plants stopped stretching and resumed growth as expected. Nothing too exciting this week. New leaves and slightly larger leaves than the week before. Turned the oscillating fan on this week and pointed it well above the plants. Minimal water around the plant base. Will step up the watering this week.

Growing faster by the day. Total water volume this week was 16 liters delivered half on Wednesday then half on Sunday.

We topped this week. The Gelato has a fan leaf with brown spots, otherwise growing the strongest. The soil runoff is brown while the other pots' is clear. I did not pH test the run off. The soil in Gelato pot could have been hotter than the other bags. Not too worried about this now. Do Si Dos leaves seem more droopy than the other two plants. Could be too much or too little wind - it is closest to the fan. Maybe genetics? Overall, lots of growth this week and they all took well to their topping.

Tried some training this week and broke a branch off the Gelato. Fixed with duct tape and she will grow back even stronger. The stems don't seem strong enough to be bending down, they are too thick and not flexible. No nutrients or cal mag this week, just water that had a slightly higher pH = 6.8. I think this is why the leaves are showing curling and burnt tips. Keeping a close eye on this, particularly the sour diesel. Sprayed with GrowSafe as a preventative measure for White Powder Mildew. Also, did more topping this week.

They each consumed 1 gallon of water this week and according to a soil moisture reader, they are still in the moist zone (one week later.) Noticed some fungus gnats flying around so, hesitant to give more water than that. There is some new growth leaf curling on the Gelato and Sour Diesel, which is another sign of larvae in the roots. Sour Diesel is starting to yellow on the older leaves and I believe cal mag will fix that once I am able to water. Broke a rather large branch off of the Gelato, decreasing her size by about 25%, oh well. Training this week included some more topping, defoliating lower growth and finally being able to tie down some branches

Another week of vegging. We introduced nutrients for the first time. Because Sour Diesel was getting yellow, she got the veg nutrient recipe at 50% recommended strength. She loved it and showed explosive growth. We even had to super crop the top stems by pinching and bending the stems horizontally. Gelato and Do Si Dos got water and cal mag in the beginning of the week and then their first dose of nutrients at the end of the week (@ 50% strength.) The temp has been constant but the relative humidity has been falling from 60% to low 50%. I believe this is why the required twice the amount of water more than last week. Also, sprayed with GrowSafe to prevent white powder mildew. Tested the high of the scrog that will be placed in the tent and there plants still have a few more weeks of veg to reach the desired canopy height. Hoping patience on that will lead to increased yield!

Final week of veg. Seems like a lot went on. As you can see, the canopy is virtual all even. The branches that were tied down 3 weeks ago were allowed to let go and reach for the light. In contrast, the taller and much stronger branches now became tied down. This took some work - these branches are thick and sturdy - pulling on them too much I am afraid will detach them from the trunk. That happened to the Gelato. It took a little bit of repositioning the wire garden ties everyday to achieve this. I'm happy to send them into flower like this. Speaking of Gelato. Her soil has been hot from the beginning. She has shown signs of high nitrogen levels and the run off from the pot is never clear. I purposely held off from feeding her nutrients bc of this, until this week. A day after feeding veg nutrients at 50% strength, there was yellow-browning and burning new growth leaf tips. This occurred for about 24 hrs on a few leaves then did not get worse. Next watering cycle will get only cal mag. Of note, the pH of any liquid going into Gelato has been consistently at 6.5. A few notes about the environmental conditions. According to VPD charts, the temperature / relative humidity ratio has not been ideal for vegetation. What would have improved the environment would have been the addition of a humidifier to reach about 60% RH at temps around 65 degrees F. Now, we are on to flower...

The first week after the flip. What I have been working on is bringing Gelato's soil pH up. Gelato was given water at 6.5 pH and the run off was measuring 5 pH (yikes.) After flushing with 3 gallons of water at 8 pH, the soil pH was still measuring 5 pH. The reaction the plant had tho after the flush was positive, which is to say, no more burning or yellowing leaf tips 5 days post flush. Sour Diesel and Do Si Dos were fed VEG nutrients at 50% strength ( 1.5 tsp Big Bloom and 1.5 tsp Grow Big.) and the pH of the liquid was 6.5. Everyone is looking good. Because it is only the first week of flower, "the stretch" is yet to be seen.

Week 3 of flower and things are really starting to show. All plants are girls are their buds are coming to life! I've been defoliating larger lower fans leaves that are not receiving light. Also removed inner fan leaves and small growth that will not produce much flower. Finally, I've been tying down branches to open up the plant and even the canopy. The plants were fed full strength bloom nutrients and cal mag. They each take about a gallon of liquid every 5-6 days. Maybe they could be watered more, but it is better to slightly underwater than over water.

By the third week of flower we are getting excited because we see the buds really bulk up. It is early on and we are seeing these top nodes take shape into colas. Here is the work put in this week: -Prepare each plant with 1 gallon of lukewarm water with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp of Grow Big and 2 tsp of Tiger bloom. Oh and 5 mLs of Cal Mg. -pH the water to 6.5 and pour. -Shop Vac runoff. -Before tent lights turn on at 7AM, spray all 3 plants from top to underneath to the bottom to top of soil with GrowSafe. If you don't know what it is, look it up. Here is the solution concentration: 3.75 mL GrowSafe in 1 cup of H20. This is a preventative measure ;-) Then after that it is cleaning up the lower growth on the stems. Some people call it Lollipoping. I'm leaving virtually all fan leaves above 1/3-1/2 of the way up the plant. I tightened up the plant arrangement as well by placing them in a triangle shape. I believe this will help the two plants that were living at either end of the lights (where the light might not have been ideal) closer to the center. Now each plant has an even amount of light exposer. I also adjusted some branches with foam garden wire in such a way that evens out the height and width of canopy. The sour diesel buds grew the quickest at first. The do si dos buds are stacked under a lot of leaf growth. And the gelato buds, which started out as the smallest and slowest growing, sped up by the end of the week, almost catching up to the size of do si dos's buds. Thanks for reading my post :-) -

Interesting week. All three plants were showing some serious signs of deficiencies (maybe they still do) so we flushed vigorously with some home brewed worm castings tea. Early in the week I noticed purplish brown spots on lower leaves of the Gelato and Do Si Dos. It got worse by the next day. The sour diesel also showing signs of deficiencies with yellowing lower leaves with some brown dots. After some online research, the best conclusion reached is phosphorus deficiency. The brew recipe consisted of 5 gallons H2O, 5 cups of worm castings tied in a pillow case (like a tea bag) and 5 tbs of Neptunes Harvest (2-3-1). This was left for 24 hours The brew was then mixed with plain H2O in a 1:1 mix. The mix pH was 6.5 and 990 ppm. Each plant was flushed with approx 3.5 gallons. After the plants received this, the only plant that showed improvements was do si dos. The Gelato seems to be over taken by purpling leaves, which makes me believe this is a genetic phenotype. Sour diesel buds continue to grow, and those lower leaves are still slowly dying. The good news is that all buds are getting bigger and bigger by the day. We react immediately on any signs of issues because we want the best outcome we can possibly achieve. It was fun making this home brew and switching up the fertilizers. Hopefully I am doing my best! THanks for reading the post!

It's all about that fade... finishing up week 6 of flower. We flushed last week with worm casting tea as we were fighting off what was believed to be phosphorus deficiency with possible nutrient lockout. This may or may not have been a true problem but none the less we removed any residual salt build up and dialed in a nice pH with a high P nutrient rich solution. Because of the flush, the pots did not dry out until the end of this week making it 9 days between watering. While we didn't have to do much this week besides gaze at the glory and pluck a few lower leaves, the buds did a LOT of work. Those chunkers, especially the Gelato, are getting PHAT. You may notice the beautiful hues of purple appearing on the Gelato and Do Si Dos. At first, I thought this was signs of deficiencies and on second thought I believe this is genetic, although it could be both. The Sour Diesel leaves have been yellow and developing brown spots starting with the lower leaves and working its way up. I thought the lack of mobile nutrients would be cured after the feeding - I was wrong. 24 hours later and her symptoms seemed worse. My only conclusion to this is that my pH was closer to 6.0 than 7.0. During late flower, it is suggested to aim for pH values closer to 7 because P and K more readily uptake at higher pHs. Oh well, now I know what to do next week. Thanks for reading my post!

The plants finally look improved after a feeding. This is likely bc of the higher pH of feed, 7. Note that late in flower the plants like a HIGHER pH. So when mixing those nutes, put a bunch of pH up (the blue juice for my stuff)

Buds are getting bigger and frosty. Still full strength on the bloom nutrients.

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