By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
Started my new seeds this week, following crop kings recommended germination techniques. 18 hours in water then to a moist paper towel then once the tap root is about a cm long, then into the grow medium. I’m using “miracle grow” moisture control potting soil this time. My last grow used “pro mix” potting soil and I suffered from pests through the grow, so I’ve decided to try something different. I haven’t amended the soil with anything other than some slow release nematodes and have only watered with untreated water. I have the soil heat may set to 73° and the lights to about 75% power. Air temps are around 80° and the R/H is in the sixties.
Week one! Off to a great start. So far I’ve fed & watered twice as needed. With the dynomyco added directly to the soil. With the exception of #3(the runt) they are all standing about 1.5 inches tall. The light is 16 inches from the canopy and set to approx. 70% power with the PAR reading about 800-ish across the whole tent as showing with the Photone app. The soil has stayed at a constant 72-73° but hasn’t seemed to dry out too much quicker than without the heat applied. I’m wondering if I should invest in a CO2 meter, I don’t have a supplemental carbon dioxide system but I’ve never tracked it to see if I need one. I’d like to hear from anyone who uses one, have you seen a noticeable improvement? You think it was worth the investment?
Week Two! And everything’s going alright. A couple of feeds (with a bit stronger solution) separated by a neutral watering with dynomyco top dressed. The soil temps are staying right around 72°. I’ve raised the light slightly to keep the distance at 16 inches above the canopy, with the PAR readings in the 650-700 ppfd range (as measured with the “Photone” app). Due to the constant rain I’ve had to employ the dehumidifier already to keep the RH a bit more stable in the 55-65% range. The plants are still small but there’s no signs of any pests or overall stretching so no “grow techniques” have been used yet.
Week 3! And everything is looking good still, they’re a little lighter in color than last week but they were looking a little dark last week if you ask me.
The light has been raised and the power increased slightly to maintain 16” distance from the top of the canopy and A PAR of approx 800ppfd (as measured with the “Photone” app).
The soil temps are staying consistently around 73° and I believe it’s def making a difference as the temps get lower.
It continues to rain mostly so the dehumidifier has been on with the R/H in the 50-70 range dependent on the outside conditions.
This week I’ve given one feeding and one watering (with dynomyco top dressed).
They are still sitting low to the soil and minimal space between nodes so no training has been attempted yet.
I’m still contemplating a CO2 meter but I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it, even if it shows low I’m not sure there’s too much I could do to correct it given the layout of my setup… any thoughts let me know!
Week 4, was a smooth week the temperature is steadily dropping so maintaining the desired temp in the tent has been a little difficult and it’s a little lower than I’d like but steady now the less.
The plants have been growing taller and now stand between 10-12inches so the light has been raised to stay 16” above canopy and adjusted to keep the PAR at around 800ppfd (as measured w/ the “Photone” app) .
The spacing between the nodes/branches has increased. I have started “training” with LST using 90° branch clips, and a light defoliation, just some of the larger fan leaves that I couldn’t “tuck” away that were blocking off the rest of the plant.
This week had one regular feeding and one heavy watering no nutrient's (just dynomyco top dressed).
Still no sign of any pests🤞But as they grow taller with more space between the soil and leaves I will start to lay yellow sticky traps down just to be sure.
Week 5, and the flowering has started! Started this week off with a bit more defoliation and a few more stem clips to open up the canopy!… I did however forget to readjust the height and power of my light and unfortunately didn’t notice until a few days later once I had already singed the tips of some of the newly exposed leaves😞. Nothing too bad still a careless mistake on my part, the light has since been adjusted and they will recover.
I also positioned the fans higher as they were getting a little to close to the canopy.
Week5 had one watering with Dynomyco top dressed while being trained and one feeding mid week using the bloom formula now that buds are starting to develop.
The temperatures outside continued to drop and I’m having a harder time keeping the tent in the mid 70’s or higher. Perhaps it’s time to investigate a small tent heater? Last winter my old lights led lights kept the tent plenty warm but this new Mars Hydro light doesn’t put off nearly as much heat🤨. Let me know if you’ve got any good heater solutions for me.
A little late reporting on Week6! Well I went on vacation this week and left these bitches to there own devices… they survived although it got too cold while I was gone and I wasn’t able to make any adjustments. I had watered them heavily before I left for Mexico but they were super dry by the time I got back. The data logger showed that the temp durning the dark periods got down to around 50° hopefully they won’t be stunned to Badly. I made some adjustments and watered them on my return and they seem to be ok although I will have to check them throughly before I report on week 7 in a couple days. I have a supplemental heater being delivered this week which should help get the temps back in to a safer range. I will also have to defoliate a little as they’ve bushed out since I left. I’ve also been thinking about getting a small cam for the tent to set up a Timelapse shot going forward.
Well that’s week 7, it’s been a couple days since I got back and they have seemed to have recovered well after watering and an airflow adjustment. The fan has been turned down to 20% and the average temp has come up a couple of degrees. The new heater was installed today and I hope to see an nice temperature increase back to the mid to high 70’s. I had to do a slight defoliation and some additional lst to open up the canopy and increase the airflow. Top dressed with dynomyco together with an extra feeding to make up for when I was gone(hopefully). I have started to notice some purpling of some of the leaves, I have to believe it’s prob due to the extremely low dark period temperatures.
Update: after adding the new heater and setting it to 100watts, I’ve been able to maintain temps around 76-78° with the lights on and 66-68° in the dark. Not a perfect solution but def better than before.
Leaves starting to turn purple? I assume this is due to the colder temps I’ve experienced over the last week or two. As my high temps haven’t been more than the mid 70°’s and my lows have been down as low as the high 50°’s. Agree or signs of bigger issues?
Hello brethren, chlorophyll starts to degrade below 67 anything below this will start to affect growth (not harm to a point, but slow). A cannabis plant's roots can no longer effectively uptake manganese below 64 IIRC which is really bad during flowering.
If you are lowering temps to achieve "purples" you can blast it with chilling cold for 3 days of darkness before harvest to bring out the anthocyanins.
Once your buds start to ripen you are looking to switch to colder temps as more focus is put on preserving terpenes such as mycerene which starts to degrade @ just 67.
Dialing in temperatures and maintaining strict levels during different weeks of flower you can manipulate plant hormones.
nO ISSUES matey! Its takes a lot to stop a weed from growing, what we aim for is to optimize the process as best we can, with all 9 cardinal rules in harmony plants grow at a tremendous rate, it is especially helpful for autoflowers too, early stage flowering you are still nitrogen hot, burnig phosphorus hard, its all about growth right now you want ambient 77 top of canopy 86, 87 or above will start to degrade trichomes, so be careful with heights, nothing below 70 at night, full steam ahead photosynthesis.
Week eight! With the new “coop” heater hung I’ve been able to bring my temps back to the high 70’s/ low 80’s. I missed the feeding on the weekend, and plant5 is showing the effects most of all, yellowed fan leaves and dehydration😞. It has since perked back up but the damage is done…
I had to raise the light slightly when I installed the heat panel but the power was adjusted to compensate. The fans were also moved higher to help take advantage of the new heater. No training (or much of anything) was done in week 8. I will have to defoliate a lil this coming week to keep a healthy air flow.
Week number 9! We’re almost to the end and the smell is getting strong😁. A somewhat eventful week, due to high ambient outdoor R/H levels I’ve been struggling with humidity in the tent again this week.
We also had a power outage this weekend while I was away… needless to say when I got back I had a moisture issue to deal with. While dealing with the excess moisture I dislodged one of the light holders and it came down on plant number 4 breaking off one of the side branches😩 better damaging a plant than loosing my light I suppose. But anyway I dried the tent out and all the timers have been reset, and everything else seems to be ok.
I defoliated a fair amount last Friday and added a second small dehumidifier to help combat the excess moisture in the air before I left for the weekend. I was concerned about shocking them so late in the grow but they seem ok and I really needed to open up the canopy, especially with the high humidity levels right now. Mold and rot are always a concern🤨!
The listed flowering time given by cropkingseeds.com is 9-10 weeks and this is week 6 of flowering but the way they’re lookin now I can’t imagine them taking another month.
Week 10😩. Fuckin below freezing outside and I’ve been struggling with the temps all week! How I wish I didn’t have to draw air from outside… and if keeping them warm wasn’t hard enough it’s causing condensation issues on the tent walls. The light distance and intensity remains the same the RH is def lower now with the second dehumidifier in there. I lost track of my feed schedule and I believe I over fed them this week. Plants 1-4 are looking alright, 2 is a little lighter in color than 1-3&4. 5 is suffering yellowing leaves and brown spots. While watering I think I saw what looks like spider mights? Still looking into if that’s the cause, or perhaps something else maybe lockout? Anyways I have that to deal with now, why’s it always seem like these problems crop up right near the end of the grow?
Week 11 was pretty quiet. Still some struggles with temperatures but it’s not nearly as cold out this week so it’s been much better. I found what appeared to be spider mites last week, I cleaned them up and defoliated so that they don’t have as much contact with each other. And I can’t see any signs of them this week. 👍. I’ve stopped using the dynomyco this close to the end not sure if that will effect them, but I think that it’s prob done it’s job so I’ll save the rest for the next run as I’m about to start the flush on these.
Week 12 and we’re almost done! One last feeding this week and I’ve now started to flush with ph balanced water. The trichomes are starting to look cloudy! Plant 5 is looking rough but the rest seem happy enough. No changes to the light this week the heats been turned down a little as it’s warmer out now, everything is coming up milhouse!
Another solid week, no real problems. No more feedings just straight water for flushing. Most all the trichomes are cloudy I believe I should start to see some amber this week! Soon as I do I plan to drop them in to 24hr of dark with an ice water drench then it’s hanging time. I look forward to these plants, they look and smell good! Despite the problems they’ve overcome.
In anticipation of these ones coming down I’ve started to soak the Girl Scout cookie seeds I received from “garden of green” to try and avoid any lag time between runs. Just hope I’m not too early🤞
Week 14 and these have gone longer than I’d first planned for… oh well good things to those who wait I suppose!
No feeding anymore, lights distance and power level have stayed the same, environment is stable and trichomes are all cloudy but only a few amber ones. I would have expected more amber by now so I’ll leave them a few more days, but I think this will be the last update before the harvest.
There’s some nice colouring happening and so far these Maui wowie look and smell great, the carbon filter is struggling to keep it under control😁.
The last week! They’re coming down tomorrow😁 the smell great and are looking good, spotting amber trichomes now so I think it’s bout time. Gonna give them a trim and hit them with the dark for 18-24 hours then it’ll be time to hang them up.
@LimoneneLover_QC, yeah I have been enjoying crop king seeds since I’ve started with the autos. They have a decent selection and so far I've tried 6 different strains and I have some aloha autoflower to try next!
Hey, I see that you mentioned setting the soil temperature, how do you do that? I have been having a problem with slow growth because mine is at like 60.…..
Yo @smellis, I keep the soil a bit warmer because of the cool floor they sit on. I’m growing in 3.5gal felt pots and have a heat mat that is controlled by thermostat with the probe sitting in the soil about 1/3 to 1/2 way up from the floor. It supposed to help with the root growth and feel like it also helps to stabilize the temp in the dark cycle. As for 73° well that’s just what a wise man once told me… 😁
@2highforu,haaaaa ok i understand! If you put an electric ceramic heater and you wrap the exterior of your tent with insulation wool or if your shed is insulated enough you can install a calorifier or something like that but it will cost more? Idk i try to throw some ideas
@LimoneneLover_QC, unfortunately my wife isn’t cool with my tent being in the house, so it’s located outside in an unheated shed. It’s fairly well insulated but draws air directly from outside. I’ve started to look for a small heater perhaps something that can be hung up as my floor space is at a premium.
Looks super frosty and colorful, can't wait to see the final results. Keep up the amazing progress. Good luck stay safe happy growing cheers!!!!! If you have a moment please stop by my YOU DECIDE diary and place a vote
2highforu
