Sage Scout // Night Owl // RDWC

Sept 4 - Sept 10 So to start this grow, I was out of power for 3 days due to a tornado, but I was able to run the generator to power the dome, heat mat and T5's. Light schedule was a bit sparatic because I had to use the generator for other things, but overall they did well. As soon as power was stable, I transplanted the plants in rapid rooters directly into 8" current culture net pots with clay pebbles right into RDWC system. Water level was 2" under net pot with air stones misting the net pot bottoms. Not going to top feed as I feel the misting will be suffcient. If root growth is slow, I'll begin to top-feed if necessary.

Sept 11 - Sept 17 The environment is stable. Focusing on a warm humid environment. I added a heater for the lights off because we had some cool nights. I increased the HLG 300 Rspec from 25% to 50% strength and 30" from plants, and the T5's 6" from the plants. PH rising up to a 6.8 early week, but I don't care because of AN PH perfect. Once the roots are established the PH will stabilize. The roots are just starting to show out of the net pots at the beginning of the week and then grew into a long tap tentacle by end of the week. Exactly what we want!

-------------------------------------------- Week 3 // Sept 18 - Sept 24 -------------------------------------------- Plants are doing as expected for early growth. I was hoping to perform first top on the plants this week, but they just need a bit more growth for the best recovery and less chance of stunting. Timing the toppings is crucial with autos. - Roots are doing well. The colour on the roots in the pic is not root rot, it's just nutrient stain. - Removed the T5 lights and have increased the dimmer on the HLG 300 V2 Rspec at 100% at 24" - Bumped ppm up to 400 from 260 over the week.

-------------------------------------------- Week 4 // Sept 25 - Oct 1 -------------------------------------------- The plants are pretty much revving their engines this week! - Roots are filling out nicely. A bit more nutrient sediment, but I'm confident it is not root rot. It is a gritty, dirt-like substance, not mushy and smells like fresh spring salad. - Plants are reaching past the edge of buckets now. - Water temp swings between 66F when lights are off to 70f when lights are on (end of light cycle) - I've bumped the nutrients up again to 500, then a bit more to 550-ish PPM at end of the week. - Topped both plants at node 3. Hopefully, they will let me execute my plans for mainlining them before day 30. - I'm still giving Microbial Mass every two weeks, Orca every 3-4 days and Z9 once a week to keep the system clean. Hard to believe this is week 4 and I'm just doing the first top. I have a feeling these plants are going to have an extended time for veg/stretch.

-------------------------------------------- Week 5 // Oct 2 - Oct 8 -------------------------------------------- - VPD, ambient air (78F), and water (68F) all in perfect ranges. - I've bumped the nutrients up again to 500, then a bit more to 550-ish PPM at end of the week. - Topped both plants again, two toppings per plant for a mainline setup. I haven't seen a pistil yet. - Focused on training the mains. - Finished up cleaning away the lower growth over several days to help ensure the plant doesn't stunt. Every day (and hour) matters with auto flowers. - I expect they will be bushing out real soon. - Note on PH, I'm using the Advanced Nutrients PH Perfect line which allows plants to uptake between 2.0 and 8.0 as if they are in perfect range. I've learned not to worry about the PH and let it ride, the roots will create their own ecosystem soon and stabilize the water system. - I still have not done a single water change (see the beginning of the diary for reasons).

-------------------------------------------- Week 6 // Oct 9 - Oct 15 -------------------------------------------- There were a lot of developments this week. - I found first white pre-flower pistil on Sage #2 (left) - Hard to believe it's week 6 and I'm just seeing the pistil. I almost feel like I could have done a third top. - VPD, ambient air (78F), and water (68F) are all in perfect ranges again. - PH slowly dropping on its own as roots continue to innoculate the system. - Bumped up to the 600 ppm range early in the week, and pushed it up around the 680 ppm range by end of the week. - Plants are starting to drink. Topping off with about 1L RO water per day and intaking about 5ml-10ml of base nutrients per day. - Continuing to focus on training the mains. - Sage #2 seems a few days behind Sage #3 (right) in terms of vegetative growth even though it first showed the pistil. - Moved LED to Sage #2 and added the CMH light over Sage #3 (right). - Turned up the exhaust/intake fan speed one setting to equal out the additional CMH heat keeping tent at 78F. I left the heater in the tent for lights off to keep the 72F temp. - Due to the rise in lights on temps because of the second light and exhaust/intake increase, the RH was too low and one humidifier couldn't keep up beyond 50% RH. - I added an additional humidifier, so now I have two humidifiers running off of one Inkbird humidity controller to keep the proper VPD for the best growth possible. -The air roots are climbing around on the inside of buckets. Much more rigorous than the last run. - I'm still giving Microbial Mass every two weeks, Orca every 3-4 days, and Z9 once a week.

-------------------------------------------- Week 7 // Oct 16 - Oct 22 -------------------------------------------- Development of the week: I heard a noise coming from the waterfall pump, so I investigated. I was surprised to find that the roots from Sage #2, climbed through the 3" PVC elbow drain, into the reservoir and actually went into the pump. I had this concern but didn't expect it before flowering. I have a screen for the intake bulkhead for the pump, but it slows down the water distribution so I hadn't put it on yet. Not only did I have to pull the roots back through the drain but also out of the pump wheel which was about the size of a chunk of hair about 10" long. - Plants noticeably going into stretch mode. I did some heavy training on them but I suspect the next two weeks will be time-intensive. - Plants are getting big enough now to humidify the tent; I switched out the heater with a dehumidifier as the RH during lights out was climbing based on transpiration from plants. - Added SCROG net. - Supercropped where applicable for an attempt at an even canopy. - I broke one branch super-cropping, was barely attached. Fixed with honey, tape, and a nail as a splint. It'll pull through. - Some minor defoliation on the inside of the branches toward the canopy. - Plants are noticeably drinking more daily. - Added top-off bucket - Typically, I'll only be feeding RO water through top-off bucket. This top-off system is important to keep the water level exact and limit the chances of drowning air roots and promoting root rot.

-------------------------------------------- Week 8 // Oct 23 - Oct 29 -------------------------------------------- - Spending lots of time training the plants using LST and some HST with supercropping clips to redirect the branch growth. - Defoliating daily for light penetration and airflow optimization. - They've already popped through the screen and lots of stretch to come so I added a second net just in case. Once they stop stretching, I may remove the second net if it doesnt seem applicable but I've found its a good idea to have in place as a contigency. - I've been pushing PPM up just abover 700 and it goes down throughout the day as expected. - They are drinking about 4L water and 20ml of nutrients per day, sometimes more. - Still using veg-based nutrients during the stretch. Iill switch to bloom nutrients once the stretch slows down. - System is still using original water from the initial system fill. The water smells like fresh salad. - 1st water change will likely be next week when the stretch slows down. I'll switch to bloom nutrients to avoid N toxicity.

-------------------------------------------- Week 9 // Oct 30 - Nov 5 -------------------------------------------- - More training and defoliation.....every day! - Sage #3 (right) is growing at a faster rate and has always seemed ahead of Sage #2 (left) - I should note, access to Sage #3 is easier due to the orientation of the tent in my room. I find myself training this plant more when I have a few spare moments which may contribute to its performance. The access to Sage #2 is cumbersome, which I'm finding myself neglecting her at times. - Lolipopped most of the growth below the screen. - They are still eating up 20ml a day on veg nutrients and growth is insanely fast hour by hour. I'll be changing the water for the first time with bloom nutrients any day now. - Top off bucket is keeping the water level so the plants are serious about thriving right now. - Note: Need to fill fewer pebbles in the net pot next time when using visor: The trunk is getting super fat and the clay pebbles are rising and the visor is bulging out. - The stretch is slowing down, but Sage #2 has some catch-up still to do.

-------------------------------------------- Week 10 // Nov 6 - Nov 12 -------------------------------------------- - Changed out the water for the first time this run; - Switched to bloom nutrients and set to a PPM of 700. - Mixed water change in flexitank with Rhino and AN Bloom Coco and added to the system. - Added microbial mass to the system a few hours after the water change. - I did not notice any stunting after the water change which is great! - PH settled in at a healthy 5.8 after the water change. - Intentions of increasing into the 800 range if they will allow it. - Roots maintenance, they weren't clogging any drains. - Plants showing a slight calmag deficiency but I'm not going to treat it yet. AN bloom should have plenty of calmag. - Eased in AN Big Bud and B52 regiments with some light doses of each. - Added some Orca mid week. - Removed the second net, the stretch really slowed down, and I feel they were fine with one net, Many popped up through the second net, but not too many were tall enough to weave the second net. - My environment on the shores of Lake Huron is getting cooler and drier as winter approaches. - More daily defoliation this week to keep airflow and light optimal....and some minor training. - I expect them to grow a few more inches this week, then start stacking. - Smell is definitely picking up.

-------------------------------------------- Week 11 // Nov 13 - Nov 19 -------------------------------------------- - Bud building and flower stacking this week! - Smell has increased! - Minor LST to pull the buds apart where possible. - The ambient air in the room has dropped to 35-40% based on the cold weather settling in, which is great for the intake. - After removing the humidifiers, I ended up putting one back in the tent. Hooked it up to the Inkbird controller to bring it up from 38% when lights are on to 46% for a better VPD target. - Dehumidifier isnt picking up much moisture this week due to the optimial RH outside the tent and the T6 exhaust fan on 8 speed. - I'm dropping the RH to 38% during lights off, but I have to slow down the exhaust fan speed to keep the desired RH and temp (heat produced by dehumidifier) in the tent when lights are off due to the cold temps outdoors. - Some light defoliation for airflow, but there is one branch on Sage #2 in the back that is essentially a softball at the base of it. I'm undecided if I should pop a couple of buds off for the sake of airflow even though.... my RH is pretty dry as is. Yes...undecided. - PH has been bouncing between 5.8 and 5.6 on its own. - I bumped up the PPM to 950 this week as they seem to want more. I'll top out for a week then start reducing for the wind-down. - The PPMS are dropping about 100-130 points every day. - Top-off bucket is maintaining the water level. - I'm still adding Orca every few days and Z9 once a week to keep the system clean. - I am starting to notice Sage #3, which has been ahead of Sage 2 from the start, is starting to yellow. I say its attributed to fade and minor PK deficiency. - I'll switch from AN Big bud product to the more potent Overdrive at the end of the week for helping the flowers swell up and fix the PK issue. - Following through with my experiment of not changing water. The only water change the entire grow was when I switched to bloom nutrients. Water smells like spring salad, i haven't seen any signs of root issues, but I'll give them a good look when harvesting.

-------------------------------------------- Week 12 // Nov 20 - Nov 26 -------------------------------------------- - Just taking pictures and waiting for the buds to swell until we get to the finish line. - 90% of pistils have turned orange and curled in. - The plants have grown slightly in height and starting to swell and fill out. - Switched from AN Big Bud product to AN Overdrive for the last couple of weeks. Giving 15ml every other day in my 40L of water current. - Ambient humidity outside of the tent has been 38% so I ended up adding a humidifier back to the tent to get it to proper VPD. - Snow is falling in the Great Lakes, so cold nights are bringing down the temps during lights off. - Environment is well within VPD ranges. Averaging 74f / 43% RH when lights are on and 65f / 37% with lights off. - They've slowed down on eating and drinking, I'm only giving 15ml every other day now, whereas they were still eating 20ml daily early last week. - Don't be fooled, I'm still adding water to the top-off bucket daily. - PH is still fluctuating between 5.6 and 5.8 naturally on its own - I pushed 950 ppm last week at peak of bud stacking with the intention of letting them eat their way down to the 750 ppm mark as they wind down; 750 ppm will be the target from now until harvest unless the plants tell me otherwise. Solution is dropping about 50ppm each day with alternating between bloom and overdrive. - Trichomes are still clearish, but the base of the trichomes started to go milky, I'll be checking them daily. I expect to harvest within the next 10 days.

-------------------------------------------- Week 13 // Nov 27 - Dec 3 -------------------------------------------- - Finishing this week on Day 90, still a bit longer to go for my preference. - By the end of this week, the trichomes on both plants are mostly cloudy, but not fully milky yet. - Sage #3 yellowed up pretty good now. fade? maybe but there is necrosis happening on top leaves as well). At first, I assumed it was calmag deficiency on sage #3 because it started weeks ago and it was only occurring on one plant and only on the tops mostly. The undergrowth is pretty green still. - Sage #2 seems to be fading to purple, but we will see if it goes yellow this week, but to be fair, it was always a bit behind Sage #3. - I'm suspecting salt build-up due to my experiement with the full-cycle single water change. Its possible, but I'm only seeing one plant affected atm, which points to a deficiency. - I'm still alternating 10ml Bloom and 15ml Overdrive with a target of 750 ppm each day. For example, once the top off drains and the reservoir gets down to the 700ppm value, I add a dose directly to the reservoir. - The single water change theory has been working great. The PH has been very steady. PH naturally bounced between the 5.4-5.6 range all week. I suspect the PH dropped a bit due to me dosing nutrients much less often despite the RO water being used for top-off being in the 6.4 range. I may change the water mid-flower next time around due to suspected salt build-up. - FIlling the top-off bucket with about 2 gallons per day. - The reservoir smells great - no questionable odors.

-------------------------------------------- Week 14 // Dec 4 - Dec 10 -------------------------------------------- - Dec 10th puts us at day 96 from seed and everything is going smoothly for the most part - but they still need to mature a bit more. - i'm definitely seeing the difference in the phenos; one plant going yellow and another is going purple. - Sage #2, the smaller plant, really hasn't shown me any issues and is fading out to purple and still looks great today. - Still running beneficials and enzymes: Microbial mass every two weeks and Orca twice a week and Z9 once a week. ​- Plants are eating and drinking as top off is dropping daily and PPMs dropping as a result. - I'm still alternating Overdrive (15ml) and AN Coco Bloom (10ml) and shooting for a high target of 750ppm each dose. - I'm giving a dose at about the 690ppm mark. The dose brings ppm back up to 750ppm. I've been doing this daily with a top-off bucket with plain RO maintaing the water level. ​- I'm checking trichomes daily, just getting milky now on the calyxes (bracts). But, I'm still not seeing much amber yet and still lots of clear trichomes on the lower growth. - Sage #3 leaves are getting pretty brittle. The RH is way too dry for a rust fungus issue and would have spread by now to the other plant (Sage #2) I'd imagine. I don't know if it was salt build-up or calmag deficiency in early flower with a combination of nute burn, but now I'm leaning toward nutrient burn and CMH light burn even though it was the bigger plant of the two. Sage #2 doesnt have any issues. Balancing the needs of two phenos in RDWC can be challenging. - I'll admit I did push the ppms for a bit of tip burn, but it is weird why the bigger plant would burn if that is the case. - Either way, the upper sugar leaves have on Sage #3 are rusty, breaking off, and brittle on the top of the flowers. I need to figure it out so I can correct it next time. Plenty of PK between overdrive and bloom, calmag really isn't needed in late flower so the deficiency shouldn't have progressed if it was a calcium or magnesium issue in the early flower. - RH is dry enough I'm not too worried about any rot and trying to clean up any dead leaf matter when i see it. - I'm not rushing anything for the sake of harvest, but I do need these plants need to finish up... I'm worried I may in trim jail on Christmas after a 10 day dry. - Expecting to harvest any day, but who knows at this point could be another 10 days until mostly milky and I feel the THC content is optimal. Thanks for checking out my diary!

-------------------------------------------- Week 15 // Dec 11 - Dec 17 -------------------------------------------- - Ending this week on Day 106 - Simply checking trichomes this week; Taking photo samples from tops, lower canopy. - As of the end of week 15, the trichomes are looking pretty good. Going for mostly milky on mid-lower growth. - Estimating I'll probably harvest middle next week - meaning I won't be trimming on Christmas - but probably after the New Year....which I'm okay with. Thanks for checking out my grow!

######################################### HARVEST (Day 110 / December 21) ######################################### ----------------------------------------------------------- GROW SUMMARY ----------------------------------------------------------- Grown in 4x4 tent - but I only used 2x4 because of heater and dehumidification but each plant averaged a 2x3 canopy. Each plant had a dedicated light, Sage 2 used the HLG 300 V2 Rspec and Sage 3 used the CMH 315. It's not an accurate comparison of lights because there was some overlap but I'm just utilizing my resources the best I can for this dedicated autoflower tent. The plants were grown in hydroponics using a custom two-site PA hydroponics clone RDWC system with Advanced Nutrients Sensi Coco line, Microbial Mass and Orca for beneficials. All around a pretty easy grow and things went very well. Sage #3 had an issue just after stretch, and I think I burnt it a bit when the CMH was at 22". I also experimented with a single water change which was only performed when switching to bloom nutrients around week 7 and turned out surprisingly well - see the results below. It's always fun to see the two contrasting phenotypes side by side. ----------------------------------------------------------- HARVEST ----------------------------------------------------------- From day 106 to day 110, I just stopped feeding and let the ppms run down. No dark period and no flush. On day 110 they were chopped. I probably could have let them go a bit longer, but my concerns were growing with Sage 3 and the sugar leaves being brittle and flacking off onto lower buds promoting bud rot. The smell of this flower on the plant was funk and was hard to control the funk... even with a carbon filter. Trichomes are slightly amber, mostly milky overall. I'm convinced hydroponics can add a couple of weeks of veg time to the run compared to coco/soil. Cutting the Scrog net was required. ----------------------------------------------------------- DRYING ----------------------------------------------------------- The plants were dried in a 3x3 tent, so I had to cut the plants in 1/4 sections to fit in the 3x3 drying tent for a slow dry. Branches were hung to dry on burlap twine in a tent in complete darkness, branches upside down. The temps were dialed in at 60F by pointing AC at the intake vent on side of the tent. Humidity was dialed in at 63%/60F for 24hr, 62%/60F for the next 48hr. Then 60%/60F for the third day and onward. Ambient RH in my house is 30% due to winter so I had to use two humidifiers and an Inkbird controller to add humidity to the room and block the humidity streams from hitting plants directly. AC Infinity T6/S6 exhaust and intake fans were on the setting of '2' during drying until day 8, then I could turn down to a setting of '1' once the plants were not transpiring excess moisture. I pulled the branches to trim as they were ready around starting around day 12. ----------------------------------------------------------- TRIMMING ----------------------------------------------------------- I trimmed each branch as it was ready but there were times when I pulled more than I could trim without being interrupted so a few branches did overdry on my trim table due to the low ambient RH due to winter. Very few fan leaves on branches, so most trim was all sugar leaves. I went tight with trim to ensure a better flower product and more supply for edible totaling in over 11 ounces of trim product. ----------------------------------------------------------- CURING ----------------------------------------------------------- Flower product was transferred to 1L mason jars averaging 35g of product per jar. I added a mini hygrometer to each jar and boveda/boost 8gr humidity pack. The RH averaged 62-64% when trimmed flowers went in jars. I started by burping once a day for the first seven days, once every other day for the next seven days, rolling jars often. The burp was only for 3-5 second for air exchange. Because the flower product was already at almost 62% when packaged in jars, quite the contrast from drying in summer conditions, I only needed to burp once per day and mold really wasn't much of an issue due to low humidity in winter. ----------------------------------------------------------- YIELD ----------------------------------------------------------- * Weight calculated at 62% humidity after 10 day cure. ============================== FLOWER PRODUCT ============================== Sage 2: 301g (10.75oz) Sage 3: 377g (13.46oz) ---------------------------------------- Total: 670g (23.93oz) ============================== TRIM PRODUCT ============================== Sage 2: 204g Sage 3: 135g ---------------------------------------- Total: 327g (11.67oz) **I went tight on the trim for better flower product and sufficient supply for edibles, and is calculated in overall yield. ** All major fan leaves, stems, and branches removed from trim product. ============================== TOTAL OVERALL YIELD ============================== Flower: 678g (24.21oz) Trim: 327g (11.68oz) ---------------------------------------- Total: 1005g (35.89oz) (2.24lb) ============================== SPACE YIELD ============================== 1005g / 12 sqft (3x4 canopy) = 83.75g per sqft ============================== WATTAGE YIELD ============================== 615 Watts / 12 Square Foot (3x4 canopy) = 51.25 watts per sqft. 1005g / 615 watts = 1.63 grams per watt ----------------------------------------------------------- PRODUCT TEST ----------------------------------------------------------- On day 10 of cure, I tested the flower and passed some to a few friends for their input. Feedback was positive. One little bud was given to a friend and he reported it stunk his entire car. Sticky, trichome-covered fire! Smoke is smooth, no cough. White ash. The 60/40 (sativa/indica) is a blend that is on point. Sage Scout definitely is a heavy hitter; upwards of 3.5 hour noticeable head/body change with no couchlock at the end. In regards to flavor and smell, it's not fully there yet on only day 10 of cure. The flavors/scents are still muted but I expect the flavours to prevail after 6-8 weeks of curing. Very funky and strong smell that bursts past the mason jar lids. Piney sweet scent. ----------------------------------------------------------- REGRETS ----------------------------------------------------------- Honestly, I only have two regrets with this run. 1. More aggressive lolipopping! I just feel if I had lolipopped more, I would have had a denser product overall. The flower product is indeed dense, and all in all, I'm happy with the result, but it's I'm adding as a reminder for the next run. I need to be more selective. 2. I slacked on the training of Sage #2 due to the hard-to-reach factor which probably affected about additional 1-2 oz of yield. ----------------------------------------------------------- NEXT RUN ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. I’m was very happy with Microbial Mass product in combination with Orca. Once again, I was overall happy with Advanced Coco blend for RWDC. I went with Coco product because Coco is similar to hydroponics, the AN Coco line just has added Calmag to it. I didn’t really see any issues with the AN Coco line and I like the autonomous factor of AN sensi products because my photoperiod tent takes some of my attention, so it is nice to have this autolower tent on auto-pilot for the majority of the grow. 2. When harvesting, I did find a few spots of concern in the root system, so I will definitely upgrade the pump from 250gph to a 400gph for better flow to combat that issue. 3. My experiment with a single water change when switching to bloom nutrients was a surprising result. Sage 2 (purple pheno) performed well with no deficiencies which I had trouble sorting out the deficiency on Sage 3. I continue to wonder if it was salt build-up, but it seemed to start shortly after the change to bloom nutrients so maybe it was a nitrogen/calmag issue. I may add an additional water change mid-flower (week 11) to the next run and see if it makes any difference is the same conditions happen. 4. I'll also like to move the two-site system to the front of the tent for better accessibility to train the plants. 5. I'm also looking at the floorplan of the tent and I think I can run a single system in parallel next to this two-site system and still have room for heater/dehumidifier and still keep accessibility for training. ----------------------------------------------------------- FINAL THOUGHTS ----------------------------------------------------------- Night Owl genetics has performed once again in my RDWC setup. I also feel a dedicated light for each plant really helped improve the yield. If I calculate a 2x3 space for each plant, with a total of 615 watts / 12 sq ft, running at 51.25 watts per square foot is the result. In regards to gram per watt, I've calculated the result is nearly 1.63 gram per watt when using 1005g / 615 watts. My goal was a pound per plant, I was happy to exceed that goal line with autoflowers with 2.24lb total yield. ----------------------------------------------------------- THE END ----------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for checking out my diary! I typically journal in my notebook but I put some time and effort into documenting my grows on this platform in hopes it will help a new or experienced grower with their DWC journey. Any questions or suggestions are welcomed. Happy growing!