2) Barney's / Wedding Cake Auto / Micro

Runoff ECs of 1.5 as compared to 1.1 input. Once again, I was there wondering why runoff ECs go up so much during flower for me (everyone?). Then it hit me. When I'm in veg, runoff ECs are usually under input ECs, but during flower the opposite happens. But during veg, humidity levels are hovering around 70%+ most of the time and the outtake fan blows less than in flower when I'm running humidity levels at 50% or less if possible. Therefore, water evaporates more from the pot in flower stage than in veg stage due to lower humidity and higher wind. Water processed by the plant eats nutes from the pot. So if humidity levels are high enough, evaporation from the pot will be low. Runoff EC levels will be low. Water removed from the pot thru evaporation, however, leaves excess salt behind in the pot - thus these rising runoff EC results in flower, caused by relatively low humidity. Has me wondering if using fabric pots is wise after all? Maybe a good plastic pot keeps your water where it belongs and your salt levels lower? Worth thinking about. But does this also mean that high runoff EC just means you need to increase your watering frequency? Or watering amount? Or include some FloraKleen flushes periodically? Do periodic low EC flushes? Would automatic watering mechanisms be better? This might also explain why I end up with early red pistils with both of my grows. Last time, it could have been general stress as well, but this time, the ONLY sign of stress is the red pistil situation. I read somewhere this can be caused by soil (coco) pH problems. A pot with rising salt levels might create changing ph levels too, maybe? Well I'm watering twice a day. It's all I can afford to do. That's the constraint. Need to think about this. And who knows how important this all ends up being, anyway. I'll think about it after the grow is done. I have one more fabric 2 gallon to get through anyway. Might as well finish the pack, right? 😂 As you can see, I spun the plant around 180 degrees, You can see the LST of the main branch. Strong biceps on that branch, let me tell you. Spinning her around like this changed the angle of attack of the water stream I hit her with at feeding by 180 degrees too. I was hoping that helped loosen up salt patches by creating new runoff channels in the coco. In an effort to avoid heat stress, (around Day 60-65 is when this started to happen with my last grow) I changed the light cycle to 16/8. Going with the theme of the grow - to serve as a test of several aspects of growing that I was curious about. As the week ended, I was able to get runoff ECs to stabilize at about 80 points above input EC rather consistently. It's a possible combination of things that led to this result. The 180 spin of the pot was one. The low EC flushes I did early on in the week was another. The reduction of CALMAG in my feed was another possible one. And an increase in feeding amount was another. Was feeding twice per day as usual - 1.2 Liters per feed at about 1.15 EC/6.2 ph times two. Before this week, though, I was putting in 1L then 1.2L (so 200ml less per day) with rising runoff EC. The first feed of 1.2 L would now give me 700 ml runoff (58%) but it was an important morning flush that rendered runoff EC at say, 1.21 EC. Then I would do the same amount, 1.2 L, at night with similar stats. But then got runoff of 400ml (33%) at a similar runoff EC of 1.21, say. Anyway, I was glad this seemed to be working. Was aiming for 35% to 60% runoff using the same amount of feed the trick to stable pot/salt management? Checked trichs for the first time on the top cola on Day 69. Saw lots of cloudy trichs. Many clear. Few amber on sugar leaves. But the plant was telling me she wasn't close to ready for harvest. Many white protruding pistils up and down the plant. Buds growing nicely tho - beautiful and frosty - and fast. My guess at the time was that she would be done around Day 84 - like a normally grown autoflower. LOL. Have a great grow day!