'Gertie' Girl Scout Cookies Auto

Jan 17 (day 29): Start of week 5. Another new week and I'm in pre-flower 😃 so going to add this as a flowering week. Very exciting, but also scary as I know flower is when the issues can occur 😰 She's looking fantastic, lots of growth on all fronts and responded well to the LST. Jan 18 (day 30): Looking very thirsty today, so have fed her 1L of water and week 2 of the BioBizz schedule. However, as she has gone into pre-flower, I am substituting the Fish Mix for Bio Grow. Last grow I had an email from BioBizz advising that for autos, I should only ever use 1ml of Bio Grow per litre MAXIMUM. It seemed to work well for Orla and Wanda, so am going to continue with that advice. I will start them on bloom nutes once the flowers are a little more established. I also think I need to up the watering to every two days now as she is dry on day 2 and looks pretty sorry for herself on day 3. Tinkered with the LST. Turned light up to 60% as no signs of heat stress and going into flower. Jan 19 (day 31): Looking happier after yesterdays feed. More growth and the branches I have done LST on are growing now they are getting more light. Flowers have established themselves now and are growing bigger and opening out. She's a beauty thats for sure! Jan 20 (day 32): Looking very thirsty again today, so I am definitely going to move to a 2 day watering schedule. Fed her 1L of water and week 3 of the BioBizz schedule with added dose of microbes and Calmag. I am starting her on the bloom nutes now as the flowers are a little more established. I do feed nutes every watering, but as they are organic this seems to work well and just maintains the microclimate. She's only watered 3 times a week anyway and it seems to be working for now. Tinkered with the LST. Turned light up to 70% as no signs of heat stress. Have turned off the humidifier and set the dehumidifier to 50% as I need to drop the RH in the grow room now as she is in flower. Jan 21 (day 33): Looking good today and the branches are really shooting up now they have access to more light. Flowers are getting bigger and she seems happy enough with the increase in light and decrease in humidity. Increased the light to 80%. Looking happier from her feed yesterday too 😎 Jan 22 (day 34): Looking happy today and ready for her next feed. Fed her 1L of water and week 3 of the BioBizz schedule. I have also decided to defoliate her a bit as she is coming into flower. She has a lot of foliage which is blocking light to the lower branches and likely restricting air flow. I know there is a lot of conflicting information on whether to do this to autos as it can stress the plant, but two of my last plants benefitted from it and were fine. I have been gardening for many years and autoflower or not, she will putting a lot of energy into keeping those leaves alive when it could be going into her flowers instead. I took off a lot of the lower fan leaves and others that were blocking light to the plant. I also took off some of the lowest branches that were starting to grow. As they are so low, they won't get a huge amount of light and will be very small flowers. I would rather that energy go into her main flowers. I also did this with my last two plants and she ended up with huge colas. I have kept the leaves and put them into a grove back to use at a later date. I was also advised by a friend that its good to place the leaves on top of the soil, an inch away from the main stem to keep moisture in the soil and allow the nutrients from the leaves to go back into the soil. She looks very different now and her leaves are drooping a bit, so I cant help but worry that I have done the wrong thing. However I know the science makes sense. I have turned the light right up to 100% as she seems to be coping with daily increases. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Stress level 5/10 😐 Jan 23 (day 35): End of week 5. Very relieved to say she has perked up really nicely post her defoliation and I already have growth on the new flowers which are benefitting from all the extra light and airflow. I did forget how much bloody heat the light kicks out when at 100% though! The temperature has increased from 22C to 26C. I have dropped it back to 90% and increased the humidity to 60% to compensate for the extra heat. Not surprisingly she is thirsty, so fed her 1L of plain PH balanced water. Exiting the week 16.5 inches tall, so has grown 4.5 inches this week. Another good week with lots of green growth and flower development. Been brilliant to watch them transition into flower. NOTE: Nutrient amount is the total amount of nutes given during the week.