Phuck Macky!

I've been playing with Leaf Temp and pH this week. I have been focusing on a 81f leaf temp which is real hard to get in this Northern Climate during the winter. I have negated my air circulation in attempts to get my leaf temps up. Having the ceiling fan go in the tent was stirring the air up too well. It was raising the humidity overall so the tent was dumping the air before the air could warm up. Outside of the tent, the temps are 71f in the day and 68ish in the night. In order for me to reach leaf temps above 80f I have had to have the ambient temperature as high as 88f! Adding a dehumidifier would help but I don't have any room for it. If worse comes to worse, you will eventually see me stuff one in there. For the mean time i have been focusing on defoilliating in order to control the humidity. It has worked some what, but now I need to accesss the back half of my tent and due to ACINFINITY's designg, I have to unzip three sides to get there. So far this has been my biggest complaint with this tent (5'x5'), access to the back half is a pain. The second side that gets unzipped has my exhaust and plumbing running through it so it's a bit more of a headache. I have unions on my plumbing at this location so it's easier to address and my ducting doesn't stub in far, so I have done everything that I can think of to make this easier to do but it's still a pain in the Azz. Do to having dozens of months of observations in regards to plant health, EC levels, and pH, I have decided to adopt a new principle in regards to feeding my ladies. I have observed that my EC swings roughly .10 EC per water cycle. What I mean is, the high point during the flood cycle could be 1.93 where the low point during the flood cycle could be 1.83. Flood cycle after flood cycle this pattern will persist. If the daily pattern increases the EC in 24 Hours I believe I am on the right path. When the EC decreases in a 24 hour period I may be too weak. The deciding factor for me is what is the pH doing? I only consider changing the strength one way or another if I see a pattern in the pH. If the pH rises more than .02 from yesterday's High and lows than I have a solution that is a bit too weak. If this pH range is moving up less than .02 in the 24 hour cycle, I leave it be. If the pH drops over a particular 24 hour period by any amount, I start to add water 1 gallon at a time. I'll dilute the reservoir by 1 gallon and let a flood cycle commence, if the pH continues drop I add another gallon before the next cycle. This method lets me slowly step it down without giving the plant major swings in uptake. I will do this until the pH quits dropping or starts to rise again. This is the point that I think the plant wants for this stage of life so I have been taking notes on where these junctions are. For me this method has given me the best plant growth in three years. I also haven't had to add any pH up or down in the last 11 days. Honestly I can see in the near future where I won't be needing pH up or down any more. All of the plants are still flexible enough to be training in the scrog. I honestly thought last week that that was going to end sooner than later. I am especially glad for this since I had to remove three of the eight for being male. The stretch seems to be minimal day by day, maybe a 1/2" -1" a day.