Phuck Macky!

I have decided to continue this diary here instead of the site that it was started on. I am looking for a community of like minded growers who are open to different methods, materials, and ways. Not all sites are like this. Hopefully I can find it here, because I couldn't find it where I was. This veg cycle has been going on for 14 weeks, well beyond what it should be. I have moved to a new nutrient base feed, switched my media from coco to hydroton, installed new lighting, and have transitioned from fall to winter. Instead of keeping a deadline and ironing more wrinkles out during the next grow, I have decided to stay in purgatory veg until my unknowns were known. I have figured out what EC and how often my plants need to be fed. I have figured out where my lights need to be and have been able to keep my vpd within tolerance. Now I am just trying to get my plants to spread on their own instead of using a scrog net. When your root ball weighs as little as mine do, the plants don't want to scrog without tilting their pots. With a top feed drip system I need the pots to stay as level as possible so rough housing the plants around didn't seem like a smart choice for time management as far as my time. Now I am back pruning my growth tips in order to get the plant to shorten and bush out on its own. Once I have it to where I think it needs to be I will then go on to flower.

Welcome to week 14 of Veg. I have pruned back my plants in order to give them some more space from my lights. I am currently running my light at 50% power at 24" above top of canopy. Running it at 75% is too much for these plants. I installed 1/4" x 1/4" mesh so I can space my plants out a bit more too. The plant risers they were on were a little tippy when the plant wasn't sitting directly in the middle of it. This should also put some shade on the hydroton to help keep the algae away. Every time I think I am going to flip to flower I come up with an excuse to not to. Putting the mesh in was enough of a stresser to delay it one more time, unfortunately. I have also included some screen shots of what the software/hardware is capable of. It is quite amazing!

As you can see in the pictures I had some issues to fix before going to flower. I wish I knew exactly what it was but I believe it was a combination of the following. I believe the reservoir temps were too cold for starters at least for this strain, also the night time temps and or root temps may have been to low. I pulled my humidifier out and put a heater in its place. I also started using my pH as a tell tale guide to what EC I should be running. Prior to this I was using my EC from reservoir and from run off. Another thing I changed was my flood time. They were too short previously. I believe this was causing imbalances and lock out. Let me drill down on why I quit using EC run off to guide my strength. EC differs at different temperatures. What I mean is 2.5 EC at 69 F is different than it is at 72f. Temp and EC are relative to each other. When temp goes up, EC goes up. If you are running a constant temp than this may not be an issue but if your reservoir swings a couple of degrees each way every day, your EC will also be changing with the temp. So unless you are taking readings at the same temperature you are not getting accurate readings. If your fertigation is coming out of your pot colder than it went in it will show it's lower. Likewise if it comes out warmer than it goes in it will show the runoff being higher (Assuming that the run off without the heat comparison is neutral or close to the input value). You will see how I ran my EC all the way up to 3.5! This was way too high! This was still showing run off less than input because my reservoir temps were so cold. At this point I started to see my pH dive so I went chasing after it. Not with pH down but with weaker fertigation input. As you will see in the upcoming weeks, it has paid off.

I did it. I flipped to flower. I also had to add the scrog net back in to do it. There was no way these genetics were going to let me fill up a 5x5 without it. My intentions were to do this without the net but I realized that I needed to get to flower soon and bushing these plants out on their own was going to take way too long. My EC is down quite a bit from it's high point. I keep dilluting my nutes if she drops and hold her steady when she does the same. I've powered my lights up to 100% and I am hoping that they don't stretch too much.

I'm running near the end of first week of Flower. This week I have focused on temperatures and VPD. I turned off the ceiling fan because my temperatures were too low. This let my air temps rise a bit but wasn't the complete cure. Photontek (I'm wont' be complaining in the summer!) lights struggle to make enough heat for Northern Climate growers like me in the winter, so I have a constant seesaw battle with mother nature as she keeps fluctuating the temps outdoors. I am shooting for 70-72f in the reservoir and in the root ball and 81-82 at the leaf. I swapped out my old hygrometer for a new INKBIRD version which is extremely accurate. Anyone still running the black hygrometer from about 3-4 years ago, replace them with the new Inkbirds, and you won't be dissapointed. You are only as accurate as your instruments in the end. Up until this point I have mainly set my parameters from the top of canopy vantage point. I started noticing that those measurements were a good 10 degrees F different than below canopy. I decided to move my AC infinity sensor below the canopy to maybe equalize them out and it seems to have worked wonders. I am currently running 86.1 air temp above the canopy with 81.7ish on the leaf. Humidity is 70ish. These temps are definately where I want to be compared to where I have been previously. I wish GROWDIARIES would fix some of the weekly inputs for us HYDRO growers. Please GROW DIARIES give us an option for flood cycle duration and frequency during lights on and lights off. During lights on I am flooding for 5 minutes every hour. During the dark cycle I flood for 1 minute every 3 hours. I was flooding for 8 minutes every hour during lights on but my humidity was getting difficult to reduce and my pump running time was starting to affect the reservoir temperature. LECA has been difficult to figure out when it's 100% saturated. The odd shape doesn't guarantee the same watering every time so I tend to run the time longer to make sure everything is saturated. In the two graphs above you will see what it looks like when I find my "Sweet Spot". you can see where the pH finally steps up instead of down. I was running hot so I have been backing down with my EC daily for a while. You need to do this like you were stopping a train. If you want it to stop here, you need it to start slowing down way the f back there. My train has finally stopped after hitting the brakes roughly two weeks ago. As you can see from my pictures, not a single leaf shows any sign of nutrient burn even though I was running roughly 2.25 times hotter 2 weeks ago. It's almost like the plants slapped the wave, and I rode it perfectly. Actually, technology showed me perfectly. Thank you GroLab!!! One thing that automation doesn't have a handle on is culling. Today I located 3 plants that showed male flowers. One was Temple Kush x Zkittlez which was a bonus seed from my ETHOS grape pack purchase. No big deal. The other two males I culled were Cotton Candy Grape by Ethos. These were suppose to be female seeds so losing the space to males was heartbreaking. Luckily for me, these two plants were the two smallest in the tent. I was hoping to taste them but now the genetics are done here. I did take some clones a while back but the Cotton Candy Grape one didn't take. The bones have fallen where they may and I don't need to see anymore. Cotton Candy Grape is dead to me for now. Whether I like it or not. Hopefully none of the other seeds show male. Then there was 5.

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.

Mid week is day 21 of flower. I'll do one more leaf strip in the next few days and then I should be done screwing around in the tent with these ladies. I'm extremely happy with how the canopy filled out. Just a couple of weeks ago I had to cull 3 of my 8 and that left a void. The last leaf strip is done. I also removed the trellis netting. I am unsure if this was a good idea or not. As far as I figure, My canopy did fill the 5'x5' but it doesn't any more. Now that the scrog net is down everything "stood tall". The reason I removed it is so I could make sure that 1. I could strip everything that I wanted/needed to before everything turns woody and fragile. 2. get to my plants to make sure that no Male flowers surfaced. I did consider putting it back in but then I though of harvest time, what if one in the back is ready before the one in the front, that is gonna suck to pull out. So I left the net out. My hypothesis is that as the buds start to gain weight, the weight will get the branches to come down and spread out again. If the weight seems like it may break limbs, at that point I will apply the scrog net as more of a trellis net that will be easily removed. It's weird, two nights ago I was dreaming that I was in a panic looking for plant yoyo's. I was dreaming that my kolas were so huge that they were snapping. LOL Hopefully it wasn't a dream and it was more of a vision. I have still been feeding by my pH range. I still haven't had to use any pH up or down in the last 18 days. I have noticed that flower isn't as forgiving as veg cycle. I do have one strain that is showing leaf tip burn so I have decided drop my EC enough to let my pH rise a bit more quickly. In the flower cycle the plants seem to be more finicky with their uptake. If It's too strong they leaf tip burn within a couple of days so if you need to make changes you can't tip toe like in veg. You need to aggressively get back into range because the plant isn't going to wait for you. It's clock is ticking and it's going with or without you. After my recent leaf strip, my humidity has been lower than ideal so I will probably be putting a humidifier in shortly. I have been using the dimmer to dim my lights to 75% but I would rather have them at 100. I am looking forward to what the next 5 weeks bring so I hope you all stay with to see how this turns out. Grower's Love To You All!

I have noticed two plants starting to show leaf burn. 10th Planet and Temple Kush x Zkittlez. I have backed off on the EC and I will be seeing what some type of pH drift will do. Previously I was looking for a stagnant pH but now I want it to raise somewhat over the week. How much? That is yet to be determined. I tried to add my humidifier into the tent but then I realized that I centered my table so now it doesn't fit :( Luckily for me, turning my ceiling fan back on was all I needed to raise the humidity to the targeted 63% that I desire.

Focusing on temp, humidity, and pH.

Banging right along.

Not much to report. Dropping my EC to hit GeneralHydropinics MaxiSeries feed schedule. I will target a mid point of their recommended strength for week 8 of flower. I also snipped a bud from each plant to throw in my HerbsNow dryer for an early taste test. I started adding my PK booster later in the week. GH's version is KoolBloom Dry. The instructions on the bag differ from the calculator that I use that I found online so i decided to use the less of the two which happens to be the instructions on the bag. I hate when instructions differ like that. The ratio is 2-45-28. I will run it this week only and then use next week as my flush week. In effort to fine tune my program I am starting to start on the low end of what is recommended instead of mid point and as long as the pH still rises, I slowly raise it a little every day there after until the pH turns stagnant or starts to decline. Chasing the pH like this is difficult. Sometimes it's wont start rising until there is a decent EC. Other times it I can't get it to rise at all. All in all it seems to be working well.

loving life. Fingers crossed we finish in 10 days ish for all but probably one. Marrion Berry may need more time. She hasn't made much color yet and since I can't get to her in the back corner I don't know where her trichomes are at. She's pretty though, I'll wait for her if that is her desire. Snowcaine V2. Is getting chunky, so much that she's starting to flail about. I am trying to get away from trellis but she would be one that would benefit from it. Again, because she is located in the back corner, I have no idea where she's at. I have a feeling she'll be ready second to last. 10th Planet I'm guessing will be my biggest producer per plant. Her buds are nice long spears that don't disappear in Herbsnow dryer like the others do. Temple Kush x zkittlez has odd bud structures but something tells me she may be packed with flavor. She has showed the "long flower" trait that I am attracted to so I may just be biased. Myster Strain is the one plant I will try to re veg. She has beautiful Orange that makes her buds uniquely attractive when in comparison to the others. I hope she tastes a fraction of how she looks, if so this may be the winner of this grow cycle.

Soon to have yum yums! Myster Strain is purping up. So is 10th Planet. Marrion Berry is starting to color. Although not much at all. Temple Kush x Zkittlez better have something that I can't see. Snowcaine V2. is looking to win the "chunky girl" award and take home the yeild queen trophy. She has also stolen my "eye" from mystery strain. In the next 7 days they will start to come down! :) Gave the girls a bit of a poodle trim. Only did about half the tent due to time restrictions in my real world life. Hopefully there is enough time for the light to even them out down below. BingoBango!

Day 61 was where she fell. 112 grams of kolas and mids. 16 grams of larf. Total 128 grams or 4.57 ounces off this plant.

117 grams.

I took her down on day 66.

Day 66. Chop chop. 118 grams dry weight.

The last to stand. Marrion Berry. It's joint season again!

Trichomes still won’t show amber. It looks like they are about to start. She will fall sometime this week. She is extremely top heavy with this small root ball. I will probably rest her in a bigger pot so I don’t have to pick her up. Had to giver her the boot. Cleared out the veg tent and she can spend her last days there. Needed that 5x5 for my new batch of ladies. I never thought how big a 5x5 actually is until today when I put this girl in a 3x3. Always go big if you have to make a choice and have the option. I started her feed again. I needed to do something to trigger the trichomes to darken.

Day 83 I harvested the top half of her. I wish the trichomes had more amber but enough is enough, my patience with her has ended.