White Widow First Hydro Grow

Week 2: We had 5/5 seed germinations 😁. 4 seeds were placed in their hydro units (20L paint buckets filled with 16L water) using a combination of DWC and Bubbleponics to help the seedling roots start out. 20/2/2022

Week 3: I've slowly been increasing the light strength by +/-5% each day or so from 30% to 55%, as the seedlings are still small I don't want to shock them with too much light in the beginning. The hydros still have the original nutrient solution from last week (week 2). I will test the water parameters this coming week and potentially do a new nutrient solution this coming weekend. 26/02/2022

The ladies really started filling out from their original seedling stems. A few new leaf nodes appeared which allowed me to start the first topping (05/03/22) and I also started LST on 2 of the taller plants. This week has seen some great growth. I changed the water in the hydro buckets yesterday to full strength grow schedule (TA/ GHE Tri-part). I found 1 or 2 little green aphids on the one lady, it may have come from the chilli ot cat mint that I also have in the tent. I visually inspected all the ladies and saw no more signs of aphids, I also sprayed down the companion plants with an organic insecticide. Will keep an eye on them closely 06/03/22

This week's saw some nice growth in 3 ladies. I decided to leave them for this past week without LST as I wanted them to get a bit taller/ fill-out more 1 out of the 4 ladies are still lagging a bit behind the others. I have swapped out the hydro-bucket of the smallest lady with the position of the lady that was doing the best... hopefully this will helpe identify if I have unequal "mico-climates" or nutrient imbalances in the tent or hydro buckets. Started LST training on the 3 ladies that were doing well. Pulled most of the stems down so that it opens up the center of the plant to some more light. Turned my light up to +/- 85% power. Still using the same nutrients added last Saturday (5/3/22). Been battling to keep RH above 55%, tried adding a tray of water to the tent (help marginally) so got a mister/fogger to test with a jug of water. Will monitor this and see if it helps raise RH to 65-70% 12/3/2022

The week saw great growth, the ladies shot up and really bushed out. I continued to LST train, top and trim them. 23/03/22

From my last post (a little late on 23/03) the ladies have grown really well and filled out... another 2 sessions of LST and some minor topping down on the odd shoot. They are starting to spread out nicely. To try resolve the "rust-like" spot issues I found on 1 or 2 leaves of each plant, I added a minor dose of Seachem Iron 1m/ 20L to see if it was perhaps an iron deficiency causing the spot issues (27/03), will monitor over the next few days if any more crop up. The nutrients in the hydros are still the same as last week when I added in a fresh batch of grow nutrients (21/03). The ladies are definitely drinking more now that they're bigger, so will probably have to give them a fresh res change with fresh nutes sometime this coming week coming 27/03/22

This week the ladies really grew a lot... the spread out and are now over the edges of their hydro buckets. I determined that the rust spots were down to PH fluctuations. I changed all the water and redid all nutrients yesterday (3/4/2022). I'll be placing my scrog nets and doing some more trimming/training in this coming week. 4/4/2022

A bit late on this post (today 18/22)... Reporting on week starting 10th Apr 22). The ladies did well again, all showed and increase in size, 1 lady is lagging behind a bit though. I'm still battling with big PH swings, so I test every 2 days and readjust and top up with plain water as needed. Each lady requires +/- 1 top up per week. 18/4/22

I've decided that I'm going to switch to flower in a day or two (12/12 lighting) as the tent is starting to get cramped. I've kept the same nutrients in the pots from the change on the 10th, and have topped up twice (15th and 18th) with plain pH 6.2 water to help keep the PH swings down. I trimmed/partially lollipops the ladies today so will allow them a day tor two to recover and then flip to pre-flower nutrients next weekend. (23 or 24 Apr).. We've had a lot of rain this weekend and preceding days so humidity has been high but the ladies are still looking good. 18/4/22

Flipped the ladies to a flowering light schedule (12/12) on Tuesday 19/4/22 I've removed any LST tie downs as the canopy is fairly flat, there was quite a bit of growth this week as the tops filled out. I left what was left of the grow-strength nutrients in for the rest of the week and did a complete res change on each lady today (23/4)... 3 of the 4 ladies got full strength pre-flower nutrients (TA / GHE tri-part). The remaining lady looked like she was suffering a bit with some nutrient lock out (maybe from a PH swing) so I gave her 1/2 strength pre-flower nutrient. I'm slowly bringing down my RH each week (75 to 70% max this week) and will do so each week in 5% increments until I get to +/- 50-55% as flowering progresses. I added a touch of blackstrap Molassas (unsulphured) 4 teaspoons to 60L to help the bacteria/roots, I also added 25ml of 401 bacteria (like at seedlings stage) to help root development for flowering 23/4/22