Test Grow #2

Ananas_Comosus Sunday 06-02-2022 Repotted seedlings in three 7 Gallon pots and two 3~ Gallon pots. By law, I can only grow 5 plants at one time so I split the pots with the 2 healthiest seedlings and chose the healthier seedlings from the remaining 3 pots and repotted them. Good rainfall in the week, don't remember if I watered during the week. Seems like slight burning on a few leaves after DE earth treatment. Leaves seem slightly yellow, will monitor throughout coming week. Also need to monitor ants invading pots. Water today was 700ml per plant from tap water with 3.5 ml Ph Down - S added to five gallon bucket with nutrients added to one gallon jug filled with Ph'd water. My intention was to Ph tap water with 1.5 ml per gallon but forgot that and used 3.5 ml for the entire 5 gallons. This is my first time ever transplanting such small plants in such big pots. My concern was to not limit taproot growth as is so often mentioned in forums. My personal experience growing other kinds of plants would say this is way too early but I am trying something new. Instinct tells me to just water in a small moat that would be slightly larger than the diameter of the original seedling pot. The alternative would be to water the entire pot and allow it to drain to waste then allow it to dry out appropriately. My concerns are the pots stay too wet because the roots haven't expanded enough to draw water from the pot and the subsequent growth of baddies. I will ask that question of the forum.

Ananas_Comosus Saturday, 12-02-2022 Plants not looking too bad at all. #1 Is smaller than all others but still looking ok. No visible ill effects remaining from DE treatment on all plants. Rain and cloudy conditions throughout the week have limited my feeding. Was only able to feed today since last week. Mix was runoff rainwater with 10 ml/gallon C AB Beta 3.12 and 7.5 ml/gallon Cytokin. Also foliar sprayed with same mix. Runoff water has not insignificant amount of "sand" from waterproofing membrane applied to roof last week. Need to monitor for effect. I cut back on nutrients to 10ml/gallon because the feeding charts of the nutrient I am copying has 10ml/gallon as being the appropriate heavy feeding rate for this stage of growth. Want to start incorporating humic acid to account for the reduced potassium in my nutrient mix. I noticed what appeared to be whiteflies escaping when I LST'd the two plants. Cotyledons seem to have disease. My IPM plan needs to get going next week. I need to remind myself that this Grow is a true trial for me. When growing other plants in the the past, I have sometimes been too "precious" or cautious or lazy. I have loved to death countless plants. I want to to try new techniques I have never done, feed on reasonable schedule and just live in each moment of the grow. I am binging Dog Whisperer now and one of the biggest things you can learn from that show is the benefits of just living in the moment. Forgetting the past, prepare for but don't stress about the future and just enjoy right now 😄. The plants are too underdeveloped to do the topping techniques I want to try but my urge to just do something on them led me to try LST on the two most developed plants. I was in two minds about this. The guide I am following about LST (https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/the-quadsquad-thread-a-community-for-quadlining.464769/), recommends topping first then training. But again, the urge to just do something to the plants after a week of mentally refining 😅 my techniques was just just too strong. Now that I actually did it I don't feel too bad because I see that nodes 1 and 2 are below my first tie downs so I am interested to see how that will work out. That said, I only have three plants left to grow the "documented way" so I need to control the urge to just act for action's sake without a clear goal from that action. Sunday, 13-02-2022 LST'd plant tops straightening out quickly, less than 24hrs after first tie down.

Ananas_Comosus Saturday, 19/02/2022 All plants looking OK. I realised I had no clear plan as to what I would do with the plants I LST'd so I removed the ties today. I really prefer the symmetry of mainlining so that is what I will be going for, specifically, quadlining. Plants showed no ill effects to Cytokin treatment (drench and foliar at same rate) and seemed to like it. Fed on 15/02/2022 with 10ml/gallon CAB and 5 ml/gallon Real Growers Recharge (RGR) on 17/02/2022. No ill effects to RGR and plants seemed to like it. Ph'd with 1.5 ml/gallon Evergrow Ph Down Sulphur on the 17th, not sure about the 15th, I may have used rainwater. Top of soil and actual soil at depth was moist today so I did not feed but at this moment, 2:34 PM, there has been significant rainfall for the past hour. Really need to get a rain gauge. Apart from the pots being on bare soil (need to get them off bare ground with large saucers, blocks, stepstones or something similar). I really don't mind the rain because I think the "natural" water will be good for the beneficials introduced by the Recarge and subsequently the plants. As I move the plants what seem to be whiteflies immediately flit about. Really, really need to get going on IPM!😣 5:13 PM, Saturday, 19/02/2022 Raised pots off ground with plant saucers. Treated pots, soil cover and plants with dusting of Insect Powder.

Ananas_Comosus Sunday, 27-02-2022 Fungicidal treatment with potassium bicarbonate on 20-02-2022 resulted in significant leaf burn on plants after foliar spray of 8.9 ml/liter potassium bicarbonate with unmeasured amount of Breakthru sticker spreader. I had dusted the plants and pots with insecticidal powder the night before and there seemed to be no ill effects. Rain fell that same night and the leaves were splashed with dirt from the pots so I decided to "rinse" them off with a fungicidal spray of potassium bicarbonate. At the time I was confident this would have no ill effects but now I am wondering if I just didn't remember previous phytotoxic effects caused by this spray. I am also thinking that because I didn't measure the amount of sticker spreader, I may have overdosed the mix and that caused some of the burning by literally breaking through any protective covering on the leaves and possibly penetrating the plant cells. As I sprayed the leaves water soaked spots immediately appeared and within a few hours there was obvious curling and burn, particularly on spots that had small clumps of insecticidal powder. Throughout this past week the visual symptoms of phytotoxicity progressed so much that by the middle of the week I settled my mind that this grow would be terminated this weekend. On Friday night when I came home and saw the plants in the dark I was more hopeful and in the light of day on Saturday morning I was quite pleased with their recovery. Lots of the oldest fan leaves were almost completely brown and yellow with light green veins and some newer leaver have been deformed. Thankfully there is little visual damage to most of the newest growth and after removing the worst of the damaged leaves I am remain hopeful for this grow. Continuing my theme of living in the moment of the grow, I am choosing to think of this incident two ways. First as a "trial by fire" for the plants that only the strongest leaves survived and second as chemical pruning of leaves that I would have removed anyway, just not quite yet. I will be seeking thoughts on the forum as to whether these plants still have hope or if unseen damage has been done that will eventually ruin them. Regardless, I will progress with this grow as long as possible to see for myself what the actual long term effects are. I have also noted what seem to be big hairy balls growing on plant #2 and have asked the forum their opinion. In keeping with my plan to quadline these plants I have clipped the last untopped plant and removed nodes 1 and 2 of all plants. After doing these procedures the plants really just look like heavily defoliated specimens waiting for further training, I am pleased. Despite the phytotoxicity, there was enough growth of the 4 new stems of plants 3-5 that I was able to tie them down. I am waiting for confirmation that #2 is a male to cull it, if not I will tie it down as well. Only fed yesterday because I was watching to see how the plants would do over the week. Wednesday, 02-03-2022 Culled confirmed male plant, thanks @m0use 😃👊! Fed and foliar sprayed with 12 ml/gal CAB and 7.5 ml/gal Cytokin. Used 9ml Ph down in 5 gallon tap water. Ph using ph paper 😞 was approximately 5.0 so I added unph'd 500 ml tapwater to my jug and added the 5.0 water to complete the gallon. Ph was approximately 6.

Ananas_Comosus Saturday, 05.03.2022 Girls graduation! Bwoy Shabba, world of girls, In container loads! (Shabba Ranks, 1991) I wish you could hear this song playing as you read this post to get the feeling I am feeling. Culled plant with strong male characteristics (#3). Left with 3 plants showing pistils, #s1, 4 and 5 😁. #2 was the largest and best looking of the plants but 'a soh it goh' 😉. All plants recovering well from recent phytotoxicity. Fed twice in past week with 12 ml/gallon CAB. Plants show no ill effects to Cytokin treatment and seem to like it. Have to move ties daily to accommodate growth. Signs of leafminers on a few leaves. Sunday, 06.03.2022 A little rain fell Saturday afternoon but pots not overly moist. Fed with Recharge at 5 ml/gallon and remainder of Ph'd water. Ph measurement via Ph paper was still hot, 5.0~, so I repeated same method of adding 500 ml tap water to jug and topping up with acidified water, following the principle of adding acid to water and not vice versa 😉.

Ananas_Comosus Monday, 14.03.2022 All plants seem to be almost fully recovered from phytotoxicity a few weeks back. They are stretching nicely and putting out new leaves. Numerous bud sites developing. I would have wanted them to be bulkier but let's see how they do. No significant rain this past week so I was able to feed a couple times. 8~ml per 5 gallon tap water Ph Down got me to around 6 Ph. I thought I would have needed to water on Thursday since two days had passed since I last watered but the plants seemed turgid and OK and Friday night was the same so I didn't water until Saturday. Found a mature stink bug hiding under a leaf on a stem top.

Ananas_Comosus Despite slight damage by overzealous gardener with a weed wacker, causing shot through holes and torn leaves, the plants are doing OK. Supplemented feed on two different days with 7.5 ml/gallon Cytokin and 30 ml/gallon molasses. Had to remove visible eggs of unknown insect on several leaves (I hope it's not a beneficial). Increased but not overwhelming leaf miner damage. I need to start measuring these for height and width. The growth seems to have slowed but I am also on leave and observing the plants more so I don't know if it as situation where a watched pot never boils.

Ananas_Comosus Plants seemed to have slowed vertical growth of the four main tops and the buds are now bulking up. Side buds are growing slightly taller but mostly just getting fatter. Lost track of exactly what I fed with this past week but the most significant change was two feedings of CAB 3 with a double shot of 'B' which is an additional 76 ppm P and 96 ppm K. This is my knockoff solution to the various bloom boosting products recommended everywhere. My next grow I will do a test without the PK boost as a few research articles I have seen say the boost is unnecessary but there is also info available contradicting that premise. Also supplemented on different days with Recharge 5 ml/gallon, molasses 55~ ml/gallon, 12% humic acid 30~ ml/gallon.

Ananas_Comosus —

Ananas_Comosus Sunday 17.04.2022 Harvested Plants #1 and #4 on 15.04.2022. Not sure if they are too early or too far gone but I wasn't seeing many white pistils (not many visible pistils at all on #4 but saw some browning of the buds that I was concerned about which caused me to act). Trichomes seemed milky but I really am not sure. Wet trimmed and removed majority of stem from each bud. I am thinking now I should have left more stem to use as a handle instead of having to touch the bud. Buds are sticky but not overly so and smell while trimming was strong but far from overwhelming the room. Smell was, for lack of a better phrase and nose, very bright weed green but after a day of drying the smell is less bright green with more complex ganja scents coming through. Drying conditions (laid flat in closed cardboard box) are far from ideal but it's what I have for now. Plant #5 still has many white pistils and doesn't seem quite ready.

Ananas_Comosus Sunday May 1, 2022 Final harvest today. Wet trimmed and hung entire plant #5 indoors to dry. Significant rain throughout past week so I am hoping mold does not set in. After drying previous two plants yielded approximately 51 g. I weighed one bottle with an 8 gm Boveda pack so I deducted 10 g from that weight. The seeds I used were bag seed but I think I am confident to say it probably has autoflowering genetics based on how quickly they finished and how small they are. Despite some early fears about disease and insect pests the plants were mostly unaffected by any of these. I did do an early antifungal treatment that almost killed them. I have already started grow #3 using the info from this grow. I am pleased.