Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

I got the clones Thursday and put them into the tent with the bag open and lights on so they could breathe and acclimate. Friday, they were transplanted into 1 gal prune pots of Fox Farm Ocean Forrest (FFOF) soil, only. Watering with water initially was a huge mistake. I did not check the water or adjust to pH neutral, and I also forgot to account for the nutrients in the soil, so by Sunday, the leaves were starting to curl under and fold up like a taco due to nutrient deficiency. Sunday they were fed with. I forgot to take runoff PPM before starting nutrient feeding, which was also another mistake because now I'm basically guessing the buffer. I also had trouble regulating the humidity initially, but after opening floor/ceiling vents and adjusting the fan, the humidity has been fluctuating around 50-60% and temp around 70 F. Plants began to make a come-back Tuesday, and by the following Thursday they had grown to ~6 inches tall, and signs of nutrient deficiency had faded. Next time I won't transplant directly into FFOF, and instead, use a 50/50 mix of FFOF and 70/30 coco coir/pearlite. I think FFOF is too hot on its own which is why they curled up. Friday, the lights were lowered to ~10" above plants and fed with the last of week 1 nutrients. The idea is to force them to eat with the hopes they dry out a little before I start wk 2 of nutrients. I have yet to check if my PPMs are even remotely in the proper range. I also trimmed the 2-3 of the oldest leaves off of several of the healthiest-looking plants. They just hit 5 nodes, so I think I can start topping them soon.

Man has it been a rough week! At the beginning of the week, they looked great, and I thought I'd gotten the nutrient deficiency situation under control, so I decided to top them because they had reached 5-6 nodes high and I was going to miss my cue if I didn't. Anyway, it was fine, I was a little nervous, but the haircut went well. And then I started to get curious about how my runoff PPMs were looking. Turns out my PPMs were SKY-HIGH. I don't even want to tell you how high because it's embarrassing (pH was 5.6). I flushed with pH neutral water Weds and Thurs, but towards the end of the flush Thurs, I brought the water pH down to 6.1 so that they could use the nutrients left in the soil (approximately 300-400 ppm at the end of flushing). I haven't checked on them in 12-ish hours. I'm really hoping this will work. Lesson learned: always check your runoff BEFORE you start feeding nutrients!!!! *eye roll*

Everything is going well; growth is continuous, new growth color seems healthy, and they are eating very vigorously. I have them set in their new 3 gal. pots with +/- 1 gallon of 70/30 Cultivation Nation underneath so they can start acclimating and hopefully, minimize the stress of topping & transplanting. The first time I topped was stressful (I also had to flush during this time and wasn't keeping them on a consistent 20/4 schedule which didn't help) and they went down to 3 bladed fan leaves, but the newest leaves are back to 5 blades so I think we've recovered enough to top again.

I'm a little late on the update here, so technically we are at the end of week 4/ beginning of week 5. I topped them last weekend and transplanted them into 3 gal. pots and they are just taking off. The leaves are starting to show their trichomes, there seems to be a preflower pistil at almost every node, and they're fragrant (oh, how I love that smell)! The only thing is, I think I may have watered them a little too much after transplanting because a few days later, brown spots showed up on some of the fan leaves and some of the newer foliage is curling inward a bit. I also moved them under my 630W light because I didn't think my other lights were strong enough (judging by the massive amount of growth I had this week I'm guessing I was at least somewhat correct in doing so) but I started off at 50% power initially and then reduced to 25% a day or so later, which I think could be the cause of their spots combined with overwatering.

Plants are filling out nicely and growing vigorously. I'm starting to think about flowering soon because I'm starting to run out of space. I still have plenty of height space, but my light footprint is only 4x4 and horizontal space is slim.

So I decided to scratch switching to flower right away and doubled my light footprint instead. Now I'm no longer short on horizontal space and ultimately I'll maximize my yield. Their canopy is mostly even, but there are a couple of robust growers I topped for the final time... And now that I have double space, I'm going to upgrade them to 7 gals. so I don't hurt their roots when I stake. I have them under 24hr, 550 PPFD (-/+100 PPFD) which is running my lights at about 50%, hung at approximately 24 inches above the canopy. I could lower them, but there are 5 or 6 inches difference between the tallest shoot on the tallest plant and the tallest shoot on the shortest plant if that makes sense? I also realize I'm technically in week 8 (veg) because I estimate the clones rooted for at least 10 days before I put them into 1-gallon pots, so I think I'll begin flowering in the next several days.

Started flower 12/12 a few days ago. Steaked them as well. The first night I didn't take into account how much colder it would be without the lights on, so it got down to 60 F. So far so good - plants are showing lots of pistols.

They're finally forming little 'budsicles' (yes, I know budsicle is not a word, but just roll with it). Not much else to report other than the obvious fact that they are in a major stretch phase now. I'm a little concerned I've got them too tightly packed in the tent, so I've been considering pulling the smalled guy out, but I don't want to sacrifice yield. I'm uncertain whether more room for fewer plants is going to be better than just leaving them be and hoping for the best. TBD, stay tuned.

Did major defoliating. Trichomes are starting to take off. Should be smooth sailing from here. Will add more when I have more time.

I'm a little late with the update here, but better late than never. Technically we're on day 33 flower. Last weekend was a little nerve-wracking because the power went out for +/- 12 hrs, but luckily the lights were supposed to be off for the majority of it, and didn't notice any signs of stress. I've been giving them about 3 gals (approx. 1200 ppm) every other feeding. The runoff today was about 1350-1500, which is a little higher than the norm but I top the res off with only water until it's +/- 300 ppm so any unabsorbed nutrients can get used up throughout the next several days. I've been keeping up with fairly heavy defoliation since I did the major defol. in 3rd week of flower. I'm only taking leaves that block light to lower flowers, but they're growing so fast that it almost requires daily maintenance. I raised the lights about 3 inches because I noticed after removing a fan leaf to expose the underlying budsicle, several of the pistols would appear slightly amber or burnt the following day. After raising the lights, the DLI was somewhere between 40-60 depending on where I was taking the reading. The damaged pistols also could be from accidentally squishing them when defoliating because the pistols don't always appear burnt after defoliating. All-in-all they seem relatively happy.

Nutrients have been the same now for several weeks. Need for defol. has waned as they get closer to the end, so I’ve slowed to only spot-checking every couple of days. Trichomes are covering most of the plant at this point and the ‘stickiness factor' - based on the condition of my gloves by the time I’m done handling the plants - has significantly increased. Amber pistols are obvious at the top of each cola and are consistently increasing ea. day. The runt of the bunch, I've noticed, has started to lag behind the others by what seems like a day or three of growth. This isn't a huge problem but when it comes time to harvest Mrs. Runt, I don't want to be hasty. They are getting fatter by the day, and heavier too, so I'm going to need to start troubleshooting their support system soon. If anyone has any tips or tricks for me on this, any and all suggestions are welcomed! I've found a hook-looking device I can suspend from the ceiling of my tent to provide individual support for XL colas, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. I also lowered the lights back down a few inches so that the tops of the tallest colas were measuring at DLI of +60. The screenshots were taken after lowering the lights. Also, humidity levels seem to be more difficult to maintain this week so I'm hoping that lowering the lights will help curb the flux.

Waiting on an additional CO2 bag. It's been so rainy and wet the last several days so the room where my tent operates tends to stay fairly damp unless I crank the heat. This works to dry out the room so the humidity will come back to (+/-)50%. The caveat is tent temp. creeps up to 80 F if I don't let warm air out/cool in every few hrs. Which is why I though a little CO2 boost might be helpful. They look especially chonky today… I’m just here for the show. 😎

I checked the trichomes w. ~70X for the first time at the end of week 7 and they were clear. I checked again on the following day (day 51) and they had started turning milky so, I flushed with (with regular pH-ed water) until runoff was reading ≤150 ppm. I'm a little worried I'm late on the draw with flushing, but I'm seeing very few amber trichomes at this point. They are getting chunkier by the day! Let's hope I flushed well enough.. home stretch.

I took advice from more masterful growers’ and waited another week and a half before harvesting. I’m glad I did because the fan leaves started to yellow and the flowers started showing deeper purples. Trichomes we’re much milkier too!

I’m about 2/3 through trimming and generally I’m pleased with the outcome. Some of the buds towards the bottom are larfier than I’d like, but not surprising as they were tightly packed into their space by the time they were done growing. I didn’t have room to spread them out any farther than they already were, but now at least I know my plant max is lower if I want better light distribution. I will update this with total yield outcome and pictures when I’m through processing the harvest!