Northern lights auto 2nd attempt

So far all 3 have taken well to their new home. The back right one has shot up with good second leaf set growth. She's now called Samus as the strongest of the group. The others I've gone with Ripley and Scully to keep the theme alive. The biggest difference I've made since the first round is watering when required, they've only taken one feeding this week but expecting them to get thirstier by the day.

So around day 11, Ripley had a little accident. She was bending toward the light so I rotated the pot to encourage her to straighten up. Instead she collapsed overnight. She was still alive when I found her so I quickly and gently lifted her back up straight and mounded up some of the Coir around the base of the stem and gently packed it. As you can see I came back to find she'd not only recovered but kept pace with the others. All look healthy but are not very thirsty at all. The Coir was very moist to begin with so it's likely this will change next week.

First day of week 3 and we're all going well with Ripley proving to be the ultimate survivor. Looking at starting LST midweek probably around Day 18. Started LST on Samus and Ripley, holding off on Scully til she gets a bit more height.

All 3 girls are doing well. Scully got strong enough to be tied down but I noticed dark fungal growth on the top of the Coir. I sprayed it down with some light fungicide, left it a bit and flushed through with lightly nuted water. I think it's happened due to the lack of air movement and ventilation so I've cracked their door a bit and will be getting a small fan to keep them happy. I've not gone ahead with the fan just yet as I just can't afford it at the moment but there's been no resurgence of the mold/mildew since the topsoil was treated and the door's been cracked open. Already all 3 are much more vibrant and full than my first attempt and all are growing very well. I'm making sure to tie them down further if the main stem twists up too high and they've been much thirstier since the growth spurt. We'll be into flower next week, adding some PK to the nute mix so hopefully we wind up just a little bit fuller in the next few days for max bud sites.

After a quick health check I noticed the first stigmas coming through with a good amount of bud sites, harvest probably won't be mega but its all a learning curve. I brewed up a new batch of nutes with some PK mixed in to kick off the flower. MYSYERY SOLVED! Had a bit of leaf curl earlier so I adjusted the light and air flow but going back later, I finally saw was it was. Fucking nute burn... Spotted some yellow tips all round so I reckon I've not left enough time between feeds, added the PK too soon and will probably need to use less than half what I out in the first time to suit the Auto better. I've flushed them through with plain water, will give them a few days to recover and come back with an update. It was a pretty mad week of issues but everyone seems to be bouncing back from the mystery bug. I've gone and bought a tent but will finish this grow in the cupboard.

Everyone's recovered from the defoliation and now thriving. There's still speckled light spots on Samus but it doesn't seem to be negatively impacting her yet. I'll be keeping a close eye either way. So I reckon Samus has a slight potassium deficiency, since she's the fighter ahead of the curve I think the others won't be far behind full symptoms. Watch for the brown spotting on the lower leaves first. I'll post a photo of an example when I get a chance. I'll be shifting them on to the heavy diluted PK tomorrow and see if anything improves.

Day 44: What a week.... I've finally figured out for sure what my problems been with Samus or at least I've eliminated any other causes. The soil pH was sitting around 4 with the other girls coming in around 5. I've got a pH meter ordered to dial it in accurately. I gave all 3 a heavy flush and will adjust the feeding once the pH up & down arrive on Friday. This was super frustrating but interesting to hunt down and diagnose but it'll be something to watch out for/mitigate with the TD grow Day 48 - After much testing I've worked out that I screwed the pooch with the flush as my water supply is slightly alkaline. The Canna nutes take my water to about pH 5.5 anyway so I took it down to pH 4.8 with some heavy diluted pH down added a drop at a time to offset the girls sitting in alkali water.

Since the last feeding (Day 48 PM) I've not seen any of the leaf damage getting worse so I reckon I've dialed in what the problem was. Although this'll be their first night on a proper pH balanced nute mix. It's a little lower (4.9) to take the overall pH down a bit. Ripley lost her lower branch, it just died and fell off but no others are showing any signs so it's likely just part of the flowering process. Today (51) I noticed the fordt signs of frost on Samus so we're chugging along nicely. Next update will have the reactions to the new nutes before I start looking start proper flush before harvest.

The finish line's getting closer now, I think I'll be stopping all nutes by mid-week 10 and looking to a flush. There's still a weird deterioration on some of Ripley's lower leaves but the rest of her seems to be relatively healthy. I reckon anything going gradually sideways at this point isn't going to impact me too much as they're all still producing plenty of nice looking frosty crystals. There's still room for I'd say another weeks worth of bud development but I guess we'll see when we come to it. There's a nice sweet ganja smell coming off them too, not overpowering but definitely less than stealthy without a tent.

That's us very close to the finish line now folks. I gave the girls their last feed today as some pistils here and there have started to darken and I know by the time they've soaked this load up they'll be ready to flush. Basically aiming for Saturday/Sunday then I'll be flushing every few days til theyre ready to chop. I've moved Scully through to the tent as my tiny cheap light may have done the job getting this far but I doubted it'd manage 3 full plants to harvest. Literally overnight I saw her go into trichome overload so as long as the Tangerines follow her example there should be a decent harvest. Also noticed a beautiful purple colour coming out on the top sugar leaves. They're really beautiful plants all round so I'm hoping the good times roll right to the end. Update - Sundays here and there's been a good steady rate of Amber pistils popping up daily. I went ahead and started flushing all 3 girls with plans to do one more on Tuesday. I'm guessing if they keep their current rate then I'll be able to chop them late next week. Through my research I saw I only need to flush for 5-7 days as I'm using coir, I'll be a bit earlier than that so I can free the tent back up. The first time I grew this strain it was super anemic and just didn't flower well, the smoke that came off it was incredible tho even without flushing that time so I'm less worried about jumping the gun with these guys.

I've only harvested Samus and Scully so far as Ripley looked like she could do with a little more time. She's in the tent with the Tangerines so she didn't have to witness the harvest. They're all set up for drying right now, they'll probably be ready for trimming in a few days. By then I'll be looking at adding Ripley to the drying room but will have to keep them in separate curing jars. I'll update on the weights by the end of the week and hopefully have some trim to sample. Update - Ripley joined the rest with a few days drying on the stem then trimmed down and dried a few days more before getting fired in the jar. I didn't cure it very long at all, temptation got the better of me but even without the aging it was a lovely smoke, a little on the flavourful side but that's down to impatience. I've got one Northern Light Auto Express seed left that I'll see how it does in the tent next time round.