Starting this diary a bit late. Zkittlez Auto is at the back and Gorilla Glue Auto at the front, the Zkittlez actually could be CBD Lemon Auto, i mixed the seeds up when germinating and one didn't make it, I won't know until flowering, happy with either though. Gorilla Glue was started around a week after Zkittlez. Zkittlez broke ground on the 8th of May 2022 and Gorilla Glue broke ground on the 13th of May 2022. As of 3rd of June that makes Zkittlez 26 days old and Gorilla Glue 21 days old.
The Gorilla Glue seems to be stunted a bit but i'm hoping its just because she's recovering from the LST i've done.
Originally decided to leave Zkittlez to grow naturally as this is my first time with autos and only my 3rd ever grow but saw how it was growing and decided to intervene, had some huge fan leaves covering new growth etc so defoliated and did some tying down, won't be doing any more as i've read that defoliating during flowering is a no-no with autos, and she's juuust starting to flower. Hoping the stretch will begin soon.
I'm happy with the LST on the gorilla glue, i'm continuing to manipulate it as she grows - the photos for this week are a few days old so shes a bit further ahead. I'll update as much as possible.
Still learning, and have decided to just grow 1 at a time after this so i can learn better, focus on one plant.
The plants beside them are Jalapenos that i started from seed, they aren't liking to 20/4 light schedule very much it seems, unfortunately its kind of a must have at the moment as we've just entered winter over here. Will be lowering it to 18/6 once they've gotten a bit bigger.
Hoping for 5oz in total but thats probably a stretch. we'll see :)
Hey there friend. Would you be alright with me offering some pointers? So cannabis plants LOVE heat and humidity. It is the buds that hate it. In veg we want to take advantage of this fact to help our plants grow along much quicker and more vigorously. In veg we can look for temps of 79-84 MAX with lights on & no more than 9 degrees less with lights off. If we allow for too much temperature swing between lights on and lights off while the plant is still growing vertically up to day 20 of flower, We will cause the plant to stretch ALOT which we do not want. So in veg & early flower, Keeping our temperature gaps nice and close between lights on and off is key. Utilizing humidity in our rooms during veg will also help out a lot with more rapid growth but we must introduce it properly. In our rooms we have our temperature and humidity set-points, But when we combine those 2 it forms a third set-point which is the most important & that is called VPD, Vapor pressure deficit.
I strongly recommend every new grower or old grower who has not learned it yet, To study and understand it & implement it into your room, Logging your numbers daily.
https://cerescann.com/importance-of-measuring-vpd/
For soil, We generally want to go for a PH of 6.1
This website does a GREAT job of illustrating it with a nice graph & very good detailed explanation for soil.
https://autoflowerseedshop.com/cannabis-ph-chart-guide/
As we briefly touched on before, During veg & early flower we want our temperature gap's nice and tight to avoid stretch. Why exactly our plants stretch in response to this is a genetic trigger being activated by the environmental stress essentially telling the plant the end of the season is closer than it really is. In veg & early flower the plant is still in its first stage of development which is to grow up wide and tall so when it produces seed, It can cast them out nicely. Remember, Whether we are growing our plants for seed or bud their genetic responses do not change as they gh sidedo not know any different. Once the plant has finished that first stage of growth by weeks 4-6 of flower with most strains, It is by day 20 of flower. Autoflowers you have to watch for it, But once the plant has finished this goal its new mission is to focus 100% on producing nice big flower clusters & to get very sticky so it can attract pollen to it successfully.
So once that vertical growth is finished, We actually now want to begin to expose our plants to larger temperature swings between lights on and lights off. This will help activate that genetic response and allow us to draw out the most potential from the strain utilizing the plants genetic triggers to environmental stresses at the right times. We can also take this a step further with doing light deprivation in the last 2 weeks using less light to simulate cloud cover. Very cold feed temps on the last flush is very good too. If you do not have them already, Get yourself a good PAR meter & thermal laser temp gun to monitor your plant top temperatures & optimize how much light your plants are getting. We are currently in the middle of producing a very comprehensive tutorial series for everybody to learn from & understand how to grow the highest level craft cannabis all on their own. If this interests you please check out our youtube and subscribe. The first 2 episodes are out the next one is coming in a few days. If you should ever have any questions or need any help, Please feel free to follow my profile and shoot me a DM. I will gladly help you with the pull down & make sure you get the best quality harvest possible as it is the most important step of the entire process. I really think you would benefit from our tutorial series on youtube, Our channel is linked off our main grow diaries profile. We just put up week 3 of plant life care so you got time to subscribe and catch up before the next episode is out! I look forward to seeing you over there and hearing your feedback to better help me shape the tutorials
Happy growing friend!
@LegacyMarketFarm,
Hi friend, thanks for your comment and tips, i appreciate and welcome any and all constructive criticism, tips and suggestions :)
Unfortunately there's not a lot i can do about the temperature swings at the moment, it's winter where i live and my grow space is in the garage (which is very cold and has no heating). I could run a heater/invest in temp control systems but to be honest i'm just a hobbyist grower, not too keen to spend any more money. Plus the garage has flooded before, so i don't feel comfortable running any sort of heating down there. The lights are only off for 4 hours, and the tent only gets down to the low temp of 13-14degrees Celsius for around an hour or so, i checked at about 2 hours into 'lights off' and the temp was 16.5degrees.
Node spacing seems to be pretty good so far, there's a lot of bud sites and she's (zkittlez) is growing about an inch a night.
So yeah, im fine with how it is at the moment :) and once winters over and things start to warm up a bit ill give photoperiods another go, until then its autos at 20/4 :) thanks again for your input.
@VertiGrow, thanks :) its a pretty popular strain apparently, personally its far from my favourite though, although that could be because of my stressed plant growing quite airy buds, still trying to unlock the solid nug achievement lol