Was out of town with no one to watch the plants for 5 nights this past week. Watered them before I left. All of the lowryders seemed to do just fine while I was gone. The larger photo plant in back was starting to get a little wilty by the time I got back. It perked right back up with some water though.
Adding the second light right before I left wasn't a great idea. Looking a the data on my tent controller I can see that the temp and humidity was getting a little out of control while I was gone. Getting up 83-84 degrees during the day and hitting 78%+ humidity during the evening with the lights off. I dimmed the lights a notch or two and lowered them a bit, keeping the over all brightness on the plants about the same. I also rewired the lights (the nice part of them coming as a kit that you assemble yourself) and mounted the LED drivers on the wall outside of the tent to help keep the temps down. Holding 80 degrees now during the day just by running the exhaust fan at 60% . All the plants are getting between 700-850 PPFD at the tops. Now that I'm not fighting to control the temp, I'm back to using the intake fan as a way to dehumidify (the outside room air is usually fairly dry) been holding 60-62% overnight since doing that. trying to keep it as close to 55% as possible.
Fed the plants another serving of top fed bloom nutrients I think I'm done with the grow nutes at this point for all but maybe the photo plant. Will continue to alternate watering's with ph'd RO water and EM1.
The lowryders are really starting to flower now and seems to be done getting much taller after continuing to grow and stretch for about 3 weeks after showing the first pistils. The tallest is about 16-18 inches. Considering this is my first grow I'm very happy with how things are coming along. I feel like I've learned a lot already!
Hey buddy. Would you be alright with me offering some pointers? This is some very handy generalized advice to get all growers off to a good start. 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. When we are in flower temperature will really play a big role how our buds form up, If our rooms are too cold below 75 they will form very small buds but very very dense. If we grow our buds out at temperature over 80 degrees we get bigger buds, But they can develop airy and foxtail which we do not get much weight from. Also higher temps will defuse the resin glands over time destroying them. 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. When we do the pull down, We never want to trim the plant wet or break it down at all. We want to hang it hole in a environment set to 45-50 degrees at 60% humidity for up to 16 days. This allows the plant to break down any potential left over starches or sugars or nutrients within it during this time the plant will produce even more resin & terpenes, This is where you get the true craft cannabis finish.
Happy growing friend!