Sin Sueño

leliantu New diary, 10 plants of Insomnia from Apex Seed, I’ve never grown anything from this bank, I hope this grow goes well and I have a good harvest.

leliantu Second week, the plants are growing correctly although unevenly; some already have 3 nodes (small ones, by the way) but there are others that still have their first pair of leaves. This week I started giving them nutrients according to the Bio Bizz chart.

leliantu I was surprised at how fast the plants have grown; it's clear that this is a variety that consumes a lot more nutrients than others I've grown. I'm going to wait until they reach about 25 cm, and then I'll switch them to flowering.

leliantu Fourth and final week of vegetation. I'm pleasantly surprised by the growth rate of this strain; in just one week, it almost doubled in size and is developing a good stem. Despite that, I'm still going to support it. I did a "light" defoliation, only removing the largest leaves (about 4 leaves per plant), and I think this will be the only defoliation I apply. I mainly did it to create more space between the plants so they wouldn't be so crowded. In the next few days, I'll switch to flowering.

leliantu First week of flowering and everything is going well, the plants are stretching as expected. While the foliage has increased significantly, defoliating more isn't part of my plans; maybe (and I'm still considering it) I'll do a low pruning next week to make watering tasks easier. Although initially this grow was intended as SOG (with defoliations and supports), I'm now thinking about putting a net (like Scrog) to support the branches, especially since I acquired two BlackCob F240 LED modules and I want to see how the plants grow with these new lights.

leliantu Finally, I did everything I thought I wouldn't do... hahahaha, I defoliated, did some low pruning (2 nodes), and staked the plants. In the process, I detected a Calcium deficiency (thanks @GrowingGrannie and @DutchDoobie). Confirming this deficiency and reviewing my previous grows, I believe this isn't the first time it's happened to me, and I was confusing it with a nutrient excess. Now, why does this happen if I measure pH and control EC? I think I have 2 answers; 1.- my pH and EC meters are not of good quality, and I let too much time pass between calibrations, so I bought some new, better quality meters and I'm going to calibrate them monthly. 2.- From what I've been researching, using LED lights with a more complete light spectrum increases photosynthetic activity, so the demand for nutrients in general is higher, but particularly, attention needs to be paid to Calcium and Magnesium. This situation was exacerbated by adding the F240 module from @blackcob, so now I'm going to add CalMag to all my waterings to ensure I have those nutrients. On the other hand, the plants are growing well and showing signs of recovery from the deficiency; at least they've regained their color.

leliantu Good and bad news, the bad; I had to remove two plants because they started showing signs of hermaphroditism, especially one (the biggest in the grow, by the way) that already had developed pollen sacs. I think I noticed just in time. Now I have only 9 plants, but every cloud has a silver lining since I have more space, and now the plants are more comfortable and can develop more fully. They seem to be recovering from the calcium and magnesium deficiency, but I still added CalMag to all the waterings. It was supposed to be, or at least that's what the seed bank says in the plant's technical sheet, that this variety grows quickly; however, I see that it is developing slowly and will take at least 10 weeks to harvest. On the other hand, the plant is eating; I'm watering every other day. I incorporated CO2 this week, so I expect an increase in nutrient consumption.

leliantu Even though I added CalMag to all the waterings, I'm still seeing signs of deficiencies (yellowing leaves), so this week I raised the pH of the watering water and raised the lights, leaving them 55 cm from the canopy. The truth is that even though some plants are still yellowing, I no longer see them drooping.

leliantu The plants keep fading, so I raised the distance of the lights from the canopy to 60 cm and increased the pH and EC in the watering with fertilizers. Honestly, I have no certainty about the cause of this discoloration; I always keep the pH and EC under control, and it's been weeks since I added CalMag to the watering solution. My suspicion about the cause of this problem is that I might be giving the plant too much photosynthetic radiation since the discoloration started when I added a new set of lights to the grow tent (blackcob f240). Unfortunately, at the moment, because I already ordered one, I don't have a PPFD meter, and while I used one of those phone apps that convert lumens to PPFD and the measurement gave me an average of 800 PPFD, I decided to raise the lights and leave the Apollo light set at half power.