Imperium X

D71. Week five of flower and the girls are simply doing their thing. I scouted the plants today and found thrips on the second girl. I was hoping the lacewings would have gotten them all by now, but no such luck. I'll give them a week before ordering another batch. For some reason, the thrips avoid the first girl. Visually, there's also a clear difference between the two girls, with the first girl being darker and having more buds. ------------------------------ D73. I brewed a short (6 hours) compost tea today consisting of worm castings, kelp meal, neem meal, humic and fulvic acid, rock dust, biochar, and molasses. After the brew, I added homemade Bokashi juice, which lowered the pH of the tea to 6.6. Each girl got 2.5 liters of tea (5% of pot volume.) I also did another light round of defoliation, down low on the plants. ------------------------------ D75. Each girl got 2.5 liters of water @ pH 6.5, with 5 ml of FFJ. The plants stretched SO MUCH after flipping them into flower that it's challenging for the light to penetrate the canopy, and it's pretty dark further down. I bought some LED grow light strips and installed them in the tent to provide additional side lighting. It's only 36 W of extra lighting, but I hope it will help to develop the numerous buds down low. I put the lights on the left side of the tent, around the first girl, since she has a lot more buds, but now that it looks like the concept works, I might get another set of lights for the right side of the tent. ------------------------------ D77. We've reached the end of the fifth week of flower, and all is well in the tent. Ahem, almost all since I still have the thrips to contend with, BUT I just put a bunch of Cucumeris predatory mites in the tent, so the war rages on. A friend suggested adding white cloth below the plants to reflect more light toward the lower buds. Sounds plausible, but I didn't have any fabric, so I went all ghetto by simply putting strips of kitchen paper on top of the scrog net. Not the most fantastic reflector material ever, but it's what I had at hand. Plus, it's easy to work with and costs next to nothing. I doubt it will make a big difference, but even a slight increase is still an increase, and I could see a visible difference in the amount of light hitting the lower canopy. Finally, each plant got 2.5 liters of water @ pH 6.3, with FFJ and Bokashi Juice. ------------------------------