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Barbara was born Oct 17 but was stalled for a week or so, I eventually discovered I had aphids in the tent and a few on Barbara, just enough to keep her from growing but otherwise she looked healthy. Once they were removed and the little girl got some insecticidal soap, she bounced back and I was able to transplant her from a 1L pot to her forever home. A 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the side about 3 inches from the bottom and a plastic cylinder running down the inside. Perlite in the bottom up to the drain hole and then 70/30 coco/perlite up to the top. I transplanted Barbara and then added about a litre of water around the transplant area to encourage the roots to spread out. With the reservoir filled, I have found that the coco doesnt need too much water and the roots will seek out the moisture they sense from below.
I intend to use GH Maxibloom Lucas formula for this grow, 1 tsp/gallon of tap water with Koolbloom added during flowering. I've had some positive experiences using the LF before but never from seed to harvest. This will also be my first time trying Koolbloom, I've been making the switch from AN to GH
Had some growing pains this week. Some nutrient burn on the lower leaves so I started adding plain water to dilute the reservoir. The leaves were also clawing as if they were being overwatered, I had an extra line running from an air pump so I attached a small airstone and fed it down the irrigation pipe. Might help, definitely can't hurt. I'm letting her grow until I can top her and get a cutting suitable for cloning then I'll start mainlining or manifolding
Oy, not a great week....topped Barbara about 5 days ago, she was looking much better before then....afterwards it was looking like she was suffering both nute burn and deficiencies at the same time....didnt make any sense until I realized I hadnt checked the runoff in a long time/at all. Sure enough, pH was 5.2 and EC was over 0.2. I flushed a lot but the pH was only rising slowly until i just added about a gram of sodium bicarb, now the runoff is within acceptable range
In the meantime, I've halved the lucas formula concentration just to be safe. Added Cronk Monkey Juice cause I'm trying bennies in all my ongoing grows.
Got lucky on a coupla Ebay auctions and scored a rand new Mars hydro ts-1000 (150W) for $60
Well, an improvement over last week. I think I've got the pH and EC under control. Looks like Barbara is slowly recovering - she still looks like hell but the slowly appearing new growth looks a healthy green. I would love to pluck off the damaged leaves but I dont want to stress her anymore than necessary. I took one cutting only because at the time the whole plant was looking questionable qnd I didn't want to lose the genetics, especially if it's as potent as advertised
Fuuuuuck....still havent got the pH and ec where I want them....I kept flushing the reservoir but the pH would stubbornly stay at 6.5....I eventually decided to flush the entire medium from the top with ph'd water. Results to be determined....and I'm still finding fucking aphids, god i hate those little fuckers....
Barbara is still hanging in there, shes growing slowly. Still struggling to get the pH and EC where I want them but at least they're within acceptable levels and shes not showing any further deficiencies or nute burn. I flush the entire medium with ph'd water containing only calmag every other day until I get the EC down under 1.0 and then I'll go back to maxibloom
Getting better, ec is finally down, pH is still a little high but I should be ok now that the coco has been flushed. Shes finally grown enough to begin training her into a manifold
Got the media and reservoir pH and ec under control *knock on wood* and growth has resumed, still minor deficiency in something, possible Mg but any less concerning than where she was 2 weeks ago.
I'm learning that mainlining clones isnt as easy as from seed...my manifold isnt the well-ordered network of branches and nodes that I'm used to making, they've been topped at different nodes and bent this way and that...she ain't pretty but shes alive and that's more than I expected a few weeks ago....this is why I prefer photos to autos, more margin for error before flowering.
Things are looking much better, growth is proceeding more at a pace like in would expect. I've mainlined her for 8 colas and left 2 branches to take as cuttings later. It's not even or symmetrical after the 2 forks in the stem because the nodes were no longer symmetrical but I think it will still work
Doing great, shes growing nicely now that all her high stress training is over. In previous grows I've flipped to early to 12/12 resulting in some nice buds but not the big donkey dick colas I see other people achieving. So at least another week or two before the flip
I'm loving the low maintenance of the sub irrigated planter/hempy bucket design. Shes doing great, cant wait til she starts filling in....still got some patches of aphids that I cant fully eradicate until shes been defoliated and I dont want to do that until 3 weeks at 12/12
Looking good....just shy of 3 weeks flowering so I did a major defoliation and some hst to try and even out the canopy....I just checked and realized she takes 9-10 weeks to finish, that's gonna suck, I hate waiting to a full 8 weeks, let alone 10
Looking good despite last week's fuckup when I tied her branches down to enthusiastically, splitting both sides of the manifold hub. I immediately released all ties and put zip ties around the splits to keep them from spreading. I think it's all good (barring infection, knock on wood) since the split is even the nutes should still be shared to all tops evenly. The budlets are just starting to develop a fruity smell :-)
With a 9 week flowering time, I figure shes about halfway right now....all seems good aside from the split in the manifold which doesnt look like it will be an issue going forward (assuming I dont make it worse with fiddling) pulled off all the remaining fan leaves I could find to maximize light....buds are starting to get sticky and smelly
So far so good. Leaves are developing a nice dark purple hue. Buds smell divine. Buds still aren't as full as i had hoped from KoolBloom but theres still time
35 grams dried.
First time trying a sweetener and judging by the pervasive fruity smell while drying, I feel it helped.
Looking forward to growing a lot more of this strain, especially if it's as potent as advertised