First hydro autoflower grow -Sweet Skunk

Hmmmm this week has been very interesting and also a learning experience. So I started out doing two plants of the same strain in soil and hydroponic (DWC). Had a little issue with germination (mainly the hydro one in the rockwool) but seemed alright after a minor adjustment. The hydro seedling really bounced back in a day and a half. Took off the little paper clip support off as well. And after that it just blew up by just maintaining pH, ppm and water temps throughout the week. Had to use a little bit of pH down earlier and later in the week...just a little bit. She just sprouted roots from the net pot today. So that was a bit exciting 😁 Just gave it another shot of very easy nutes today. Will check and see how it likes that. As for the other one it experienced something called "dampening off". It was really strange. Looked great but was a bit behind the hydro one. Which was to be expected but on Jan 21st in the am I noticed it was completely feel over and the stem was basically like all the water was sucked out of it. Very sad to see it go. So now it's just the one. I suspect the culprit is probably my soil. Might be contaminated or something. I had another auto seed (Whiskey Zulu) in a soil pot and it sprouted a few days ago on Jan 20th. But noticed it's first leaves were curled down. I took it out of the soil and cleaned the roots and put it in my other hydro bucket. Only time will tell if that one will survive.

Did a water change and fresh nutrients on 1/24/23. And increased my lights from 50% to 60%. Noticed a little spot on one of the leaves but seems to be okay. New sets of leaves are growing in. And I noticed a lot more new roots are popping out of the net pot. Just checking ppm/water temps/pH levels on a daily basis. No real adjustments needed to be made to pH levels this week after the nutrient change. Added a bit more this week and the plant seems to like it so far. 😸 Edit 2/1/2023.. I changed the nutes out and started fresh because the ppm was running a bit higher than it should have (probably my fault from adding a bit more) a could see some difference and got it dialed back in. This time I added some Cal mag to this batch.

This week has been a little bit stressful for my little plant. She basically one day (Feb 2nd) all the leaves pretty much dropped to the floor but showed no sign of damage on the leaves. Then the next day (Feb 3rd) just very dark leaves growing in from the new leaves. And definitely not showing any signs of perking up. Some of the damage you see now in the photos that look like nute burns is actually from when the leaves got bent when it was dropping really bad and then a few days later they were kinda yellowish and showed damaged spot where it was folded over. But on one of those set of leaves it shows these very faint dark spots that showed up and are a little more noticeable. Probably from when the roots were damaged. Then the growth was stunted for a few days after that and noticed that some of my roots looked very wilted and stringy. Like it was so fragile they would break off easily by barely touching them. Then noticed a only a few of the roots were slightly darker... like brownish. I changed the rez and put very little nutes and then decided to make some upgrades to my system. I'm pretty sure I solved all the possibilities this plant was experiencing. I ordered a much stronger air pump and realized the one I had was kind of weak sauce. It was a two outlet model but very low voltage. Basically only good enough for just one bucket imo. This one allows me to have two air stones in each bucket and now it really bubbles up properly and looks very oxygenated. Then did a check on my water levels. Noticed my previous marker was a bit off and now have it marked properly and now there is a more accurate 2 inch ish gap between the net pot and the rez. Checked for light leaks and found a few around the edges coming through. This could also be the culprit if light was hitting the roots. So I remember an old school trick from back in the day and cut out some paper plates and made these two piece ring to cover the edges of the net pot all the way around. I did a check and now it's dark in there. Also decided to stopped using tap water and started using filtered water. Then eventually I will upgrade to a 3 or 5 stage reverse osmosis portable system. Currently my tap water is at 170ppm and 7.4ph. Looked up a water report for my area. It's really good for being close to the city. With the carbon filter it slightly raised the ppm slightly to about 185 ish and that's most likely from the carbon particles. But it smells and tastes a lot better now. Also bought a portable cool mist humidifier to raise the humidity since it's been really cold up here and have this set up in my walk in closet. I was getting really low humidity numbers and thought this was also the problem (😅 most likely!!) Now with this in the tent my humidity numbers jumped tremendously and now stay between 45% - 50% and that's exactly where I want it. Basically have it on a setting where it shoots out mist intermittently. It was pretty inexpensive on Amazon. Have to fill it up every other day it seems but I check it every day so it's all good. And I keep it off when it's lights out since it stays in a good range. Hopefully these minor upgrades do the trick to perk this little plant up. Not really worried about even though it does look a little sick. But I noticed today that new leaves are growing in the right color and the roots look way more better than they did on 2/3. Basically she's in ICU. Sometimes you have to go through some growing pains 😂 2/8 Bought some hydroguard and added the recommended amount to my rez yesterday see if this helps. Fingers crossed 🤞 2/9 Got some Silica today and added that to my rez bucket. Looks a little better today. The roots have exploded and looks really healthy, so that's a really good sign. Should bounce back

This week is starting much better and this little plant has been slowly improving every day since adding a couple more nutrients to my feeding. I'm pretty sure the hydroguard did the trick. Followed by the silica boost. Now it can hold it's fan leaves up better. Measured how much water is in my buckets and now I am able to measure my nutes more accurately than before. Looks like I was a bit off before. Did a change yesterday (2/11) and that's about it. Just going to kick back and watch her grow more 😸

Since last week this plant had grow quite a bit. So much that is drank 3 cups of water in a few days. So I just topped it off a bit with pH water but then noticed it was showing deficiencies in some of the fan leaves. Did a water change a few days ago (2/18) And decided to give it a boost in nutes since is about to transition into flowering stage soon. So far it's doing pretty well. Will keep a close eye with the bump of nutes. Going to start doing rez change every 5 days ish going forward. This plant is getting really thirsty lately and don't want to top off and risk another deficiency.

Looking better after I did a rez change and just did another a few days ago 2/24 and will most likely have to do another one in a few more days lol. This plant is getting big fast and drinking lots of water! Seems like everyday it's a bit taller and it's really starting to flower. Did a clean up on the bottom and removed quite a few big fan leaves that were covering up the flowers below them. Did a bit of training on the new branches to get them more light and to the center. Going to keep doing what I am doing and watch her grow some more :)))

No complaints with this one. Flowering and still growing. Did a rez change yesterday on 3/5. Trichomes are starting to appear on the leaves closest to the buds. Waiting to see more of these buds develope. The smell of this plant is definitely more noticeable than before. When you get up close, it has a very nice skunk/piney smell. I'm sure as the days go on, this will be more pronounced by the end of her cycle.

I've noticed this week that my plant started to slow down in her rapid growth spurt. The other side braches mostly got pretty tall. Now it should be focusing on it's flowers more. Definitely the buds look a bit more bigger than last week. Keep the nutes the same as before and seems be fine.My temps are bit lower because it's really cold in my area. But it seems okay ...So far, so good :)

Talk about greedy lol. I guess I am at this point in the grow where I just watch the water levels drop like crazy after every change. Did one a few days back and will need to do it tomorrow. So far so good....just keeping everything dialed in and watching her carefully to see if she needs anything else. Looks like I am on the money with this one. Don't see any type of deficiencies on her leaves. I also just stopped giving her silica since it probably doesn't need it anymore. Finally picked up a jewelers loop since harvest time will be here before I know it. Bud are starting to get bigger and more noticeable. And the smell has been very strong the past few days.

Everything seems to be going pretty well this week. Started to notice the top leaves around the main cola are brown and crispy. It's has to be from being to close to the lights and are getting burned. But the good news I am starting to see more milky trichomes than clear ones. I hope to be done with her in the next few weeks at the most. Only because my tent is getting a bit crowded and realize 3's a company and 4 is a bit crowded 😆. But with very strategic defoliation when needed. I am making it work. Started adding silica again because I read somewhere it can help or have a better tolerance under bright lights and heat. Really starting to bud very nicely. I can't wait to start the drying and curing process. I made myself a pretty sweet cardboard drying box the other day. So many ways to do this process but I think 🤔 the box will work well. It has a hole in the lower corner on one side and the other side has a hole on the upper right side to help with indirect ventilation and will probably use a fan on the other side of my closet to keep the air moving.

This is pretty much her last week of flowering. I've been watching her trichomes every day and she's basically done. Pretty much 70 percent of her flower pistils are brown. Trichomes are all milky cloudy and I am starting to see some amber throughout the whole plant. I know at this point it's personal preference and l am not totally sure what is best. So I was kind of going for something like this when I started this grow. The plan was pretty much all cloudy trichomes and some amber. And I am not sure if some of those cloudy trichomes end up amber after you put her in darkness for a bit and chop her before the drying process 🤔. But it kinda makes sense but it's probably just a random high thought lol But the next diary (Lemon Gelato x Sour Apple Auto) should be done in the next few weeks ish since it was basically a few weeks behind this one. I will probably go higher percentage of amber. Like 20 ish percent and all cloudy before I chop. It's going to be a lot of fun trying to find out the sweet spot On 4/1 Just plain filtered pH water and that's it Wanted to do a 5 plus day flush. Did take off a lot of dying/dried up leaves. And I think after further research I originally said it was probably because of being to close to the lights that was causing the leaves to get crispy a few weeks back. But I think it was her actually telling me that she focusing on her buds and saying eff these fan leaves 😆. They looked similar to the other one that are dying off. I cut quite a bit of those off this week and only a few fan leaves remain. But the other ones that are left are starting to get that way too. I will put her in darkness in the next day or so for about 3 days ish and monitor the temps and humidity. This other small room I'm using is great and pretty much stays at 52% humidity and about 68 degrees. And it's super dark so it should be right on the money. I will use this space to put my dry box in.....Edit 4/8 I decided to use my grow tent to dry and just have my set up basically in my closet. Plenty of space and there are lots of hooks and hangers which make it easy setting up the fan and light. I'll use the AC Infiniti controller and just the exhaust fan for the dry tent. I'm having the air pulled out the top on the lowest setting and with the vent on the bottom cracked halfway to let the air in. Did a test and the basement is basically in the mid to high 60s. And my tent has been holding above 45 ish plus humidity. Not really sure if the humidity will go up once I have it hanging up. Hopefully no issues there I will update the dairy again later this week before and after the chop. Thinking Saturday ish!

For a first grow I think it went pretty well. I have it drying and I am monitoring the temps and RH and it been at 60 degrees and the RH has been around 55 ish with the help of a little humidifier close by the vent to get that right number. Hope to be all dried by 10 - 14 days. I plan on checking the buds every other day until it has the right feels right, like a bit crispness from what I've learned. Then I will post pics of the trimmed buds and put up how much it is dried on the scales. I chopped her down late yesterday. Took down all the big fan leaves and left the rest to help me get a nice slow dry hopefully. I'll probably take a little bit out to smoke and the rest cure for awhile. Don't want to keep buying mediocre over priced meh bud at a shop around here when I have the possibilities to grow something great or even ultra top shelf bud. And a big shout-out for all those likes, views and those who commented thanks so much 😁 🙏 Smoke update to be continued on another date. Which is totally fine. My other diaries are moving along and one is getting closer to being done and now has my full attention. Looking forward to how that one turns out. (Lemon Gelato x Sour Apple Auto)