RQS Euphoria - Micro Grow 63W/100W Run 4

Athos I'm starting a new run, this time a from Royal Queen Seeds Euphoria. I'm very exited since it's the first time I grow / try a CBD strain. The 2 seeds are currently in warm water and will remain in it for 30 hours or so, just enough to jump start the germinating process, and then to a solo cup with Biobizz All-mix, which has served me well so far. I'm really grateful to James and the wonderful people of RQS for sending me this strain. Will update once the seedlings brake soil and complete their first week of life, 11 or 12 days from now I would think. Update: Sorry I took so long. I had a lot of trouble germinating the seeds directly in the final container (never again), I wanted to see if it made any difference. As you can see only 1 sprouted, the other, after 7 days, did not. Now with 1 seed already above ground, I'm trying again to sprout a seed.

Athos I don't know what's going on, I'm having real bad luck trying to sprout a seed in the 2nd container, since after 7 days, again it has not sprouted. I'm going to try one last time, if not I'm gonna go ahead with only 1 plant. I'm noticing burn damage on the first pair of leaves by the end of the week. This might be the reason I'm having trouble sprouting the seed. I had heard people having on / off problems with seedlings and Biobizz All-Mix. Might try a new soil next time. Even if the other seed sprouts, I'm facing the problem that the plants will be 3 weeks apart in development; so with this in mind I'm going to try an extreme variation of mainlining that I saw on Youtube some time ago, the guy named it "Bonsai Superlining". It should delay the development of the older plant enough for the other to catch up or if it does not sprout allow for a short plant with enough tops to fill the grow space. The idea is to top repeatedly at the 1st node.

Athos We have come to the end of week 3. After 8 days I have just topped the plant again, as you can see in the pictures. I’m trying one last time to germinate another seed.

Athos Early update. I'm updating 2 days early, since I will not have time on the exact end of the 4th week. So far I've only been giving the plant pH'ed water, even so the foliage is dark green with a couple of burnt tips; I finally gave up on germinating another seed. I'm blaming the soil, might be a bad batch, too hot I think. I have 2.2 square feet of space, how many colas should I aim for 8 per sq ft? 16 per sq ft? It's been 6 days since the 2nd topping and the 4 main shoots are ready to be topped again. in a week or so, it'll be 8 tops.

Athos And we are coming to the end of the 5th week. At day 34, we have 8 lovely tops and it is time for the last topping. I've put quite a few pictures so you can really appreciate all the process. In a few days I will start a bit of LST. I'm been really conservative with the watering, letting the soil get really dry to promote a healthy root structure. Tomorrow will be watering day.

Athos It's the end of the 6th week of veg. Not much to tell really, the plant is recovering after the 4th (and last) TOP'ing and so it's time to let them develop 5 nodes or so; that should around the time it shows preflowers and then to 12/12. I've used paper clips to make stakes and pin the branches to the soil and force them to spread a bit All in all, I believe it should take 2 weeks to reach that stage.

Athos Nothing much to tell really, I'm letting the plant grow and doing some more LST which is helping keeping the plant super squat. The 6500K color temperature LED bulbs gives me some super tight nodes they are amazing. I had some minor excess nutrient, due the Cal-Max, nothing serious, so I'm giving it plain water for now. Now that the plant is finally developing more nodes, it has become thirsty all of a sudden; last week it was drinking 120 cc or so of water, now it's drinking twice as much. I'm letting the soil become real dry before watering again.

Athos We have completed the 8th week of veg. So, what is new? We have preflowers, other than that the tops continue to grow and I’ve done some more LST so to prepare the canopy to fill the whole area. I will give it another week or two so the tops grow some more before switching to 12/12. There’s a few yellow leaves from the bottom, so I just started some grow nutes. Almost forgot; I have new flowering lights, I'm so happy and anxious to try them. I upgraded from 78 watts of 3000K LED bulbs @8400 lumen to 100 watts of 2700K @21.000 lumen. So 28% more power but 2.5 times the light. And I gained just over 2 inches of space.

Athos It's the end of the 9th week of veg. At day 56 there were signs of both potassium and nitrogen deficiencies, so I gave a feeding (for the first time other than cal / mag) of 1.1 EC (550 PPM) and 4 days later the deficiency had gotten worst, so at day 60 I fed again, but this time with a strength of 1.77 EC (885 PPM). It's been 3 days since that feeding and there's slight signs of overfeeding, a couple of burnt tips and 1 or 2 clawed leaves, although it did not last more than 1 day. I've continued to do LST aggressively, which is why the plant is still really short. The older leaves with signs of deficiencies were drying up, so I plucked them. With this, the veg phase is finally over and it is time to switch to 12/12. I will keep the 6500K bulbs for at least 2 weeks.

Athos It’s the end of the first week of flowering. Some LST here and there, nothing serious. I changed the LED bulbs 3 days into flowering to the LED strips. Let me explain my reasoning: In my 3 previous runs, I’ve experienced some serious stretching, even though I used the 6500K light bulbs the first 3 weeks of flower, from 250% to 480% stretch (ouch). I’ve come to believe that the stretch is mainly due lack of light. Here’s some math (correct me if I am wrong). The 6500K bulbs produce 6.330 lumen on a 0.2109 m² (2.27 sq ft) area, giving me 30.000 lux and according to Grow Weed Easy Lux level quick guide that’s good enough for veg, but it’s just not even above the minimum required for flowering (35.000 lux minimum required for flower). The LED strips instead produce 21.000 lumen, which will amount to 99.500 lux which, assuming I understand this correctly, is above the saturation point of the plant without CO2. I hope I'm not talking out of my ass here. So, even though I’m using 2700K light during the stretch, I hope for less stretch than in my previous runs. I’ve upped the feeding to 1.9 EC and still there are some irregular yellowing on lower leaves, most probably potassium deficiency on early stages, so I’ll be upping be adding bloom next feed.

Athos It’s the end of the second week of flowering. It’s hard to really appreciate if the plant has really stretched since I’ve been opening up the canopy with some more LST, perhaps I should have vegged the plant a couple more weeks, but I expected the stretch to be as bad as in my prior diaries. Anyway there’s at least 2 weeks more of vertical growth I think, but it seems the new light fixture has kept the stretch in check. Even though my last feed was at 1.9 EC, there was some more signs of N and P deficiencies, so at the beginning of the week I fed at 2.3 EC and the plant took it like it was nothing and 5 days later I gave another (reduced) feed at 2.0. At 10 days of flower the first signs buds appeared. Enjoy the pictures.

Athos Wow, time flies and we are at the end of the 3d week of flowering. Stretch has been... lacking compared to the previous runs (50% to 60% of pre flower height), which I'd like to think is due the new lights, They continue to grow, but real slow. The plant has been drinking more water, the 1.5 liters that I pour are lasting only 4 days. Enjoy the pictures.

Athos And the 4th week of flowering has gone. The plant is in full flowering mode and seems to have stopped its vertical growth for the most part and it’s focusing its strength and energy into developing buds and has become real thirsty, since my usual 1.5 liters of water / feeding are only lasting 3 days. It has started to smell too. Feeding wise I went from 2.1 EC at the end of last week to 1.6 EC at mid week and 1.35 EC yesterday. I haven't noticed any burn, but now that the "stretch" is finished I reduced the grow nutes. So far the light fixture looks promising, but I want to see the next few weeks how the buds develop before giving a verdict, although the fact that the stretch was so limited is promising; also by this point on the previous runs the buds are not as developed as this time. Enjoy the pictures.

Athos The 5th week has come and gone just like that. The plant is in cruise control, no more LST or training of any kind. This is by far the shortest plant I’ve grown, either the training was very good, the light is strong enough to discourage stretch or a combination of both. The buds are getting bigger by the day and smellier too. I added a bird view picture of the canopy since someone asked me how I had filled the middle where the hole was during training Enjoy the pictures.

Athos And the 6th week has gone. We are getting closer to the end; two more weeks I think, three at most. The wife is asking for a sample since she is really curious about the CBD strain and her stash is really low. I plucked a few leaves here and there that were getting wet due humidity been a little high during lights out. I’m starting to cut back the nutrients; I’m starting the 7th week at 1 EC, after this is plain water. Enjoy the pictures and please leave a comment. *Note: Got a new toy for checking thricomes, much better than my old jewelers loupe.

Athos Almost there. Very little to report; as you can see in the pictures, there’s a missing bud at the back that the wife sniped and is drying, I fear before harvest there's going to be another one missing. I’m giving plain pH’ed water until harvest which I expect will happen at the end of next week or before the 9th week ends. Merry Christmas.

Athos And it has come to an end at day 54 of flower. Thricomes are mostly cloudy with a few clear, the plant could have gone a few more days, but I'll be gone out of town for work for a week and so this is the best time to harvest.

Athos I made quite a few mistakes on this grow. First I should have kept the lights farther away; as a consequence the plant barely stretched. A few more weeks of veg would have helped a lot. Also, I lost a third of the harvest to both my wife sniping a couple of buds and later to bud rot while drying. All in all the reported weight is missing a third of the total buds, quite impressive.