Grow # 2: Chemdog

Grow has been in progress for a while; just found this site and decided to give it a try. This is my second grow; chemdog from seed. I'm starting in a 2' x 2' tent under CFL's; and when bigger will continue to veg them under an HLG 135 watt quantum board. I will be growing in organic soil. When I flip them, they will move to a 3' x 3' x 7' tent under an HLG 260 quantum board. Here's a few pics of the current veg tent setup - haven't setup the LED light or exhaust fan at present. Without the exhaust things are running a bit warmer than in the flower tent.

Growing nicely into their new cup home.

Seedlings are growing nicely - have transitioned them from CFL's to Quantum Board LED. Topped all plants.

Transplanted all seedlings to 1 gallon pots - nice healthy root development on all of them to the bottom of the solo cups; all were beginning to poke through the bottom drainage holes. The two bigger seedlings leaves seemed to be drooping down a bit this morning - possibly the new light is too intense?

Not much to say this week - harvesting first grow so attention is on that.

Things went a bit sideways this week while my attention was focusing on harvesting - I let the plants grow without adjusting grow light height, and started getting some upper leaf twisting / tacoing. Also yellowing of bottom leaves has become much more pronounced. I started transplanting to 3 gallon smart pots, but ran out of coco coir. Waiting for more to arrive...moved from veg tent into flower tent under the HLG 260.

Finished transplanting final two plants into 3 gallon smart pots. The plants aren't showing any new signs of yellowing on the bottom leaves since moving to the flower tent. I pruned the last of them, and will keep watching out for problems. All plants are showing female pistils / pre flowers; everyone is a girl! I'm going to do a bit of LST this week to attempt to get the canopy even and will probably flip sometime next week.

Flipped on September 7th. A few days later the plants were all showing pistils. I'm continuing to LST to try to keep the canopy even - very little adjustment has been needed. The two largest plants were both at the front of the tent, so I moved the right front plant to the back to even things out. I'm not using any nutrients, but did top-dress with a cup of worm castings for each plant. At the next watering, I'll be adding a teaspoon or two of BuildASoil's BuildABloom fertilizer.

First little buds began to show this week. I'm continuing with LST, so plants haven't been gaining much in height, just filling out available horizontal space. These plants have much denser foliage than my last grow (Gorilla Glue #4), which is posing some problems with light penetration. Yellowing of bottom leaves continues to be an issue (I believe due to lack of light), but I'm continuing to prune those bottom leaves when they're completely yellow.

I've had a busy couple of weeks getting a portfolio together for a job search, so am posting updates for the last couple of weeks at the same time. Things seem to be progressing nicely - I changed my lighting schedule for this grow so have a much more limited window when I can visit with my girls - I think I'm going to change things up next grow so I have more time in the morning to work with them.

Buds are starting to take shape, and the first frosting of resin is starting to show up on the sugar leaves. It doesn't really show in the pictures, but the buds are stacking nicely along the length of each cola. Environmental conditions are holding steady, with temperatures dropping slightly in the tent as the days get shorter.

Yellowing of bottom leaves continues to be an issue - the side of tent getting less ventilation seems to be much yellower. Otherwise the plants seem healthy and happy. Buds continue to form nicely; pistils are showing their first red hairs.

Limping towards the finish line - I am not going to use this grow medium (Kind soil) again. I've had issues both grows I've used it for, but more pronounced this time. I've just started a new grow of Acapulco Gold, and will be using Buildasoil's Clackamas Coot mix and maybe giving no-till a try. At any rate, leaves keep dying off / yellowing at a frantic rate. The buds are building up, but not seeing a lot of trich / resin production on the sugar leaves. The plants really aren't growing at all any more and I'm disappointed that they haven't filled in available space in the tent more. Yield looks to be a lot less than my last grow.

After watering yesterday, I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about this grow. Some of the colas are stacking and fattening up nicely; because of the density of the sugar leaves it's a bit hard to tell how much bud is on the plants when they're in the tent. I still think yield is down vs. my previous grow, but not quite as bad as I thought. Another couple of weeks to go...

Heading into the home stretch - I'll probably be harvesting next week. Ironically now that the grow is almost over, the yellowing seems to have stopped, or at least slowed down significantly. I'm wondering if my water pH might have been contributing to the issues - I checked my county water report a few weeks back and was surprised they raise the pH to 8.4 to combat pipe corrosion. I've been using citric acid to lower the pH the last couple of waterings, and the leaves don't seem to be yellowing as much. Perhaps I was getting some sort of lockout??