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7/8 Day 99 from sprout, day 44 of flower. So I decided to get a new EC meter and compare it against my old cheap meter. The first one I got was an Apera EC meter and for the life of me I could not get that thing to read or calibrate properly. Numbers were all over the place. Returned that one and went for the Bluelab conductivity pen. Results were consistently lower with the Bluelab than with my old meter, as much as 100 to 200 (or .1- .2). This has opened up a whole can of worms for me, wondering if I’ve been underfeeding this whole time and now figuring out which pen to trust. Obviously I suppose I’ll side with the Bluelab over the cheapo, but I’ll need to rework my whole formula now to see what all the new numbers should look like. I did order some calibration fluid to not only recalibrate, but also to compare the two against the fluid.
Moving on, there’s been an uptick in yellowing of the top leaves so yeah, pretty sure I maxed out my lights for this grow. I lowered the dimmer again to the hash between 50% and 75% (so I guess 62.5%? C’mon Mars Hydro, make hash marks that make sense). At the most directly under a light bar top bud site I get around 800 PAR. It’s a little depressing I can’t force more light but my main issue with previous grows was always light burn. I have to learn to accept keeping light levels lower than I would like because I went too hard when buying lights and they are obviously overpowered for my tent sizes. Hopefully this small change prevents anything from getting too bad and I’ll just have some yellow leaves up top. Big brain theory, totally speculative: I’m underfeeding slightly because my EC meter was off which has made the plant more light sensitive? I don’t know for sure, but between the EC debate and now the light burn it feels like I’ve lost control over the grow and am now just making stabs in the dark on what to do.
7/9 After a bit of an epiphany (thanks @FrontRowAG_BrianG ) I think the light was never the problem. I’m at the lowest part of my pH swing, I may have been underfeeding all nutes, and I’m in coco under an LED. It’s a calcium deficiency, likely caused by low pH. Symptoms all fit and it makes much more sense than light burn. So with that now figured out the light is back to 75% and I raised the res from 5.7 to 5.8. I’ll probably try to raise the pH to 5.9 later tomorrow because I don’t want to do too large of a change all at once. I’ve also adjusted my optimal pH range to 5.8 – 6.1.
7/10 Day 100 from sprout, day 46 of flower. pH in the res reads 5.9, and taking a reading from the autopot reads 6.1. It’s a tricky balance with adjusting the res so that the water that sits in the autopot stays in range, in fact that’s why I lowered my pH targets to begin with. I’m now leaning towards maintaining a narrower pH range for the res and then letting the water that sits in the autopot be the variable that changes. For instance, my other current grow is the Stoopid Fruits and the water sitting in that autopot reads 6.3. If it were to call for new water later today it would fill up with 5.9 pH water from the res and then slowly drift up to where it is now at 6.3. As it grows up and gets thirstier it will call for water more often and not drift as high. I’m now thinking keeping the res at 5.8 - 5.9 might be the best practice as this will allow for anything from 5.8 – 6.4 by the time it’s absorbed into the pot.
As for EC issues, I got the calibration fluid in today. It confirmed the Bluelab was spot on while the cheap HM COM-80 was way, way off. I did calibrate the HM using the fluid, and even though it took it and now read the calibration fluid properly, testing the reservoir showed it to still be off. That went straight into the garbage. So now I know I have been underfeeding across the board for pretty much the life of this plant. In a weird way that has helped me understand that maybe I don’t need to go up to a full 1.3 EC as intended since I’ve probably been feeding at 1.0 or 1.1 EC this whole time. I will increase the silica to 2.5ml/gal and the calmag to either 4.5ml or 5ml/gal in order to take advantage of the extra EC headroom I have, and I’ll keep the Jack’s 20-10-20 roughly the same for a final EC of 1.2.
7/15 Day 105 from sprout, day 51 of flower. Marked increase in some fade all around, as well as some purple all around. Very cool.
Your garden is a canvas, and you are the artist creating a masterpiece with every plant. Keep painting with nature's colors and watching your garden come alive with wonder. 🎨🌿
The best thing you can do is be critical of your environment my friend. Just don’t overthink it too much. Plants love the light!
Have you thought about getting a small 20lb co2 tank? 900-1000 par is normal, but if your seeing some deficiencies it can only be a handful of things. Usually it’s lack of nutrition or air for them to breathe…usually. You are on the right track my friend so don’t doubt yourself.
Remember you’re also almost to day 50 of flower…changes in the leaves are normal and one correction is not more nitrogen during the flowering stage. Lack of cal mag is going to show yellowing more than a lack of nitrogen
@Dmars, so when your plants are in flower deficiencies look different than in veg. I’m not a botanist by any means lol. But I know a little bit after growing at scale for a decade and a half. I’ve read a lot to go with this hands on experience. If you ever want to brainstorm just direct message me my friend and between the two of us we can put out some great grows! I’ve enjoyed our back and forth texts. You’ve got a great plant there, so don’t doubt what you are doing!
@FrontRowAG_BrianG, Now that I'm home and looking at my plants more closely I think you pointed me in the right direction here. I did think it was weird that I was getting light stress and wasn't really sure why. But now I'm thinking it's actually a calcium deficiency, either via my old EC meter leading me astray or by swinging my pH down. This is extremely helpful to know. Thanks a ton!
@Dmars, oh and as an afterthought, I would go with the blue lab pen out of the 2 you have to choose from. I’m about to go thru some growing pains myself as it is my 1st time using salt nutrients. I’ve already made some critical mistakes using such large pots instead of smaller ones like i should have. As in life, hindsight is always 20/20
Yeah I would say whatever your rating is give a plus 2 points for ease of trim. Great looking plant ya got there brother. So jealous you got to run the newest Ethos Genetics. Can’t wait for the smoke review.
This is what I’ve been waiting for. I’ve got the same issues going on with one of my mandarin cookies phenos. Looks amazing, rock hard, hardly any smell…and the smell the last 2 weeks of grow will almost tell you all you need to know. Good stuff tho @Dmars. The grow really did turn out well plus 3/4 lb for one plant is the number I strive for!!!
@FrontRowAG_BrianG, so last time I only got 10 ounces, but that was my first run in this 3x3 and I was still feeling things out with the light and the nutrients. This grow is light years above my last so far, so right now my hope is for 15 ounces but that's just based off of math. I really don't know what I'll be getting until we get there. Also this strain is super new and there isn't really much reference out there for it other than a couple other diaries and what Ethos says on their website.
@Dmars, i havnt really noticed a significant difference between using or not the co2 bags. From my understanding the plants still get co2 from outside with windows being open. Humans and animals produce co2. In nature a plants/trees job is to take in co2 to make oxygen. So with that baseline, id have to assume the same for an indoor grow....🤷
Plant looks beastly though! Greatwork!
@Happy_Roots, yeah they are on the floor but that's because I had to move my exhaust out of the tent in order to raise my light more. Doing that removed the room the bags had to sit on top of the light. I just don't have a good option for hanging them now and figured keeping them on the floor was better than just removing them. I honestly don't think they contribute much of anything anyways and won't be buying them again. - EDIT - I did find a way to get them back up there after revisiting it. Thanks for getting me to reevaluate it.
This is what I’ve been waiting to see bro!!! These will definitely be in one of my next runs 100% for sure after seeing the progress and swell from the last 2 weeks. Amazing my friend.
@FrontRowAG_BrianG, I appreciate the kind words. I've had a good run, easily my best yet. I do really like the way this strain grows, maybe just wish I knew how intense the stretch would be ahead of time but it all worked out. She's got decent internode spacing and after a few good rounds of defoliation is a very airflow friendly plant. I don't foresee a miserable time in trim jail as she should be quick and easy, which is absolutely an underrated part of the grow. And while I do have a little bit of larf way, way down low (which I should have just trimmed off once I noticed it), every decent bud site that's getting any real light is a solid, dense, frosty, well formed bud. The only missing thing right now is I still need to check for potency, effects, and flavor. If it can check those boxes as well this will have been a massive, massive success.
Good video and it gives lots of insight into your grow. You’ve got so many bud sights bro. If you could manage to tuck the plant parts back under the net that start to stretch for the 1st 2 weeks of flower you can damn near double your end harvest. All this does is trick the plant into thinking all its branches are tops. So your larger buds will be from edge to edge instead of just what is reaching for the light. Amazing job for such a small tent, bro I’m jealous!!!
@FrontRowAG_BrianG, yeah the way this plant ended up looking is not how I originally intended it to lol. The stretch was so much crazier than I thought it would be and it limited my options. I did want a nice even canopy all around and I had that when I flipped the lights, but as you can see some parts just flew up and ended up creating almost a second "lower canopy". I decided that with the limited space I have I would just let it do it's thing and keep in mind to veg a little less next time so that when I do get some crazy stretch I'll have the room necessary to bring them back down.
@FrontRowAG_BrianG, the stretch really surprised me here. I'd have to go back and measure to know for sure but I'm pretty sure she almost tripled in height. Thankfully I have just barely enough room in the tent to make it work.
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