Exotic Genetics - Melon Milk

Week 1 Update: My current PPFD is reading about 200, which is a DLI of just about 13, for the 18 hours I have the light on. This is on the low end, but when I'm growing in AZ during the middle of the summer, when it's 115° plus outside, it's challenging to keep temperatures in check, so I like the PPFD a little lower. Plus, I'm not seeing any signs of stretching, so I think im good for now. My VPD is averaging about .85, which I'm happy with at this stage, and the plant seems to be happy with it as well. 7/8/2023: It's officially been one week since germination and everything is going great so far. The solo cup she is growing in started feeling a little light, so I watered very lightly yesterday. I added a small amount of Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja as a wetting agent, a small amount of Rootwise Mycrobe Complete, and 1 ml of Botanicare Silica Blast to the water. I brought the Ph down to 6.2 and watered about 20 to 30 ml. Just enough to dampen the soil again. Once the seedling is large enough, I plan to transplant into an earthbox, which is shown in the picture above. I used the rest of water I made to water the earthbox, which has a cover crop starting to grow, which I plan to chop and drop once it grows in more. 7/10/2023: another light watering today. Just plain water at a 6.2 ph.

7/15/2023 Day 11 Veg: watered again today, and added some Pure Protein Dry, BuildASoil Big 6, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst, and Yah-Whey Thrive. Also did a light foliar feed with the Pure Protein Dry as well. She still looks healthy so far. 7/17/2023: I appear to have a shore fly issue. This is a first for me. Delt with fungus gnats before, but these look like little flies. Need to start some IPM. Brewing a neem seed and mosquito bit tea, which I plan to do a soil drench with tomorrow. Will probably throw in some Dr. Zymes as well. I also have some beneficial nematodes I plan to add. We'll see how that works. 7/18/2023: watered with the tea I made yesterday, but instead of adding Dr. Zymes I added Lost Coast Plant Therapy. Also added the beneficial nematodes. 7/20/2023: the shore fly population seems to have declined, but it is still too early to tell. They are definitely in the earthbox, so I'm going to let it dry down more to see if that helps too. Roots are growing out of the bottom of the solo cup, but I'm going to wait another couple weeks before transplanting. 7/21/2023: watered with just plain water at a 6.2 ph.

7/22/2023 - Day 18 Veg: she is definitely small for her age. She looks healthy, so I'm assuming it must be a watering issue. My environment has been dialed in with an averge VPD og .85, so the plants should be growing well. The cover crop is doing great. I've only been watering every 3 or 4 days, so I'm going to try watering more often, but with less water. Not too worried about it as long as she stays healthy. I had the light pretty high, so I dropped it today, bringing the PPFD up to just over 500. I was at about 300, so that should get her going. The shore fly issue seems to be getting better, but it comes in waves, so I'm not sure if I've been totally successful yet. 7/23/2023: foiler fed today with Pure Protein Dry, BuildASoil Big 6 Micro Nutrients, calmag, silica, and ThermX-70. Also did a light watering with the same mix. 7/24/2023: it looks like she like the foiler feeding yesterday. 7/25/2023: today is veg day 21, so officially the three week point. Watered today, mixed with silica, calmag, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst, and Yah-Whey Thrive. 7/26/2023: Time to chop and drop the earth box today.

7/29/2023 - Day 25 veg: still small for her age, but she is starting to pick up some speed. Between a watering issue, and the lack of nutrients in the starter soil, I think that is why I'm off to a slow start. Decided it's time to transplant. Chopped and dropped the earthbox last week, so she is ready to go. Hopefully, the transplant into the Earthbox will help speed up the growth. Overall she looks happy and healthy. For the transplant, I sprinkled Dynomyco on the roots, and watered in with Silica, Calmag, Rootwise Micro Complete, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst, and some Fermented Comfrey Extract. Water had a 6.2 ph. 7/30/2023: just a quick update today. She took to the transplant great and is not showing any shock. 8/1/2023 - Day 28 veg: she finally looks like she is starting to grow faster. 8/2/2023: foiler fed with 5.8 ph water, mixed with Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja 60, calmag, silica, BuildASoil Big 6, and Pure Protein Dry. 8/4/2023 - Day 31 Veg: watered with about .75 gallons of compost tea. The tea was made with BuildASoil BuildAFlower, Bat Guano, Seabird Guano, Neem Cake, and Molasses. Foiler fed with this as well.

8/5/2023 - Day 32 Veg: This is officially the start to week 5. She has been in the earthbox for one week now and I can definitely tell the difference. She has finally started to pick up speed, and it looks like she has grown out of the minor deficiencies I started to notice last week. It was nothing too serious, but the leaf in between the veins was looking a bit light. The foiler feed and compost tea seems to have helped. I'm sure the larger bed of soil is helping too. So far she seems to be looking more indica leaning, with the fatter leaves and she's a little squatty, so I haven't had to do any training yet. I will still probably top her at least once, but I haven't decided yet. 8/9/2023 - Day 35 Veg: did a light watering today with plane water at a ph of 6. 8/10/2023 - Decided to top her today

8/12/2023 - Day 39 Veg: she seemed to be handling the topping well. I'm also seeing more signs of the lower branches starting to grow, which tells me the topping has helped. Other than her slow growth, she looks healthy. 8/16/2023: watered again today using water at about 6 ph. Mixed in Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja, Silica, Calmag, BuildASoil Big 6, Pure Protein Dry, Rootwise Mycrobe omplete, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst, and some Dr. Zymes Eliminator. The plant is finally getting big enough to start bottom watering soon, so this will likely be on of the last top watering until flower. Also, I defoliated a couple leaves that were blocking the lower branches, and super cropped the top, to promote more growth in the lower branches. 8/18/2023: Installed the first layer of trellis netting today

8/19/2023 Day 46 Veg: she is finally starting to develop some additional branching. I've been LST and leaf tucking. I was thinking about doing some additional defoliating, but I don't want to slow down her growth anymore. 8/20/2023: started the subirrigation today, with filtered water with a 6.0 ph. 8/21/2023: she is definitely reacting positively to the bottom watering. She was praying more than usual this morning, so hopefully the growth will continue to puck up speed now. 8/23/2023: defoliated a few more of the big fan leaves, to allow more light to the lower branches. 8/24/2023: had to fill up the water again for the subirrigation. Used plane water with a 6.2 ph. Plant is doing great.

8/26/2023 Day 53 veg: Did a heavy defoliation today, along with some lollipoping. Also, chopped the cover crop again, then cut it up and mixed with 1 cup of BuildASoil Craft Blend, 1/2 cup of Clackmas Coot Gnarly Barley, and 4 cups of BuildAFlower, to make a top dress. Before top dressing I sprinkled 1/2 tsp OptiVeg around the base of the plant, then added the top dress. Finally, I sprinkled the top of the soil with Growing Organic Kashi Blend. Then I mixed up some filtered water with Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja, BuildASoil Big 6, BuildABloom, Rootwise Mycrobe Complete and Bio-Phos, Fermented Comfrey Extract, and Thrive Yah-Whey. I watered the top of the soil just enough to get the topdress moist. Finally, I added the plastic cover the the earthbox. I will do one more topdress once I'm in the early stages of flower, but plan to mainly use the subirrigation from here on out. Also took a few clones today. 8/29/2023: she is just starting to hit the screen. The reservoir still has water in it, so not much more to report. 8/30/2023: the reservoir was dry today, so I filled it with water at a 6.4 ph. Also mixed in some calmag, silica, and some Yah-Whey Thrive. 9/1/2023: just tucking under the screen trying to spead things out a bit more before flipping to flower.

9/3/2023: Still doing some minor defoliation and tucking the branches under the scrog screen. Think this will be the final week in veg. I plan on letting her dry out a bit more before bottom watering again, so I can water in some pre-bloom nutrients, before flipping to flower. As of today there is still water in the reservoir. 9/5/2023: The reservoir dried out yesterday and today I top watered with about 1 gallon. Added Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja 60, Coconut Powder, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst and Bio-Phos, BuildASoil Big 6 and BuildABloom, Pure Protein Dry, Fermented Comfrey Extract and Fermented Peach Extract. Then I filled up the reservoir with the remaining 2 gallons of water, with a ph of 6, with Silica and cal mag added in. This will likely be the last top waterings until stretch is complete. 9/8/2023: She is showing some signs of overwatering. I think the top watering rhe other day may have made the soil a bit too wet. I've pulled back the cover to let the soil dry a bit. I will also let the reservoir dry out a few days before filling again. The other plants is doing awesome, but the Melon milk seems to be a bit more moody. Was hoping she would fill out the right side of the screen, but I'm running out of time. The plant on the left is getting too big and I'm running out of room. Plan to flip to flower very soon, but I want to get this waterings issue sorted first.

9/9/2023: dropped the lighting by two hours, so I'm on 16/8 now. Still seeing some leaf curling, so I'm hoping she will snap out of it. The other plant I'm growing looks great, and need to be flipped to flower soon, so plan to give it a few more days, then make the flip. 9/12/2023: The reservoir dried out about 2 days ago and I let everything dry out as well, which appears to have started helping with the overwatering. Filled the reservoir today, with about 3.5 gallons of water at a 6.2 ph. This will be my final day of veg, 70 days in total. Tomorrow starts day 1 of flower

9/13/2023: flipped to flower today. I went out of town for a week. So I did not have any other updates. She was watered with plain water at a 6.5 ph when the reservoir went dry, and nothing else.

9/20/2023 - Day 8 Flower: Start to week two of flower. I was on vacation last week, so I did not have many updates. The Melon Milk is stretching, but she is still smaller than the other plant in the earthbox. She has those fat leaves, so I'm assuming this is the indica in her. Either way, she still looks healthy, I just don't expect a huge yield from her. 9/22/2023: filled the reservoir again today with plain water at a 6.2 ph. 9/26/2023 - Day 14 Flower: She is drinking water fast now. The reservoir is dry again. Filled it up with water at a 6.5 ph, mixed with some Fermented Peach Extract. After two weeks in flower, she is smaller than I would have liked, but she looks extremely healthy. I will likely do another top dress and defoliation at the end of week 3.

9/27/2023 - Day 15 Flower: This is the start of week 3 flower. Not much to report. Filled the reservoir yesterday. Plan to do another top dress once the reservoir dries out, so I can top water some flowering nutrients in. I will also defoliate at the end of this week. Plant still looks extremely healthy. 9/29/2023: reservoir is already dry again, so I topdressed today with BuildASoil BuildAFlower mixed with a cup of Craft Blend and a half cup of Clackmas Coot Gnarly Barley. Watered in with Jay Plantspeaker Quillaja, Rootwise Bio-Catalyst and Bio-Phos, BuildASoil Big 6 and BuildABloom. 10/1/2023: It looks like the initial stretch is about done. She is starting to put on the first signs of real flower and I'm seeing some tricomes developing already. 10/3/2023 - Day 21 Flower: Defoliated today and filled the reservoir again. Unfortunately, it looks like she hermed on me. It seemed to be just a few branches, so I chopped the ones with pollen sacks forming and left the others. I'm not giving up yet, but my already small plant is even smaller now. I still have 8 or 9 decent tops, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

10/4/2023: Start to week 4 of flower, day 22. She hermed on me, but it was contained to a couple branches, which I removed. Watching very closely for more pollen sacks, but so far so good. 10/6/2023: going to have to cut this one short. Found more pollen sack, and one opened and pollinate the flower. Also, my other plant hermed as well, so something it up. Guessing I have a light leak or something but it's too late for this round. On to the next!