Mac N Jack Autopot

7/12 Mac N Jack has sprouted and looks good. It’s only been 4 days since I first took the seed out of the package and we’re already at day 1. This has to be the fastest I’ve seen any seed go yet, hopefully a good sign for things to come. 7/15 I decided to mix up some half strength nutes using just silica, calmag, and Jack’s 20-10-20 Peat Lite, .7 EC, 6.3 pH. Fed until I saw runout out the bottom.

7/24 Day 13. Not much to talk about. Gradually increased water up to full strength 1.3 EC and got the solo cup elevated a bit more for increased light. I’ll keep watering 1-2 times a day until transplant and that’s about it.

*Late Edit* - I've switched off of Jack's nutrients in favor of the GH flora trio before flower started. I love how I was able to merge some new science into some proven growing methods, but I've been consistently seeing herms ever since I switched to this formula. I figured switching nutrient lines this run would help answer any questions I have about the nutrients being the cause. Now that this grow is starting for real, I may as well go over the method I intend to follow. My method for growing is a combination of the research Dr. Bruce Bugbee has done, the fantastic coco specific information available at cocoforcannabis.com, and then my own personal touch which is the autopot method of delivery and of course how to merge all those ideas into one grow style. My last two grows is where a lot of the work was done for tweaking and refining the numbers, so now for this one there should not be many changes. The nutrients listed and the amounts will be consistent from start to finish, absolutely no change whatsoever. This makes it easy to start new grows and hook up to the autopot system without any worry that the nutrient mix may not be appropriate. I'm still a little conflicted with how I will train, but this strain is known to be a little chaotic and will need aggressive training. I'll probably take some ideas from mainlining, such as topping each branch at the same points to maintain equality for all branches. Unlike mainlining I will at least have 2 nodes from which all growth will come, but that could become 3 or 4 nodes which would be a bit more of a traditional topping. 7/30 Day 19 from sprout. Big changes today. The Mac N Jack is finally gonna get the attention it needs to really start growing. Up until now it was just about getting a headstart inside the 3x2, but now it’s the sole occupant in the 3x3 and will have everything tailored just for it. I did try turning on the autopot system just to give it an initial shot of water so the roots have something to get search for, but after it filled I turned the valve back off. I’ll top water for about a week or so and then it should be fine to go back to autopot watering.

8/2 Day 22 from sprout. She looks super happy now and is loving life. I’ve kept up with hand watering each day from my reservoir, and maybe even as soon as tomorrow I’ll debate turning on the autopot. 8/3 Day 23 from sprout. After readjusting the reservoir to 5.9 pH I turned on the autopot system. No more hand watering which is nice. Last time I switched on the autopot like this I noticed some pH related burns on leaves, but I think I did a much better job this time getting everything more consistent since sprout. I don’t anticipate seeing any issues. I did trim off the branches at the first node. Personal preference for me as I always think that first node looks weaker than the others come flower. The plan right now is to let the plant establish a bit more, then top it so I leave 4 nodes. That gives me 8 tops, which then becomes 16 tops once I top all of them. After that selectively top anything that starts to get too far ahead of the pack, so somewhere in the 20s for amount of tops. As long as all that happens trim off almost all side branches (only leave the top most ones that fill in any gaps in the canopy), and fill out the tent with just tops. I’m projecting a bit here but that should make for a much more even canopy than what I’ve achieved in the past, while also cutting down on larf significantly. Lights currently at 250 PAR / 16.2 DLI. 8/4 Day 24 from sprout. Everything looks good and healthy, even though I just realized I was making a mistake. Being in flower these past 2 months I forget that little plants are sippers not guzzlers, and the water that leaves my reservoir can sit in the autopot for a good long while sometimes. This means the pH rises, so even though my res was at 5.9 the water that was still filled to the top in the autopot was at 6.3. I drained the water in the autopot and let it refill with res water so hopefully no harm comes of it. This has to be the only downside of the Autopot system, everything else other than pH is amazing. The idea is to have 1 res for 2 tents, and it’s a sound plan but I’ll have to be on top of dynamically adjusting pH to make two tents happy. Could get tricky. 8/6 Day 26 from sprout. I’ve been struggling a bit with pH and the autopots. Once the water fills the autopot, if it’s not absorbed relatively quickly the pH can start to rise. I’ve seen it as high 6.4 yesterday, and even after a hard correction to the res to around 5.7 today I STILL found the pH in the autopot rising up to 6.2. So for the moment I turned the autopot system off and will probably only turn it on to fill the pot when dry and then turn it right back off. This way I can control the pH better until the plant has grown up a bit more and empties the autopot more often. In other news, I topped her today leaving 4 nodes for growth and a good stump.

8/11 Day 31 from sprout. Not much to say, just typical veg growth. In a day or 2 I’ll probably do the next topping. 8/12 Day 32 from sprout. Did some light defoliation at the very bottom just to clean it up a bit. Also did some LST, just to get things spread out a little before I switch over to the trellis net. I topped the two topmost branches since they now sat a little higher than the rest after the LST. All other branches will probably get topped tomorrow. 8/13 All other branches are now topped, except one that is lagging behind a little. So for the moment I have 15 tops. Now the focus will be training into the trellis nets, keeping up with defoliation, and then additional toppings.

8/16 Day 36 from sprout. I topped the last remaining branch and did some general defoliation towards the base. I’ve also decided to make a change in nutrients away from Jack’s to the GH Flora trio. After finishing my third grow with the Jack’s 20-10-20 Peat Lite and getting some “testing” done, I’ve seen similarities whose only common thread is the nutes. Consistent herms and a lack of general flavor and terps was the worst of it. As a result I’m switching course here before I hit flower in hopes of fixing the issues I’ve been seeing. 8/18 Day 38 from sprout. There’s enough mass now to at least debate flipping to flower. I currently have 16 tops, but in order to top again all around I’ll need to veg for awhile longer. Considering Ethos says to send this cultivar into flower earlier than most maybe going for more tops is a bad idea. It feels like flipping now or soon would result in similar growth to the Fanta Sea I just did, and while that grow was fine, I didn’t have a very even canopy. I think I’m siding with flipping within the next few days for now, so I’ll revisit soon. 8/19 Day 39 from sprout. I saw a big uptick in growth over just 24 hours. Kind of shocked me honestly. So I topped the middle 4 tops to bring them down more in line with all the other tops. I’ll allow at least 1 day for recovery before flipping to flower now. I also emptied and cleaned out my reservoir and am now 100% in on the Flora Trio recipe, with a target EC of 1.2. 8/20 Day 40 from sprout. It’s only been one day since topping but she looks perky and happy. I’m gonna switch the lights to 12/12 now so tomorrow will be the first day of flower. Adjusted the light to 430 PAR / 18.6 DLI.

8/21 Day 1 of flower. I’m really impressed with how level the canopy is right now with only very light LST and topping. I’ll keep the trellis net off until I see a need to bring things in line again, which I’m sure is only a week or 2 away. 8/22 Day 2 of flower. Growth has been very steady. I redid some LST wires to spread her out a little and added in the trellis net. Already I could see nodes shooting off that I knew wouldn’t make it so she got a good haircut. I’m hoping the sooner I identify something I think needs to go and trim it off the better, as in the past I’ve decided to trim while a few weeks into flower. Definitely trying to avoid that this time. 8/25 Day 5 of flower. The net has been a great help these past few days spreading everything out and keeping it all even. The only issue I’m having so far is the damn humidity in my area. The RH in my house is anywhere between 65% and 75%, which is keeping my VPD levels around .8 during the day and scarily low at night. She’s chugging along just fine, but I hope once we start packing on weight it dries up a little bit.

8/29 Day 9 of flower. I'm just keeping up with moving branches into netting and waiting for the stretch to really kick in. I did break down and order a dehumidifier finally. The humidity in my area is going in the wrong direction right now and at week 2 of flower I didn't want to take any chances. Hopefully I can get my VPD right soon. 9/1 Day 12 of flower. Almost like flipping a switch overnight, the Mac N Jack suddenly has little buds forming up. Hopefully I still get a decent stretch since she’s a little smaller than I figured at the moment. We’ll see.

9/4 Day 15 of flower. I changed up the trellis net to get a more even spread on the canopy. Definitely seeing some good stretch still which is nice. Did some very minor defoliating near the bottom, mostly just cleaning up a few obvious larf sites. 9/5 Day 16 of flower. Welp. Getting into more trimming today and I found what seems to be male parts growing with female parts. She is a heshe. Great. Well at least I know now that my issues with herms is not related to the nutrients. My next best guess is excessive EC from not rinsing my coco. I have been seeing consistent yellow tips with my grows ever since I switched to Royal Gold coco, and I stopped rinsing because of all the reviews and the claim that it was good to go right out of the bag. Well setting up a new pot with that coco I decided to test runoff EC, and with nothing else added it was 2.4. Starting off with an ultra high EC when I grow autopots which do not flush really adds up as my likely issue here. I’ve learned my lesson on this one I think. As for the Mac N Jack, she’s the only occupant in the tent and I’ve come this far so I’ll attempt to remove all male parts with hopes of preventing self pollination. I’ve also trimmed off all side branches, going for an all top grow. 9/8 Day 19 of flower. Spread out the branches even more, very close to nice even spacing. 9/9 Day 20 of flower. I’ve been checking daily for balls and ripping them off when found. I thought the whole plant was clear and then today I went poking around a bit more. I came across one that was in a hard to see spot and it had popped open. Well fuck. I’ll keep letting her go for now as I’m not sure what the damage will be, but obviously this doesn’t bode well. I think this is the end of me doing Ethos for now, since upon reflection I honestly haven’t been thrilled with any of my Ethos grows thus far. It’s either back to autos with Mephisto or on to Humboldt Seed Company after this one. The bright side is this plant is trained nearly perfectly for my 3x3, so in the future I’ll know this is the way to go for a single plant grow. I found another popped open pollen sack. It's over. She's been chopped down and thrown in the garbage. Time to move on. Also, it wasn't the Royal Gold coco that had the high EC. It was the gypsum I was adding to my mix. So it does look like Royal Gold is good to go without a rinse.