Dr. Grinspoon by TOTEM

Happy new year everybody! Hope you’re all doing well. The Doc is loving these new lights, even because this week they’re finally working at (true) 600w. When I bought the panel, the supplier sent it to me with two 200w drivers instead of 300w ones. The output was 400w. Even if it’s true that Cree CXB3590s would work more efficiently at around 75w each, I don’t care about efficiency at all and opted to make them work at 100w each with two new 300w drivers (Meanwell HLG-320H-36). Day 98: Feed @ 1ml/L (and 1.5ml/L of Activator) in 6L of tap water. And even if the Silic Boost dosage is 0.1ml/L, I made a mistake with the syringe and put 1ml/L 😅. Fortunately some more silicon will not hurt the plant. Today I also added 3 new CO2 bags in the room (now they’re 5 in total), and a 20w oscillating Secret Jardin Monkey Fan under the grid because I’d like more CO2 to be spread out. Day 101: 6L of tap water. Leaves were starting to curl down. There are a lot of ventilation and warm temperatures inside the room, so water evaporates fast. I noticed some brown leaves tips in lower leaves (under the grid), while upper leaves tips are fading to a yellow/whiteish color. It could totally be a first sign of overfeeding, but runoff PPMs are 900. Next time I think I’ll keep giving just water with no nutes, and then see what happens. Day 104: 6L of tap water. Runoff ppm is 930 and PH is between 7 and 7.1. Some leaves appear a little curled down, and many of them have tips fading to white/light yellow. Plus, a few of them have burned tips too. I think I had a little overfeeding over here, and the silicium I used in high dosage could be the main reason (because it increases the absorption rate of other elements, like P from bat guano). This is why I’m not giving nutes until she gets better and leaves start pointing up again. In reality it’s not true that I’m not giving any nutrients because there’s a lot of bat guano still left on the surface of the soil, that is still being slowly released with every watering. But if the plant absorbs too much P during flowering, she will maturate faster. If you see some flowers, there are some brown pistils already. Not good! After some brainstorming, the most plausible cause for this light overfeeding could be an accelerated metabolism given by high silicium plus higher amounts of co2 in the room. About the yellow leaves I got some weeks ago, here’s how they probably got yellow: with the first overwatering, the plant has been stressed a lot. In that period I added both co2 and a more powerful panel, which added some more stress to the plant. Some leaves started to curl down because of less transpiration, so they got yellow, and died. Day 105: Co2 works better when there are higher temperatures (29C or a little more), higher humidity and when it can stay around your plants without being extracted frequently. So I changed some settings on my extractor timer, so that it will now work 15 mins every hour at the lowest power possible. I’m aiming to not lose much co2 (which is heavier than air) with air extraction, while guaranteeing some new fresh air to the plant every hour. By far I’m getting temperatures between 29C and 31C, which is a good range. RH increased to 50-60%, which is also good, and to do so I put a watering can full of water inside the room, near the pot. Since plants don’t need co2 when lights are off, I made the extraction timer work (as before) 15 mins yes and 15 mins no for all the dark hours. Someone asked me how I water my plants, so here it is my “solution”: I start pouring the first 2 liters slowly, before around the stem, waiting for the solution to be absorbed, then pouring again, enlarging the range more and more. When I poured the first two liters, I wait for like 10-20 minutes, then come back and pour the other 4 liters with the same technique, this time without waiting after the second two liters. This method is good because you let the soil become somewhat soaked before pouring any other water. Plus, the runoff readings (PPMs and PH) you’ll get will be more reliable because water will come out from many parts of the bottom, and not only from the sides. Cheers!