Secret Garden

Day 36 - Novemember, 27, 2023 It's a new week and these girls are about to have some fun. They got moved in to my other tent, under the 300W FC3000. We'll veg them out here for another 6 weeks or so. As mentioned in a previous week, this diary is special to me for a few reasons. The big one though, is because I made huge improvements to my environment and techniques recently, that I am sure are what I need to succeed. Their new tent feels much cooler than it did yesterday, for example, with 4x 6" EC motor fans spinning at a variable rate to simulate natural wind. Last month, we wrote a bunch of code to switch on and off heaters and other appliances if the VPD or other parameters fall out of range, and we are able to see graphs of how well it does, which is very well. Yesterday, they got to try a new IPM product I'm testing out, that looks promising: https://growersally.com/product/growers-ally-1-quart-20-gallons-fungicide-concentrate/ I previously made my own solution similar to this, but I have gotten the ratio wrong many times, and burned or killed plants. It's not the easiest to measure, and both citrus and neem oil burn leaves pretty easily. I like that this stuff is meant to be applied until the leaves are dripping wet, and as often throughout the grow cycle as wanted. I will be sticking to giving them a foliar spray once or twice per week. Yesterday I also started LST on the plant with the wide leaves on the right. She also got a bit of a defoliation. Day 38 - Novemember, 29, 2023 Wide leaf girl is starting to bush out from my training. These girls are pretty tight in their small 3-gallons, so growth is going to be slow for a bit. That's ok! Far left girl got a defoliation and the full bondage treatment today. Close left girl had 2 large fans removed in preparation for a couple more and the full lockdown in a couple days. Later that day... After a lot of thought over the last week and reviewing growth rate footage, I decided this diary is not the right one to veg out as long as the original plan. This will be the last couple of days of veg, and then we'll flip them. I never grew a photoperiod in a 3-gallon pot before. I did grow a few in 5-gallon pots for more than twice as long before, without issue. But...I also don't have anything flowering right now after mistakes in the last round. So, we will get to see some Captain Red Beard buds sooner rather than later. I guess I can't complain about that. And later... I added a picture of my secret weapon. This kills fungus gnat larvae before they even stand a chance. 1 drop. Per week. Gone. And even later... Okay, I just defoliated and adjusted the ties on the two plants I am training. I decided two things. 1, the plant that wasn't topped -- the short one, is growing natural. She has all the height she needs (I hope). I will introduce additional lighting if need be. I don't ever expect to have an even canopy here. These are mystery seeds from a good breeder, so anything can come out of this. I am not even going to bother training that short plant, because honestly, I want to see what it does with the minimal defoliation I did, and a bit more lollipopping into flower. 2, we are flipping to flower tonight, at about 6 1/2 weeks old. I don't want to wait any longer because I am growing with my own organic soil blend, and I do not know what each plant will demand throughout the entire flower cycle, so better to start earlier than later. I want to study my soil and note where it needs improving. That was the main goal for this round -- my first round with good genetics in with a consistent soil across the board I made myself from mostly raw inputs, with ratios modified from successes and failures over the last...approximately 6 months. It's time to make magic! And even later... I just had a real close look at the leaves of all 3 plants. Some old, large fan leaves are slightly discolored, and have been for a couple weeks, and is not any nutrient symptom. It is just a side effect of slightly too much neem oil to combat some ocassional house pests that leave small yellow spots on my plants. It's usually harmless and doesn't cause an outbreak, but I tried some neem oil this year a few times, and I'm still messing with the ratio and other ingredients. However, the slight bit of yellowing and the slight discoloration from my treatment made me overlook a more serious problem. Looking closer at the two plants with thinner leaves, I can see a clear Phosphorus (P) deficiency. Additionally, some of the yellowing is striated, and it could be a Magnesium deficiency, which makes complete sense, because if my soil had a Mg deficiency, it would have showed up around now. It takes about 4-6 weeks before you can see this deficiency. So, let's try to fix this a tad. Considering we already decided that this will be their last full day before blooming, we can top-dress with some flower boosting amendments. Also, since I know we do not have a sulfur deficiency, we can also water with a bit of Epsom salt (Magnesium Sulfate), or top dress with some kind of lime. I have dolomite lime, but it is prilled, so that's out. I want something soluble and readily available. These prilled pellets should have been more in quantity in my soil to begin with, perhaps. So, I think what we will do is, since I just watered them today, and they are mulched and will be full for a couple days, we'll hold off on both the dolomite lime and the magnesium supplement. Instead, we'll top-dress them, using the scratch and cover method, some inputs to balance things out for bloom. I probably should have done this 1-2 weeks ago, but I didn't know we were flipping to flower until today. For the top dressing, we'll be using a product that I actually didn't get to try in bloom yet. Roadside Organics' Backyard Blooms. It's a powder that contains a few things. We'll scratch that into the soil, and cover it back up with mulch. We'll play the magnesium deficiency by ear. This top dressing is good I heard, so we'll give it a go and see what happens. I previously had only used their veg top-dressing, which I didn't really get to finish that grow to decide if I liked it or not. Day 42 - December 3, 2023 Not much to report today - they are doing fine. I lopped off a couple large fan leaves from the 2 on the left when I watered them.