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**Note** - First time growing Auto-flowers in rockwool DWC setup
The setup is standard - Mars hydro gear - 2x4 tent - Tsw2000 LED light - 6" Duct fan with sensor tech to hit that VPD sweet spot :D
Started by preparing the solution to soak the plugs - used nutrients listed for week @ pH 5.5
Poured that same solution onto the rockwool blocks (3") so that by the time the roots hit that medium - it would have been soaking for long enough to balance the ph.
The babies haven't popped up quite yet but I checked the plugs on the 25th and they were all sprouted so were 100% germination. I had to flip one seed that has its tap root going up and out the side of the plug. I flipped it, checked the rest were opened and sure enough they were - Success!
Hope to see the first shoots coming up soon here!
It was a successful but little bit of a tricky week for me. Roots took a while to shoot down to the water because the rockwool cubes were holding so much moisture. Maintaining PH in the buckets was difficult as it would rise quickly.
THE KEY - was to turn off the air stone in the bucket so that it wasn't bubbling up into the rockwool, watching the plants carefully I did give them as much light as they looked to handle from the mars with the dimmer switch between 20%-50%.
At around a week and a half after the first shoots came out there was signs of roots coming out of the bottom of the top hats!
Roots have finally shot down into the water and are starting to expand!
Looks like the ladies are a little low on nutrients so topped up today ( 11/11 ) and got EC up to .6 by adding some fresh mixed Nutes*
food: Per 1 Liter of water I added -
4mL Micro - 6mL Grow - 2mL Bloom - 4mL Calimagic - 3mL Floralicious Plus
Then just added this mixture to the plants to reach the desired EC of .6 - .7
I'm excited to see how they do entering the veg stage - Keeping a close eye on how the leaves look If the plants look like they are still lacking Nutes* I will up EC to .8 on (11/12)
Past week has been good. Some defoliation of some very large leaves and now doing some LST to increase the number of mainstems early on, hoping it works great Id love to SCROG these plants in this 2x4!
Notable problems were high EC ... Plants looked low so I decided to bring them up to 0.8 EC from about .4-.5.
This in turn ended up burning some of the tips of the plant slightly - although now after defoliation they look pretty okay!
[Nov 27th]
All the plants were down to .1 EC at the end of week 4 - looks like they have taken into the LST and Drank up the nutrients - I mixed UP my pre made *Week 4* Nutrients posted above and added to each reservoir. Mixed them for 3 gallons each.
This resulted in the EC rising to about 1.0 On each plant, will see how they react. I forgot to add humic acid and the rapid start to the mix but I doubt that will matter much, If I see SIGNS OF OVERFEED I will add more fresh water to the buckets tomorrow.
If NO SIGNS OF OVERFEED I will add rapid start and Floralicious Plus.
PH has been maintained around 5.8-6.0 when checked daily but fluctuations occur between checks. Mostly it slowly rises up.
Defoliation was aggressive on the Rippleys Wedding but Im hoping it bounces back heavily.
Stay Tuned!
Week 4-5 has been tough... Maintaining lower Humidity in the tent has been tough .
It seems the plants have really started to transpire, which is good for growth, But hard to manage. Adding water twice a week now.
The Ripley's Wedding and Orange Panda are just SOAKING UP NUTRIENTS - while the Grape Stomper and Strawberry Mango Crumble seemed to not. - This could have been due to ph flux due to pen (read below) But I think just growth stage and what the plant needed.
Lots of defoliation to reduce humidity generated in canopy - this helped greatly along with a small dehumidifier and turning the dimmer on the light to 75%.
Ph has been sloppy this week as the pen was not calibrated. - Recalibrated as of this post so it should read correct until the end of this grow.
The plants definitely smell a very slight amount now - no distinct scent other than that peppery/spicy smell.
As of this post the recorded EC of the plants was : (GS - 0.7) (OP - 0.9) (RW-0.9) (SMC - 0.6)
Part of me wants to rotate the larger plants to the outside of the tent so that the smaller plants can get more light and not be blocked off
Last Week of Veg - Lots of defoliation.
Switched the pots around so they are now in order Left to Right - Orange Panda , Grape Stomper , Str Mango Crumb , Wedding
Max humidity set at 65% temp max set to 27 Celsius
Feeding Early Flower mix at this point now - Per liter its
Micro - 10
Grow - 5
Bloom - 20
Calmag - 10
Flora - 10
Ive been lazy as of journaling the plants - I have to check back and fix what week this really is (Jan.1st Post)
The plants are doing good for the environment - I think they've been getting a bit too much heat so I will dim the lights back a bit.
Ph in the buckets drops daily it seems and the plants are drinking liters a day now.
These pictures show during the mid flower feed - I will check where I am in the grow but I think one final week here with the "Late flower" ratio from Emerald Harvest then just add fresh water till chop.
Maybe add some serious ice to the buckets right before cutting too (last week) and last couple days do something wild like drive a nail through the main stock and really stress it out.
I got some work to do editing this grow - I plan to go back and correct all the data that I was too lazy to input before to make the changes made more visible and noted.
Its been a fun grow so far - definitely challenging maintaining PH in this setup - seemed to be daily maintenance which made leaving for the holidays harder to catch up on for sure.
That being said I think Ive been pretty successful so far .. Orange panda on straight water for over a week and the others are now up to a couple days. The SMC is a week behind so it is JUST NOW being cut nutrient for the final week of bloom.
I think I will cut the plants soon - so maybe some ice cubes or a nail through the stem trick to get em to push out that last little bit of juice!
EXPERIMENT ** Because the SMC was so far behind the others... shes gonna be doing her last week in darkness as the others hang dry... we will see what effect this has on the plant/buds and hopefully keeping around 60% humidity in the tent will be easy... I will find out! **
ProfessorToke
