Chapter 1: Gorilla Auto - 50W DIY challenge

r00tz0ne 05/11 - Lights 2x10W bulb @ 20cm, 16/8. Gentle sprinkle every morning. 06/11 - Light changed: 3x10W bulb @ 30cm, 17/7. 07/11 - Moved to final pot. The soil was fully moistened before planting, so no watering for some days. Light parameters kept the same. Installed 2 x Arctic P12 fans. One for intake on the side, one for exhaust on top. 09/11 - Seedling have recovered from transplant and continued growing. 11/11 - End of week 2 from seed start. Lights 3x10w bulb @ 25cm + 7w led strip on.

r00tz0ne 12/11 - Top dress with 4 handful of worm castings + 5 g HSN Calcium food supplement + 3 g Epsom salt. Sprinkled with 100ml water. Thinking to start some nitrogen rich compost tea to use for next week. Leaves tend to 'pray' quite intensely by the end of the day. Lights raised back to 30cm. 14/11 - Morning sprinkle w plain water approx 100ml. Noticed some spidermites. Applied foliar spray of H2O2+water with ratio 1:1. 15/11 - Medium drying quickly. Morning watering w plain water approx. 300ml. Leaves are burnt due to too high concentration of foliar the previous day. 😢 (I was thinking my H2O2 is only 3%, but seemingly it is 5%. So next time dillution to 1.5/1% would be enough. 2.5% was too high.) 17/11 - Morning watering approx. 500ml. Applied foliar of mixture: 15 drops essential oils + aspirin 100mg + 1 drop dish soap + 150ml water. 18/11- Luckily growth continued vigorously. She is tough. 💪🌱

r00tz0ne 19/11 - Light adjustments: 1. Schedule gradually increased to 18/6 2. Added 1 additional bulb to lighting rig (4x10W) 3. Raised back to 30cm. Medium still moist, light foliar sprinkle with aspirin and essential oil solution remaining from last week 21/11 - Started some LST and adjusted light to keep 30cm distance with bent plant. Watering 400ml + 50ml compost tea made with love by our small family friend. 🐹💩 23/11 - Added fifth bulb to the light rig. Now on full power, 5x10W @ 30cm 24/11 - Morning: watering plain water 400ml. Evening: still seeing some signs of spidermites on backside of leaves. -> 20-30 shots of foliar spray: 2dl water 40 drops essential oil (mixed) 10 drop dish soap Also adjusted LST to start the curve. 25/11 - Lights put closer, 25cm. Tucking big fan leaves to get light to lower shoots. Removed 1 leaf touching the ground, and 2 lowest shoots. Week3 of veg completed.🦍

r00tz0ne 26/11 - LST & light adjustments. 5x10W@25cm Added 2 more fans. 27/11 - Feeding with 300ml water + 50ml compost tea, ph adjusted. 28/11 - LST and light adjustments. 29/11 - Significant deformations on new leaves. The compost tea or my foliar spray seems to be too strong. 01/12 - Watering 700 ml plain water to dillute the previous feed. 02/12 - LST adjustment + removed a few bottom shoots. The leaves are deformed, new growth is yellowish hue, some leaf tips are pale. All concerning signs, but the plant seem to continue growing. Hoping for the best, but probably we are gonna have a difficult time in flowering stage...

r00tz0ne 03/12 - LST adjustments. She is now becoming one huge solar panel. She has a very nice smell, no pistils yet, but we are getting close to flowering 🤙 06/12 Morning watering with 750ml water + 1 handful of worm castings + 3g epsom salt Evening LST adjustments. Removed 1 shoot that was going down + 5 fan leaves blocking light + tucked down the rest. I probably have left too many side shoots alive, but feels so cruel to remove them... Pistils clearly started to show, time to stop LST from now on. 07/12 - Plant perked up big time since yesterday. Flowering stretch is ON! I feel the plant loved the extra phosphorus from the worm castings. NPK 8-7-6. I need to figure a less nitrogen heavy feed for flowering phase. 09/12 - Plant is stretching up.

r00tz0ne 10/12 Top leaves still showing yellowing on tips, lights adjusted back to 25cm. Mixed in approx. 1 tablespoon of home made bone meal into the top layer of soil for some phosphorus boost. 11/12 Morning watering 500ml water + 1 tablespoon worm castings dissolved. Need to be careful with the lights, as she is stretching up every day. The more I let her grow close, the more yellowing and deformation I see on the tops. It seems 25-30cm is the max she can handle. 13/12 - Light adjusted up to 25cm again 15/12 - Morning watering 0.8L water + half teaspoon melasses + 2 g epsom salt. Overall looking healthy, last night I have noticed the small leaves on top drooping a bit. To be monitored. I was not planning to do any more defoliation, but small bud sites are all over. So removed some and also some bottom leaves that have zero chance to get light. 16/12 - Light adjusted to 25-27cm again. The drooping top leaves only appear at the end of the day. So it is the heat from the lights causing it. I'm thinking it's not too bad for now.

r00tz0ne 19/12 - Morning watering 0.7L plain water. 20/12 - Sprinkle with aspirin water. Light adjustments to 25cm. 22/12 - Sprinkle with aspirin water. I was traveling, so not much this week. GF was keeping her alive, while I was off.

r00tz0ne 24/12 - Morning watering w 0.7L plain water. 27/12 - Morning watering w 0.7L water + 2g Epsom salt + 2g bone meal + 2g molasses. Sprinkle with aspirin water. She is growing more and more pistils, but flowers are quite airy yet. Still seeing the drooping leaves on top colas by every afternoon. 5-6 bottom leaves are showing necrosis with some spots and brown edges, probably slight P-K deficiency. She is def not growing on max potential, but overall looking healthy. 28/12 - Installed: +1 120mm fan to blow over the top of the plant +1 80mm fan directed on the light bulbs Let's see if this helps with top drooping. 30/12 - Bottom feed for 30min with mixture: + 700ml plain water + 1L banana peel tea, boiled from 2 peels + 5g bone meal + 3g EPSOM salt It sucked up approx. 1L. The leftover is kept for next top feed.

r00tz0ne 31/12 - The top of the soil is super dry, so watering with 0.7L plain water. 04/01 - Top feed with 0.7 l of leftover from previous week + 0.5L plain water

r00tz0ne Watering 2 times with plain water this week approx. 1L each time. The leaves started yellowing heavily.

r00tz0ne 16/01 - feeding with banana peel tea (2peels+1L water cooked for 1 hour) 20/01 - 1L water + 10g bone meal Strong yellowing of leaves. The nutrition regimen was too low. Should introduce more next time during early-mid flower.

r00tz0ne 23/01 - watering 0.7L plain 26/01 - watering 0.4L plain 27/01 - Returned home. Fotos showing status. Excess yellowing/browning all over the plant. Removed all brown crispy leaves. The trichomes are 70/30 milky/clear no amber yet. More milky on top. I would give it 1-2 weeks more for maturing. Overall I'm satisfied with the result despite the fact I was away for 3 important weeks during flower, and GF was taking minimal care of her. :) Good piece of learning with the new grow setup and how to change nutrition for next grow: 1. Definitely need more worm castings (npk 8-7-6) during week 7-8-9 as top dress or tea + some epsom salt. 2. The bone meal should be mixed into the soil mixture already from the start to give enough time to decompose.

r00tz0ne 28/01 - Applied 25g wormcasting + 5g bs molasses + 2g Epsom salt + 500ml water 30/01 - Removing dead leaves to let light penetrate lower buds. Smell is really pungent and strong. 02/02 - Watering with 400ml plain water

r00tz0ne 05/02 - No sign of any amber trichomes. Pistils orange/brown but not yet fully retracted. Keeping harvest postponed until further development. Light schedule changed to 17/7. 06/02 - Watering 30g worm castings dissolved in 600ml water 08/02 - Excess yellowing and dying off have stopped. Buds seem to be getting more dense and pistils filling up white. No amber yet. Let it go for more...

r00tz0ne 11/02 - Pre-harvest 109g of wet bud (tare weight of plate 358g). Letting the rest go for some more days. Light lowered to 28cm. 16/02 - Plant fully harvested. Total 209 g wet with all the stem you see on the last pic. Hang drying in 20-21°C, 55-60% humidity. Strong hay smell of the pre-harvest buds, not yet ready. Will update final dried weight later to see the results. 19/02 - After 8 days of drying, the pre-harvested buds have been trimmed & moved to curing stage in jar. 24g dry out of that batch (was 109g wet). Monitoring humidity in the jar to keep around 62%. Still leaving the second harvest to hang and dry 2 more days. 21/02 - Total dried result: 24g nice top buds 13g second grade buds from second harvest 12g loose popcorn buds for edibles Total 49 g / 57 watts 0.86 g/watt ratio. Not too bad, but can and will be improved next run. Lessons learnt: 1. Definitely will build some activated carbon filter to decrease smell. 2. More lollipopping / defoliation on lower parts at start of flower to decrease loose popcorn. 3. More balanced nutes in pre/mid flower to avoid extensive yellowing. 4. Adding bone meal to soil from start to let it degrade fully. 5. Applying 4 times of bottom feed to avoid drying out the bottom of pot. 6. Never let lights closer than 27cm. 7. Maybe try 20/4 schedule. 8. Might let it go beyond week 16 to let trychomes start to amber. Luckily the hay smell is totally gone during the cure. Very happy with the results. Thx for the support & interest! Good luck to all! See ya at the next run!