Truffaloha #2 from Beleaf

I went with the AC Infinity self-watering bases, coco/perlite medium, and GH hydro nutrients (3-part, cal/mag, armor si, diamond nectar, yucca, and eventually liquid kool bloom in flowering). I topped and began lst this week.

These plants loved their new home. They put on size quickly and seemed to enjoy their food. I topped a few more locations and continued training branches.

At the rate these ladies are growing, and with an expected more than doubling of their size during stretch, I decided to flip these plants. I did a modest defoliation of the bottom third and waited three days prior to the flip.

The trellis net went up on day three, and by day seven, the net was evenly filled. Humidity started to increase with the increase in foliage. I bought a small dehumidifier that I placed inside of the tent, which literally did nothing to control the rise in humidity. I would go on to address this issue in the next two weeks by purchasing a better humidifier, which would reside directly outside of the tent.

Week two of flowering is going as expected. The plants are beginning a rapid stretch phase. My humidity situation is causing a concern as the volume of plant matter inside the tent is rapidly increasing. I order a better humidifier at this time.

Here's where I make my biggest unforced error of this grow. As the plants entered their rapid stretch, the new growth became a limey/yellowish color and that caused me to become concerned. This lead me to an overreaction by way of an overcorrection, which I'll explain. I diagnosed(in my great wisdom) the yellowing as a nutrient deficiency and I decided to correct it by foliar feeding. I used a quarter strength nutrient solution and proceeded to foliar feed for three days straight. The first day I saw some improvement, so I continued with my treatment to a second day. And, the second day I saw some minor improvement as well, so I continued on to a third day. BUT, by the third day, I had burnt every single leaf tip that was exposed to my foliar "treatment". Lesson learned! The yellowing was normal to begin with, I think, and the foliar feeding was three times as much as I probably should have ever done. I'll spend the next two weeks trimming tips and being concerned about the damage I may have caused, but that's the price of learning the hard way.

I've never done such a massive defoliation. This wasn't a thing when I last grew, but the logic made sense, plus I had a humidity issue that I was anxious to correct, so I went for it. These ladies got stripped bare to the bone and I swear they didn't miss a beat. The flowers kept coming, and those fan leaves that remained prayed to the light. I also got the better humidifier and was able to control the humidity within proper VPD ranges for flowering. I think at this point I was floating between 1.2 and 1.4 with light on. It's starting to come together.

The signs of nutrient burn haven't worsened, fortunately and the damage seems fairly well contained to the tips. The plant stopped its stretch for nearly a week by now, and we're neatly capped on light height with an 18" distance to the average height of the canopy. Having never grown in coco before, but having grown in hydro with hydroponic nutrients, I thought the self-watering bases would be a nice convenience play. I wanted to keep my waterings down to once per day. However, it essentially turned my runoff water into my reservoir water, which meant I had to manage four separate reservoirs, each with its own wicking system into their own fabric coco/perlite filled pot, and each fed with its' own personal all-you-can drink diet of salty nutrients. It was in this week when my ppm reservoir measurements were about 1700, while my input feed was around 1050. Too high for my liking, but I was prepared for this situation. Because these plants are trellis-locked into the tent, the only choice for a quick flush is to have the means to suck the reservoirs bone dry, friends, and bone dry they were sucked. A quick trip to home depot yielded a mini-water pump and some plexi-tubes with fittings. That combined that with a five gallon bucket and its business time. So, once those reservoirs were sucked cleaned, I ran a gallon of ph'd water through each, sucked that shit dry, and reset my nutrient blend to a 75% strength feeding. The reservoir reading came down to around 1250ppm, while the input was 750ppm, which was right in line with what I had hoped. The plants were not showing any toxicity signs, so I didn't want a super drastic lowering. Only a moderate one, which I think I got here....luckily, and this was the first point in the grow that I felt like I had a little control. I had the humidity in check after a massive defoliation, which I had never done before, and both efforts have been seemingly successful. I disfigured my tips with an overcorrection during the stretch, but that damage seems well contained by this point, and these little bud sites are starting to look interestingly sparkly, and weirdly pointy, and hinting at some nice purples and oranges. It's starting to get interesting, and become more fun than it is anxiety inducing.

Humidity in check. Nutrients in check. These plants are getting pretty crystally and they are smelling super funky, but the tent is doing a great job with containment. It only stinks when it's opened, but not hint otherwise.

No changes to the program. I flushed the reservoirs at the end of this week, but only because my nutrient formula was changing due to the stage of plant growth, so I felt a little reservoir reset was in order. The plants didn't skip a beat. Environment is solid. Feeling good.

The dry winter air is starting to make my humidifier over do it, so to speak. My lights-on VPD generally resides in the optimal VPD range about 80% of the time, but then it's been finding its way above optimal at the tail end of the day period. Easily enough, that problem was corrected through humidifier settings. What can I say? 2023 growing is convenient. Aside from that, we're riding in cruise control. I'm top feeding daily, maybe an average of a quarter to half gallon per plant, and this has been the case since they stopped stretching. I'm not sure I've pulled a leaf off of this plant since week 3 of flowering. They're just thickening up their buds and covering them in crystals, and I'm just counting down the days. The leaf colors are rapidly darkening, the mid buds and bottoms are greener than the tops, and all levels are nicely coated in resin. These genetics are super impressive. Way better than the strains we grew in the late 90's, and those were top notch, cup winning producers of the day. This stuff makes that stuff look like ditch weed.

Okay, so if this goes according to plan, we're looking at a harvesting window of 12/8-12/10. Most of the entire canopy has gone deep green/purple, and the plants are still drinking nicely. I haven't slowed on their fertilizer, but the feed also hasn't been aggressive, at least since it had spiked early in flower. So, they seem to be liking what they're drinking and their leaves seem heathy, even in their dark state. Rad. The humidity outside has been low recently, and the temperature cold, making my tent a touch colder and with way lower humidity. Up until last week, I had ran my dehumidifier for a month straight, and emptied it twice per day. It's been off for four days now, abut the ole VPD is a touch too high causing a slight little concern. I've got a humidifier in the veg tent that I could throw in, but the amount of time we're outside of the optimal ranges doesn't seem to warrant it. If I were too low right now, I'd be more concerned about correcting that, but I could be messing up my read here. We shall see and learn.

I know that I said I probably wouldn't flush. Well, today is day two of the flush! I emptied out the reservoirs yesterday, flushed with ph'd water, and then cleared the reservoirs today and flushed again. I'll do the same again tomorrow, and then harvest on Saturday, day 70 of flower. Feels good to be close. Last flush is in the books, and tomorrow is chop day. The reservoir flush water tonight was just over 900ppm when I changed it out. That only dropped about 150 from the first flush, so I suspect that when I chop tomorrow, the reservoirs will be sitting around 750ppm. I'm thinking the root zone should be slightly less than runoff/reservoir, and with the amount of medium saturation, I suspect these plants aren't drinking much from the wick. However, it's unlikely that very much was accomplished in a three day flush, but at least I didn't need to mix nutrients for a little bit. That's nice.

The only issues with this plant were the ones that I created, and considering it had been three decades since I last grew, that's a testament to the quality of the plant. What was a gift in the summer became a mother plant to four baby clones and, finally, a 1.5lb harvest in December; I have no complaints. The process was as just rewarding as the end product. It's good to be back. I think I'll stay for a bit.