RDWC - Double XL Red Banana Berry

I call it day 1. There is actually nothing much to say except that they´re growing. My tapwater measurements are 44.1 Calcium and 22,6 Magnesium. To measure and use the correct Calcium and Magnesium relationship, i wrote a calculator to be as exact as possible with my calmag relationship by tuning in my tapwater to 3 Ca : 1 Mg at the moment. I also calculated the vegetation-phase with a demand of 80 mg/l Calcium and 26,67 mg/l Magnesium.

She is doing ok, maybe a little bit pale. She got her roots in the culture and now she is ready to takeoff 👆 On Day 14 i upgraded my system, so now i can tanke every bucket out of the circulation individually. This gives me the opportunity to react to an infected or sick plant and can simply put a pump into her bucket to make her stand in her own system, so i can test different nutrient solutions, ec or ph, waterlevel, etc. Maybe i can save some plants who can not keep up with her crew elseway. I also installed 2 airstones to the reservoir, because i am too lazy to stirr, when i add something to the solution. Then i got some 45° feeders to make it look better than thje ducktape version. Next run i will bury them right from the beginnig in an ankle but now im afraid to disturb the plants too much in this stage to get them out just to put the feeders in. Nutrientwise i added some iron to see, if the yellowish growth of the new leaves are getting better. The pic shows, that they got way greener, but also looks a little tired. Hopefully they will recover because i also installed the second light, but the timer wasn´t set right, so they got about 2.5h more light. Wasn´t that nice because i measured around 600 PPFD on the plants, so they got to work a little harder yesterday and the time without water in that stage while upgrading the buckets wasn´t helpful either.

Week 3 started and she is doing ok. On day 17 she looks a bit small, but she already got thick sidebranches. I think she will perform very well 💪 She got her first leaf cut on day 17 to get light into the sidebranches.

My solution is drifting heavy. I changed it complete but i have to correct it every 3h. Hopefully i can switch to aqua flores at the next reservoir change. Its more stable i think or at least in my last run it was. The progression from day 22 evening defoliation till day 24 morning pic is mindblowing. She is a leaf monster like the runtz from my last run. turned out she performed ultra nice. Hopefully the Red Banana can make it like the runtz did. I had to remove the dripper and set it back to just open hose, because the new dripper got clogged after 1 week. No dripper, no problem 😅 On day 27 i upgraded my setup. It´s just the first phase of an idea i have. More in a few days, when the parts will have arrived and everything is put together and works. 👆 I also got rid of the drift-problem. I added some PK 13/14 and now the PH is that stable, that i can´t bring it down with PH-Down anymore. It´s at 6.1, so i will let it be as it is. Phase 1 was really successfull and i´m really happy with the result. Now the temperature of the solution stays at room temperature no matter how much i turn up the lights. I tried 450w at first for about 7h to see, when the fan starts to switch, but it didn´t, so i tried 600w for the rest of the day. No problem anymore with the temps in the tent or the solution. I absolute recommend it even for soil to prevent heat in the bucket and tent and its easy to clean and it looks awesome clean. I have to wear sunglasses now and I love it!!!😎

Everything is perfect. The solution PH, EC and temperature is stable like concrete and they are growing. 💪 Second phase of my shadowstage looks sick 😍

On day 36 she slowly starts to bloom, so i will change the nutrients this week to aqua flores. They are doing pretty awesome compared to my last grow, so i´m really excited for the flowering stage. 💪

On day 42 she got a heavy defoliation and i cropped some branches do widen up the plant, but got a little more intense, than i should. She recovered nice over night and is now ready to flower in peace.

She is doing well but she is slow. This tent ain´t big enough for four plants 💪 After 8 weeks i can finally see her producing buds. I think i will get what it says on the label ... 2XL 😁

She is getting bigger and bigger. I keep defoliating every other day. She can take a lot of nutrients and light. She still looks light green with an EC of 3.0 while the others start to show some light excess. 💪 On day 60 my setup got another light. I took the Lumatek out and changed it for a second Mars Hydro TSL 2000. Now i can use more space in the tent and the light is spreaded way more even than before. I now got about 1000 PPFD at the canopy top and around 800-900 PPFD square. They are running at about 80 % atm. Each side is seperately dimmable and i can set the ankle relatively individually for each plant so i can better react to the different grow heights, which comes automatically with 4 different strains.

She is getting big and her buds seems to get red, as i hoped. She produces many leaves and its hard to keep up defoliating especially in the lower parts. Her smell is really sweet and pleasant and i´m happy with my choice. 💪😋

She takes her time but it seems that she will get gigantic. Her smell is awesome fruity and i love red weed. I lowered the EC to 2.4 and i seperated the two big plants and the two smaller plants systems. I simply closed the tap on the right side of the reservoir, so the two big ones can get nutrients while the other two gets water only now.

She is still growing and some buds are getting big. I have a hard time reaching her middle part, so the defoliation process looks a bit agressive. I just try to throw my arm in and rip out what i can get there. Next run i will only grow 3 plants max. in this tent. After harvesting the other plants i widened up the branches and defoliated the lower part as well as the fan leaves and suckerleaves i could reach. I also lowered the EC to 1.3 and raised the PH to 7 to see how she reacts in late flower. I expect her to get coloured leaves maybe. If not, i will just stop completely to refill water.

I left her the last 3 days without refilling her reservoir, removed the pump and closed the tap as well. So she was left with the rest of solution and her airstone and slowly she gets yellow now. She don´t smell very much as long as i don´t touch her. Some buds are looking wierd, like 3 buds in one. I will not complain because they are as big as soda cans and thats good.

The trimming process took a while, because she got so many leaves. I tested to let her dry out without water to let her use up her nutrients, but it didn´t work as well as hoped. Next time i will change to water earlier and don´t let her dry out in the bucket. I learned a lot in this run and i will adapt some things for the next run.