Seedling phase week 4

(Day 0) - Vivosun SGS started in seedling mode at 4 am. Amy sprouted at around 3 pm, less than 72 hours after she was planted. I vented the dome. (Day 1) - Removed dome and added Vivosun humidifier set to 70% heated ionizer low mist. Measured light at 11 DLI 10k LUX (Day 2) - Amy has a little tap root growing out of the plug so it’s time to put her in some dirt. I start with a 4” pot a little more than ½ full. If your seedling has a tall stem (leggy) you can start with less soil in the pot and bury the stem. I coat the plug with Dynomyco. With a concentration of 900 propagules per gram, DYNOMYCO mycorrhizal inoculants improve the uptake of micro- and macro-nutrients. This translates to healthier, more resilient plants, higher quality, and higher yields! Then I fill the pot ¾ full. I push a moat down around the outside, where I want the water to drain down to encourage lateral root growth. I push some rinsed perlite in this mote and then cover everything with more soil. I mound up the soil in the center to give the roots as much room as possible. Any stem buried will grow roots! I also make sure that the edge of the pot is pushed down below the rim, or they will spill over when I water them. Now it’s time for Amy’s first full watering. I start with a sprayer, to get the top wet without destroying the mound and to set everything in place. Then I move to a big dropper, slowly giving her 30ml at a time. When she’s full and draining from the bottom, I weigh her to get a starting ‘wet’ weight (286g). I’ll track her weight as long as she’s in the 4” pot. Measuring her in grams, each gram is one ml of water consumed. So, if she loses 30g of weight, that means she went through 30ml of water. Sure, some of that evaporates but it’s still a good way to track her daily water consumption. As soon as she can drain a saturated 4” pot in 48 hours, it’s time for an uppot.

In the first week in her new 4” pot, Amy (Amnesia fem photo) didn’t do much. By weighing her pot I can see how much she’s drinking, which is less than 20mL/day. The worst thing I can do here is water too much. For now, I’m just giving her a few 30ml drinks around the outside of her pot. I’m doing that to tease the feeder roots to the outside while the tap root works at draining the pot. Her first real leaves look a little splotchy, but I’ll ignore that for now. They’ll usually work it out by themselves by the fourth node. She’s a photo, which means I have plenty of time to get her healthy and happy before flipping to flower. The @Vivosun app was set to move to the next stage on day# 8. This raised the light intensity and lowered the humidity. However, I forgot to lower the humidity setting on the humidifier. This meant the humidifier was working all the time to try to raise the humidity, and the GrowHub was triggering the AeroZesh to dump excess humidity. In doing this, it also dumped all the heat in the tent. The situation was easily resolved by lowering the humidifier by 5%. In her second week, Amy is starting to drink more. She was fully watered for the first time since uppot on day# 12 when she went < 20%, then again on day# 17. In a few days, she’ll be ready for her final uppot, to a 5G SIP bucket. I’ve prepared Amy’s new home. I’m using a GroBucket SIP insert with a 5G bucket. I use Fox Farms Happy Frog (FFHF) soil. I start by packing the ‘feet’, the space around the SIP insert. I pack this soil in well, making sure it will wick water when needed. Then I amended the soil with 1 cup Geoflora Veg and 1 Tbsp Dynomyco before filling the bucket. This will make sure Amy has everything she needs for the first couple of weeks while I feed her water only.

5/13 (day# 17) Amy finally started drinking more water, so I prepared the SIP pot for her. I’m using GroBucket SIP inserts in a 5 gallon bucket. I pre-amend the soil with ½ cup Geoflora veg and 1TBS Dynomyco. There is a ‘dummy’ pot in place of where I’ll be placing Amy. 5/15 (day# 19) Amy was uppotted to her SIP bucket. She was really dry, to the point of wilting a little. I like to uppot when they are dry, because the rootball holds together better and I like to water them fully in the new pot. She had nice roots. I coated them with more Dynomyco and then put her in the SIP in place of the ‘dummy’ pot. Then I watered her thoroughly, so that some of it ran through to the reservoir. This way I know the link is established all the way to the bottom. 5/17 (day# 21) At the end of three weeks, Amy is looking happy in her SIP. Vivosun 3x3 scrog with AeroLight A200SE - Amnesia fem photo week#3 veg It was an eventful week for Amy. At the beginning of the week on day# 19 Amy was uppotted to her SIP bucket. She was really dry at the time, to the point of wilting a little. I like to uppot when they are dry because the rootball holds together better and I like to water them fully in the new pot. She had built a nice rootball in her 4” pot. I coated them with more Dynomyco and then put her in the SIP in place of the ‘dummy’ pot. Then I watered her thoroughly, so that some of it ran through to the reservoir. This way I know the link is established all the way to the bottom. Then on day# 23, it was time to top Amy. I usually top above the fourth node. A node is a set of branches that are opposite each other. Nodes will alternate between north-south and east-west, which makes it easier to count. For a seedling, don’t count the seedling leaves (cotyledons). The first node will be 1-fingered leaves, the second will be 3-fingered, the third will be five-fingered. For clones, the nodes may not be opposite each other. This is where using the north-south growing vs. east-west growing makes it easier to count the nodes. I top just below the 5th node, leaving as much stem sticking up as possible. The remaining stem will help keep the plant from splitting. When topping, the goal is to cut the stem above the 4th node without touching anything else. To FIM, I could go a bit higher and cut the stem and the nodes on the side. I find topping easier to maintain as fimming tend to create more in the middle. At the end of her 3rd week of flower, Amy has been transplanted and topped and her SIP res is full. She’s really moving now.

Week# 4 Notes 5/19/23 (day# 23) Four days after going into the SIP, Amy is ready to be topped. I usually top above the fourth node. ** A node is a set of branches that are opposite each other. Nodes will alternate between north-south and east-west, which makes it easier to count. For a seedling, don’t count the seedling leaves (cotyledons). The first node will be 1-fingered leaves, the second will be 3-fingered, the third will be five-fingered. For clones, the nodes may not be opposite each other. This is where using the north-south growing vs. east-west growing makes it easier to count the nodes. I top just below the 5th node, leaving as much stem sticking up as possible. The remaining stem will help keep the plant from splitting. 5/23 (day# 27) FOur more days, and Amy has recovered from her topping. She is looking fantastic, with a deep green hue to her leaves. She hasn’t grow much in height or width, but that is to be expected. After topping, she concentrates on the lower nodes. And she is definitely getting bushier.

At the beginning of her 5th week, I covered up the soil in the SIP while I can still see it. I use garden fabric topped with river rocks. Since the SIP is fed entirely from the bottom, the top 2-3” of soil tends to get dry. Covering the top keeps the moisture closer to the surface, allowing roots to grow there. After topping it may seem like Amy didn’t grow much. While she didn’t gain much in height or width, her lower nodes really took off. I’ve started using 12” bamboo skewers with wire hooks to LST some of her limbs. I’ve also added a Vivosun 3x3 scrog net about 8” above the bucket. The hooks it comes with makes it really easy to set up. As does the ability to access three sides of the tent ;) Amy is finally acclimated to the SIP and is starting to take off. She’s drinking and respiring enough that I was able to remove the humidifier from the tent. The Vivosun SGS is keeping the VPD right around 1.1-1.2. Coming into the end of her 5th week she is still tight and bushy. I removed a handful of leaves, especially those growing toward the middle of the plant. Removing some of the larger fan leaves allows her to concentrate her growth at the tips, while also getting more light in the middle of the plant. The plan is to keep everything below the net until it is as full as possible. I want her to grow horizontally for now, so for the next few weeks I’ll be spreading all the new growth to the outside of the tent.