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I believe the growth should have been a bit more. I went through the buy a $11 dollar pH meter and guess what its a POS. Bought a Apera PH20 which seems to be a quality meter and the tap water was 9.2. Fixed the pH and I believe things should be good. Of course I did the whole soaking the coco coir in water with CalMag thing to start things off right.
Plant growth seems stunted. Bought a PPM meter and discovered my tap water is close to 800ppm which is about the limit for this stage of growth. With the light nutrient solution I had mixed it was about 1,100ppm. Did a light flush with spring water(300ppm). Made a new solution using RO water(60ppm) and with nutrients we are at 650ppm. Going to see how things go from here. Experience is a great teacher.
Looking good. TDS measurements for runoff were around 300ppm higher for 2 plants while the other was about 500ppm higher. Will keep an eye on the 500. Since its coco coir and perlite I'm going to start watering twice a day.
Trimmed up some of the undergrowth that was touching the coco, getting no light, and larf. LST all branches. The mini plant was sprouted when the other 2 were. Not sure what happened with that one. I do think growth would better but I made some mistakes the first couple of weeks with my pH and PPM, and using horrible city water(close to 800ppm by itself.). I switched to using RO water around week 2 or a bit before.
Watering twice per day for the past week and a half and going to continue doing so. My thoughts on why they are short is maybe with LST once that top is pulled over more plant energy is used to develop the other branches than in vertical growth, or the strain is midget durban poison, or perhaps my mistakes in the early vegetative growth caused it. Either way I am happy they seem to be thriving and will definitely try these seeds again in the future. My next grow will be Jack Herer from FastBuds.
Day 39 - Flowers spotted!
Have done a fair amount of defoliation and LST through the week. Things seem to be going well other than some of the larger fan leaves on one of the plants has something going on (last 2 pics). Ran 2/3 of a gallon of RO water with CalMag through each to flush them.
After some research I think the problem with the fan leaf tips is nutrient burn. As I understand it cannabis plants try to remove excess nutrients towards the tips of the leaves and since the symptoms are all for the most part towards the tips..... Made a new batch of nutrients as in the above recipe. This puts me at about 800ppm compared to my old recipe of 1100ppm. Going to run that for awhile and see if symptoms stop appearing/progressing.
I used the GrowDoc app and ran several close up pictures of the damaged leaves and it kept diagnosing it as a PH fluctuation issue. I am using a quality PH-20 meter and have been checking my nutrient and run off ph.
Nutrient: 5.8 to 6.0
Run off : 6.5 to 6.8
I also checked the PH against calibration solution and it was spot on. I like the idea of the app and it may get better over time but I would not use that as my only resource of diagnosing an issue.
#Last Update
After 3 days I do not see any new issues on the leave tips or the existing damaged ones getting worse.
Looks like they are stretching up just fine. Stems on these dwarves are nice and thick.
Had to do a lot of defoliating through the week. This bush is our of control. They are so short and stumpy that there ends up being layers upon layers of leaves.
Starting to see a lack of runoff. Going to increase the watering to 4 times a day. Really need to come up with a better way of handling irrigation but I think that will have to be a next time thing.
I ended up running the lights 24 hours with it at 100% for 18 hours and 75% for 6 hours. I did this to better regulate the VPD by increasing temperature which was just impossible with outside humidity and temperature drop during the night. Aiming to stay at 1 VPD for flowering.
With current nutrient solution I'm hitting 750ppm. Going to up that a bit by increasing flora nutrient use by 10%.
Lots of changes. I noticed in the newer leaves some yellowing to them. Altered feed schedule to every 8 hours. I also lowered the ph a bit. Set lights back to 18 hours. Still some yellow but I think it looks a bit better.
60 days and not much of anything in starting to develop flowers. Not terribly uncommon especially for something that is as Sativa as it gets.
Major defoliation. I've removed some of the new branches coming out of the main stems that were short, too crowded, etc. I'm not sure how far to take that though.
According to Blimburn this is an 8 to 9 week to flower. I think that means until they start to flower and not from seed to harvest. I'm going to give them another week and if I don't see any action then I guess its time to treat these like photoperiods.
Struggled to get a decent VPD. Humidity in the room was between 58 to 65% and naturally it would get even higher in the tent. For awhile I was trying to control the humidity using the tent air intake fan at higher speeds but doing that removed the heat from the grow lights and would still end up being 7 or 8% higher than room humidity. To get my VPD back to the .9 to 1 range I added two 100W heat lamps and reduced my air intake fan speed to a slow setting. Doing this boosted my temperature by 8 or 9 degrees above room temp although the humidity is still 7 or 8% higher than room humidty.
I increased the Flora nutrients by about 10% and increased CalMag by 20% because these things are hungry. With a ppm of 900 going in its only around 350 coming out.
More defoliation and trimming off of twiggy branches. I hope I'm doing things right but this bush is just out of control. I think the largest plant appears to be doing some stretching. Every time I see what I think is a bud site starting it just turns into more leaves lol.
I was running into problems where either the drip stakes were not flowing well or the plant is just consuming a lot of water. Got some drip rings(Netafim Netbow 5" 4 Outlet Drip Irrigation Ring) and really like these much better.
My runoff pH is in the low 5's so I have been feeding at 6.2 for awhile. Not seeing the runoff pH change really though.
No flowers yet. I'm reducing lights to 12 hours. I've contacted Blimburn just to say 'hey week 12 and no flowers'. Will update when I hear something back. Kind of a bunk first grow but I'm determined to see things through and its been a great learning experience.
With space becoming a very real issue I've had to go through branches and remove the low light getting and twiggy branches. Also did a lot of defoliation to improve air flow and uncover any flowers.
Humidity has become a major issue. Time for hillbilly science! Bought a 30pint dehumidifier. Sealed up the room with the tent as best as I could but that was not enough. So I put the dehumidifier in the tent and reduced the exhaust fan speed to just barely running. That helped a little more. Finally I put the dehumidifier out side of the tent and with a 5" tube and some duct tape I attached it to the exhaust side of the dehumidifier and then into the tents fresh air input. Then I took the tent exhaust hose and have it near the dehumidifiers air input port so that it will exhaust a bit drier air. The VPD is about 0.9 lights on and 0.8 lights off.
Nothing much new here. More defoliation and more branch pruning.
I emailed Blimburn and let them know their autoflowers are not flowering. They sent me some kind of newbie 10 steps to great grows spam. I let them know that really did not answer the question to which I got more growing guide step spam. So haha there you go.
Okay so I'm seeing some flowering at last! One of the plants is really tall compared to the others which I am worried will be an issue as I don't have a great deal of height left so I did a mix of tying down and supercropping the taller tops.
I mentioned I think a week or 2 ago about my use of a dehumidifier but I never did add a picture. Just to recap I have a 32pint dehumidifier with a 5" Planko bread crumbs tube duct taped to the exhaust side and fed into the tent. The tents exhaust flex tube is then placed in front of the dehumidifiers air intake with a customized cheezits box duct taped in a way to try and capture a bit more of the tents exhaust air. The idea being that the air entering the dehumidifier would be a bit dryer and warmer than the air in the basement. As an added bonus this thing is pulling around 1.25 to 1.5 gallons of water a day which I then use for my nutrient solution. So yeah hillbilly ingenuity!
For a first time grower getting a photoperiod sold as an autoflower was a real bummer. I've done so much defoliation and branch pruning just to try and salvage this grow.
Nothing much new to report. Removed some leaves to improve air flow and allow better light to flowers. Sugar leaves are looking sweet. The smell is intoxicatingly beautiful. Seems like vertical growth has really slowed down and thank the cannabis gods because I have no vertical height left to give for the tallest plant.
The moment you've all been waiting for. The future is now! New and improved dehumidifier exhaust tube! The 5" Planko tube served its purpose as a proof of concept but was never a final solution. Using a piece of carboard, duct tape, a large framing square, and razor I fabricated a much better exhaust tube. This setup works extremely well in my Ohio basement which has a temperature in the low 60's and a humidity in the mid to high 60's. The tent has a VPD in lights off hours of about 0.9 and with lights on 1.1 to 1.2. Outstanding results I think.
Removed some large fan leaves to improve light and air circulation. Sometimes I open the tent just to enjoy the wonderful fragrance. I am super excited to see how things progress in the next few weeks. I think I will have at least another 4 weeks until they will be ready for harvest which is just torture.
Removed a few fan leaves. Noticed the tips on some leaves were showing signs of nutrient burn so I lowered the nutrients by 10%.
Got a microscope camera to get some closeups of the trichomes. Going to need to work on that. Trying to hold it and get good pics is difficult. Will have to come up with some sort of stand to keep it stable.
Removed some more fan leaves to allow light to reach down further.
Buds are really bulking up. Took the plants out and had some branches flopping to the sides. Twist tie to the rescue!
Still seeing some minor signs of nutrient burn on some of the leaf tips. Will begin lowering nutrients in feed solution.
Opening the tent greets you with the most wonderful fragrance! I think these will be ready to harvest in 2 or 3 weeks.
Removed a few more leaves here and there. Due to the lack of spacing between the colas I am seriously considering doing a partial harvest and then giving the lower colas more time to mature before harvesting the rest. I think this will result in a much better overall product.
Stepped down the nutrients. I am seeing some nutrient deficiency signs on a few leaf blades but not very much so I will monitor that. As I mentioned last week the leaves also show some slight burn on the very tips which has not gotten any worse.
Not seeing to many amber trichomes. I am not sure how quickly things will change on that end. I have watched many videos on when to harvest and have heard anything from 10% to 60% amber for when to harvest. I think I will shoot for something like 30%. Guessing a week or two for that to happen. My Japanese bonsai trim scissors are anxiously waiting!
Flowers have continued to fatten up.
I've noticed the amount of water being used has decreased which I believe is because the humidity has been a bit higher(lower VPD would mean the plant is not taking in as much nutrient solution).
I see amber trichomes on the leaves but none on the flowers yet.
Amber trichomes are appearing on the flowers! I checked a couple of days ago and spotted one here and there but after just 2 days there seem to be many more. I believe the start of harvest is very close.
Further reduced the amount of flora nutrients to solution.
Harvested tops of plants #2 and #3. Giving the less mature flowers more time. Plant #1 is bit behind. Hopefully things will be ready within the next week or so.
Defoliated all plants to allow more light to flowers.
Plant one's trichomes are mostly cloudy with almost no ambers at all on the flowers getting good light and partially cloudy and clear on areas that do not get the best light. Unfortunately this is due to the tent being overcrowded which has been a big problem with this grow. So I will give plant one some more time.
Plant 2 which had a partial harvest done to it a week ago has the same issues as plant one and will get some more time to mature as well.
Plant 3 (which was in the back looking at the pics from older journal entries) because it had more space to spread out is in much better shape and so I finished harvesting it(did a partial harvest a week ago).
The last 2 pics are of the dry tent. I put todays harvest in the back. The front half is the partial harvest I did on the 15th and should be finished in a few days or so.
Although this grow has been far from ideal it certainly has been a great learning experience and I am excited to see what the final weight will be.
Complete harvest of plant #1. Finished off harvest of plant #3.
12 half gallon jars
Trimmed flower: 28.8 oz
Pressed Kief from trim: 30 g
I did not believe the weight on my initial calc weighing the full jars and then subtracting jar weight. So I dumped each jar and weighed just the flower and yeah my initial calc was right.
DickJones
