Mimosa Cherry Kush

Week 4 of flower is complete, even though we missed the last 2 days for photographs -- sorry about that. So now that we're about half way to the finish line, here's some information about this grow that we haven't shared here yet, or in any other diary of this tent. There are 6 plants here, and because we've been busy with two other tents and other tasks, our descriptions have been short. So, hidden in this week of one of 6 diaries, and some of it pertains to other tents in other diaries too: The cultivars: - The tent in this grow has 6 plants - 4 plants are from the same breeder, Dutchfem - 2 of these Dutchfem plants are the same cultivar, but not this one -- they'd be my Casey's Rollex O.G. diary. Go check these other diaries out if you want to see more angles of this tent through the growing process. - 1 plant is a tester from a friend of mine; that's the Cognac MAC diary. - 1 plant is from Kannabia, the Kaboom The ages: Actually, each of the separate 3 breeders' plants were started at different times, so even though we flipped them all to flower at the same time, some of them were more mature than others. For the actual age in days, we post that number next to every photo for each week, so go check out the other diaries for specifics, but from oldest to youngest we have: - Cognac MAC (2 days older than the next) - The 4 Dutchfem plants (3 days older than the next) - Kaboom, the youngest of them all. So, they are all approximately the same age, but some needed to veg more, and some were not even planning on being flowered until a last minute decision. The double trouble: Early in flower, we had a major problem present itself at the worst opportunity. Humidity. It has been roughly 20-40% RH in our climate all winter, until one day at the end of their first week of flowering, Spring decided to tease us as usual, and we got a whole week of really warm and humid (80-95% RH) weather. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, as each of our tents is equipped with 4 different hygrometers that transmit data to control fan speeds and other appliances, such as a large dehumidifier in our lung room that has not been on in a while. Unfortunately, on the very same day, 3 out of 4 of these sensors' batteries decided to fully deplete. They lasted 6 months, and we changed out some, but, well, not these for some reason. We also had no alert setup for the fact. The end result was our flowering tent was taking samples at a very high and very warm point in the tent, that we used to average with the other sensors' readings. That ultimately resulted in about a day and a half of the tent being 70-75% RH consistently, even though our readings were normal, and therefor no switching of appliances occurred. We got PM on Kaboom. Quite a bit. We got sad. Quite a bit. We also dealt with PM a lot before and have a few new weapons that have worked well to prevent it, so we decided to go overkill with it. One such thing is we spray once or twice per week, our plants with an organic foliar spray that mostly consists of citrus and lactose. A lot of citrus products will bleach burn plants if applied heavily, and, we've even killed some that were unable to photosynthesize because of the fact. But, not with this product. This product is mixed just perfectly in such a way that it is designed to be applied just before lights out, when it can't evaporate, and vigorously, until the leaves are drenched from all angles, and there is runoff onto the ground. This process takes about 10 minutes using a very fine misting gun (manual hand pump -- they're cheap and highly recommended for most soluble liquid applications). So, we did this not once or twice per week as usual, which usually does prevent the mold in our highly humid environment when things go sideways like has occurred. Instead, we have been applying it twice per day, since the start of the second week of flower. We have also been manually and gently scrubbing leaves we did not want to prune with hydrogen peroxide using a moist paper towel, every time we saw more PM appear. The spray works wonders. PM will take over a crop very quickly. With our overkill spraying application, we didn't even wipe any leaves down with hydrogen peroxide for the first week. We just sprayed and watched the mold disppear (also now with a more correct air environment). We knew we would not have been able to fully get rid of the mold with just spraying though, as the tent was quite a jungle in that first week of flower. There were lots of humidity zones that shouldn't have been. We went overkill here too. We are going to lose a lot in weight, but we do not ever aim for a nice return, just a good sample of medicine, and onto the next. The 2nd week of flower we removed about 50% of foliage, and, by the end of that week we did it again by about the same amount that had grown back, along with lollipopping them more than we would have ever done before, including removing lots of lateral branches. We needed that airflow for the 3 fans in the tent to do their job, and for our bi-daily spraying to reach EVERYTHING. By the 3rd week of flower, there was no mold ever to be seen again, even though it spread from Kaboom to every plant in the tent in just a day. This fourth week, we still continue to spray just as much, because, well, this is an organic product that doesn't leave any oily residue, and is designed to be used on flower. It rains outside, doesn't it? We have beautifully green leaves throughout the tent, and everything looks to be maturing quite nicely. This problem was unavoidable, and we were sad for a couple weeks, but things are looking good now. Another reason for this problem is because of that oddball Cognac MAC, the tester. It was the smallest plant we ever flipped. It just would not respond to being topped at all, and sat doing seemingly nothing for 2 weeks. We considered killing it, but, due to our choice of pots in the tent, we decided to let it go. We are using 2x 21gal raised beds, with 2 dividers in each, effectively making them 2 long sets of 3 7-gallon plants we can grab by the handle and drag out of the tent easily to do our dirty work, assuming we properly let the soil dry out first. Those things are quite the tug when moist. Anyway, this tiny Cognac MAC was just waiting for that photoperiod flip, and it quickly grew many times its height, and much taller than any other plant in the tent. It currently sits mere inches from the light which is raised to the ceiling, yet still stretching at the end of week 4. This plant sort of took over the whole tent, and her and Kaboom are where the most defoliation and pruning took place. Finally, one last thing we did, or rather, did not do, to help against mold was adjust our watering ritual slightly. If you look at any picture, you may see that while these are 7-gal pots each plant sits in, they are only 5.5-6gal full. We were planning on top-dressing, and then mulching, but we decided against that for several reasons. It may have helped and it may not have, but here was the logic: - We didn't want to bring in any other organic material, just to not have to deal with pests, or possible other fungus/disease. - The tent was a jungle and the lighter pots helped us be able to drag them out. Mulches main purposes are to keep moisture in longer, and heat in at night, maintaining a more consistent environment. They also add organic material to propagate the nitrogen cycle. We needed lighter pots, not more water. - Which brings us to water. We needed less of it. Not because we were overwatering, but because our rule of thumb is less is always more. To put it another way, instead of hawk-eyeing the soil and testing its moisture, we instead have always preferred to water a lot when dry (enough), rather than a little when it's not wet (enough). We water a lot infrequently, rather than a little frequently. It has been one way we have seen improvements in the prevention of fungus growth, and I just think it gets those roots stretching out looking for moisture, while pulling vital nutrients from foliage to where needed, if needed. It's okay to see leaf symptoms sometimes for us; iinfact, we sometimes strategically leave large leaves that would have otherwise been defoliated, just to give some more phosphorus to flowers during the late bloom, or, if nature says there isn't enough rain (or human error misses a day or two), then the plant will still be happy receiving nutrition it needs. These plants are resilient, and by looking at leaves, we can tell how well our soil is working. Since during this grow we defoliated an enormous amount, and have been keeping an eye on VPD, every leaf in the whole tent looks green and beautiful. Basically, we didn't keep the leaves we normally would incase of a missed day of watering, but still, they are perfectly green with our longer dry spells. I think that says good things both about the soil we use and the genetics we chose. Ok, from not writing enough in diaries to that wall of text nobody will read, we can now say we are caught up. In the future, we should not try to grow so many uncertain-performing cultivars in the same enclosure. Anyway, most of these cultivars finish at about 9-10 weeks of flower, so see ya at the finish line!