First Attempt (with 528 Hz informed water)

Day 7 since germination = 1st day in soil. Looks like they all survived their relocation. Climate inside the box was a bit tropical on Day 8’s morning – time for the second fan to arrive … Sometimes I feel tempted to open the tent and just watch them grow for an hour or so. I am sure you can see it. Biggest Pineapple is 8 cm tall by day 9, alll unfolding their second pair of (more or less) mature leaves and showing tips of the third one. No reason to give them water yet. Inside fans and second outside fan arrived on day 11. Yet no rope holders for the lights. I wonder if the supplier smokes weed … He sent me extra pots after me telling him he already sent me more than I paid for on first, incomplete delivery. Fans do their job nicely; it’s easy to limit the temperature now to about 26°C during the days. Activated a bag of 14 day CO2 air enricher on day 11. Found some curled up leaf sides on the tallest plants on day 11’s evening, so I lifted the lights 10 cm. Wish I had the rope holders … Anyway, enormous growth on day 12. On the end of their first week in final soil, plants are between 7 and 13 cm tall, with their broadest leaves spanning between 16 and 24 cm from tip to tip. First root tips appear on the bottom holes of their pots, looking bright and healthy. Each plant is spreading out its third mature leaf pair currently, and each has started to develop at least two side nodes into branches. Plus they emight a very light, yet authentic smell. Each drank about 1/3 – 1/4 l this week. I check soil humidity with a simple multi measurement instrument, trying to go slightly below the "moist" mark before watering again to a slight "wet" level in stem proximity. I see no visible difference between both strains. Left row and middle on the right: Pineapple. The two others on the right top and bottom: Sunset Sherbet. Both ladies on the lower right are the smallest. Rearranged the lighting a bit; I cannot imagine that’s already due to their smaller pots. On to week two we go, with preparing their next drink: half a day of imprinting water with DNA integrity frequencies, and this time adding a full starter package of Hesi nutritients, but below recommended dosage as I think the substrate will not have run out of initial nutritients yet.

Week 2 starts with fertilizers as above added to the plant’s drinking water. I’ll soon have to place them apart. Meanwhile, the tomato plants to their left might gain some more strength until being moved to windows and balconies. They’re growing nicely too. On the evening of day 17, they were really thirsty for the first time with leaves and heads hanging a bit. Think I can go with the primitive measuring instrument which told me they were almost fully dry too. Just RO water with CalMag this time (and the full Solfeggio frequencies). Maybe light rearrangement slowed their growth down a bit, but one the other hand side branches are developing nicely at the same time, and I want to have a bit of reserve for blooming. Temperatures have fallen here, and I can see it on the inside temperatures too which rarely rise above 24° C, and humidity sometimes rises to around 80% which seems a bit much. Reprogrammed the second blower to work more often. Day 19: Lady Ananas #3 has left the building, she wants a life under the sun. Wishing her all the best, the remaining plants have a bit more space to spread. And no, no slowdown. Both pineapples gained a lot of height during the last day, while the Sherbets stay somewhat more compact. Humidity is still bothering me, and morning temperatures were comparably low due to the fact there’s always an open window in the room they reside in. On day 20, Sunset #1 had become a bit thirsty over night, so I gave her a few drops of water. They’ll all receive a meal tomorrow. Water is being imprinted already. Humidity is now under control, averaging at 55%. They are beginning to raise now, and they are spreading their arms. Quite connected, photos are beginning to look a bit crowded, so I’ll have to ponder about a different staging to show their real appearance. Some end of week statistics: Height 14–25 cm, with an average of 20. Widest leaf spread tip to tip: 45 cm. Stem diameter at soil level: 0.7–1 cm. They are now working on expanding their 5th/6th pair of leaves. Guess I’ll see some more height growth next week and soon pre flowers should appear. Meanwhile tomatoes are starting to get into quite a competition. Good I can give some to a neighbour; did not expect such a good germination rate.

Day 21 started with the ladies getting thirsty, so they received a morning drink, this time with the full recommendation of Hesi fertilisers. All tips show clear signs of preflowers now, but my phone camera cannot really catch them in a recognisable way, so more details in a few days. Lights still at 80% but reduced distance to about 30 cm again. Day 22: Will have to hang the lights higher again soon, as the tallest plant gained about 2 cm since yesterday. Looks like they consumed the fertilisers really well. Deep, luscious leaf colouring, and the tomatoes which received the same drink now being taller than the smallest of the ladies in green. I started to LST the lower branches of the first two plants yesterday and was a bit worried afterwards. My handling clearly stressed them. But they are good with me today again. I wonder why the second Sunset Sherbet stays that much smaller. Checked her lighting and of course, being smaller she gets a bit less but not in such a degree. She is in an 11 l pot, the other ones in 17 l. I read Autos don’t like being repotted that much. Should I transplant her into a bigger home though? Differences between both strains are now visible. The nodes where the leaf fingers meet – their palms? – are only a light green or yellow on the Pineapples whereby on the Sherbets they appear mostly dark reddish brown. BTW: A TDS of 10 means the pure RO water. The fertilised mix had a TDS of 238 ppm. Still about 100 below my tap water. On the evening of day 22, I realised they all looked a bit droopy, and as the taller Sherbet decided to overtake the lead in height, I rearranged them so light over smaller plants can be lower. (So now left row Sherbet in front, Pineapple in back, right row the opposite. Both tallest plants hit the 30 cm mark now.) On day 23 morning, they all looked ok but lowest, oldest leaves began to turn to a spotty yellow color. Normal behaviour or some deficiency? I received hints about N and Mag being possible sources, possibly rather N. Did not expect deficiencies to appear that fast … Tomatoes need to leave the tent now soon as they are starting to overgrow the lowest weed leaves which could be causing troubles too. Positioned the lights now more to a bit more than 40 cm away from the tops but turned them fully up. All optimisations still make the plants grow very differently. Tallest lady is now almost twice as big as the smallest one. Steady growth on day 26. Lowest leaves might be lost, but I should defoliate them anyway soon. Lowest side branches could use more light; which I had to adjust again a bit higher as youngest leaves show some yellow ends, and tallest plant is now already 43 cm. They would have become thirsty today, so this time I really gave them a lot to drink, with Hesi nutritients for early flower stage – if the yellow leaves have been caused by lack of N, there is more in it than in growth fertiliser. Added a support portion of Root Complex too to compensate this week’s stress, also caused by LSTing them. I don’t have any data to compare with but I’m pleased by the amount of not really that tiny anymore white hairs I see. And the end of this week, I start to worry if I spent my money wisely. Tallest lady will probably be 50 cm tonight or tomorrow. If she continues this way, my 1.60 m tent could be filled soon. And I heard Autos don’t appreciate topping that much. Although I installed a dehumidifier, humidity in closed tent with both blowers on full speed still gets too high. If this is to be meant a longer lasting hobby, I should possibly invest in a better blower for the next round. And at some point maybe rather an Evo 3/60. Even more as the LEDs I bought for my mini greenhouse as an indoor plant birth station turned out to be a typical Asia scam with no power at all, making the seedling grow ugly in search of light. At least the smallest one clearly starts to stretch out now too. And I think I don’t have to worry that much about the first leaves having turned yellow. What looked like weird cabbage on each stem where the baby leaves used to be now starts to develop into new, very vividly green leaves. Short end of week statistics: Height average 35 cm, ranging from 24 to 46 cm. Widest stem at soil level approach. 1.5 cm Thirst around 1.5 l/plant/week.

The beginning of this 4th week finds the ladies between 27 and 50 cm height. I carefully removed some yellow leaves that were blocking their tied-down branches yesterday. All started to develop these wildly, sending deep green bushes to the ceiling. I feel a bit remembered of Audrey II. As I am often anyway, sitting in front of the tent and singing gently "Please grow for me!" Excuse my juvenile enthusiasm. I am not yet in my sixties. It will grow out. Can it be they were still stressed by light during a two days absence (not without care)? They grew a lot during these days, but leaf tips are a bit yellow. I quickly set the highest lights to about 45 cm distance again. Day 31 feels like the first summer day end of April here. Top of tips can get around 29 °C. They will get thirsty today already again, soil measurement instrument tells me. So I am preparing the next round of drinks. Day 32, after feeding: Height now between 40 and 66 cm. Smaller ones are catching up a bit while still staying nicely compact. LST’ed some more branches. Day 33: Growth continues at a rate of 4 cm/day. Tallest plant 70 cm now. I won’t adjust the lights fully and rather have them decrease the distance. They really should be able to stand full lighting now. Even more as they don’t look as tired anymore in the evenings. Theoretically they should reach their final height in about 1, 1.5 weeks. Theoretically we should be at around half of this growth. Let’s see how grey (or colorful) this theory turns out to be. Ah yes: The last tomatoes have left the building now. Which was on time, the undergrowth of the ladies is starting to build a dense foliage. And they went into flower stage too. I am spending some time as a voluntary bee in kitchen and bathroom where they are now. The warm weather will make the ladies thirsty again soon. This time I’m preparing just RO water with CalMag, but I put some more frequencies into it which are supposed to enhance plant growth: A frequency set named "power of the earth" with frequencies mostly around 60 Hz and the Schumann main resonance frequency of 7.83 Hz. Of course with this set-up there is no way to prove if they are working or not, but if they should grow exceptionally dense or tall we’ll pretend it is, okay? 😁 Day 34, aka end of week 4. Tallest plant gained only 1 cm. Is it the end of her rapid growth phase or a slowdown due to less light distance or reduced humidity because of the warm weather? (Around 45% currently, but more inside the closed tent.) Anyway, their height is between 47 and 71 cm now. I stopped worrying about the oldest leaves turning yellow. As long as the humidity is not too high and air circuiation at soil level is good, I will leave them as a nitrogen reservoir until dead and dry. New leaves are all a very dark, luscious green, and I just push the old leaves below the new growth. The frontmost Pineapple art the right shows a bit of light stress in her new leaves still, so I guess I should move their lights a bit. Guess I should start to see some "real" flower activity next week. Can’t wait to see.

Week 5 is here, and the rapid growth really slowed down for the taller plants. Which is quite ok, I am starting to see the benefits of topping or scrog, considering the light difference between top and lowest branches. Accordingly, more old fan leaves starting to turn yellow which as I wrote is also fine with me. As long as the new growth looks ok (and it does), I will let them suck the minerals out of them before removing. This being my first grow is mainly meant for collecting experience and getting feeling and understanding for Cannabis as a plant, and admittedly some harvest would be nice. Conclusions so far for next grow: Reduce to 2 plants. Stay closer with the lights, but not get to 100% that fast. Don’t be too hesitant with fertilisers but don’t overdo them as well. Maybe try scrog next time. Or LST with topping. I read so many warnings you should not top autos but other diaries here promote a different view. Maybe invest in a better blower. @Apfelsaft94 was quite right: I see no sense in reducing the power of the two Bonsanto Max blowers. In fact I removed their dimmers as I have the impression they run faster unthrottled, while they still have a hard time blowing out the warm and humid air. Should I remove some of the lowest flowering branches? I have the feeling not all are getting enough light. And the beginning of week statistics: Tallest plant 73 cm, smallest 51. Looks like they are catching up, which is nice as the different height of the lights made them grow a bit sideways. On day 36 I found the reason for humidity inside the tent sometimes shooting up although the dehumidifier working constantly: When trying to install it first, the hose slipped and I did not find the right spot to place it anyway, so I decided to use its tank instead. What I did not notice was that the nozzle holding the hose was still in place, so half of the produced water went to the tent’s floor where it added to humidity again of course … Hose is now in place and working :D There’s quite some overlapping of branches in the middle of the tent, so I placed an additional Sansi LED bulb in the center that adds a bit of green spectrum to hopefully support their growth. Not much gain in height again but buds are sending out their sugar leaves. Substrate was already running dry again so about 350 ml for each plant. Day 37 shows growth has indeed reduced to about 1 cm/day: 75.5 / 53 are now max and min height. I bent down yellowing old fan leaves and removed some hopeless side branches yesterday. I think their buds show some strain-related differences: Sherbet’s "hair" is quite thick, very white and standing relatively straight, while Pineapple’s is more curly, thinner, with a slight yellow touch. I am currently watering them every 2nd day, and so I should in the evening. I also removed the blowers’ "Silencers" (being a plastic hat filled with some foam) as the output wind is much stronger. Now it feels like they can do their job, although they are quite a bit louder. Should be possible to install an isolating hose around their outlets to reduce the sound again without that much air loss. Hey, you can zoom in the close-ups to see the trichomes. Much better than live! 😃 Gave them a really good round of fertilised water on evening 37, and on day 38 stats were 77/54.5 cm which is 0.5 more growth than yesterday. With reduced outside temperatures and their room having a constant supply of fresh air it’s quite easy to keep the humidity around 50% currently. I still can have the tent door a bit opened without a noticeable smell in the rest of the flat. Not so in their room, but once I close the door for the evening odour disappears. Not much height gain on day 39, but buds are getting thicker and foliage more dense. Odour has increased quite a bit. Day 40: Really no height gain at all but visible bud growth. Current weather situation now makes it rather difficult to maintain enough humidity, so I hung up a damp towel. I don’t see any new leaf colouring since last fertilised watering; on the contrary, some new tiny side branch growth on the very lowest branches which I thought would net get enough light. Think I should add a bit of fertilisation this evening before starting real bud growth with the recommended Hesi combination in week 6. Meanwhile, their former school buddies received the same drink as the ladies all the time and are currently shooting. For the rest of my house plants, I started to feed them Hesi HPE and already see some amazing darkening of fresh leaves and activation of formerly sleeping nodes. I am really happy about my fertiliser choice; so far it seems excellent for the newbie. At the end of the week, ladies are between 55.5 and 79 cm tall. Buds are really looking good and growing steadily. Could there be a small touch of reddish purple in the smaller Sherbet’s hairs? Too early to tell. Their smell differs each day. Sometimes I really have to close the doors, at other times no odour at all. Humidity related? Good Humidifiers with external sensors are sold out everywhere. Guess I have to stick to the towel method for a while if weather stays that dry.

Week 6 starts exactly where we left, with 55.5 and 79 cm height for smallest/tallest plant. Humidity is currently fixed rollercoastering around 50/55%, but that’s mostly due to current weather and a bit due to the fact that I remembered I own an indoor fan with a simple cooling option – a fabric being drawn through a water tank before fan blows through it –, and placed to blow agains the tent air inlet it’s cooling the air slightly while adding some percents of humidity. Perfect for the moment. Girls are currently not that hungry. Their soil is still moist enough to make it through today. Think I’ll start tomorrow with the first full round of blooming fertilisers. On morning of day 43, soil had become pretty dry – I did not have time to water them last evening. I removed their lowest, now quite yellow/brown fan leaves and gave each one about 0,5 l of only RO water with some CalMag. Don’t want to risk any over-fertilising. Soil was so dry water first filled their plates but was sucked into the soil immediately after. Leave removing gave me a good impression about terpene production really kicking in. I don’t smell much when I open the tent (again quite dry surrounding air), but moving them a bit released extremely fruity, sweet odour. Yummy! On day 44, that very distinctive smell has increased. Bud growth is growth too, so tallest plant’s height is now as good as 80 cm. Sherbets‘ buds are indeed getting a slight bright purple touch, but still not clear enough to be visible in a highly processed image. (Don’t ask me why the colors look that different every day. I am using exactly the same lighting conditions and image adjustments.) Talking about colors: More old fan leaves, still the lowest ones, still those that I would cut anyway to give the branches more light, are starting to fade. Shall we call this a mostly uninfluenced grow with natural lollipopping? Day 45: Will have to give them some water today. They are still not really that thirsty, with about half a litre per plant every 2.5th day or so. Speed of action has clearly slowed down currently. Instead of half a litre, I gave each one a full. Comparing the week’s photos so far, I think that bud growth is quite ok. Although I miss the time they were stretching quite a bit. Can it be Hesi Bloom Boost (and the rest) really boosted them overnight? When trying to get a focus with the microscope lens attached to the mobile, I incidentally touched a bud and was struck at how sticky it feels already. Slight signs of over-fertilisation on the tips of tallest plants on day 47. Next drink will be without, and I’ll reduce dosage by about 25% further on. Day 48, and end of week 6. Somehow autumn has broken out (but don’t worry too much; image processing produced some differences too): I was presented with a lot of yellow fan leaves today. I have problems keeping the humidity high enough, weather is warm and dry and every manual misting will only hold for an hour at most, while its often bringing the humidity over the best range for a short time. Or is that normal behaviour? The buds already look pretty mature, with quite some hairs drying. But this is only end of week 6, and I think I should get at leat two more weeks, or shouldn’t I? Leaves around the buds are all in very good shape, except for that few brown edges that have not grown.

Already week 7, and it’s starting with much better air humidity which makes it easier for me to stay in the recommended VPD range – currently 54% at 25 °C at canopy height. With 58, 67, 78 and 80 cm plants’ average height is about 71 cm. Odour has increased, and sometimes, but only shortly, I get the feeling the coal before the blowers cannot eliminate all of it. While the smell was a bit strange sometimes one and a half week ago, it’s now absolutely yummy, sweet and promising. As is all the sticky stuff adhering to my folding rule when I measure their size. I am a bit confused about the amount of yellowing leaves. That would indicate a nutrition deficit. On the other hand, last feeding (yesterday it was only calmagged water) brought some brown edges to their tips as I wrote. Which could indicate a slight over-nutrition. I am not *that* worried as leaves around the buds all look great (except for mentioned, but not youngest tips), and mature plants obviously tend to concentrate on bud production solely. But week 7 is quite early, or isn’t it? Any recommendations? Maybe I should go with organic fertiliser next time to avoid being stuck between two options ;) As they had run dry already, I gave each one another round of drink. Slightly less fertilised than last week. And I removed the lowest yellow branches and tiny buds that would not make it into the light in time. The Pineapples must have some mimosa genes crossed in. Each time I touch them they bow away their heads in deep dislike. The taller one looks like her head would be too heavy now … It is not, and usually they recover after an hour or so. The Sherbets are pretty unimpressed by all I do. Meanwhile I’ve been working on the Raspberry Pi BoxControl that should help me stay in better VPD ranges in the future. I am not sure how to translate this all into a more stable solution than based on a breadboard, but the state so far (and how it is supposed to work): Raspi runs headless with control software on autostart. Every minute temperature and humidity are received from a GY-21 I2C chip that should be hanging around plant tops. Data is saved in a database, VPD is calculated and signalled in form of a RGB LED color. Additionally, LCD display rotates through current stats. 3 relay modules can en- or disable misting, dehydration or an additional blower. Maybe I can add a CO2 sensor just for the fun of it (but I’d have to develop a device protocol myself), maybe even one or two soil moisture sensors. Theoretically you could also have a lighting control, but then, GPIO ports are all used. The display needs a lot of them, and while I can log onto the Raspi on my local network and view its desktop, I’d prefer to have a quick overview at place. I am not really informed about current models. Are some GPIO extensions or Raspis with extended GPIOs on the market? But so far, that’s all theory. I never had a PCB developed for my hobbyist projects, I am not the best with a solder station. Never had a Raspi run 24/7 for a really long time. Did a bit more lollipop ping in the evening. Especially tallest Shepard had fun building some more very low buds and branches. I think it can investigate its powers better on different places. Day 51: It’s getting hard to measure soil humidity with my low tech device. Soil must be full with roots and I don’t want to hurt them much. I can see them at the outlets of their pots too, sometimes a bit dry of course as these parts run dry earliest. Experiments to include the CO2 sensor in my test setup failed. I can read and reset it, but setting measurement mode and reading values don’t work. Maybe because my I2C library cannot use ClockStretchLimit. Running out of GPIO ports anyway and seeing that the soil sensors are analogue devices, I’ll probably revive my Uno too and have discovered some clever Raspi heads that should make a more stable setup (and some cooling) possible while also adding a handful of PWM ports and an integrated display. I’d like to include a camera module too and it would be great to have some ports available. A final setup would obviously include a Raspi 4 or 5 to easily enable secure online access. But so far, all working nicely in test setup. Day 54: Sometimes I wonder if they’re still growing at all, but then it’s good to have the daily pictures to compare bud width which now seems to be the main interest of the ladies, although differences are now clearer to tell between two day intervals. The taller ones look like they are one week ahead of the smaller plants, with even higher fan leaves turning pale now. Which at an estimated seed–harvest time of 8–11 weeks for both strains should be pretty common, I guess. Or am I wrong? Summerly temperatures make the temperatures at canopy level sometimes reach 31 °C, but at least the simple ultrasonic diffusers arrived and I am getting closer to a better environment control. I can at least switch the diffuser inside the tent remotely from my phone, and a deep bowl of water with a lid so the "fountain" produced will not wet the tent floor and one of the fans placed at the bottom now to lift its mist upwards seems to do the trick. Humidity increases while temperature drops, getting the plants into a better VPD level, so all I have to do is wait for the evil A to deliver the necessary Raspi components to have this automated, maybe still while this grow runs. At the end of this week, there was just a bit of height gain for the two smaller ladies who now approach their next 10 cm mark. Overall, I get the feeling it won’t be that long until harvest. Maybe with the taller ones a week earlier than the others. There’s really not that much bud growth anymore, rather refinements – like buds getting more nodes and color. I’ll investigate the trichomes every few days but would welcome your estimation.

Once again, this week starts where the former one ended. With the exception of all the cables you can see in the first picture. I dared to install a minimalized version of the Raspi control only controlling the self-built humidifier and one blower/fan combination. I was very pleased to see how easily the simple diffusor can hold optimum VPD as long as temperatures are high and humidity tends to fall below optimum VPD. A single 10 seconds evaporation can hold the level for about 2–3 minutes. I am not pleased to see the Monsanto blowers rather underperform. It’s impossible to reduce humidity or temperature with both running on full speed, while a lifting of the tent door will bring immediate changes. With the Raspi/Arduino success so far*, I am thinking about using old Power Mac fans which are WCM controllable and use 12 V. At least one to increase air intake, and maybe even the blowers. * It wasn’t any problem at all to have the Arduino collect CO2 and soil moisture data, so after some more cable manufacturing (aka helpless soldering), I could extend the Raspi control. I’m still uncertain about the camera module (@trelorny impressed me with his time lapse videos). I don’t want to put the hardware into the tent with its not so electronics friendly climate, already risking some rare outages of the temp/hum sensor. But the camera module cannot be placed far away. So maybe I’ll use the 3A model I own as a spare part as a camera driver. Any maybe, if it works, invest in a better camera module. Mine is generation 1. Oh, and the ladies! Gave them slightly fertilised water yesterday, and even it or the better VPD yesterday or a combination of both make me believe bud growth is a bit more visible today. The smell in the morning when I open the tent to release accumulated humidity is outstanding. They were already thirsty on day 57 again, so pure RO + a bit of tap water until it spilled out of their pot’s bottoms. Many fan leaves turning autumnally now, and the smallest Sherbet suffered a bit from over-fertilisation as I wrote. But it this stage I don’t go for leaf beauty anymore. Just another learning: Don’t use differently sized pots anymore. Hard to feed them individually this way. VPD was mostly in best range yesterday, and I have the feeling it really supports their bud growth. I added an "Evening time" option to my Raspi control that allows the humidity to sink a selected time before lights shut down. That made it possible to have humidity in best range for most of the night time too. They were even dry again on day 58 morning. Another time just water. The blowers cannot cope with the flowers’ smell anymore, and so sometimes my flat cannot hide who shares it with me. Day 60 presents me with a problem: I’ll leave on Friday for a few days. Considering the microscope pictures are not from the tops buds: Would you say it’s safe to give them another week? Problem solved on day 61. Only clean water from now on, and next week will be their last. You won’t see any new pictures for some days now. Me too … Something I wanted to share with you before I leave: I just finished to update my grow box control with a new PWM fan hat that keeps the Raspi cool, while at the same an infrared sensor can now measure real leaf and additional ambient temperature. Setup is much cleaner and more robust now, but I wish my flux would not make the solder stick to the tip of the machine instead of making it flow and stick at the tiny tiny spots I have to hit …

If you read all my text so far: I lied. Here’s still one more picture of the week’s beginning. Clearly not long until they must be harvested. I still feel unable to predict the yield. I feel I need to hide all the electronics better next growth. But so far: Have a good weekend, ladies! On returning (day 65), they look even more tired but still not fully ready for harvest, I guess. Will examine their buds tomorrow, so take it as a first impression from counting the still white stigmas. Day 66: I examined the stigmas of the tallest Pineapple’s head cola, and while some parts look very ok to collect, there’s clearly room to optimise when talking about trichome color. I’ll upload some pictures later. Not fully visible is that she’s playing Pisa. Her head is getting weary and she is bending more and more towards tent’s center. I gave them all a big water flush – they had been running quite dry – with just a drop of vitamins. So more leaf yellowing is to be expected. I keep the VCP between 1.35 and 1.5 intentionally – rather a bit dry. It’s high stress, and I think end of this week at least tallest Pineapple will be sent into starvation. VCP 1.5 I wrote in the morning, but if it climbs even more (1.8 now), I think I should activate the humidifier to give them a bit of relieve. On screenshot last 2 hours of control running (restarted it this morning), with illumination sensor not yet working and humidifier electrically disabled even control says it’s on. Very early on day 67: I finally managed to get a stable connection to the Arduino spamming the serial connection with its sensor data. I need longer cables and a more stable setup: lx sensor hangs quite low and I just turned on the 40 Watt lamp, soil humidity sensors vary around 5%, but give an overall impression (just for the tallest ladies; I won’t have more than 2 in future grows) and outside sensor will be replaced by something better than the crappy DHT11, but besides from the fact that the Raspi 3b stopped to work and I had to revert to a Raspi 3a 32bit model, I am pleased with the results. Not that I would ever need them all. ;) No real news on day 68. I ordered – sigh – just another Raspi hat because if I want to try to use the Power Mac fans I need a motor driver delivering full power with PWM, not only a 3.3V PWM signal. If that fails, I am afraid I’ll have to invest in an air filter system. The small fans running on full speed all the time cannot hide the smell even when door is closed all day, or maybe I’d have to replace the coal already. Both quite unacceptable, I guess. If I need to buy: Any recommendations for a good filter system, running quiet when throttled but building a decent underpressure in a 60 x 60 tent? External controller is acceptable, although I have the feeling they are noticeably overpriced. Longer signal cables and connectors are on their way too. As nice as this setup is, adding one single cable can start a several hours debug process when the 1Wire bus gets unstable because of the length. Raspi control overview has changed in favour for combined graphs. First is not only leaf temp but temperature in general, with ambient air and top bud air temperature too. Grey: Temperature outside the temp at the air intake. Which is the color for outside humidity on second graph too. The irregular heartbeats at the top are the soil humidities of the tallest plants. I am impressed to see CO2 is quite high without doing anything. Usual value is 400 ppm where I sit. New software version reading TVOC too. The elevated levels I get from inside the tent (grey graph on last stats image) makes me think it is their smell I am registering. It’s quite dry today, so another high stress day. Trichomes on most mature colas are still mostly clear, so maybe the tallest ones will still get another round of water when they run dry. As the capacitive soil humidity sensors vary around 8% each reading, their graphs are now smoothed with every minutely update so I can more easily see the trend and average. Day 69. They really made another week. Most stigmas on tallest Pineapple have turned brown now, and microscope says the rest will follow while I let her dry up now. This will bring a chance to calibrate the moisture sensors better. I am driving them with 5V, and supplier example was only for 3.3, so currently the sensor says she still has about 65% soil moisture while she is running into the dry zone according to the simple measurement instrument. My thumb says so too. I would estimate tallest Sherbet and smaller Pineapple will follow soon, with the smallest Sherbet in her smaller pot maybe needing one more week. Software advances: Evening calculation is now working. I am raising the VPD by a selectable amount during a selectable time before ladies’ night comes. Dawn time where this effect should be reversed is rather abrupt. Upper limits for soil moisture sensor are ok as you can see after a soaking amount of water given to the three dedicated survivors. Lower amount as I wrote rather not so – simple instrument talks about 10% rather. CO2 levels are IMHO impressive. I am not adding anything but reach about 1500 ppm. In fact as an overambitious newbie I tried in the early stages with CO2 sacks but they develop a rather unpleasant smell when they age and the remainders are a jucky sauce that’s disgusting to dispose. Latest software screenshot: I reactivated the humidifier to give them a bit of relief during stress times. It’s nice to see how fast it handles an increased VPD. Algorithm should aim more for the middle of VPD optimum anyway – humidifier is clicking on and off every few seconds. Interesting to see how a better VPD made plant2 use a few percent of its soil water in just a few minutes.

Another week, and signs of nutrition deficits are very visible on all plants now. Smaller ones have developed violet leaf edges around their top buds too, while tallest Sherbet (front left) still has a lot of white "hair". Tallest Pineapple is dying, her soil humidity around 15% only (and they should get water around 25% with the current calibration). Day 71. Software control is disabled now. I need more robust cables which will arrive soon. Meanwhile, taller pineapple’s buds now really look ready for harvest. She is pulling the last humidity out of her leaves. A handful of days until she’ll see the world turned upside down. Next to follow will be the smaller pineapple which now shows intensive bud leaf collaring too (as much as it can with 1.5 weeks of only pure water), and I am amazed to see the taller Sherbet looks like she could last the longest. Humidity is pretty low, around 35%, putting much stress on the ladies and making a rot-free death of #1 highly probable. Uh: And I can harvest the first tiny tomato soon too. I guess they suffered from getting transplanted where most of them only received natural sunlight wich at times wasn’t so great. They are now investing more power into fruit and bud building again, while the tallest ones grew to about 2 m in my living room. Day 72 shows the rest of them will not last much longer. They are all running out of nutritions, throwing leaves en masse, and smaller Pineapple on the front right is running out of humidity too. I will not give her any more water, preparing her for the next to go. Biggest Sherbet’s soil to the left is surprising wet still. Day 73: Cut the 3/4 dried Pineapple now. 87 g of half-wet weight. Day 74: Smaller Pineapple is now visibly drying, while the Sherbets are only slowly following and maybe could have used another round of fertilisers instead of being flushed together with the Pineapples. Day 75: I had time to install new Arduino sensor wiring yesterday but sadly could not yet install the Raspi 5 as main computer. Don’t have the right HDMI adapters to do the setup yet … So it’s the 3b again which came back to full life after reinstalling the OS. Somehow I must have damaged it, so it would not access its ports anymore. Anyway, while wiring might still look wild sensor data is now a lot smoother, and I do not have to interpolate soil humidities anymore. I changed their displays to LevelBars and attached a sensor to all 3 remaining ladies. Sherbets received some water yesterday. The smaller one is getting closer to harvest, while taller still looks quite alive if you ignore the leaf nutrient deficiencies. I think there’s even still a bit of bud growth visible in the newest pictures. Day 76 will be the last day for the drying Pineapple in her home. Sherbets will still get another round of water but seem to be approaching finish too. Currently they are still growing, so I better train a rarely used discipline of mine and stay patient. Meanwhile, Raspi control has had another update and it’s easy to spot all conditions by color now. Except for the LevelBars where I don’t understand the setting of CSS ranges …

So I guess this will be the last week for this grow. But who knows? The Sherbets keep surprising me; I can still see fresh bud growth although I wonder where they take the necessary energy from. Today a PWM controllable fan will arrive, but not the filter that should accompany it. I won’t need it for this grow, but as you can see in the graphs current blowers cannot keep up with temperature rise caused by all lights shining (that’s why you see the steps in lighting. I start with a short morning phase of just the Sansi 40W LED, switch to the SANLights and later add the Sansi again, once for noon and a random time in the later evening.) I finally made the move to the Raspi 5 which is much more responsive and not burdened at all by its tasks. The Model 2b was very sluggish in GUI reactions and used up to 25% CPU on each graphics update. Now I am down to mostly idling with short peaks of 2–5 %. I did not activate web access yet but will be able to monitor everything from everywhere in the future. 2b will probably be used as a timed photo driver for the Infrared capable camera. It’s quite interesting to see the changes in lighting when I open the tent. Illumination drops down around 3000 lx when the door is not reflecting to the inside anymore. Sure, lux monitoring and DLI calculation are wild guesses at best. But hey, each gauge adds to science credibility! 😄 Guess I was quite right about TVOC being the terpenes. After the first Pineapple gone, I do rarely register anything anymore, and so does my nose. Meanwhile the buds in their curing glasses smell really nice. Not too strong, but definitely not that cow stable like Pineapple I recently encountered somewhere else. My ex put a happy smile on her face and confirmed: "That’s definitely cat p*ss too! As it should be!" I would not use these words. 😹 Oh, and don’t worry about 3 soil humidities. I simply pushed the now obsolete sensor into one of the Sherbet’s, but more to the edge. Day 69. Removed some more brown leaves. They say they don’t need any anymore. Although the filter has not arrived, I installed a new blower fan in the upper outlet of the tent, and it’s amazing to see its effects. A nightly ten minutes push kept temperatures and humidity down at night, and for the pure SANLight stage leaf temperature us about 4° less than before. For the first time I can see the blower really create a noticeable underpressure. As to why the light sensor registers the light that differently, I have no clue. Sorry for the long outages in the graphs. A stupid bug in my code had me restart the app for some hours with slight modifications, but without registering data too. Taller Sherbet will get some water today. Their sensors might be showing 60% still, but that’s mainly because the sensors have a looong range until registering full dryness. Day 72: Yikes! The reason I saw that little condensed water from the dehumidifier recently was its outlet was blocked, so when I touched the hose water from inside the device came running into the tent. Hope it survived – have it repositioned now and taken care the hose will not slip. The main blower filter arrived but not yet the hose. I took the opportunity to install the filter but did not connect it to the blower yet. I reduced the main blower’s intensity – sadly my attempts to control its speed failed, so I have to use its manual dimmer – because last night where outside VPD was very low each nightly attempt to push out humidity decreased the leaf temp and made humidity rise to critical levels when it was pulling full speed. There’s certainly room for improvement regarding control software intelligence … I am planning a short vacation beginning of next month so I hope they will get ready for harvest or I have to kill them slightly before best time … On day 73 since soil contact, I could see without any magnification that they matured overnight: Most trichomes looking cloudy now, and microscope revealed they are ready for harvest. So no more water for both of them, and rather low on humidity until they are dead. Which should fit nicely into my vacation plans.

And then there were three … Small Pineapple will follow, Sherbets are dedicated survivors for this week yet. Day 67: Now two survivors. I examined the now empty pots, and root system was well developed in both. I’ll go for less plants in bigger pots next time; weird looking root pots à 20 l are on their way.

Welcome, ladies and gents, to the last week of this personal very first grow. It’s not that much a flowering but rather the d(r)ying week for both Sherbets. We are starting into it with the bigger lady at around 55% soil humidity and the smaller one shortly below 40. This does sound much still but isn’t. The soil humidity scale should rather considered somewhat logarithmic. Plants are happy between 90 and 70% but start to suffer below 60. With their buds being much more dense than Pineapples’, I guess they will take a few more days to dry. Even more as currently weather conditions are rather humid – yesterday’s rain brought outside humidity to over 80%. Luckily, the big fan’s filter arrived and I already installed it, so no more smell and the ability to lower leave/tent air temperature very fast. On the other hand, its usage will pull up humidity, so I fully separated their software control and now, although I cannot drive the big fan’s speed yet, have a variable fan and even a solution that is really not that noisy: Usually one of the Bonsanto blowers is always switched on. If humidity must be lowered, the second one is activated (but currently stopped too early upon reaching upper humidity ok range). If temperature or VPD must be lowered, the big fan is running. I separated the control logics into day and night (or drying) phase: During plant daytime, software tries to attain optimum VPD. During night or if drying phase is selected, humidity has priority and big fan will rather run only if leaf temperature or VPD is getting into critical range. Anyone here for marketing the solution? :D The dehumidifier inside the tent is always running, and having blocked its hose did not ruin it. But it’s really not that effective. Day 76: All running nicely. After some optimisations, keeping humidity really works great for drying stage now (blue line in upper right graph). I run first live view tests with a very primitive first installation. Sometimes pictures arrive defective, and camera clearly needs a better place. But hey, it’s sometimes working as expected! Day 77: Having morbid fun comparing curled leaf photos … Day 78: Both now very visibly dying, smaller one completely dry (0.5 %). The buds getting more fluffy on the outside, which makes drying them (at perfectly 50% humidity) easy. I managed to install IR lighting for the night – no, it’s not activated by photo diode and running all the time. I found a 12V IR LED ring in my Raspi toy collection that is now activated 3 seconds before a shot and deactivated right after, while photo frequency is decreased to 4 times the day interval. Also changed is the interval data is read from the sensors. Before it was every 10 seconds, and I noticed that actions like turning on main blower would often result in a very rollercoastering temp/hum graph. Now it is every 2.5 seconds and software finds it much easier to stay in programmed range. The photo handling is not perfect. Sometimes shots arrive distorted or multiple times, or the Mac daemon forgets to send data at all. Day 79: Installed much better camera and sensor holders that eliminate a lot of the picture waviness. Not all when all lights are running due to some interferences, but good enough for focus comparisons. Weather is putting a lot of stress on the dying plants. Which is quite fitting: Summer has manifested here all of a sudden, and the big blower is activated frequently to hold leaf temperature in an acceptable range. Humidity is still around 50, so let’s see if the taste will hold the promise made by the smell when I incidentally touch them. Guess I can turn off the lights and hang them tomorrow. Day 80: Recommended soundtrack for today: "Family Snapshot" by Peter Gabriel and of course Pink Floyd’s "The Final Cut". Today concludes this diary; only a review will follow. Thanks a lot for 1400 views, hints and recommendations which never gave me the impression to tackle this first grew all alone. I think I learnt a few things about improving the yield – let’s see if I got them for sure on the next diary. After the vacation.

With a total of estimated 110–120 g, there’s clearly room for improvement. Which was out oof any questionability from beginning on as I did not do much except for some very gentle LST. As a conclusion a summation of the things I guess I have learnt and will change for the next grow: – Observe young plants better, adjust lighting according to their needs (represented by their leaf positions). – Two ladies should definitely be enough for a 60 x 60 tent. – Give them big pots. The ones raised in smaller pots stayed a lot smaller than those in the bigger ones. – Reverse the day cycle to decrease summer’s temperature difference and hopefully avoid too humid stages. – VPD rules. – Don’t be too hesitant with fertilisers. (Not too excessive too, of course) – Use topping and probably scrog. No, not Scrooge, autocorrect! There is a huge difference in quality between top and lower buds (although even the latter ones are really tasty). – Do not let them die too long before hanging/final drying. I have the inkling that’s making the buds a little more fluffy than I prefer. – Use one strain per grow as this makes entering a contest easier ;)