First Attempt (with 528 Hz informed water)

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.