Blue Gelato 41: Clones - Soil test

It’s finally time to start the clone diary. I have been hesitant to start it since the clones looked like shit, to be honest. I haven’t kept an exact diary, but I did take a few pictures along the way. (I’m counting the clones' ages starting from the day they were cut.) It has been a wild ride with the clones. Somehow, the clones went into flower while waiting to get roots. I have absolutely no idea how that happened since they were on 18 hours of light all the time. Maybe the light they were under wasn’t powerful enough? According to my PAR meter, it should be enough, so I don’t know. Anywho, I changed the light cycle to 20 hours and put them under their regular, more powerful light to force them back into veg. After a month, they finally started to veg again after looking terrible the entire time. The new growth was… weird, as re-vegged plants tend to be. Three of the four are self-topped, and the last one kept the top but has turned into a runt. At around six weeks, I transplanted them into their final 56-liter pots. (15 gal) At eight weeks, they finally got large enough to start training. I originally planned to scrog the tent, but now, with such different plant sizes, I’m sticking to good old LST—at least for now. However, depending on how they grow in the next week, I might still go the scrog route. I’m giving the girls another week of veg to fill out the canopy and then flip them into flower.

A new week of veg starts, although this will be a short week as I plan on flipping the girls soon. The girls are looking great. They have exploded in the last few days and started to fill out the tent nicely—well, except for the far right corner where the runt is, but that's also where the fan is, so it worked out for the best anyway. I've continued doing LST, and the canopy has improved as it has filled out. It's still not as flat as I'd like to see it, but it's not terrible either. In the last few days, I have varied the watering: first with compost tea, humic, fulvic, and EM-1, and then with spouted seed tea, LAB, and epsom salt. Diversity is key with living soil. Well, in all of life, really. I also foliar fed additional epsom salt due to visible, although slight, interveinal chlorosis in new foliage. The girls get a DLI of 45 and 30 mins of UV per day, at a VPD between 0.8 and 1.2. I removed the humidifier from the tent as it was redundant because the girls got bigger and transpired more. This whole grow is a soil test, where I compare four different but very similar recipes: Recipe 1: Basemix + A + X Recipe 2: Basemix + A + Y Recipe 3: Basemix + B + X Recipe 4: Basemix + B + Y As for vegetation, I'm seeing very clear patterns so far: B plants are larger than A plants Y plants are larger than X plants BY is larger than BX, BX is larger than AY, and AY is larger than AX (There's a substantial size difference between BY and AX.) Now, size isn't everything and we are still a long way from harvest. It will be exciting to see how the plants will develop as we progress.

After a short previous week, I flipped the girls on Monday, as I prefer to have plant weeks to align with real weeks. It makes it easier for me to keep track of things. I also restart the day count. Again to make it easy for me. (I’m lazy.) I cleaned up the girls by removing redundant vegetation down low on them. I wanted to have the basics done before locking down the girls with a scrog. I went easy, not to stress them too much, but I will do an additional cleanup in a couple of weeks when they are done stretching. Having the girls out of the tent for clean-up also made it easy to install a watering system. I have some travel coming up, so I need a system to keep the girls alive and happy while I’m gone. The system is simply a pump on a timer with a few drippers in each pot, but I can also remotely turn the pump on/off, should I need it. Sensors monitor the soil moisture in each individual pot so I can see if more or less watering is needed. The canopy was already decently flat due to LST, but I wanted to remove those wires before the girls got too big, so I decided to go with a scrog. I used my new 3D printer to print the corners to construct the frame. Some PVC pipes and elastic cords later, we had a scrog. Yay! I also used this opportunity to install a small fan to provide under-canopy air circulation.

The second week of flowering is over, and the girls look great. They are healthy, vibrant, and enjoying life. The girls haven't stretched that much yet and the canopy could be flatter, but it isn't too bad and is slowly improving, so I shouldn't complain too much. Besides that, there isn't much to report. I went on a trip for most of the week while the tent ran on autopilot. It was a good test run, as the girls will be alone for a couple of weeks next month while I'm traveling abroad. I need to tweak the watering system, but overall, I'm not worried about leaving them alone for so long. I have remote monitoring and control of the entire tent, so the girls should be just fine. The girls get a DLI of 32 (I'm slowly ramping up the DLI as the girls progress in flower) with 60 mins of UV per day, at a daytime VPD between 1.1 and 1.6.

This week has been relatively uneventful. The tent and the girls are running on autopilot, and all I do is to check in on them now and then. The watering system takes care of most of the watering, although I also watered in homemade KNF inputs, microbes, and epsom salt. I kinda doubt that my plants "need" any of that, but hey, it makes me feel like I'm doing something :D Besides, it's usually a good idea for more terps to add microbes. Speaking of doing something, it's been 21 days since I flipped the girls, so it was time to clean them up. I like dirty girls but I'm not keen on bushy girls, so today I shaved their legs by removing almost everything below the scrog. I left a few branches that "might" make it above the screen, although I doubt it. I'll monitor them next week to see if they are worth keeping. DLI: 35 VPD: 1.1-1.6 (day), 0.7-1.6 (night) UV: 90 min

We've had some bad weather lately, with cold temperatures and rain. I live in an old house, so the indoor climate is very much linked to the outdoor climate. The rain pushed up the humidity in the tent, making it difficult to maintain VPD. On the other hand, the cooler temperatures brought out the color in the leaves, and now there are some lovely splashes of purple in the tent. So that's nice. Besides, I'm not worried about high humidity this early in flower. DLI: 40 UV: 2 hours per day

We're halfway through flower, and the girls are trucking along without much help from me. This week's only exciting thing was making compost tea (worm castings, insect frass, kelp, rock dust, basalt, biochar, molasses, and LAB) for the girls (and to kickstart my new veggie soil.) The tent has more color changes, and considering that they are clones, it's fascinating to see the differences between each plant. DLI: 42 UV: 2,5 hours per day

These past few days have been quite challenging for our country, with heavy rainfall leading to widespread flooding. It hasn't been that bad here, but we still got our fair share. All this rain spiked the humidity—up to 88% at night and mid-70s during the day. Ugh. Way too high for comfort. There was not much I could do except hope for better weather, although I did at least add a second under-canopy fan to reduce stagnant air. The girls are doing great otherwise. Displaying a rainbow of colors. DLI: 42 UV: 3 hours per day

Another week has passed, and we're closer to the end than I estimated. I chopped their mom on Day 70 and expected similar for her offspring, but we're now on Day 49, and the girls look to be done in a week or two. I've started seeing more frost, which indicates that the trichomes are turning cloudy. No amber yet, though. So there's that. It will take a while longer. But 21 days? With the senescence I'm seeing? Press X for Doubt: [ X ]

Earlier in the week, I saw a discolored bud, and upon closer inspection, I found bud rot. Ugh. I immediately cut off the infected bud and the one closest to it. I looked through the canopy but couldn't see any more affected buds. Right after, I went out of town for a few days to Mary Jane, the big Cannabis Conference in Berlin. It was the first one after legalization, and it was wild. I had an awesome time, and it was great to meet up with friends while in Berlin. What wasn't so great was seeing more signs of budrot when I returned home—those days of +85% humidity at the start of last week made the botrytis go brr. Sigh :( Checking the trichomes showed it was still early to harvest, but I decided to chop anyway to save the unaffected buds. I also decided to hang each branch separately, as it would allow me to inspect each one closely to ensure no affected buds made it into the drying tent. Another reason is to decrease the drying time. Usually, I prefer a long dry, but due to botrytis, I aim to speed up the process. Overall, I found 12-15 affected buds, and of course, they're always the nicest-looking buds. I don't care about the yield loss, as more than enough is still left. I only hope the remaining buds are unaffected, and I'll inspect them daily throughout the dry. Now we wait. And hope.

Alright, I'm way late with this final report, but better late than never, as they say. Although, two months late is pushing it. Even for a stoner ;) Due to the bud rot, I dried them more aggressively than usual, so they only needed ten days before being dry enough to trim and jar. Usually, I prefer to leave them for +16 days for a long and slow dry, but hey, gotta try to avoid more bud rot. Luckily, the strategy worked, and I could find no additional budrot during the trim. YAY! Trimming was straightforward and went quickly. The yield was OK, considering the many buds lost to rot, and the final amount was 259,6 grams. It was not my best harvest, but that doesn't matter. The grow was still a success because I got some solid data on the performance of the different soil recipes. I will 100% use and apply what I learned in the future. So yeah, even though the grow went sideways at times with the clones going into flower, then having to re-veg them, bud rot, and finally a modest yield, it was still a massive success :) I'm now approaching my summer break's end, and I can hardly wait to start the next grow in a few weeks. Onwards and upwards!