By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
This grow is a bit different: This is my first "real" grow. I did kind of a test run a year ago with bag seeds with moderate results. As I am growing in a single 40cm×40cm tent, space is an issue, as well as heat, moisture and light intensity. Id like to apply my gained knowledge and harvest better quality this time. I've identified the issues in my previous grow and came up with some solutions to improve this small grow environment. Let's discuss solutions to grow problems that are in particular an issue for very small grow spaces.
Germinated the seed with a wet paper towel. The seed "exploded" and ejected the whole embryo. It layed next to the seed shell in the paper towel, and then was carwfully planted into a joghurt cup with drainage wholes. Earth used is BioBizz All Mix.
I've transplanted into a larger fabric pod (I think 20l). In there, the soil is additionally ammended with kelp powder, mycorizaa and trichoderma. Just watered sparsely. Got I've probably created some light burn for a brief period of time as I tried to increase the lights. 25% Power is perfect, but I increased it to 50% and the plant didn't like it.
Increased the ammount of water. Gave her 1l at the start and 1,5l at the end of the week. Added some silica and cal mag and adjustet the PH to 6,5, since the silica brought it up (as mentioned on the bottle). Usually I don't meassure PH on soil, since my tab water + nutrients usually gives me a PH between 6 and 7 when not using silica. Also started with LST. It might be a bit too early and agressive? Let's see how she will respond.
Also I think autoflowers in such a small tent are not even that bad. The main benefit I see is the ability for a longer period of light in flower. This allows for lower dimmed lights, which will help me to keep the temperature in flower below 25°C hopefully.
The LST was maybe a bit too early. Its hard to get the lowest branches to catch up, since I can't bind down the upper branches effectively due to their short size and dense internodal spacing. Will let the branches just grow further and see how to manage the plant. 8 uneven tops are currently present. Will aim for ~4 more and then will top her next week to promote lower branch growth.
Only gaved her ph'ed water to 6,5 by dunking her in a bucket and feed her from below this way. The idea was to wash out some of the excess nitrogen.
Increased the light to ~50%. This raised the temperatures to 27-28°C. Some very faint smell is present when rubbing the leafes.
Topped the plant at day 27.
Getting a better plant day by day and re-adjusting her LST every second . Luckily we got colder termperatures this week. In these low temps I am able to give her more light (dimmer 75%, increased ). Increased the watering slightly. Still no fertilizer used, only silica and calmag.
Read text if you want to understand the nutrient feed.
She grew quite a lot. Still no pistils, but maybe she started to stretch a bit... internodes growing in an iregular pattern indicating her maturity. She will soon start to flower. Gave her only silica and calmag, but once I've acti vera and bio bloom just to be safe. Also defoliated a bit here and there, and removed lateral shoots that will not grow up to the top as soon as possible. Probably will stop that soon when her pistils are showing.
At the end of the week dunk fed her with Tripart Grow and Bloom, Silika and 1/2 tsp of molasses. On the same day (40) she started to show her preflowers.
When do you start counting the weeks as flowering? When the first pre flowers show? Or only once the first pistils are showing on the top bud?
Mine has some pre flowers here and there but is not covered in them.
when you flip to 12/12. that's day 1 of flower after first long dark cycle.
Autoflowers are a guess based on using what we can see. If you want to compare apples to apples you need to guess from the first sight of preflowers. Probably in flower 5-10 days prior depending on your eyesight. this would be comparable to a photoperiod and should be of similar length, because autoflowers not "faster" growers. they just turn to flower phase on their own.
Off to a not so great start. Today she started letting her leafs hang. The pot was light but not too light. She was even more dry before without signs of problems. So i gave her a normal nutrient feed. As she did not recover over the day, I knew that the water was not the problem. It must be something else. So I decided to "flush" her by doing a big dunk in plain ph'ed water. The run off was actually fine ph, about 6,5. The pictures of today were taken right after this dunk flush. But she looked similar to this even before the flush for the whole day. Hopefully tomorrow shes better again.
Day 44: starting to look a little bit better. Still not fully recovered.
Day 47: Flushed again with very low nutrients.
Day 48: she improves
Day 49: She is back on
Day 51: She keeps pushing strong. Ive used some LST to even out her height. Also defolaited a bit every day and removed some lower bud shoots.
Summary of how I got her back:
The problem I have identified was slight overwatering and too high temperatures. Thats why her leafs hang down in veg, and are now cupping a bit in flower. Unfortunately I cant get the temperatures down much. When possible, im decreasing the lights during the day, and increase them at night while pulling cold air. Current night temperatures are around 15C, but I only reach arround 23C with 60% rh in the tent. This should be fine, but the leaf temperatures are probably a bit higher. I also hang the light as low as possible right now since that also helps with the temps. I keep the lights at about 45%, which results at 20h at a dli at roughly 38. A bit of an increase in the night times will hopefully push this to 45 overall.
Also fed her today with 1 silica | 1,5 calmag | 2 grow | 1,5 micro | 1,5 bloom. She took 2,5 l of water.
Day 56: Last week again she grew a couple of centimeters but the stretch seems to slow down drastically. She seems pretty happy, got still some marks left from the light stress but is now filling in her buds slowly. She also seems to like the nutrient levels. Ill spray her down the last time today with water to clean her buds and leafs from dust and resedue. Will wait a little longer with watering. As im just putting the old leafs on the ground, they act like a mulch and keep the top soil moist for longer. Just want to give her a lil drying stress before the bud swelling phase kicks off, by next week probably. Ive also defolaited some days , and probably will do it once more since she has also regrew some of her leafs especially at the bottom. Apart from that there is not much left to do for this week.
At the mid of this week ill give her an organic feed, so that the soil gets a last bump in microbe activity.
Day 61: I think she just got a again a bit more taller in the last couple of days. Still no frost and almost no smell. Even less than in veg id say.
Day 64: Her buds are filling out. Still no trichomes and very little smell, but she seems happy and will probably just take her time to develop her buds. Reducing the watering frequency to give her some drought stress.
Day 66: Trichome production slowly starts.
Day 70: She now starts to develop her buds. Ill keep the feed constant and let her dry out a bit between waterings.
Day 74: She developed some brown spots. Flushed and gave her a new feed. Dont now whats going on here. Hopefully it stops and don't progress further.
Day 78: She is developing her smell. Its not overwhelming but developing strong now. Her brown spots did not spread much further, hope the underlying problem is solved.
Day 87: Shes coming along, and starting to fade a little. Since it is yellowing at the top, I dont think its a defficiency. The cal mag / brown spot problems only got a little bit worse. Added some yellow traps because I've gut some small flies - nothing that is bothering her too much. Will just wash my buds at harvest and im good.
Last week of feeding. Will then only give her water for 1-2 more weeks. Trichs are just becoming cloudy, and im aiming for 10-20% amber. Also her smell developed, or more like showed up again. Shes expressing her sweeter aromas again, as before she smelled just like low weed.
Day 100: Shes ripening from now on. Growth slowed down but she still produces new pistils, and older parts of the bud are swelling a bit. Smell is actually not that strong tbh. Im only giving her water now.
Day 107: She is swelling very much this week. New pistil production slowed down. She is getting ready by the end of this or next week. Trichomes are 90% cloudy. Will ensure max. yield by waiting until 10% amber. She only gets water now. I am also reducing her light times slowly to 18h to encourage ripening.
Unfortunatly the rh got really high one night and one cola got bud rot. Even tough she still got no yellow trichs on the buds themself, ill harvest her this weekend.
SmallCannabisDojo
