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Second grow in parallel to a Gelato Auto. STILL LOTS of mistakes and hickups to come.
First of all: Grow tent & LED have been *ordered* but did not arrive yet - thus, first weeks of this grow will be awkward (Ikea furniture, several repottings despite growing autos).
Germination: Jiffy soaked to ~ 45g total weight (hindsight: too wet); 23 °C around the clock, inside germination box under 50W CFL lamp (appr. 150 PPFD). Germination took 3-5 days.
Photos: Only showing seed #2 here for overview - the other three are very comparable.
Still waiting for grow tent and LED - using 50 W CFL lamp (4000 K color temperature) and Ikea furniture as "grow tent". Also had to repot into intermediate plastic pots (0.4 liters) while still waiting for the Airpots to arrive...
- Increased lighting to ~ 250 PPFD (my max with the CFL lamp)
- No nutrients (sowing soil in use is surprisingly stuffed with minerals - see week 3)
- 23°C day temperature (Captain Hindsight speaking; too low)
Huge changes this week:
- LED arrived (Greenception GCx4 PWR) - increased PPFD from ~ 300 to 500 within a week of veg (DLI 20 - 30).
- Increased temperature to 25°C
- FInally moved to 6 liter Airpots (final pot)
Watering (700 ml per Airpot):
Water pH 5.8; TDS 0.8 mS/cm
Drain: pH 7.3; TDS 3.3 mS/cm
- will water without nutrients and with increased drain
No big news, still going strong.
- PPFD increased to 600 (39 DLI)
Watering (700 ml per Airpot):
Water pH 5.6ish; TDS 0.2 mS/cm
Drain: pH 7.0; TDS 2.4 mS/cm down to 1.8 mS/cm
Drain got better, plant looking healthy. Will start with nutrients next week.
D29: 2 of 4 plants showing signs of flowering/bloom already.
Upped light to 650 PPFD (40 DLI) and 30 cm distance. I think it may already be to late for LST for those two, which is fine by me. Lets see. The other two will receive LST asap.
D31: All 4 plants blooming. Upped to 45 DLI, 33 cm distance. Water: Missed out a day of watering (thought there was plenty left) and plants did not like it ... Autopots are weird when it comes to watering. Will need to water every two days strictly from now on. Doing very light LST to keep even and airy canopy.
Speaking of watering: Every second day water 750 ml (pH 6.2; 1.2 mS/cm); drain 50 ml (pH 7.4; 2.2 mS/cm); Will lower pH again and keep EC;
D35: Still no significant stretch, I removed some shaded fan leaves at the bottom - don't know whether thats a mistake or not.
Water 0,8l 6,0 1300; drain 0,10l 7,5 1900
STILL very high pH, no movement of pH! I suspect stunted growth (no stretch) is due to pH problems... WILL NEED TO SOLVE NEXT WEEK!
Seeing preflowering already on a fast growing strain (7 weeks according to Sweet Seeds) should I still opt for LST or just leave her alone and do her thing?
This is an autoflower not a fast flower, that is something different. but easy to confuse, Yes they both flower faster then normal standard photoperiods but its not the terminology that has been standardized as of late.
Typically speaking, a "Fast Version/Flower" is one of two things.
1) A Photoperiod mixed with an Autoflower to make Fast Version seeds that tend to finish early.
2) A pure Photoperiod with no autoflower mixed in who just so happens to finish ripening up to two weeks earlier/faster then their other photoperiod counterparts. This is what I call Old Fast Flowers vs New Fast Flowers that are mixed with autos.
New Fast Flowers also have a chance of just becoming an auto as well.
Its in bloom now. Light LST to help air get to the nodes is nice, Anything to heavy and it may go into shock and be a negative overall.
D38: After complete dry out flush with water 1,3l pH 5,1; 0.8 mS/cm; drain 0,3l pH 7,5; 1.4 mS/cm;
... wtf ... will continue to pH drain more aggressively (4.8-ish); I am now pretty sure stunted stretch is due to pH problems...
but flowers are getting dense! :)
D41: Water 1,1l pH 4.7; 1.4 mS/cm; drain: 0,3l pH 7,7; 1.5 mS/cm;
So still pH issues, *but* its getting better. She immediately thanked for that (I think) by getting bulky and stretchy finally! :) A lot of frosty sugar leaves all of a sudden.
Every 2-3 days:
Water 1.2l 4.0 pH; 2000 µS/cm;
Drain 0.1 ... 0.3l; 7.0 ... 7.8 pH (!!!); 1500 ... 3000 µS/cm;
I still have huge issues with the pH and nutrients. AND I mistook brown leaf tips for a P shortage. At the end of this week, I think this is rather due to to many nutrients in the soil. I will try to flush with pH adapted water next week and refill the soil with appropriate nutrients. That soil is giving me a headache!
So still stunted growth and I think she is getting ready to be harvested slowly. Pistils start to turn red. I gave a last defoliation (lollypopping) on the last day of this week. Will certainly not be the yield to dream of, but hey, I learned like A LOT. E.g. to not use soil anymore. XD XD
As a beginner it is hard to classify that: Are the brown tips a sign for nutrient burn? Or rather a deficiency of something?
Soil pH (out of whack) 7.4ish. Fighting that for weeks now...
Soil EC ~ 2000 µS/cm.
Crazy Hills fertilizer as scheduled.
Thank you!
with that EC you are at the limit without CO2
It looks like a K def, but with that EC and PH it could be a little bit of lockout lower de PH to 7ish or 6.5 will be great.
Due to ongoing pH problems I decided to flush the soil on day 50 with 2l pH adapted water of pH ... drumroll ... 3.5 (phosphorous acid) !!! Hold on tight: 1l drain stayed at roughly 7.4 thru all pots! I finally gave up on adapting the pH within this run. Lesson learned, do not use this soil again... or at least pH adapt / buffer before the grow.
Other than that my watering schedule is:
D1 water ~1.2l with fertilizer (1400 µS/cm, pH 4.9)
D2 nothin
D3 water ~1.2l with CalMag + pH adapt only (250 µS/cm, pH 5.0)
D4 nothin
repeat
Drain stays around 0.1l ... 0,2l per watering with 1200 µS/cm and pH 7.4 ... 7.7.
So yeah... this soil is heavy on the pH+ side. Will not be able to adapt anymore,
One plant does show quite some problems (brown leaf tips, slightly less green on the leafs). All others are doing fine. Won't be long now! Trichromes are fogging up on most buds already.
No big news: Buds are compacting and maturing. 2 out of 4 plants show increasing amount of foggy/amber trichromes while the 2 others are still at 80% clear trichromes.
Watering schedule:
D1 water ~1.2l with fertilizer (1400 µS/cm, pH 4.9)
D2 nothin
D3 water ~1.2l with CalMag + pH adapt only (1000 µS/cm, pH 5.0)
D4 nothin
repeat
Drain stays around 0,2l per watering with pH 7.2 ... 7.4. Drain EC was increasing up to 2000 µS/cm by the end of the week. It seems the plants are getting less hungry and there are signs of overfeeding (yellow tips). So I will change to a "1x ferti - 2x no ferti" schedule next week.
NEAR MISS DESASTER ...
.. struck this week on my grow. I think my tent was
a) to full (5 ladies)
b) it got VERY rainy over here and it was hard to get humidity below 65% or VPD above 0.8.
c) I had used a microscope, which needs to touch the cola to inspect (bad imho).
On lady #2 (of four) I realized somehting funny was going on. Within days the leaves on the main cola started to get VERY brittle and dry and fell off. Within 2-3 days, the color changed dramatically (see photos). So I inspected this and other plants and it was f***ing mould - Botrytis.
I decided to remove the two infected plants (#1 and #2) from the tent and harvest those early - AFTER I removed the infected parts thoroughly and generously. Lucky me it seems I was pretty early with my detection and I "only" had to remove the main colas on both plants. All side colas were fine though not 100% ripe yet I think. Better than nothing.
Nice effect: There are now only 3 ladies left in the tent and all 3 have plenty space. Humidity stays below 60% and VPD is stable at slightly above 1.0. Should be fine now...
Other than that: I will harvest lady #4 next week (started to flush her). Lady #3 will get her sweet time and ripe on.
PS: Growdiaries fucks up my temperatures repeatedly ... dunno y.
Its getting autumn it seems!
Buds have been maturing slowly but surely up to ~ 80% foggy & 20% amber. I fed a last time on day #71 and then stopped adding any nutrients and am only giving 1.0 l of pH adapted water every 2 days now. Runoff stays at ~ 0.2l per watering and EC is getting down to below 1.0 mS/cm.
Plan right now is to give them 72 hours of darkness beginning on day 77 and then harvest on day 80! :)
I will update the final yield once everything is dry and curing!
In the meantime:
#1/4 and #2/4:
Both had to be harvested (way to) early due to mold on the main colas (Botrytis) and thus developed an harsh taste in the vaporizer due to there being way to much chlorophyll in the buds I think. I decided to use this meager yield (~ 200g wet, 45g dry due to main colas being removed) for a FECO concenctrate and perhaps some edibles. Potency and taste of the final FECO are fine!
#3/4: She took the longest and yielded 293g wet of ~40% amber trichromes. Still drying and curing now!
#4/4: She is in the mid pack and finished with ~40% amber trichromes and 220g of wet mass. Still drying and curing now!
____________Update below
Unfortunately I still had to remove a few buds during dry trimming due to further Botrytis infection (bud rot). And I went the sure way and removed quite the surroundings, too. That way, I certainly lost out on at least 10g of yield on every plant and had to settle at approximately 20g dry weight per plant.
(#3 and #4 have a very strong sweet-fruity odor and are getting better every single day during curing. Nice, potent body high with little to no psychoactivity. Perfect sleeping aid for me, very relaxing on the whole body. Certainly not the strongest cannabis, but very much ok.
Still, I don't think I will repeat the Speed+ experience. A bit more patience for more frosty buds is certainly nice. But still, I learned A LOT and will use this knowledge in my next grow. :)
docpayce
