2nd Mimosa X OrangePunch clones *refining strategy*

BigGeekSmallGrower Pre-grown safety-cuts from my last run in which I ran a Chery Lady from LindaSeeds and a Mim X OP and a Ayahuasca Purple from Barneys Farm. Since I had quite some trouble with the first and the last strain; they did not perform very well, so I decided to do a run with 3x Mimosa X Orange Punch only. This plant threw off some really nice yield of deeply frosty and tasty, but very small buds. This did not impact the total dry yield I got off it, however. I got to keep the nicest 50 gram of the MimOXP portion, however, and had to destroy all the rest. I only do 3 plants, as that is what is legally possible in my country! Pots and watering/feeding: I am using the SmartXL fabric pot system from Autopot and I am doing an experimental grow using the Athena Pro dry salt fertilizer line with that system. Also, I printed some Airdomes and use them to oxygenize the root zone. When lights are out, the aquarium pump shuts off and stops to oxygenize. Under the domes, I placed bubble stones instead of the original bubble tube pieces. I expect some problems along the way regarding salt buildup as this fertilizer line is more suitable for recirculating and active systems in general. I did premix a stock solution, which I further mix together as soon as the Autopot tank needs to be refilled. To counteract buildup/rising EC, I plan to never fill the reservoir twice in a row with the full EC 3.0 solution Athena recommends when going with a precision irrigation system. Instead, I refill at least one time with regular balanced water and do constant monitoring on my plants health. No such problems appeared during VEG, but I only fertilized during the last 2 weeks as they had a light soil mix for the start pots. For the next 3-4 weeks aka the stretch phase , I will be heavily fertilizing and pumping photons at my beauties to generate loads of generative stress and promote stacking. Last run, this strategy did me some awesome tight internodal spacing, especially with this Mimosa Pheno. Since my community tap water comes out at a whooping 8.2 PH, I have to add a downer to reach optimal PH levels. Unsure on if its gonna work, I just use the BioBizz organic variant and monitor closely what happens to the reservoir PH over a full day/ a few days. If its drifting I will look for a more stable alternative.

BigGeekSmallGrower All 3 plants successfully initiated their flower stretch and already did jump around 25cm in the first 7 days after flipping the light schedule. I will add more pictures later, the lights just came off. You can see from the surveillance cam photo that they are pushing hard. The weather in my region right now is really moist and warm, I am approaching 70% rH in my lung room at times with the tent's humidity occasionally climbing up to 75%. Since its really early into flower I trt not to overcare and hope that does not introduce mold problems now in early flower. I bumped the nutrient solution EC up to 2.85 as I could not see any signs of overfeeding yet and because the tents VPD is as low as 1.0kPa or even lower at times, leaving me with lower transpiration rates. I hope this strategy does not backfire when weather changes to more dry conditions and the plants burn away...Then Ill have to use the humidifier, but lets see first :) EDIT Day 12 of Flower: The stretch hit really hard, the lights are at near maximum hanging height and some top bud sites will be really close to the LED bars for the rest of the run. I can lift them another 10cm maybe at max, so Ill have to see how that will work out. Emergency topcropping is not an option as every single trellis square is already in full use with at least one main branch each. I will dim the lights down to 75% if the ladies stretch too far up, but I think most stretching is done by now. Right now PPFD is around 1200-1300 with no signs of overfeeding or burns of any kind. Around week 3 or 4 I plan to dim down to a PPFD around 900-1100 anyway, at the same time as starting to lower the input EC again. That will be one reservoir of EC1.0 water and from then on EC2.0 til week 7, followed by a week or 2 of fading. Nutrient solution comes in @ 3.2 EC right now via Autopot reservoir and opposing my plans to flush inbetween reservoir refills I kept on feeding higher concentrqations and so far the ladies seem to want it that way. I seldomly had that happy looking ladies with any nute brand so far.

BigGeekSmallGrower I am running into some issues regarding plant height and their distance to the lights. Due to the filter hanging inside the tent, the second light cannot be put at the same maximum height as the first one... I hope the stretch is finished soon, otherwise Ill have to see how to manage things accordingly. The climatic conditions in the grow space are not optimal. Although Im running really high light intensities and the lung room is steady at room temperature (21°C), I am not able to raise the Leaf-VPD to acceptable levels over 1 kPa. Running the dehumidifier somehow does not translate into lower room humidity, the device effectively heats up the whole room instead. That in turn lowers the relative air humidity, but not to an extent that seems to help the situation. I will sell the unit as I did not really use it due to operation noise and high electricity cost. Ill have a look at my IR leaf temperature sensor, maybe it is not properly arranged to capture leaf tissue or sth. @1250 PPFD 12/12 the issue should definitively not be too low of a VPD... Plants are looking fine though, maybe I should just stop helicoptering and accept the background weather conditions as a given. My last runs tended to be on the VPD-stress side of things which led me to plan lower light inrtensities for next run anyway. Maybe its the key to bigger buds... End of week 3: 6-7 tops crashed into the LED bars and dreid out completely to the point of now return...I cut off the very tops and supercropped the sht out of them to gain a little headroom. Since the first big defoliation step was planned for day 21/22 anyway, i decided to thin my ladies out quite heavily, For the next 3 weeks Ill limit my operations to incrementally steering pore water EC down from 4.8 right now to a planned 2.5 by the end of week 6/7 to allow for bulking of the fresh budsites.

BigGeekSmallGrower After I had to do an emergency supercrop and defoliated the mid and bottom section of my ladies I repositioned the trellis net support a few inches higher to support more branch weight. I REALLY hope the stretch is done and it should be, but ssince Ill be away for the next 3 days Ill have a close eye on the upper canopy via CCTV. If worse comes to worst Ill have to shut down operation of the lights from the road, but Ill have a neigbor check in too. Pore water EC is way up at 4.6 right now, with a slight trend downwards visible. Goal is 4.0@30%VWC by end of this week, 3.5 by week 5 and 2.5-3.0 by end of week 6 to steer more vegetativly for more bud bulking. Maybe I will take a few more branches out to limit the branch count overall and create more airflow as weather stays a little moist for this time of year. More ventilation fans are ordered and will be installed by next week

BigGeekSmallGrower After massive problems with canopy height and single branches growing past the LEDs, I finally decided to move the carbon filter down to the bottom of the tent. Due to some complications with running the pipe down the bottom also, I had to keep the pipe running out the top of the tent. But thats the deal I have to take right now, I dont think t will hurt my yield significantly. Substrate EC is on a more moderate level than the week before to promote buds stacking up the branches. Right now 3.8 with a target of 3.0 by end of week 6. Edit END of WEEK 5: Canopy is full with trichomes, everything glitters like its winter time. I noticed substantial bulking, so we are at the right pace ending the week 5 and going into week 6. Still 4 weeks to go, i expect a very big yield this time...

BigGeekSmallGrower Its been smooth sailing the last week, little to do but admire progress. I kept feeding the full 3.0 EC from start of flower to today, no signs of too much nutrients nor of too less. I wonder why, either the Athena Pro line is excellently fine tuned to what the plants need and nothing is left to really build up, or I am missing something big...expected some sort of problems at least, but I wont complain also...maybe its the silence before the storm and I am compromising what I would call formidable chances on a high grade yield😅 Ill keep this updated if something big happens or I find too much free time laying around.

BigGeekSmallGrower Week 6 went by with a lot of bud bulking, all branches put on a lot of weight and start to struggle with carrying the whole load. I fixed them together with gardening wire and stabilized the canopy by putting holding wires up to the ceilings poles. Seems to work for now, but Ill have a close eye on those branches, that are pretty tight together to mitigate budrot. Weather outside is quite rainy and moist, so Im struggeling to match the 50-60% humidity window for bulking phase. Dehumidifier doesnt keep up to the transpirational potential of the plants, so I just use it when inside temps are high and theres a lot of relative humidity (thats when it works most efficiently). In milder cases I just try to ventilate the room accordingly. For the last 3 weeks I am going to dim the lights to around 1000PPFD which equals 75% (roughly) in my setup, starting with the first day of week 7. For the last 2 weeks I will also start to shorten the daycylce a few minutes every day to simulate late fall lighting conditions and promote maturing of the buds. I stepped the nutrient solution concentration down to 2.0 since the substrate sensor registers really high EC values. So thats when I found out, Autopots work with high EC but you wont be able to get the salts out of there without flushing or draining to waste. Only dilution takes out some of the equation, as well as what the plants are uptaking. Which in turn leads to a skewed nutrient formula in the substrate solution. Since we are in week 7 right now, the nutrient uptake by the plants lowered significantly, mirroring in the rising pore water EC value. Week 7 will continue with a 2.0 input EC, week 8 and 9 will be water only. followed by an increased dryback period before harvest. I plan to harvest on day 63 as that is what this pheno took last time. This run however, the plants are budding up quite a lot more and show quite a lot of new facets regarding bud size, weight and structure. To this point, no real fading of colors into autumn mode is visible with exception of some tiny purple spots on some of the colas. Last run quite a lot of leave purpleing happened in weeks 6 to 9 of flower, which I now suspect the soil didnt provide enough phosphate turning some of the leaves purple-ish. Frost is pretty dense already, some colas look like they were dipped in powdered sugar.

BigGeekSmallGrower Smooth sailing again for week 7. Fed water only to lower pwEC to reasonable levels again (7,5 EC!!! to 3,0 EC). Worked out great, no visible damage done, heavy bulking going on. now maturing is around the corner. I dont plan on giving nutes again as steering down showed no visible effect on the plants yet. Seems theres still a lot of nutes in the substrate and since I cannot flush to waste in the Autopots, I just water with PHed tap water til harvest. If pore water EC drops too low within the first half of week 8, I will add some low concentration nute solution into the tank to bridge the last few days and avoid serious deficits. Buds are looking and smelling like fire, also they are obviously maturing right now with some nugs being resinous and juicy as hell already. Left plant is so top heavy, it fell completely into the middle plant, which causes that one to skew into the right plant. I really hope I can avoid mold right now, weather turned its back on me again with warm and moist weather...the dehumidifier has a purpose gain now... Harvest will happen somewhere between day 60 and 65, this pheno finished at day 63 last time. Although that was with a serious P and K deficit at start of flower and an overshoot by end of flower. I dont want to be too strict with a time schedule. Next runs girls are not even cut right now, I onlz have this pheno as a mother and a second pheno of the MimXOP that passes seedling stage right now. I will take clones from both genetics and start them in pure rockwool to keep the next run consistent. That will probably happen in the days before harvest. That gives me time to ensure proper functioning of my DIY precision irrigation tool and to ensure proper water tightness under pressure, as well as enough time to VEG the freshly cut clones and drying the current run enough to bag it up