The seedlings have just reached 2 weeks of age. I gradually increased VPD from 0.6 to 1.1, and they started with a DLI of 13.3 (200 PPFD). By the end of the week, #4 showed some stretching, so I increased the DLI to 20 (300 PPFD). As a result of the VPD increase, I saw quite a bit of leaf curling at 1.1 kPa, so I've backed it down to 0.8.
I went 9 days between waterings to see how they’d handle it, which caused mild drought stress. The soil had been very wet initially, so I let it dry out completely before giving 400 ml of distilled water with 1.3 ml/gal Cal-Mag, split between the four plants. They showed minor leaf scorching due to the drought and a test run where I accidentally left supplemental UV lights on too long, but no serious effects.
Two sets of 30W supplemental UV lighting (Spider Farmer SUPP-UV30 x2) are running for one minute every hour while the main light is running. I plan to gradually increase this to 5 minutes per hour (max of 90 minutes a day) once there's more vegetative mass.
Transplanting into final 5-gallon AutoPots is planned for next week.
I have moved to a 24 hour light schedule. I wanted to keep my DLI around 20, so I lowered PPFD to ~230.
This is my first home grow. More than 10 years ago I attempted a legacy grow, but it had to be destroyed before we made it to flowering. So this is technically my second grow attempt, but this will be my first time growing in a real tent and not a foil lined attic with a 1000W HPS light. Since December of 2023 I've been researching and prepping to begin this grow, researching the equipment, horticulture, biology, etc.
I'm using mostly AC Infinity equipment (tent, controllers, fans, humidifier, etc.) for environmental control, Spider Farmer for lighting solutions, and AutoPot Watering Systems for automated irrigation and soil aeration. I'm a software developer by trade, so I am trying to monitor and automate as much of my grow as possible. This way, I can track my actions and results over time and incrementally improve towards a consistently high-quality grow. And remove as much potential for human error as possible.
I plan to keep the best producer of this batch as a mother. Best producer in terms of who yields and washes the best into bubble hash.
I want to thank everyone in the Sticky Dojo (you know who you are) and the IL cannabis cultivator communities who have provided advice and support up to this point. Most everything else I know, I learned from Dr. Bruce Bugbee, Ed Rosenthal, and Greg Green and from resources provided for free by LibreText's Biology library.