Northern Lights - DWC - First Time

First week has been a ride! Started 3 seeds in Rapid Rooters in a propagation dome with a seedling heatpad. All 3 seeds sprouted and I put the best looking 2 into the DWC buckets. One sprout had the taproot coming out of the side of the rapid rooter. So I put him in the DWC bucket 1 day ahead. The Sprouts were pretty yellow but after only 1 day in the buckets and the HLG 320XL light, the sprouts started looking a million times better and a nice green colour. Completely mis-read my nutrient schedule and accidentally gave them nutrients for the first week! :o So that’s clearly why I got nute burn on the first set of leaves. And probably stunted the growth a little bit? As soon as I noticed the nute burn I removed about a half gallon of the water and replaced with straight ph’d water and things didn’t get worse so I left as-is and will restart the nutrient schedule when I change the reservoirs. Probably Sunday or Monday.

Did a reservoir change on Monday. Added enzyme Komplete to the mix as it’s supposed to help keep the roots healthy. Everything went smoothly and with the enzymes added to the mix it ended up being a perfect ph at 5.86. Unsure on if the enzymes will make the ph fluctuate at all but will continue to test. Nute burn is very noticeable on the first set of leaves but it hasn’t gotten any worse and the new growth looks great. A little pale but might be that I’m not giving it enough light. Been running the light at under 50% until Monday and now switched to 50% brightness. Overall great new growth and the roots are pearly white! So all good signs.

This was a disaster of a week. Second res change with the enzymes and it calls for a double dose. Added all my nutes and enzymes, ph'd it to 5.8. hooked the bucket back up and put the plant back in.... only this time the enzymes created so much foam that it started spewing out the top of the net pot around the plant. Pulled the plant out and there is an absolute crazy amount of foam in there. I had to pull the plant out of the bucket cause it was overflowing the bucket and getting everywhere! What's the deal!?!? Has anyone had any success with these enzymes? I wanted to get hydroguard but you can't get it in Canada anymore and the guy at the store recommended these enzymes and said they were great for DWC so I'm at a loss here. I don't have any root rot or anything like that, just wanting to keep a healthy beneficial res. I'm not crazy to think there shouldn't be this much foam right? I'm sure over time it will calm itself down and for now I've turned my airstones to the lowest setting in hopes it will help. But so far it's still foaming and I'm not sure what to do. UPDATE: Left it as-is overnight to see if the foam would calm down.... really shouldn't have done that. Pretty sure this stuff is killing my plants! :( And very upset that the guy at the store recommended this to me. So I would just like to warn everyone here to not use this product. It states on their website that it's good for ALL stages and NOT just as a cleaner but as a beneficial enzyme to help clean and combat root rot and other bad bacteria. But clearly at the cost of killing your plants. :( My res temps are in the upper 70s and even though I haven't had any issues with root rot yet, I like the idea of having beneficial enzymes/microbes in the res as a sort of shield and preventive measure. I'd like to prevent rot from ever happening rather than just trying to fix it if/when it shows up. But for the remainder of this grow I'm just going to go with my previous formula of RO water, GH nutes, and CalMag.

Plants are still doing pretty bad after the enzyme fiasco. Anything the foam touched, is ruined. The foam came shooting out the top of the net pot so a good portion of the leaves are damaged. I'm really hoping these bounce back. I'll keep going strong and see how they turn out.

Another sad but promising week. Plant got worse but then started bouncing back. They look terrible and are really mangy. New growth looks great though so that's hopeful. But the older stuff is pretty bad. Especially the crispy leaves. I don't know if I should trim/remove the really bad leaves or not so I've left them there for now. Continuing to veg until these get nice and strong before I decide to flip to flower. Maybe another week after this.

Plants are finally looking MUCH better. They are pretty big now though and I've been informed by a buddy that I should have flipped to flower last week. That and I've got way too much Nitrogen in them so from here on out I'm cutting the FloraGro completely. Oh well. I'll flip them this next week and we'll see how they do. Still a little concerned about them and the amount of stress they've gone through but I figure they will be alright in the end. :)

Had a buddy help me out with a better nute schedule and also recommended I start using Armor Si. So I've added that to the nutes this week and will see how it does. Plants are looking great and hard to believe they were looking so terrible just a few weeks ago. Getting excited now! :)

Another great week. Things are definitely on the up and up. Did a pretty decent amount of defoliation this week as things were getting REALLY thick in there. Been unsure about the light intensity on thie HLG QB so I've only been running it at 50%. I'm starting to think that was a mistake and that I should have turned it up more. I'll be putting it full blast starting next week.

This week I've had the light at 100% and the plants are loving it. A little upset at myself for not turning it up sooner. But that's knowledge for next time. :) Starting to see pre-flowers and they are EVERYWHERE! Very excited! Plants are also looking much better since I stopped feeding FloraGro. The left plant is growing MUCH faster vertically than the right plant. This is most likely due to the fact that the right plant was topped a good number of times more than the left one. This was done because I damaged one of the main stems early on the left plant so stopped topping it's main 2 stems. But either way, I've put the right plant up on 2 styrofoam risers I made so that the canopy is even between the 2. Hopefully the left one doesn't keep stretching too much. Also did a heavy defoliation this week to expose as many bud sites as possible. See photos for before & after shots. First time doing this so hopefully it's ok. haha Always nervous cutting so much off.

Another great week. Flowers are really starting to show this week. No defoliation, just leaf tucking and watching them grow. Things seem to be going pretty well now and don't have too many concerns.

Another great week. The left plant is still stretching like crazy. Mostly just 2 main colas so I've decided to supercrop them rather than try and move the light up further as the 2 plants are quit different in height now. So hopefully the supercrop works well enough and stops the left 2 colas from growing up too fast. Update: WOW! Within 10hr of supercropping the main 2 colas on the left plant, they have both already bent themselves upward and are facing upright again. Not the whole branch, just the main top cola. Very interesting and super cool.

Another great week. Kinda funny cause I had so many issues during veg but since I've switched to flower, things have kinda been on auto pilot. Minus the defoliation and watching the beautiful flowers grow. :) The super cropped branches are back with vigor and the flowers seem to be frostier than the other buds on the same plant. Very interesting and makes me wonder how much stress the supercrop causes and how much it slows down the plant. Because these 2 branches are super frosty now and it's noticeable.

Everything is getting so frosty! And the hairs are starting to turn orange now. I love it! These flowers are looking so great now. Hard to believe the plants were in such rough shape during veg. They are essentially picture perfect now. Those supercropped branches are still getting frostier than the rest which is interesting to note. And at this point, they have corrected themselves and are now slightly above the main canopy again. haha so I bent them down a little again, we'll see how they do. The left plant seems to be maturing a bit faster than the right one. I'm not too worried about it, I just hope they actually finish up within the next 2-3 weeks. Going to be moving soon and I'm not travelling with these still growing so let's hope I'm not forced to harvest early. Especially since they are looking so great.

Another great week. Flowers are looking so good and really starting to put on some weight. More hairs turning as well which makes them even prettier. Unfortunately I think I must have a small light leak in the tent or something as I'm seeing what looks like some potential re-veg leaves popping up on the left plant. Strange as it's only the left plant and I haven't had a problem until now. I suspect maybe the zipper on the tent so I've chosen to use duct-tape to tape over the entire zipper before lights out to hopefully prevent anything further. Fingers crossed. The left plant continues to develop faster than the right one. Hopefully I don't end up having to harvest them separately but we'll see. Really hoping they finish up next week but starting to look a little doubtful. But starting to see some creamy trichromes so fingers crossed. My plan was to harvest at 10% amber but with the move coming up I'm just hoping for maximum creamy white goodness. :)

HAPPY 420!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So... unfortunately these plants aren't ready yet at the end of this week. I was hoping I could harvest but looking like it'll be at least another week. And they better finish up this next week cause I've got a hard deadline with the move coming up. So I'll be forced to harvest them no later than the end of next week since I need to have them dried and into the curing stage for the move. So fingers crossed. :) I've also been dealing with high temps now that the weather is warming up here and the apartment building refuses to turn the heat off. So not very happy about that but it's out of my control. And even though it's been a bit stressful with the tight deadlines and all, I couldn't be happier with how they are turning out! :) Started flushing at the start of this week and so far so good. They are really starting to fatten up and the leaves are starting to change colour. I absolutely LOVE the fall colours! So that's a pretty good sign and hopefully next week I'll start to see all those clear trichromes turn nice and milky white. I'm kinda confused as I assumed the trichromes would be more consistent throughout and go from clear -> white -> amber. But I've already got some amber trichromes showing even though I've still got tons of clear. So kinda confusing but all I can do is watch in amazement! :) The 2 supercropped branches are still looking fantastic and has been fascinating watching them thrive after the high stress. I have zero complaints after contemplating the fact that I can legally grow this lovely plant and sit and admire it on 420! What a time to be alive! :D

Well, the final week is here and it's hard to believe that they are basically ready. I still feel like they could have gone a few extra days and maybe another week? But with the move coming up, I don't have a choice so this is the last week before harvest. The flowers are looking absolutely gorgeous and the room/tent got down to around 65 for one or 2 nights and I can't believe the wonderful colours that showed up afterwards. The fall colours are so lovely and the purple flowers also gives it quite a unique look. I think next time I grow this strain I'll try and get the temp down for longer so maybe the buds themselves will turn a little purple? Either way this has been such a delight to grow and I'm really excited for harvest day!

Full harvest took 10hr so it was a pretty long night to say the least. But got it all hung up in the tent to dry. 5 full curtain rods of hanging bud. Can't wait to see how much dried weight this ends up being. Been drying for around 5 days now and starting to take down some of the smaller branches and buds to get them into jars. Smell is still crazy potent. I have a pretty good feeling these are going to be delicious. Got everything into jars. Took a few days and I've been busy with moving details so I unfortunately let a good portion of this crop dry a little too much. But not much I can do about it so just moving on and hopefully the cure goes well. 9oz of dried weight and I couldn't be happier. The buds are smelling dank and looking better and better each day in the jars. Burping them once daily and will probably wait 3-4weeks before I try it out since most of it was too dry going into the cure. But what an experience! I can't wait until I get setup after the move to start grow #2! :D You'll definitely see more diaries from me in the future!