Wednesday: Plants are two weeks old now….just exiting the seedling phase. I have them on self watering plant bases from AC Infinity. I will be feeding exclusively through the reservoirs ….. bottom feeding only (once the roots reach the bottom). No top feeding planned. I am in a coco coir/perlite mix that wicks water well from the bases through fabric wicks. This system will keep the bottom 1/3 of the planter damp without overwatering. The only nutrient that I’ve discovered creates an issue with clogging these wicks are products with Iron added (Maxicrop seaweed with iron clogged my wicks). I have always used 5 gallon fabric pots. This time I am testing 3 gallon ACI fabric pots instead of 5 gallon. Note that I like the AC Infinity fabric pots better than cheap pots because it’s a tighter weave and fewer roots will poke out of the bottom of the pot.
Based on past self-watering grows, I anticipate flushing the plants at least one time (before flip) to flush out the excess salts and I will be replacing the wicks when I transition to flower. My small heater has failed…..but a new grow tent heater was recently released by AC Infinity so I’m going to install that tomorrow when it arrives.
I also plan to convert to the square Vivosun self watering bases since they have a few benefits over the AC Infinity ones…..easy access to the reservoir, larger reservoir at 1.3 gallons, convenient square shape, easier to read the water quantity.
I am planning to scrog which could be challenging given these self watering bases need to be emptied and cleaned a few times during the grow.
Lighting is managed using the Photone app and targeting a Daily Light Integral that follows the DLI chart (see photo). I am entering week three so I increased the DLI to 17.5. I’m working my way up to 20DLI by the weekend. I am using the dimmer to achieve this at 15” above the plants.
After doing more research on temperature and humidity, I learned that my humidity is way too high. Lowering that to 60-65%. VPD increases to 1.0.
I’m available to answer any questions about bottom feeding plants.
THURSDAY
Installed new automatic feeding bases. Replaced nutrients because they had a high PPM at 1500. New nutrient solution is close to 900 ppm. Installed led strip lights in the corners. I’ve noticed that I don’t need to run my humidifier when I use self-feeding bases and fabric pots…..the air blowing over the damp pots adds plenty of humidity.
FRIDAY - End of week 2. Seeing some yellowing on a few leaves. They have new nutrients in their base with more fertilizer than before. I’ll increase nitrogen if this persists.
