Strawberry Nuggets: First Run

Week 1: Sprouted my SN seedling in a humidity dome from the local hardware store. By the end of the week it had developed enough roots to poke through the initial seedling cube, as well as the second second cube. Once the roots began to show through the second cube I filled my DWC bucket with 3.25 gallons of water @25% nutrient strength and positioned the rockwool cube 1.25 inches above the water line. Humidity dome from the kit was kept on top of the DWC bucket after due to the low humidity of the tent.

Week 2: Kept the clear dome over the plant as it develops a better root structure (removed by the end of the week). Continued to feed at 25% strength.

Week 3: Growth continuing well, new growth shoots are beginning to peak out so I've begun leaf tucking as the first form of training on this plant.

Week 4: Continuing with leaf tucking where needed but considering light defoliation more as the fan leaves keep piling on. Overall growth is really progressing well at this stage looking at the difference between the start and end of the week. Still dealing with really low humidity but my tent just isn't large enough to be able to fit a humidifier in there along with everything else... I noticed the tips of new growth being slightly white-ish/yellow last week which I believe stemmed from a nutrient deficiency but wasn't able to quite place what it was. This week I've upped the level of nutrients from 50% the recommended strength to 62.5% the recommended strength.

Week 5: The plant seems really happy and healthy so far but I noticed a little bit of lightness starting to come in between the veins of the fans leaves that may have been a slight CAL/MAG deficiency. I picked up some CAL/MAG Plus by botanicare and supplemented at 50% recommended dose just in case. I've been continuing with the leaf tucking as it is an absolute necessity at this point but I've also gotten started with LST training using command hooks stuck to the lip of the hydroton and some silicone rubber bands. The silicone bands seem to be doing really well so far and pull the branches gently while not cutting into them either.

Week 6: I noticed signs of pre-flower towards the end of week 5 so I started this week's reservoir change with a transition dose of nutrients at %62.5 strength. Near the end of last week I did some fairly heavy defoliation of any of the lowest nodes of the plant in order reduce resources being put into shoots that won't be getting enough light to thrive in comparison to my main nodes that I've tied down. I've also removed of a number of larger fan leaves that were getting in the way of the now daily leaf tucking but decided that I would not do any more defoliation during the rest of the week to reduce the chances of stunting my plant. This particular plant seems to be a phenotype that likes to self-top itself at node locations, two out of the first 3 sets of nodes have split themselves. The first split at its first new node resulting in a total of two main shoots along the line, and the second split into approximately 5 shoots at its third node. Of the 5 shoots that resulted I culled 3 of them during the defoliation process as they weren't dominant shoots and clearly would not grow as strong as the two that I had kept. Water intake has clearly increased this week, but will not know for certain how much until tomorrow's reservoir change. EDIT: Water intake has gone up to over 1L per day, I think I'll start adding PH'd water throughout the week in order to make sure the roots don't get air pruned. Overall my lovely plant seems to be thriving and is starting to give off a really great smell, can't wait to see how this turns out.

Week 7: Everything seems to be going well, and my SN seem to be doing great here. At the start of the week I was starting to have trouble again with leaf tucking due to how dense it is but was afraid that I'm going to stunt her in the process. On Sunday afternoon I did some light defoliation, taking out the largest and most cumbersome leaves, deciding to go about it in phases instead of all at once. The next day she bounced back as usual and kept growing but I decided to wait a little more before doing anything else. Jan 31st: I went to check the water levels since I noticed that it had increased intake substantially last week and found that I had about 5L left in my DWC at this point I decided to do a res change to top up and refill any potentially needed nutrients. After my res change I took a closer look at the plants' canopy and decided that I needed to take a more heavy handed approach to defoliation and the plant simply wasn't slowing down and anywhere that I had opened up previously was covered again by new leaves that were sprouting out during the last defoliation. Defoliation complete, but I was worried that I might have overdone it at first, following days quieted this however as she seems to just chug along without a worry. I also took a measurement at the base of the main stem and she's probably close to double the width of my first grow, hopefully that means lots of nutrients getting to where they need to be. Feb 02: Checking in on the plant I noticed what seemed to be a burn along the edge of one of the leaves in the back left, it almost seemed like a nutrient burn but was very localized to maybe 6 serrations on a single side of the leaf. I checked my photos from Feb 1 and saw that it was in that photo as well but I'm not able to tell if it was in anything before that because of all the leaves overlapping. No developments on any other leaves since however so at this point I'm going to chalk it up to a random occurrence.