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Started 4 plants, one of them popped but stopped growing so I aborted it. The other seeds popped within 24 hours and have been growing steadily. I transplanted to their final 3 gal pots after the roots started coming out the bottom of the rapid rooter plugs.
Still just watering with distilled water, about 1-2oz every other day. The soil I'm using is a Vermont Compost Company Fort Lite. It's very light and airy, but also extremely dry so I'm having trouble with it being hydrophobic. I have to mist the top of the soil a lot just to get any water to penetrate the surface. I'm hoping once I'm watering larger amounts, it's not a problem.
The plants seem to be growing slowly, but comparing to pictures from my last grow they actually appear to be tracking almost exactly in size.
Got a new light this week too. It's an Autocob 3500K from Cobshop.net. I don't need the extra light this early, but I've been running it about 30"+ from the plants just to test it out and see how much heat it adds. So far I really like the size and quality. We'll see how it helps with yield though.
Plants seem happy and are to be tracking almost identically to my last 4AM grow (maybe a little taller though). I gave the plants some RO water w/ Cal-Mag+ once this week after giving them only distilled water from seed. Temp and humidity has been a bit higher than my last grow, but not seeing any significant differences in the plants, so they must be able to tolerate lower temps and humidity in early veg better than I thought.
Overall I'm happy with the progress this week. The plants are the same height as my last grow, but the leaves are bigger. I started adding some Big Bloom to my watering along with increasing the Cal-Mag+. I also added a little bit of Sledgehammer hoping to help with the hydrophobic peat-based soil.
I'm noticing what appears to be nitrogen toxicity on all three plants. The Cal-Mag+ is 2% nitrogen, and I increased it this week because I'm watering with RO water and noticed some light spotting. It looked like the start of a magnesium deficiency. I might drop it down to 3ml/gal next watering and see if that helps reduce the N. Last grow had the same issue so the 4AMs seem very sensitive to nitrogen.
All three plants are showing pistils and they're only 7-8" tall. Last time I started LST at this point and the main colas ended up shaped like bananas. Should I bother with LST? What happens if I just let them grow out?
If you have enough space for them to grow upwards and still get enough light you'll just wind up with the typical Christmas tree type shape. I don't see anything wrong with that you just might need to defoliate a bit to open up the sites to more light.✌️
First week where all the plants are flowering. I haven't started any flowering nutrients yet but will start Tiger Bloom this week.
The plants are looking OK, but not great. Two of the three are showing heavy N-tox despite not adding any more nitrogen than what's in the Cal-Mag+. New growth on the affected plants is very twisted and seems to have almost stopped. I hope they grow out of it like they did last time because I don't know what else to do with them.
I decided not to do any training this grow and just let them grow out naturally. Last grow I started LST in week 4 after they started flowering and I ended up with banana shaped buds. The healthier plant is stretching a bit each day and I'm hoping it doesn't get too tall.
This was a sad week for my grow. I noticed some weird looking pistils coming out of one of the plants and realized that it was a hermie and they were actually nanners (stamens). There were only three coming out the top of the bud but I decided to chop it down just to be safe. I've read a lot of conflicting info about what to do in this situation, but didn't want to risk the other plants having seeds, so down she came.
The remaining plants are my weaker ones. They've been showing signs of heavy N-tox the entire grow and just aren't as healthy looking as the one I chopped. They haven't started producing trichomes yet either, whereas by week 6 of my last grow, they had.
I did a light flush with Sledgehammer last night. The ppms going in were about 180 ppm and coming out was over 2200 ppm. This probably explains the N-tox and burned tips on both plants. I've barely been feeding so the soil must just be really hot. I'm still hopeful these plants will produce, but feeling a bit discouraged right now.
Still mourning the the loss of my hermie last week, but the other two are filling the void. Both plants are showing signs of early-to-mid calcium deficiency, one plant is much worse than the other. The spots started in the lower leaves and have been making their way up to the middle leaves over the last couple days. I've been watering with RO water but have been adding 4ml/gal every time I water. I thought this was going to be enough, but clearly the plant is struggling to get Ca for some reason. I tested the runoff a few days ago and the pH was 6.4-6.5, but when I watered last night and it was on the lower side for the first time, between pH 6.0-6.2. Looking at the charts, this is too low to absorb Ca, so it may be a pH issue. Next time I water, I'm going to increase the Cal-Mag+ to 5ml/gal and try to up the pH a bit.
Overall the bud development looks great so I'm not super concerned. It doesn't look like the N-tox or Ca def have slowed them down. They've been stretching a bit each day and are now about 16" tall. Stretch seems to have slowed or stopped now and they seem to be focusing on bud development.
This grow is interesting for me. The plant showing the deficiency in the leaves is the one that has the fattest, frostiest buds. What I thought was a calcium deficiency I'm now thinking is a phosphorus deficiency. The fact that the spotting and leaf issues started at the bottom of the plant, combined with the purple stems, seems like textbook P def. Did some more research about this and I'm wondering if the plant is having a hard time with the colder temps at night affecting the intake. I've been measuring runoff pH and it's been around 6.0, which is low for P intake. I have been running Sledgehammer through this plant hoping to get the soil back in order but may have also flushed out needed nutes. The other plant is doing great and not showing any signs of this issue so I'm hoping to just stabilize it until it's done. I'm guessing about 3-4 weeks til harvest.
This week started out great but took a bad turn for one of the plants. I started noticing a mottling/mosaic pattern appearing on the upper leaves a day after feeding w/nutes. I knew the runoff pH was on the lower end (5.8-5.9) but I figured the plant could hold out for a few days until the next watering before I tried to correct it. That shit spread fast! Within 3 days, it was affecting all the upper leaves and they were starting to get crispy at the ends and die. When I watered again I added some Sledgehammer to try and rinse out any thing that was happening, and the runoff pH was still 5.9 despite going in at 6.5. I ran an extra 1.25 gallons through it with Sledgehammer (2.5 gal total) and was able to get the pH up to 6.2. I've decided to stop using RO water and just use tap water with some added Cal-Mag+. The pH in the tap water is way more stable and I think my issues have been due to low pH rather than a lack or excess of nutrients. It's been 3 days since I did the Sledgehammer rinse and the leaf issues seem to have stopped or slowed. I'll keep the feedings light through the rest of the grow and hope for the best!
This week was pretty boring. The plants are just chugging along and fattening up. One of the plants is showing mostly brown pistils and a couple of amber trichs on the calyxes. I think it will be ready for harvest in about a week. The other plant's pistils just started turning brown this week and is at least a week or two behind. I'm guessing it will be closer to 3 weeks before I harvest that one.
I've been trying to let the soil dry out more between waterings and only watered once this week. I think they've been too wet and that has affected nutrient intake a bit. I'm not a believer in the "final flush" so I'll just keep on with a light feeding every other watering until harvest.
Almost there! The plants have been doing great this week considering all the issues I've had during flowering. The main colas are getting huge and the side buds are filling out nice too. I think one plant has about a week left and the other is at least 2-3 weeks out. The one that's almost done is starting to show some nice dark colors. It's a shame I had the Ca deficiency issues earlier, because this would be a beautiful plant.
I cut back on the Cal-mag and have been letting the plants dry out more between watering. I also raised the lights to let them recover a bit. I think the issues I had were a combination of pH fluctuations from the RO water, too much N going into flowering, overwatering a little, too much light when issues started appearing, and adding nutrients when they weren't really needed. Despite the mistakes, I'm pleased with the results so far and the next couple weeks should be smooth sailing.
The healthier plant is coming down tomorrow. The trichs are mostly cloudy and it seems like it's ready. The buds haven't really put on any weight in the past week and the leaves are mostly yellow.
The other plant is doing ok considering how quickly the leaves were dying a few weeks ago, but it is not quite ready. Most of the fan leaves were totally dead and dried up so I clipped them off to expose the healthier lower leaves to light. It's still fattening up a bit so I think it has at least another week, maybe two before it's ready. I'm psyched that I was able to salvage this one because I was pretty sure it wasn't going to recover. I raised the lights as much as I could and it has responded well.
Ended up with two completely different plants. One is dense, but a little leafy and smells fruity, and the other is fluffier with less leaves and smells like black pepper. The high is similar to my last 4AM grow - a very relaxing body high.
Overall I like growing this strain. It's a bit finicky in the early days and is very sensitive to high N levels. I started with 4 plants. One didn't make it past a sprout - I think I drowned it after it popped. Another was a hermie from the beginning and I chopped it once it started flowering and showed male nanners. The others were mostly happy but are not the heartiest plants.
It's also very light-sensitive. I had my LEDs at about 18-20" running 20/4, and it started burning the tips, despite low temperatures. I didn't do any LST so I didn't have much room, but I raised the lights to about 22-24" and that helped a ton. I would recommend 18/6 for lighting unless you have underpowered lights.
Despite having a bunch of issues with low pH and too much light, the plants yielded well. I had a 50% increase in dry weight from my last grow.
If you have adequate lighting and tent height, I don't recommend any training for this strain. I let mine grow naturally this time and was rewarded with a significantly higher yield.
Hey willi...i see the mention of Ca? Since you're in flowering and its so low on the plant...would it possibly be more likely to be magnesium ? Just a thought... i was thinking ca attacks higher up and freshly growing leaves? Ive been reading about how many nutrients block each other out lately and its exhausting how they interact with eachother. Happy growing ✌️
@@willistoned, i agree the plant does seem strong other than the few leaves...and it could be that the problem is fixed if it's not spreading to more leaves. I'm pretty sure a lot of these leaf damages don't usually heal. Ph is something I've always struggled with...it seems to fluctuate so much and have so many things that affect it in different ways. Your buds are coming along nicely so hopefully they'll just keep on that path. ✌️
@Experimentgreen, I've been doing a little more research and it looks like it might be a phosphorus deficiency rather than Ca. I've checked the runoff when watering yesterday and the pH going in was 6.7 and coming out was 5.9-6.0. There's definitely something going on that's causing it to be that low since my other plant is 6.5 in and 6.5 out. I'm hesitant to do a full flush since the plant looks good otherwise so I think I'll just keep watering closer to 7.0 until it comes back up and hope that solves it.
@@willistoned, that's true the magnesium can have that weird grid like appearance where the veins one color and the leaf segments another. I haven't had too much use with RO water fortunately my local water is up to scratch...i guess that probably puts a fair amount of stuff already to the plants without having to add it in.
I have done worse and am doing worse than this but my plants survived. Chances are that you won't set record for yield. I think you can still get good harvest and some sweet med out of this.
Leaves are dark green and curly. If you think the soil is hot, spend a couple of hours to rinse the soil. Flushing treatment. Just water, drain repeat a few rounds. Later leaves will curl from over-watering but that is the price. And it is better than leaving too much nitrogen. I was worry about over-water my plant and left the soil hot, my seedling died.
You are only halfway through the grow. I would shake this off and focus on how to handle the next phase of buds fattening.
And it is a very good thing that you spotted the hermie. Well done! I would not have notice. For me, I learn slow and still repeat some of the old mistakes.
A disappointing development to be sure. I just used a Spanish expression on a very different topic on Insta that applies here and now. It translates simply to “the fight (struggle or wrestle) continues”. It just sounds better in Spanish. ¡La lucha sigue!
Better luck next time, amigo
@@willistoned wrote “What happens if I just let them grow out?”
Almost everyone loves manipulating their plants into having a fairly level canopy. Some go to the extra labor of scrog. Makes sense because artificial light diminishes quickly.
But untopped plants yield about the same in my experience. The side branch buds are smaller, but the apical flower is much larger than the others. It all seems to balance out.
If you’re running out of space, super cropping is an excellent technique that takes little time and effort. But no more trimming, topping, or super cropping after flowers declare! Very gentle LST works throughout flower.
Best wishes for a grand harvest!
Nice buds brother they look nice and dense. You have a bit of light burn showing up. If you notice mostly the upper leaves are crisping up not the lowers. I had the same issue on my first grow. Your so close to harvest you can back the light off a bit. Looking forward to your harvest.
@@willistoned,the leaves sometimes look worse for wear by harvest time anyways. At least the buds themselves didnt burn so you definately caught it in time
@Philindicus, I totally agree on the light burn. I did raise the lights a bit earlier in the week after I started to notice it, but it was too late. Thanks!
The buds look great. What brand of soil did you use? I'd say it looks like she's showing a lack of potassium at this point and a bit of cal- mag deficiency. The buds are fattening and draining potassium from the rest of the plant. Either there isn't enough in the soil or she can't pull it into her roots because the soil is too acidic essentially you have nutrient lock out. If your having low ph runoff issues you can give her a bit of a small flush with 2-3 of gallons of water then the last half gallon add your nutes. It may help with your ph. The soil tends to go acid as the soil gets broken down by the bacteria. Then let her dry out a bit before her next watering. Looks like you have a few more weeks left. Sometimes the fan leaves look worse for wear by harvest time anyways. Looks like your going to have some high quality buds to smoke when your done.
@Philindicus, thanks for the tips! I'm growing in something called Fort Lite by the Vermont Compost Company. It's a peat-based soil with other amendments. https://www.vermontcompost.com/products/fort-light-compost-based-potting-soil/. It was pretty hot for my young autos and they were showing signs of N-tox from early on. The buds do look good, so I'm hoping I can solve it soon. Thankfully I didn't do any defoliation, so there are plenty of leaves to sacrifice before harvest.
I did a small flush three days ago w/out nutrients and the pots are already light so I'm going to do another one tonight and add a very light bloom feeding with the Cal-Mag. The damage has been done, but I think I've got it under control.
The plants are looking nice. I love those tan pots, are they smart pots? I don't know if you ever do outdoor but i heard those tan ones are a great help with keeping things a little cooler when the temps get intense. I think i might switch to those this season.✌️
@Experimentgreen, thanks! The pots are Vivosun 3 Gal fabric pots. I don't grow outdoors but I've heard the same thing about the tan fabric pots. This is my second grow with them and I like them a lot.
Gorgeous. The plant looks gorgeous. I'm always so jealous of everyone gaining that end of flower coloring...regardless of it's connection to starving a plant or anything else. I just love the colors.🧡❤️
They're getting there! Looks like they are pulling the nutrients out of the leaves naturally which is good. Since you don't like to flush you can try to remove a few larger fan leaves from the lower areas of your plant thats near harvest. It will force it to canibalise the nutrients from the upper leaves closer to the buds which it is already doing.
“...The plant showing the deficiency in the leaves is the one that has the fattest, frostiest buds...”
You just never know with cannabis what stress will damage it and what makes it more potent.
A Colorado grower who tests his flowers had 11” snow dumped on his crop just before harvest. THC, CBD & CBG all shot up.
Great work! Enjoy
It seems a lot of bloom nutes from most of the manufacturers are notoriously low on phosphorus. It seems to start showing up around end of week 6 - week 7 on autos. Some people give a couple of pops of extra phosporus for about a week. You dont want too much near the end or your buds will burn crappy. Check out Canna PK 13/14 you can suppliment with 2 or 3ml to a gallon.
Shes looking wonderful! Mephisto really makes some great genetics. Keep doing what your doing and best of luck with the rest. May the ganja garden gods bless your grow.
I really like the structure of this strain , its very uniform :) Keep up the great work and best of luck on this grow and the many projects in your future :)
-Happy Growing !
Do you ever like to do the defoliation of the bottoms to encourage bigger upper buds? I've always been bad at this and don't do it at the best timing to do the most benefit. Or have you been salvaging leaves because of the loss of others?✌️
@Experimentgreen, the speckling is definitely from what I suspect was a Ca deficiency a month or so ago. I was using RO water and was either not using enough cal-mag, or the pH was off and couldn't absorb it. I started using tap water w/ a little cal-mag to help stabilize the pH and the spotting stopped, but the scars remain.
That takes a lot of confidence and faith in the roots to remove all the fan leaves. Some day I'll have everything dialed in and may defoliate more, but until I finish a grow without any deficiencies or light burn, I'm going to keep them. 😁
@@willistoned, they definitely have an oddly speckled quality to them...i wonder if it's partly senescing and partly lingering leaf death from a little while ago?
I heard about a grower who's "secret trick" is to remove every single fan leaf...i think he just leaves the small sugar leaves. That sounds crazy to me though, how in the heck does it photosynthesize? He must have his process dialed in so well that nothing goes wrong or something, because it's beyond my brain to wrap around that idea. Lol
@Experimentgreen, the only leaves I remove are dead ones that blocking healthy leaves from getting light. I try to keep any leaves on there that have some green left in them incase something goes wrong in the soil, so the plant has a back up source if needed.
You got yourself a hermie in that room my friend , that picture you have with the circle is 2 giant male banana's lol you may want to consider removing that plant unless your sprayed it with colloidal silver to make your own pollen . Its always a shame to see them do something like that but it happens to the best of us . I hope the rest of your plants are ok and that you don't see any more male organs :D
-Happy Growing
@@willistoned, I know the feeling brother it happened to me on my Obiwan grow I was not happy but id rather have cut it down then ruin the rest of my plants .
thanks for taking the time to respond !
-Happy Growing!
willistoned
