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Today, the two seeds sprouted after three days. Since the room temperature is currently below 20°C, I germinated the seeds in a tent with a heater, maintaining a temperature of 23–24°C and a humidity level of 70–80%. The pellets were moistened with a mixture of 50% rainwater and 50% stagnant tap water until they weighed approximately 40g.
Before placing the seeds into the pellets, I heated the pellets in the microwave to eliminate any potential germs. After allowing them to cool, I planted the seeds at a depth of about 1.5 cm.
Over the first two days, I re-moistened the pellets with approximately 6 ml of water each day.
The Moby Dick is slightly light green, which might indicate a nitrogen deficiency. When I planted the seedling, I used old and depleted soil around it to avoid overwhelming it with the fresh living soil. This might mean the seedling isn’t getting all the nutrients it needs. However, since the plant otherwise looks healthy, I decided not to take any action for now and will observe how it develops over the next few days as its roots reach the fresh, nutrient-rich soil.
After transplanting into the final pot, both plants were given approximately 70ml of water each with a spray bottle. Two days later, they received 300ml of water each, and today, on Day 8, they were given 500ml each, along with a small amount of CalMag, Epsom Salt and minimal Hesi Bio Bloom fertilizer. I am watering with a mix of 50% rainwater und 50% tapwater.
The large 20W fan is now running with only brief interruptions to ensure the plants don’t grow too tall and remain bushy. In my 140cm tent, I don’t have much vertical space, so I’m aiming to keep both plants at a height of 50-60cm.
The two plants are thriving. The light green color on the Moby Dick leaves has disappeared, and both plants are growing new, healthy leaves.
I watered them last Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday with a bit CalMag and Hesi Bio Grow.
My plan is to let them grow a bit more over Christmas. After that, I intend to top both plants next week to control their height in my small 140 cm tent.
I am not entirely sure if I am happy with the current progress. Comparing the size of the plants, I think that during my last grow, the plants were bigger at this stage. However, in the end, they seem fine. I guess we will see in the next days and weeks how things develop.
I am trying to figure out the differences between my last grow and this one:
1. The humidity is much lower. In the first three weeks, it has been around 40–45% during the day and 55–65% at night. During my last grow, it was consistently around 60–70%.
2. I have a new, stronger oscillating fan, which runs 24 hours a day indirectly in the tent.
3. I topped the plants on day 18 above the third node and did some LST. Maybe this caused too much stress because, one day later, I noticed the first signs of pre-flowering pistils.
4. In my last grow, I watered only with rainwater. This time, I started with a 50:50 mix of rain- and tap water and added some Epsom salt and CalMag.
Now, I’ve added a second wet towel in the tent to increase the humidity. I am trying to find the sweet spot for an optimal VPD value. Furthermore, I increased the LED light to 80% at day 21.
I hope the plants will stretch more this week so I can do a bit more LST and make them wider.
Last week, I did some LST on day 25 and I cutted 2-3 leafs. After that, I let the plants grow, hoping they would stretch more so I could do another LST session at the end of the week. However, they didn’t stretch much.
In the end, I now have two bonsai cannabis plants, which is good because my tent is quite low, but slightly larger plants would have also been fine. I think flowering has started, and I reduced the light to 60% in the hope of encouraging a bit more stretch during the first days of flowering.
Probably, combining HST and LST at day 18 was too much stress, and I should have stuck to just LST, as I did in my last grow. However, I am still new to growing and trying to find my way.
I watered on days 23 and 27 with 2 liters until some water flowed out of the pots.
The plants are doing great, and I’m happy with the stretch and overall growth over the past week. They are definitely in the flowering stage now, and they might have entered it as early as last week.
At the beginning of the week, I reduced the light intensity from 80% back to 50%. The idea was to encourage stretch by making the plants feel like they weren’t getting enough light, and it worked. After two days, I increased it to 60%, and yesterday to 80%. In the coming week, I’ll gradually raise it to 100% to help the buds swell.
Sometime in the next few days or weeks, I plan to lollipop the plants. I’ll clean up the lower third to reduce the leaf clutter and remove some fan leaves if they’re blocking light from reaching other buds.
The plants are now getting 2 liters of water every three days. I’m still using the same mix of tap water, rainwater, Epsom salt, and CalMag. However, I’ve switched from Hesi Grow to Hesi Bloom Bio fertilizer, using 2.5 ml per liter.
I also did some LST again to spread the plants wider and allow more light to reach the center part.
The plants look healthy and lively, and they are now thirstier, so they are being watered every 2-3 days. The flowers are slowly getting bigger, and you can start to sense where this journey is heading.
On days 40 and 42, I performed defoliation. I removed fan leaves that were blocking light for the lower flowers. Additionally, I also removed flowers and their corresponding leaves in the lower third if they were too shaded. These would only produce popcorn buds and cost the plant energy; I hope that the plants will focus their energy on the upper flowers instead.
The light is still set to 100% and I took some pictures with my DSLR camera.
Everything is going well at the moment. The plants are now significantly less demanding in terms of care. I water them with about 4 liters of water every 2-3 days. The light is running at 100%, and the ventilation is working at full speed. By now, both of them are already emitting a noticeably smell. It's also very interesting how differently they smell.
On day 46, I trimmed some more leaf mass to improve lighting and air circulation.
Now it's time to keep watering and watch the flowers swell.
The plants are doing well. I feel that their water needs have decreased a bit. The buds are getting thicker, and on the Jack Herer, the first amber-colored trichomes are already visible on the upper buds. The Moby Dick hasn't shown any such signs yet, but it already has some milky trichomes. I hope that the two won't finish too differently so that I can harvest them together.
During the week, I removed a few fan leaves. The setup hasn't changed.
The Moby Dick has a wonderfully fruity smell, maybe a bit like mango. The Jack Herer also smells good, just different.
Autumn has begun, the flowers are getting thicker, and the trichomes are slowly turning amber. The water demand has significantly decreased. I have reduced the fertilization to a minimum and am continuing to observe the color change of the trichomes so that I can catch the right time for harvest.
The plants now look like it's deep autumn. They are drawing nitrogen from the leaves to use it for flower production. Some leaves have already dried up.
I have continued to observe the trichomes, and I will be harvesting the Jack Herer plant today and starting the drying process.
The Moby Dick has started to show some foxtailing in the last week, and the trichomes could still become a bit milkier. I will keep an eye on the Moby Dick and will likely harvest it in a few days during the week.
grow_your_glow
