Auto Scrog

Sprouted a single seed in a grow cube. Still stabilizing the PH of the water and almost have it in check. Very, very light in the nutes as it just sprouted and based on previous experience, this strain does not like high nute levels. 50% of stated on the label was too high based on a previous grow. I grow using tap water which measures about 175 TDS and 8.5 PH prior to adding anything,

Week two has been uneventful. Everything so far is going to plan. I upped the FloraGro slightly and have just been checking the PH daily and adjusting if needed. Since this will be a scrog, I've decided to learn a survival skill and create the net by hand with string. We will see how it goes.

I upped all the nutes this week. I'm up to 360 PPM this week. I worry about going over since the last time I grew this strain, it liked it weak or the leaves started to burn. I did not add water and she is providing a little scent. Seems to be growing well at double the size in a week but I'm worried about the color change. What do you think? Earlier in the week I bumped up the FloraMicro just in case I have a zinc shortage and tonight I just bumped up the FloraBloom as it contains sulphur. I expect the final PPM reading in the morning to be 400ppm. I'll update that tomorrow.

Turns out she was having a sulfur deficiency, I added Epson salts based on what I read online, a tablespoon per gallon. Within 3 days, all the leaves turned dark green. But I think that was way too much. The PPM spiked to about 2500!. Also, it appears a calcium deficiency appeared by the look of all the brown/yellow spots. I decided I must have made a mistake adding the nutes to the water. I've never had calcium or sulfur issues before. The tap water is typically loaded with calcium. So yesterday I replaced all the solution with newly PH balanced water and all new nutes just to make sure I did not make a silly mistake previously. Keeping my fingers crossed over the next few days. That said, she still doubled in size this week and she has a nice powerful scent.

This week, I topped her by mistake. I was bending the top of the plant under the screen and the plant snapped. That said, I've been keeping the other branches under the screen. I've also trimmed most of the large sick looking fan leaves. She seems to be doing well. In addition, keeping my fingers crossed, but I think the nutrient issues are resolved. All the new leaves seem relatively healthy. In fact, the rest of the plant seems to have improved since snapping her top off. Even with losing a significant part of the plant, she seems much healthier. The PH has been dropping rapidly. I'm adding a ml of ph down daily to keep the water in a reasonable range. Thursday update: I dropped the lighting to 15" above the plant from 20". I checked with a cell phone lux meter and the lighting at the top of that plant was about 12,500 lux. It's now 20,000 lux. I'll let this sit for a week and see how she does. If she does well, I'll drop it another 3" to an even foot. Hopefully, she reacts well to the higher brightness.

Have a look at the photos. I few leaves seem to be having nutrient issues. It's also been 2 weeks since my last fluid change. So I mixed a new batch focusing on the transition to flowering as she seems to just gotten started and changed the liquid. Notice the TDS is very low, just in case some of the leaves are showing some burn. Also, I travel quite often and can't add water as I would like, so hopefully with the low TDS, I can let her use much more of the water while I'm away without her burning. I also raised to light by an inch just to be safe. Any thoughts on the actual problem with those leaves, please leave a comment. I'm expecting full on flowering any day now.

We had a good week. I simply changed the nutrient solution and kept the PH under control. 2 days have gone by I have not needed to adjust PH. So she has changed her intake and I assume she has moved on to a new stage in life. She is small. I think the nute and balance problems had a real impact on her maturing.

Due to travel, I added a float valve and attached that to an external 5 gal bucket. I used tap water and upped the PH since she was creating so much acid. SHe seems to have survived pretty much intact. I've also been trimming some of the leaves when I am around. I'm a little concerned about how slow she has been growing for an auto flower and will she make it through to the end with good looking trichomes. I don't see any yet and it seems a bit late. That said, she has colas forming all over the place.

Due to work, I had to travel again. I was out for a little more than a week. She is basically taking care of herself which is tough in hydroponics. The float valve with an extra 5 gallons of high PH water seems to be taking care of her enough where she has survived. One tough plant! Please have a look at the closeups. I think I still have a week or two based on the color of the trichomes.

So, what do you think? WIll the trichomes ever darken or is this pretty much it? I probably spent too much time trying to train her even though she is an auto-flower. The last two photos are close-ups. Are they even milky? She is 20 inches wide and 14 inches high and loaded with colas. I'm running out of patience! As a side note, since I do travel quite often, I'm building an auto-doser to check and correct the PH while I'm away. I'll post details in my next grow.

I upped the nutrients a bit. I don't want to starve her too early. But I'm starting to see brown trichomes. So no more feeding and just clean water from here on out. No matter how hard I have tried, I still have a lot of brown leaves to clean out. They don't all come off very easily. I'm probably going to clip these at the base at harvest. It's going to take quite a while to trim these. I expect this is the last week until harvest! She smells really nice. Somewhat like fresh lemon skunk is my best guess? Very nice scent.

This was a strange grow. It started off fine but took a very long time to ripen and the plant looks like it barely made it to the end. But the ending result is one of the best flavors with a really nice, strong high just 3 days after harvest for a dry total of 2.2 oz. I can't wait to see what some time curing will do to it.