My first grow.. Royal Domina

Enochian So, Hi. Just joined. Great site. I have just acquired setup, small 2 by 2 by 4 tent as it suits my needs. Have completed seed to harvest only once previously with massive tent and inferior lights etc. Got small but quality harvest and decided this is what I want to do from now on. I live in UK so needed small tent I can squirrel away in small closet. Anyway. Had two RQ seeds, 1 x Royal Gorilla and 1x Royal Domina. Well, got confused in germination and lost track of which was which. One seed started well but roots were weak and died within couple of days so i decided to concentrate on doing just the one plant as it is my first proper grow although I don't know which strain it is. (First lesson learned. Must label pots.) So I am currently at end of week 1 and lowered light to 18 inches for veg. Not using extractor fan just yet as she is still small and well ventilated. Got small fan running to give her a wobble every now and then as I heard it will give me a strong base. I plan to top and train using a net. Any tips or advice is very welcome as I am a newbie and open to learning.

Enochian Lesson no 2 learned. Take plant out of tent before you try setting up fan! Dropped light on her. Luckily both were ok. She looks a ittle depressed about it but I have been watering with a pipette 3 times a day just a little at a time and she seems to be cheering up now. Fingers crossed.

Enochian Not much to add other than she seems to be recovering nicely. Still watering with a pipette for this week to be sure she benefits from the lowered ligh. 545 ppft at canopy today for next few weeks of veg.

Enochian Not much to tell. She seems to have bounced back from earlier damage so transplanted into bigger pot with some root powder. Gonna see how she settles before topping. Got pot ready for a germinating Northern Light seed. Gonna try a seed straight into flower when I flip the lights on the big girl. Experimenting. Thanks to all who answered my question on soil PH being too low and pale colour of my baby. I have taken all advice and ordered some Dolomite lime. In the meantime I have used a little baking powder in pure tap water and PH has returned to 6.5. I will keep this up till Lime arrives. I have added a small blurpel light with small wattage just to add a little more for veg. PPFD levels are not affected and I can germinate a seed in pot in the corner of my tent as PPFD is around 250 for emerging shoot.

Enochian Very little growth the last two weeks. The nodes are very close together but no vertical growth. Topped 2 days ago and flushed soil with 6PH water to try and lower soil PH a little. Not sure just how well she is doing as she is still pale green and growth is stunted. perhaps I need to switch to flower soon so she stretches. Not feeling very confident though to be honest. Ho Hum. Got some Dolomite Lime arriving today so perhaps that will help. So, been couple days and this morning I woke up to a very droopy lady. All PH values are good. Been waiting for pot to dry so can water with some calmag but not holding out much hope. Any ideas? End of week 5 and after much deliberation I decided to see what was going on under the soil as I could not account for plants health problems. (PH sorted etc) Dialed in my watering as advised and after a week things went from bad to worse. When I carefully removed her from the substrate I found the rockwool I had seeded her with was not allowing any roots to reach the soil. The roots were less than an inch long after removing the rockwool I rinsed the roots in fresh water and repotted with a little root powder up as far as the first leaves as I read that the stem can grow roots if under soil surface. The more the better right? I am not holding out much hope but as I am still waiting for seeds to pop I figured it cant do any harm. Didnt have my phone when I excavated her or I would have taken a few pics so I have added a few after autopsy. After a little research found out the rockwool came from Temu so give them a swerve in future.

Enochian Starting week 6 and after some first aid including severe amputation here and there, she is less than half the girl she was but I think she may pull through. What roots she had left seem to have recovered. I am watering with just a little cal mag and grow. Not sure if it will be worth the effort but I can't seem to just give up on her. This has put me off rockwool for seedlings entirely. I knew something was wrong but as a newbie I thought I was doing something wrong. Fannying about with PH etc. All the while the roots were barely in the soil after 5 weeks of growth. Hey ho I suppose. Might up the grow nutrient to 2ml per litre as I am sure she could use the sugars right now. One day and some gentle watering later she has picked up her leaves and is responding well to recovery. Ditched the soil PH meters, misleading and inaccurate. End of week 6 and she has perked up considerably. Almost twice the size she was last week and continuing to improve. Yay!

Enochian Decided to switch to flower as she has been in veg for 6 weeks even though she is still quite small. Previous problems have been overcome and hopefully be plain sailing to harvest now. She has started to stretch up toward light now with around 650 PPFD at canopy. I will increase PPFD gradually over next week or so to around 900 until a couple of weeks before harvest where I aim to Dial it back a little. All things being equal I am looking forward to my first harvest. As an aside I am almost certain she is Royal Domina strain after visiting Domina grows as opposed to Royal Gorilla. It seems I have not topped her properly and so decided to try a little LST instead to make the most of the bud sites.

Enochian She has responded well to training and so I did a little defoliation to allow more light to the smaller leaves. Things continue to go well although she is much smaller than she should be because of previous mishap. I am hoping to see some stretching soon. No sign of pistills yet either.

Enochian Did a little light defoliation during the week and she seems to have benefitted from the extra light. Lots of growth along the axis as well as starting to stretch upward to the light. PPFD is around 800 across the canopy and I have added a small blurple light to one side of the spiderfarmer 100W. It helps keep the tent temp in the mid 20's and she loves the extra light. Not sure of the wattage of these small lights but they don't seem to have an adverse effect so will keep them running for now. I rotate her daily so she doesn't grow lobsided and will employ the net when she gets a little bigger. All in all, another good week with no negatives and lots of positives. These plants are pretty tough I reckon.

Enochian Had to repot in 10 Gal pot as 5 Gal ripped and I have nothing of a similar capacity so opted for 10 Gal. Started training through scrog and did a heavy defoliation to boot. I think I can leave her to her own devices for a while now till she bounces back. Starting too see a few white pistils now too. All is well but I see now she will not grow much taller which is good as I have limited space. Having some time reading up on VPD and its relationship with temp and humidity I have striven to create the best environment for my plants to transpire correctly. Using a temp gun left over from Covid I measure leaf temp and then enter tent temp and humidity into the following interactive VPD chart to get an idea of how well transpiration occurs. I left a pic of the chart. A quick google search should find it if you think it may prove useful. Maybe its just another variable for me to obsess over in my search for perfection but I have lowered my tent humidity as a result and left the fan off till lights out. Will give it a week to see how it goes.

Enochian Bit of a slow week, nothing much happening. She has pistils and the beginning of buds now though so she has well and truly transitioned into flower now. She is very compact and bushy and she is starting to have a little aroma now. I am trying to get on top of the VPD as it is something that I have negelcted. Bit of a learning curve but that is what I am here for after all. Hard to keep her in the sweetspot between the variables. Learned a lot from this grow up to now and still only around half way through.