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I completed this grow on 3/10/19. I used a mobile grow app to track things, but it's more of a tactical tool, than an overview of the whole grow. This grow journal is my recollection of the whole grow.
I popped 4 beans in rapid rooters and then transferred them to a 27g tote for DWC with four 6" net pots. I'm running a 5x5 tent with 2 Electric Sky ES300 LED lights from the Green Sunshine Company. The tent is in a basement and has a passive intake with a Vortex 452cfm exhaust blower.
This is the week where I began to experience some hard lessons in DWC, particularly since I pulled this together DIY. I noticed slow growth on the #4 pheno and then popped the hood on the rez to find some browning of the roots. Since this was my first time doing DWC, I did a lot of reading. I attempted to block light from getting into the rez to see if this would help resolve.
Day 15
-8am: ppm 350, PH 6.2
-Calcium deficiency identified. Increased CalMag with rez change. 7g @ 530ppm, PH 5.8
Day 16
-8am: ppm 515, ph 6.2. Corrected ph to 5.6.
-9pm: ppm 525, PH 6.0. PH corrected to 5.5 @ 520ppm
-11pm: ppm 510, ph 5.6.
Day 17
-8am: ppm 505, PH 5.8
-Added 1g 1/2 strength nutes at 530ppm, ph 5.7, Added hydroguard
-Root rot noticed. Full cleaning of rez. Soaked plants in water with hydroguard. Cleaned and sanitized rez.
-New rez 7g @ 517ppm, ph 5.9, Calmag @ 1/2tsp/g, Topped off rez to raise water level. Added 4.75g. New ppm 505, new PH 5.9.
-10pm: ph 6.1. Corrected to 5.9 @ 490ppm. Added 1g nutes @ 495ppm, PH 5.6
Day 18
-8am: ppm 504, PH 6.0. Added 2g 1/2 strength nutes @ 484ppm, PH 5.7.
-5pm: ppm 495, PH 5.9. Added 1g water to correct PH to 5.8 and reduce ppm to 470.
Day 19
-12am: ppm 478, PH 6.0
- 10am: ppm 459, PH 6.0
-4:20pm: ppm 457, PH 6.1. Corrected to 5.7PH @ 457ppm
-9:30pm: ppm 455, PH 5.9. Removed 1g of water to reduce water level
Day 20
-11am: ppm 437, PH 6.0. Corrected PH to 5.8 @ 438ppm
-Fimmed all tops
-7pm: ppm 438, PH 5.9; Added 1g water at415ppm, PH 5.7.
-10pm: ppm 404, PH 5.9
Day 21
-8am: ppm 389, PH 6.0. Corrected PH to 5.9, not sure why lol
- 7pm: ppm 374, ph 5.9
Overall good growth for 3 out of 4 plants. The #4 pheno is still lagging and seems like there is still a root issue to deal with. Later in the week I discovered that all plants were affected by root rot and had to get some quick fixes. Luckily identifying a light leak in the rez and getting a bigger air pump helped to begin resolving the issue.
Day 22
-7am: PH 5.9, ppm 374; Rez change. Cutoff brown roots on #4 and rinsed roots on #3. Added 14g @ 410 ppm, ph 5.9, Removed 1g to reduce water leve to 8".
-9pm: PH 5.9, pp, 415; Added water to bring ppm down to 395. 8.5" water level.
Day 23
-8am: ph 6.1, ppm 390, 8.25" water level
-7pm: ph 5.8, ppm 390, 8" water level
-Noticed root rot starting on all roots, not just on pheno #4. After investigating I discovered a light leak in the rez. Added 2x hydroguard with 1/2 strength nutes and raised water level to 9" to allow bennies into the substrate.
-11pm. ph 5.8, ppm 374, 8.99" water level.
Day 24
-7:30am: ph 5.9, ppm 359, 8.78" water level
-11am: ph 5.9, pp, 355, 8.75" water level
-4:45pm: ph 5.7, ppm 350, 8.6" water level
-11:45pm: ph 5.6, ppm 340. Corrected ph to 5.8.
Day 25
-12pm: ph 5.5, ppm 316, 8.4" water level. Corrected ph to 5.8 + hydroguard.
-4:20pm: ph 5.7, ppm 314
-5pm: installed new badass air pump to bomb the water with oxygen and overcome root rot.
-9:30pm: ph 5.7, ppm 304, 8.25" water level
Day 26
-11am: ph 5.7, ppm 283, water level 7.85".
-Noticed 1 white fly in the garden. I killed him and removed from the garden. I treated the rest of the plants with Azamax. 1 treatment today. 1 more in 5-7 days.
-6pm: Rez change. 13g @ 6.0 PH, 510ppm, 8.25" water level. Corrected ph to 5.8, ppm 507, 8.3" water level
-11pm: ph 6.3, ppm 507, 8.25" water level
Day 27
-7:30am: ph 5.9, ppm 496, 8" water level. Looking good. New air pump and light leak fixes are working!
-2pm: ph 5.9, ppm 493, 7.8" water level. Raised water level to 8" @ 490ppm. White fly issue seems to be resolved!
-7pm: ph 5.9, ppm 472, 7.8" water level.
-10pm: ph 5.8, ppm 470. Added 1g of 1/2 strength nutes @ 458ppm, 5.8ph, 8.5" water level.
Day 28
-5am: ph 5.8, ppm 448, 8.25" water level.
Fantastic growth as the stretch begins from pheno #1, 2, 3...however, pheno #4 is still dealing with / recovering from a root issue and seems to be lagging behind. Seems like root issue has resolved on all other plants. Thanks to Hydroguard for helping keep this under control. Lesson learned.
Did some more defoliation to open things up and get light below the canopy. Lots of LST to fill out the scrog net.
Plants wanted more food through the stretch, so I jacked up the nutes this week from 550ppm to 720ppm. Waited to see how they responded, then jacked it up to 760ppm. Plants loved the extra food and got some great growth this week.
Plants loved the increased nutes from last week, but began showing that they didn't need as much. So I dropped the nutes down to 620ppm.
Did an extensive defoliation session to open up the colas to light. They look kind of pathetic with all of that dense green growth the ES300s provide...but I know it will fill out quickly.
Things are filling out again post defoliation. I dropped PPMs again this week since the plants were drinking more than eating. Dropped PPMs throughout the week from 630ppm to about 520ppm.
Flowers are coming in and initial layers of trichomes are appearing.
It's clear I have some very different phenos in here. 2 are very sativa leaning, one very indica leaning, and one seemingly balanced 50/50-ish mix. Still a little bummed about pheno #4, but it's making a decent recovery...just much smaller than the others...
So much for scrog....let things get out of hand, but it was difficult with these various phenos. I have 2 sativa leaning phenos that got pretty tall #2 and #4. The #1 pheno is super indica leaning and is short. Unfortunately, it's being overshadowed by the other phenos. Since these are all in one reservoir / tote, I could not move them around to get more lighting. #3 is so far my favorite looking pheno with tighter node spacing, purpling, frostiness and medium height, as it stretched almost the perfect amount compared to the others... which is 2x.
Some purple calyxes are starting to appear....loving the how they are starting to look.
I'm keeping PPMs around 520, but they are rising consistently. Since this is my first time doing DWC, I felt concerned I wasn't feeding enough...but I'm going by what the plants are telling me. I think I need to reduce the ppm as we progress further into flower.
Things are looking pretty good. Buds are starting to fill out. Trichomes are coming in. Purple is starting to be the norm, not the exception ;)
Lights are angled to accommodate the short and tall plants as best I can. Next time I run 4 plants in one tote, they all need to be the same pheno...that would have saved me a lot of headaches and given me more even light spread.
#2 pheno is about 4 feet tall. #4 is about 40 inches, but pretty thin compared to #2. #3 is about 32" tall and quite bushy. #1 is lagging behind...super bushy, but not getting enough light. I'm also wondering if this could be a low yielding pheno...the Bank warned about that one...
Buds are stacking nicely. I can't help but wish they were a bit bigger. Not sure if this is due to the root issue earlier in the grow, the new LEDs, or the fact that I FIMed and then LST the plant to have lots of tops. I'm thinking it's probably a combo. Not thinking the ES300s are to blame since they make shit grow so quick and happy. Part of it is also that my #4 and #1 will be pretty light compared to #2 and #3. But ultimately, I think I'm going to be extremely happy with the quality and frostiness of it all...
I'm dropping PPMs from low 500s to high 400s throughout the week.
Really happy with how things are looking, despite expecting slightly larger buds. I think next time, I'll defoliate and lollipop a bit more to focus the plants energy on the main tops.
It stinks like mint, skunk, and sweet. Really nice trichome coverage, lots of dank buds in the mix here. Even the lowers that aren't getting as much light are looking dank.
I started the week out around 500ppm and steadily dropped to below 400ppm. The ppms kept creeping up every time I'd drop them...so I kept dropping them to see where it would stabilize. I ended the week at 381ppm.
In preparations for harvest, I'll plan to steadily reduce the ppm to about 200ppm, rather than doing a flush with RO. I'm working with really great starting water between 50-80ppm, which absolutely requires CalMag at .5 to .75 tsp/g.
Started the week at 390ppm and steadily reduced to 274ppm by the end of the week. I estimate there is about another week or so before it's time to chop.
Trichomes are looking some clear, mostly cloudy, very few amber. I want a bit more cloudy and slightly more amber before I'm ready to chop.
This is the final week! My wife will be having a baby on 3/11/19, so I need to harvest on 3/10 no matter what. The trichomes are looking good. Mostly cloudy with a few amber and a few remaining clear. I could probably push this another 5 days or so, but since this is already a pretty heavy indica, I think this it great time to harvest, particularly given the circumstances.
Really happy with the level of frostiness on these buds...they look super dank!. Can't wait to harvest and cure these babies :)
I harvested when most trichs were cloudy with some amber and a few clear. Since this is a pretty heavy indica, I didn't want to have it be too couch locky...
I had a few issues through the grow that I was able to overcome, however, these issues impacted the overall weight. I had 2 really vigorous phenos that were heavy producers and easy to manage: #2 sativa leaning pheno and #3 hybrid indica leaning pheno. My favorite was pheno #3. Pheno #4 had some root issues throughout veg that prevented it from really being a great producer. Once it recovered it really did produce some nice nuggets. More than expected. Pheno #1 was my least favorite. The smoke is still nice, but the buds were small, it was the lowest yielding pheno of the bunch and was very leafy to trim.
Per plant yields were:
#1: 33g
#2: 142g
#3: 94g
#4: 57g
I also collected 12 grams of kief from the trim bin! : 1:
I have plenty of sugary trim for some primo bubble hash, so I am looking forward to getting that started.00
frostyherbals
