All star round with Biotabs

gentlegiantgrows Happy clones got transplanted into 1 l pots light mix and fed with some alga, trichoderma, mycos and bacteria to hit the ground running. Going to select the strongest each in a week to go into the final pots (16l fabric) and move to the tent. Very excited about this run, I've been listening to the we the growers podcast a lot and want to try the no topping approach. Also going to add some far red to see how fast these babies can go. Under regular 12/12 they all take around 60-63 days.

gentlegiantgrows Everyone growing happily, will probably flip the at day 14/15 after transplant.

gentlegiantgrows Insane growth this round with the no topping, normally i'd always top, then wait for them to recover. This is so much more fun. Also the apical dominance doesn't seem to be too crazy. Most of the lowers are already catching up. As usual enormous fan leaves and quite some stretch with the far-red end-of-day treatment. Expecting to see flower set next week already.

gentlegiantgrows Added a trellis for support this week, don't want them flopping around the tent in late flower. Stretch is slowly coming to an end amd preflowers are formed. Impressed again by the rapid transition with only 8 mins of Far Red. Gave them the luxury treatment with some mycorrhizae, bacteria, algae and melassis, they seem happy. PPFD is currently at 600-750, going for 800-900 in bulk phase.

gentlegiantgrows Entering bulk phase now, gave them another round of microorganisms and molasses, they wouldn't have needed it. Looking great with just water (not even pH correction). Feels a bit wrong, coming from salts, but the plants are happy.. Weird top on the AGO, looks stunted, like it topped itself. Minor Thrips damage, but nothing to worry about at this stage. I will be gone for 10 days and someone else is looking after the plants 😬 so next update will have to wait until I come back.

gentlegiantgrows Returned to the planties and they're happy and vigorous as ever! Biotabs seems to supply just what they need, no burnt tips, no deficiencies. Still only water with a package of algae, trichoderma, bacteria and mycos every 2 weeks.

gentlegiantgrows They exploded in the 10 days I was gone! Bulk phase in full progress, they're blowing up every day now. Will need to do sth about the humidity at night, getting 80% spikes just before lights on. I will try to have a fully automated system next round with biotabs and blumats and see how far I can take a fully hands off approach here.

gentlegiantgrows Just cruising at this point. Got them all on the same moisture level again. Slight infestation with gnats, but nothing to worry about at this stage. Will start giving a bit less water soon and have a big last defol in a week or so. They got their mix of mycos, trichs, bacteria and molasses again, seem to love it. Slight discoloration on the top OGT buds, but they're the tallest and receive 1100 ppfd, so I won't adjust anything.

gentlegiantgrows Smooth sailing, but if there's no pest pressure, that's mostly the case for me at this stage. Early flower and finishing can be tricky, but mid flower is just watching the ladies get plump. I did spot the first signs of an imbalance, will not intervene in any way, as I want to see what the baseline of just stupidly sticking biotabs in the soil is. I cut my tap water with RO to an EC of 0,4 and we have almost no Mg in the tap water, no runoff either, probably there is an imbalance of the K:Ca:Mg ratio causing some problems. If i intervened, I would start pHing the water and adding some epsom salts. Like this I just hope that it will lead into a nice fade and not have too much impact on flavor.

gentlegiantgrows Left to right: All Gas x Cali Octane (Promo), Banana Butter Cups, Gelato, OG Triploid. Pictures taken day 48 of flower, just started into week 8. I messed up last week and uploaded pictures that were still from week 6, but I'll just leave it as is. I found one small bud with botrytis, seems to have been the only one, so not too worried there. The far red is really showing its effects now, all of these normally take 63-68 days to finish, as it is I think I can chop around day 58. Combined with the super short veg, I could do 5 runs like this a year. BBC is fading nicely, was growing strong. The others didn't use up the nutrients, even though its been straight water only with microorganisms and some kelp added every two weeks. I didn't do any pH correction and the tap water here comes out at pH of 8 and 0.8 EC, I cut it to 0.4 EC. Impressive! I am not getting sponsored by biotabs, but I am amazed what just the tab itself without any of the product line is achieving. I am sure, you can push the plant more, but I love the keep it simple approach. Next round I am going to add a Blumat self-watering system and just check in on the plants once a week.