Solitary Watermelon Auto

drakkon My Watermelon Automatic is doing fine on day seven. It's working on a third set of leaves and appears relatively healthy. There are a few light spots on one leaf, which I will monitor. Calculating the watering volume is difficult, because this week I watered it by submerging it and letting it absorb water from the bottom and sides.

drakkon The Watermelon Automatic is doing swell at 14 days. She appears healthy overall, except for a few tiny spots on a leaf or two, which I will monitor. She got a plain-water misting several times per day, and I expect to transplant and top her soon.

drakkon It was an eventful week for the Watermelon Automatic. She was topped on day 18 and transplanted on day 19 without suffering any shock or slowdown. At the time of topping, I also pruned the two branches from her first node, which now leaves her with nodes #2, #3, #4 and #5, for a total of eight main branches. She is currently growing nicely and appears healthy. Each day, I mist her with water several times. I have not fed her any nutrients beyond what's in the Happy Frog soil, other than some mycorrhizae I added during transplant. Training will commence in the upcoming week.

drakkon The Watermelon Automatic appears happy and healthy, and she underwent training this week. I fertigated her once with half-strength grow nutrients and once with diluted cal-mag. She looks great to me for a plant at day 28.

drakkon The Watermelon Automatic is growing fast and has not yet started to flower. There are pre-flowers at many branch sites, but the growing tips still appear like vegetative growth. I did introduce some dilute bloom nutrients to her watering regimen, as I expect she'll start flowering soon. Training and light defoliation continue. She's starting to have quite a lot of secondary branches and potential bud sites, which looks promising.

drakkon As of day 42, the Watermelon Automatic F1 is growing quickly, and it has just recently started to flower. Training is now complete for the most part, and light defoliation continues. A few mid-to-older leaves bear faint rust-colored spots, but they're very slight. I've spotted a few mites and mite-bites, and remove the affected leaf when I do. Unless it gets worse, it'll be just part of ongoing defoliation. Bloom nutrients increased a little, but still less than full strength. Now that the plant has outgrown the 18" x 24" photo backdrop I've been using, I'll soon be getting a larger one.

drakkon The past week was not great for the Watermelon Automatic, but no disaster either. A fair number of leaves showed signs of stress, and I suspect I overfed and it's nutrient burn. I went back to plain water, and thankfully the issue didn't spread too much. I also spotted a couple mites and signs of their bites, but nothing widespread. I removed any affected leaves, and now she looks a little sparse, but not too bad. I am hopeful she's on a better trajectory. The same thing happened to her neighbor, my Gaia F1, but to a lesser extent. And ditto for a recent Epsilon F1 grow. I'm still relatively new to growing autoflowers, so I will simply call this a learning opportunity and be careful not to overfeed going forward. I included a photo showing a few of the leaves I removed. Please speak up if you think I'm wrong about it being nutrient burn.

drakkon As of day 56, the Watermelon Automatic is doing ok but not great. After showing signs of nutrient burn in the prior week, I administered a plain water flush, and then re-introduced nutrients at an even lower concentration for one watering. She has recovered somewhat, but some leaf browning and curling has continued. I removed and trimmed some of the worst affected leaves, and she now appears rather over-defoliated and sparse for my liking. However, the buds seem to be doing ok, albeit a little small. Leaf-charts and AI tools point to nutrient burn, P or Ca deficiency, or a PH issue (or a combination?). I really don't think it's PH given my soil and setup (and it tested at 7). I'll continue to monitor the plant, and we'll see how next week goes. For now, I think I'll stick with very dilute nutrients every second or third watering. As a hobbyist growing for myself, friends and family, I'm not overly concerned. In fact, I enjoy experimenting a little, so I look forward to seeing what happens with the buds given the extensive defoliation.

drakkon The Watermelon Automatic is hanging in there, but looking rather sparse. Whether it was due to burn, a deficiency, or something else, a lot of leaves were unhealthy enough to warrant their removal. The plant is not getting any taller, but the buds are increasing in size, albeit slowly. Time will tell if they stack up into true colas or not. Since I'm just growing for fun, I won't give up and will keep her going all the way to the end. Who knows? I may be surprised and she'll bounce back. At this point, I'm feeding her very dilute bloom nutrients every other watering. I've seen a very small number of mites, but no webs, and recently, I've spotted a few fungus gnats, too. It could be she's suffering from either of those, but I don't think they're serious (I haven't seen more than one gnat in the air at a time). However, since I've spotted even one, I will take measures with this plant and all others going forward. Those measures will include allowing the soil to dry more, adding a layer of pumice to top of soil, using DE, and trying out fabric pots (for the first time) instead of air pots. Her same-aged Gaia F1 grow-neighbor, which is on a similar watering and feeding schedule, appears healthier and more vigorous as of now. No bud closeups this week, but I did try out the blue, metric side of my photo backdrop.

drakkon The Watermelon Automatic is looking pretty scraggly, so I expect to harvest it within a week and put my focus on the next plants in my perpetual grow. This has not been my best plant, but that's ok. Previous harvests have left me with a nice enough stash to skip right over it. Reviewing the weeks in the diary, you can see that in weeks 4, 5, and 6, she was on a great trajectory, then, by week 7, not so much. I made some modest efforts to diagnose and intervene, but in the end I must have got it wrong, as she never fully recovered after week 7. At this point, whatever the initial issue was, it has made her less resistant to new issues, for example, mites are starting to get a foothold (a good reason to just go ahead and harvest sooner). Given more time and inspections, I think I underfed her as flowering initiated (red tinted branches, small flowers). What I originally thought was burn could easily have been a P deficiency. There's a good chance I got sloppy and overwatered, too, and gnats went from zero to a few around that time. I won't be surprised to see poor root development when I break the pot down. I understand autos can be finicky, so I'm taking it in stride. It's a good learning experience and I'll just buckle down on subsequent plants to address any of the issues it might have been. 1) Go back to aerating my Happy Frog significantly with pumice or similar. 2) Avoid overwatering and let the soil dry more between waterings. 3) Inhibit gnats by covering top of soil with pumice and trying out fabric pots in lieu of air pots. 4) Inhibit mites with companion peppermint and basil plants (already sown). 5) Increase food, especially bloom nutrients when the time comes, while still being cautious about overfeeding. The same-aged Gaia F1 that grows next to the Watermelon Automatic has a similar story, but it withstood the adversity much better and I think it will produce some nice buds. Both plants were cared for almost identically, so it's an interesting comparison.

drakkon I went ahead and chopped the Watermelon Automatic on day 73. She might have been able to produce a little more, but mites were starting to get a foothold and she was looking rather sad, so I just pulled the plug. I'll still try to get a decent cure on the small harvest, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll keep a little jar of popcorn buds or if I'll dry sift or otherwise process them. Whatever I decide, I'll add a smoke report once I've sampled some. This was not my best grow by a long shot, and I can't really parse out whether to blame the strain or my own efforts. I'm not discouraged, though, and will simply learn what I can and move on. If and when I feel I've improved at growing autoflowers in general, I certainly may try the strain again, since its traits as described by the breeder appeal to me. Over the very long term, I have much more experience with photoperiod cannabis, so I will consider trying the photoperiod version of the strain some time in the future. At the moment, fixed light & dark periods are not something I want to introduce to the setup in my office, so that idea will have to wait.