Humboldt and Venom!

BearBuds Started this diary super late because I have been busier than ever this summer but here goes! VERY excited to try a run with these two strains. Humboldt Dream is one I have been eyeing up for years and its my first strain from Humboldt Seeds who I have heard nothing but good things about. Blue Venom just looked like such a cool strain on the website that I had to try it out. The start for these plants was a little rough. I germinated them before a vacation so others had to take care while I was was. Came back to plants that were a little root bound and very dehydrated, but I nursed them back to health over the next 10 days and how we are rockin and rollin. Had a bit of a pH issue as well that was really killing me, but that has now been corrected too. The Autopot system was turned on last Friday and they are already showing some explosive new growth. Hoping to flip them into flower later this week.

BearBuds This week has been interesting. I got lazy with the PPM and let them get way to high at the beginning of the week (around 720ppm). Looking back at my most successful grows, I had the best results when I did not push past 600 ppm during veg. I backed it down to 600ppm and although there is the slightest bit of nute burn at the tip of a few leaves they recovered very well. I also backed the light off quite a bit. they are very wide right now, which is great (they more than doubled in horizontal growth now covering almost the entire pot, but I would like them to get a little taller before I put them into flower. I am trying to get them to stretch a little for the light, but the this is so powerful that even at 40cm away they were still just throwing out new lateral shoots lol. I think now that the light is backed off they will start to stretch a little bit. I am hoping to flip them into flower by the end of the week. They have been drinking a lot the past few days, hoping for a big growth spurt this week and then flip by the weekend!

BearBuds Welp, this was their last week of veg. They are growing a little slower than I would like because it is colder than I would like it in the lab, but overall not bad. I just have this feeling that there is something off with these plants. I can't quite put my finger on it. They had nute burn at just 700ppm, they seem to get light burn the moment the light comes anywhere near them, their growth is quite slow, there is discoloration that is not spreading, but that stands out right away. I have tried everything; more humidity, less humidity, moving the light to different distances, playing with the intensity, I cleaned the entire watering system and remade new water, at this point I just don't know. Maybe I am just overreacting, but it just doesn't feel right. Hopefully they find their groove in flower. Just flipped them to their 12/12 cycle last night so we will see what happens for the next few weeks.

BearBuds I finally correctly diagnosed the problem in my tent. From the start of veg these plants have been growing very slowly, showing signs of nute burn, light burn, always with leaf tips pointed down. I tried everything from a new pH pen, lowering the ppms, changing res water, raising the light and I could not figure it out. Finally, this week I realized my nutrients were about 3 years old and had somehow gotten water in them which made the salts bad. Threw them all out, went to the store to picked up Canna coco line (first time ever using them) and within 48 hours they were stood up, new growth was exploding out, and they have grown about 5 inches in their first week of flower. Hoping that by the middle of this week they will at 25 inches so I can put the scrog net in and spread them out some more.

BearBuds Another good stretch week. They grew about 5 inches this week. I think the growth is a little slower just because the temperature is lower than I would usually have it. Its averaging around 73 when every other grow I have had it stays around 78, but they are chugging along. I would love for them to be at 60cm by the end of this last week of stretch. At that size I have been able to get good yields in the past. Any smaller and yield suffers a little. They are drinking like crazy and I think that is a good sign. When I change the water this week I will not add any more ignitor and instead add Canna Bloom. Excited to try it! Also turned the light up to full blast today.

BearBuds Honestly, this grow has been the most challenging of my hobby thus far. For the life of me I cannot figure out what to do with these plants. It seems they visibly change from one day to the next without any conditions changing at all. As you can see on Saturday they looked so nice, bright green, nice leaves, visibly they looked happy. By Sunday the top leaves were tacoing, they had an off coloration, leaf tips were down, and NOTHING had changed. pH is stable floating between 5.7-6.1, res temp the same, temp and humidity completely stable, literally nothing changed except I moved the light down a few inches from 24-18. Its a 200 watt light, it should NOT be that big of a deal to move it down. I think I am just going to accept that this one is just not gonna be that great and try to do the best I can. I moved the light back up to 22 inches away, and the ONLY possible other factor might be that the oxygen domes in the autopots have been going 24/7 so I am going to back that off for a day or two and then only run them when the lights are on. We will see how that works out. Still have 5 weeks left, so plenty of time to turn things around, but when dealing with natural systems, you win some and ya lose some. 6 out of a total of 7 grows under the belt since I got back into it have been a success, one mediocore grow wont be the worst thing ever.