Papaya/Lemon Cherry Cookies

Prilyfe13 10/01/2025 Week 1 of Veg. Let's talk time frame for a minute. Both of these plants are 8 week autoflowers. Seed to harvest. They should be ready for harvest in late November early December. We shall see. I've heard mixed opinions on how long or short a time it will take in DWC. Some say it's a week or two faster and some say they get bigger but take a week or so longer. Both say they'll get bigger in DWC. So that's the goal. Bigger is better. So in other words, timeframe is just the expectation. But it all depends on the environment and the strain and the plant and all that. Everyone is different. Well, for Lemon Cherry Cookies, she's in the very early stages of Veg. Papaya Cookies on the other hand is not doing so well. No idea why she has a near white stem and her tips are still yellowing and it's spreading. I dropped the light intensity down to 197 PPFD for now, had to pH the water again for both plants. It was really high. Like 6.8 high. My water is horrible. After the filter, it's still 8.5 I didn't check without the filter as I won't use the regular tap water. But with the pH being so high already, I think I'm gonna use distilled water. Too bad. I bought the Pur filter thing just for the plants. I won't drink that water at all. No thank you. Anyway, so as I said, the pH was high. That could be the issue. Now it's down to 5.85 right where I want it. The TDS and EC are also in range. So if that was the issue, we should see some improvement throughout the day. However lights out is at 11:33 am and turns back on at 5:33 pm. Kinda stupid if you ask me. Lights out in the middle of the day? Why AI? Why? So Lemon Cherry Cookies as said is doing great! Her first set of true leaves are coming through nicely. Great color green and her stem is even starting to turn a nice shade of purple. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing. Technically she's still a seedling, but I didn't want to ruin my starting week. Day 1 of Veg is day 1 of the month. Just works for me. She seems to be really adaptive to her environment or just really resilient. pH was also too high, TDS and EC are spot on and now is pHed to 5.85. not much else to say for today. I had to raise the light and turn the intensity down to 3. Now the DLI is at 15.8. perfect range for seedlings. A little on the high end of the range, but as I said, Lemon Cherry Cookies is taking it all in. No issues at all. Let's hope Papaya Cookies bounced back. Or I'll be one sad baby plant owner. Temp: 66° lights out 74° lights on RH: 74% VPD: 0.54 kPa 10/02/2025 Just a quick one today. So I bought the AC Infinity heater for the system. It works fine, but the humidifier I have is either too much or not enough. So far I have t found a middle ground. I'm trying to get the temp to stay at 75° and the humidity between 70% and 80%. 75% would be preferable as these are still seedlings and still need the moisture. Both plants have a bit of yellowing on the tips. Not sure what it's from yet. Hopefully I'll figure it out very soon. It could be the pH being super high for a bit. That's what seemed to gave caused the issue. But I'm not sure. Anyway, I noticed something interesting about the other Papaya Cookies. You know, the one that shouldn't have made it. It has the exact same droopy leaves as this one. AND, the other Lemon Cherry Cookies is reaching just like this one. That's some good genetics I think. Knowing the drooping vs the reaching, I feel like the drooping is natural to this strain. Or both plants are suffering the same issue. But they are now in totally different environments. Makes sense, right? Or am I crazy? Temp: 76.1° RH: 65.2% VPD: 1.06 kPa 10/03/2025 And for the win we have Papaya Cookies with a massive comeback today. She was leaning really hard. But then she perked up when I got everything to the right temp and humidity. Had to buy a heater to do it, but yah. The next thing is the humidifier I have. It's great for bedrooms. Definitely not for growing tents. No auto shut off. Only 3 settings. The one I got today will be here tomorrow is the AC Infinity humidifier. So it will integrate with the controller and we'll see some real precision. The tent is sitting at 74.7° and the humidity bouncing around between 65% and 82%. Not great, but it'll work for the next 24 hours. At least they're still seedlings and need the humidity. Lemon Cherry Cookies looks amazing. Her first true set of leaves are coming out nicely. Soon enough she'll start to grow vigorously. Both will. But I have a feeling this one will be the bigger of the two. So now I have the heater, humidifier, AI controller, side lights, I just need the 6" fan and filter. Maybe. And the bar lights. I'm not gonna get the ones for the 3x3. I'll get the 4x4 ones. Those are 2.5 ft x 2.5 ft. Perfect for my 3x3 tent. Talk about wall to wall coverage. So issues I'm having. My pH keeps climbing up. No matter what I do. pH up, more and more and more. I might have it stable by now. I'll have to check in the morning. The temp of my water is way too high at 75° it's from the heater. It blows directly toward the buckets. I have a piece of cardboard with a spacer to help keep the heat off them, but that's as far down as I could get it. Maybe with the heat where it is and the humidity the water will end up being that warm anyway. It should cool off when I switch to veg in the tent. I'll keep it at 72 so the heater doesn't really have to be on much. It should also cool off the water. Anyway, numbers for the day. Temp: 74.4° RH: 77.8% VPD: 0.65 kPa 10/04/2025 We have some super healthy and happy ladies today. I added in another half teaspoon of Lotus Grow and a half teaspoon of cal/mag. It's not much, but these little ladies are transitioning to the veg stage and I don't want to burn them or stunt them. Speaking of stunting. I was worried about Papaya Cookies a bit, but she suddenly bounced back. Now she has her first node just like Lemon Cherry Cookies. I think I got the pH to level out finally. We are sitting happy at 5.85 now. I also read that the nutri8kind of act as a buffer because they have their own pH levels. So I double checked after adding my nutrients in and all was well. Only needed to bring the pH down by a couple points. I'm keeping a close eye on both plants. They have the same amount of notes and are pHed almost perfectly. I'm watching for any signs of toxicity mostly. I don't think I'll be seeing any deficiencies for the time being. And if I'm able to, I hopefully won't see any issues at all. Honestly, I might see issues as this is my first time with hydroponics. But I figure if I follow the instructions and lower the dose about half way, I should see some pretty good results without overdoing it. Plus they will tell me when they need more. The new humidifier can't come soon enough. The current one is killing the temp and flooding it with mist. Lights are off, and I assume the tent would be able to pull the humidity out and keep it level, but nope. Nothin doin. So we be stuck with high humidity and a 72° temperature. Luckily we are still babies, so it shouldn't be a problem at all. Temp: 71.9° RH: 80.6% VPD: 0.51 kPa 10/05/2025 Both ladies are looking awesome! Papaya Cookies has a bit of twisting on a leaf. I'm going to look into it. It's not bad and it just started. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. I wonder if it's the cal/mag. But wouldn't it be faster in showing signs in hydroponics? I dunno. Lol So as I said Papaya Cookies has some Twisties going on. Other than that, she is looking great. Her first set of true leaves are starting to come in quite nicely. I definitely expect a large plant. However, Lemon Cherry Cookies has spacier nodes. That makes me think she'll be tall. I'm guessing some fairly wide internodal spacing. She looks great! Great color, shape. Her leaves are very sharp looking almost saw blade like. Really cool looking. I'm pretty sure she'll have some broad leaves indeed. I'm thinking bushier than Papaya Cookies as well. Maybe not as tall. Watering.... See I'm getting there. No clue how much water they're taking in. It's too soon to tell really. But I'll make sure to update the water when there's something to update. Lighting...Finally! So I have the lights roughly 28" from the plants. My light power is set to 30%. The light intensity is around 230 PPFD and they seem to be loving it. 10/06/2025 Forgot to write this one, but here's a quick recap: Both ladies look good. The one in the Germination System is still growing. Wow. Everything looks great! They should be starting the Vegetative stage tomorrow or the next day. (Preemptive prediction) Hahahahaha 10/07/2025 As as I cheated and predicted yesterday... Both ladies have officially started the veg stage and wow did they start. First off they are growing super fast. BUT! They were growing away from the light. I know for a fact that the light isn't too bright. So I looked it up. Apparently that is a form of stretch. They are looking for brighter light. So I turned the light up by 10% and the DLI is exactly 20. Just where it needs to be for the beginning of veg. Very happy with that reading. I'll still keep a close eye on the direction they are growing. If the Google machine is right, they should straighten up in no time. We'll see, I only changed the light an hour before lights out, so it'll change back to 3 pretty quickly. The other advantage of having the light set to 40% is now as the sun sets and rises, the light can have a wider range of increase. That should help it mimic sunrise easier. Papaya Cookies looks awesome! Her leaves are starting to expand more, her first node just came in and she's ready for more light. Maybe more nutrients. I should check that. But I'll empty the water next week. There isn't enough in there to cause any build up. So I can wait another week. Honestly I'm just trying to get into a schedule. End of week recap. So this was the second week of seedlings and they are both right on time for the veg stage. I know we are in the valeg stage now, but I don't know what to do without a seedling stage. Lol. We had a tiny bit of trouble with leaf twisting but that stopped very fast. Finally, the end of week readings. Temp: 74° RH: 74% VPD: 0.75 kPa Light: 321 PPFD Both plants: (roughly) pH: 6.2 (floating day) EC:1187 us/cm PPM: 598 Water temp: 72.6° ( kinda high) I'm gonna get ice packs. Welp, that's it for the week. See you tomorrow at the start of a new week of official veg. This is where it starts to get exciting! Update! So I checked the roots and we have roots! Like 3 or 4 each just about to touch the water. I think 1 root from Lemon Cherry Cookies is in the water. This is gonna be a great run!

Prilyfe13 10/08/2025 A new week! And we have roots in the water! Only on Lemon Cherry Cookies right now. Her tap root is almost at the bottom of the bucket. Seriously fast growing. Papaya Cookies is a bit slower. She has roots coming out of the basket, but they aren't even hitting water yet. Interesting. I'm going to check when the lights turn back on. Speaking of light. I bought the bar light for the tent. It'll be here in 3 days. In the meantime, I've turned the light up to level 5. The DLI is sitting very pretty at 21 mol things. PPFD is 340, or around there. I'll update with the correct PPFD. So I've dropped the night time temp about 5 to 10 degrees. Just to mimic outside. The day temps are staying at 75 for now. I plan on dropping the temp down to 72° next week. But I'm not sure. I might want to stay at 75° for the rest of the veg stage. Although, my buckets are still over 72°, but I got bottle ice pack thingy dooders. Those should help cool the water down at least below 72°. Btw, as I read, the plants weren't getting enough light. As soon as I brought the light up to 4, they started reaching for it. Setting it to 5 may be too early and if need be I'll set it back to 4. But they seem to be starving for some light. Just a little bit more won't hurt. Alright, plant structure time. Papaya Cookies has leaves coming in that seem more like a hybrid. Where Lemon Cherry Cookies has super broad leaves. She's a little shorter than her counterpart. But only by about a half inch. Papaya Cookies: 4" Lemon Cherry Cookies: 3.5" While Papaya Cookies is taller, Lemon Cherry Cookies is growing faster. Nodes popping up. Her fan leaves are futher out as well. The race is tight. Who do you think will win? It's really rough to tell. But I think the Lemon Cherry Cookies is going to be stout and super bushy. Papaya Cookies will be taller but less bushy. We shall see. Temp: 70° (night) 75° (day) RH: 62% VPD: 0.98 kPa 10/09/2025 What a weird little plant... Or too much air flow. (wind) Either way, Papaya Cookies was completely flopped over like she decided her own LST would be ok. She's perfectly fine looking though. She's even growing toward the light still. I proper he back up with a pebble. So far it's working. I wonder why that happened. The wind was fine yesterday. Any insight? Lemon Cherry Cookies is growing so nicely. One thing I've noticed though is that she is smaller than Papaya Cookies. Not by much, but enough to notice. She is just as healthy, just as fed. I don't. Know. But she is smaller, but moving along just as quickly. Interesting. We'll see how things go. I'm still confident she'll turn kit really nice. The other one: This little thing is quite the champ. She is still going. Just tiny. Same stage too. It's wild. But her leaves are starting to yellow. I'm half tempted to add a little more water to the bottom with a bit of nutrients to see what happens. Just a hint. 10/10/2025 Missed this day. Everything is as it was and as it will be. Sorry everyone. I've been quite busy and taking time to write hasn't been in the cards. It's fine. I'll be adding to the diary on the 12th. 10/11/2025 I raised the light and increased the intensity. I discovered both ladies were reaching in toward the center of the light. That tells me the footprint of the light was too short and there wasn't enough intensity. Raising the light increased the footprint. The light power was increased to 7. The power output is 194 watts. Yes I have energy monitoring. It's wonderful. They both turned back to reaching straight up. I'll have to wait til next month to see what the monthly power output is. For all those who want to know how much it costs in electricity. I'll figure it out. I bought a smart power strip. Now I can monitor the energy being used but also the power output by all the devices. I can also turn the air pump off from my phone making maintenance that much easier. It's a Kasa I got on Amazon for like . Don't need to add water yet, I'll probably change the water before I need to top off, unless these ladies continue their speedy growth. But I did add one more half teaspoon of grow nutrients. Something I noticed ,and read somewhere, the pH seems to be easier to level out with more nutrients. Like they of course have their own pH, so it works as a buffer. And it seems to be true. My pH only drifted a point and a half. 5.95 pH. It took less than 2 minutes to get it right and we move on. Lol. So the heat turned on in my house last night. This is my first winter in this apartment and the heat is included. Because the entire house uses the same heat. I'm on the second floor. It got hot. Like 75° in the apartment. I have my AC running and it's legit 56° outside. BUT it's now down to 72 in my apartment. A little too warm for me and apparently the tent. It will not drop or move from 78° regardless of the cool mist in the humidifier. Speaking of humidity, it's absolutely SPOT ON. I have it set to range between 60% and 70%. It hangs out at 65% with a slight drift up and down a point or 2. Ideal! Now if I can get the temp to drop to 75° I'll be happy. I have a feeling I'll be needing the AC in my window for the winter. Unless I buy the AC Infinity AC and that's like 0 and not happening for a 3x3 tent. Not worth it. However, to keep the water from overheating, I bought water bottle freezer packs. You know, the thin cylinders that go in your water bottle. Or a small cooler. Anyway, I have 4. So I can use one at a time and have a backup for each bucket. Not sure how it works, but I'll have to keep an eye. 64° to 72° is ideal for cannabis, and mine is like 72.5°. I wonder if I just leave it in until the water starts to warm up again. Let's talk plants now. Both of them are looking absolutely stunning. We have smell and the side branching is coming in fast. Lemon Cherry Cookies seems to be side branching faster than Papaya Cookies. Only by a little. Her leaves are also reaching slightly. Perfect green. I think adding the extra nutrients made a difference. I figured out the need for more nutes by seeing some light green to yellow new growth. Adding the extra nutes immediately turned the plants both to a very nice vibrant green. These plants, so far, are perfect. Papaya Cookies is looking great as well, but her leaves aren't reaching. They seem to be in rest mode but definitely aren't. But this plant has always had that look to her. Never really reaching, but not drooping. She's happy, but not as light hungry as Lemon Cherry Cookies. Oh well. I still expect her to be a very fine producer. So I bought the Bar light for this tent. It should be here today, so all this info I talked about today is moot. Hahahahahahaha. I made you read a whole thing for nothing. JK. It's important information especially when I switch lights. I'll definitely need this info. Oh PPFD 320. And 22 DLI. I think. I'd have to check again. Well, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna set it all up tonight and have new readings. Plus the new light is 300 watts vs the current 240 watts. The bar light also spreads the light better and more evenly. Wish it was bigger though. I almost bought the one for the 4x4, but it was over 0. Nope. But the light will be much better and I think we will see some significant growth and maybe an increase in speed. A mix of DWC and the new light, things should turn out perfect. Well, based on the information I have found on the world wide web over the years. From what I understand, temps between 70° and 80°, 65% humidity, 350 PPFD light, 64° to 72° water temp. That's at least for this stage of growth. I'll update next week with what the plants should need. At least environmentally. I don't use CO2, but I have a probe for it. Lol. It's kinda low at 702. It should be a little over 800. Temp: 78° solid RH: 65% slight drift. VPD: 1.18 kPa going with the flow 10/12/2025 I was really busy this day, so I didn't have a chance to write. But I installed the new light. I also added some nutrient water to the Germination System for the other one. I'm very curious to see what happens. If I can get her all healthy, I'll overfeed her to see what happens. This way I can decide if it's too much or too little for the actual ladies. That's all I did this day. 10/13/2025 The new light is up and running. I have it set to 60% power. The PPFD is around 360. The DLI is 23.1 mol. It's also 35" from the canopy. These ladies are loving it! They look amazing. The water temp kinda shot right up with the heat of the light, so I added a couple bottle sized ice packs. You know, the ones you put in water bottles. Long and thin. Hopefully they don't hurt the roots. But the water was at 75°. Anyway, hopefully it works. I read that people just use frozen soda bottles. So this is the same concept, just more sophisticated. Update: I just took the ice packs out. It wasn't even an hour. They are completely thawed out now. But the water temp dropped to just under 72°. So it's at least in range, but I'd like it under 70°. The water is finally starting to go down. At least 2 inches in the Lemon Cherry Cookies. And an inch for Papaya Cookies. Perfect timing because the water is getting changed on Wednesday. So tomorrow I'll start adding silica to my gallons. I have ten 1 gallon water jugs lined up. I read that silica needs to be added well before the mix is made. So tomorrow I do silica and Wednesday before I empty anything, I'll add the cal/mag and then just before everything is cleaned I'll finally add the nutrients. If everything I read is remotely right, it should be perfect for the plants. I was gonna check the PPM and EC, but there really isn't much to do about it. The pH is perfect at 5.8 and holding. The plants look absolutely spectacular. I'll check it after lights out and update after they go on. I have a feeling the PPM will be slightly lower than when I check 2 days ago, but these plants aren't big enough to make much of a difference. That's gonna change really quickly though. In about a week, or 2, we should have a full grown set of plants. Ready for the scrogging. And for flowering. The other one got some nutrients last night as I said for yesterday's entry. So far no difference, but she's not dead, so that's a good thing. I also checked to see what was going on under the germ tray. Lots of roots. I think if I keep it going, I'll get a tiny baby main cola. But the that's not the goal. The goal is to see what happens when I starve then overdose a plant... For science. This way I know exactly what to look for. So far, I don't see a single deficiency. Papaya Cookies did show a slight cal/mag deficiency, but that was quickly rectified and she worked right through it without pause. Now her leaves are perfectly green with no deficiencies. I did notice a bit of cal/mag toxicity. But it quickly passed. I think it was the sudden jolt of Cal/mag in the system. I'll be honest, I think I screwed something up with this first water bucket. Adding silica in the middle, then adding cal/mag later on. Next week, will be very different. As I said, I'll be adding silica first, then cal/mag, then the nutrients. I'll make sure each jug is thoroughly mixed before adding to the bucket. I'll make sure to top off as needed. I'm also going to mark the indicator tube on the front so I know where the 4.5 gallons begins. Having the little ball helps, but I don't know where it starts. I didn't look when I started. Oops. Of course we will be learning from our mistakes. Oh I know it's late, but I wanted everyone to know that my numbers for the week not in the description, but the recorded numbers are the goals. Except for height. I just measure it at the beginning of the week. I don't measure again until the beginning of the next week, unless they take off and I have to start recording it daily. But that's not here yet. So yah, the numbers are current goals. Next week I think I'll keep the environment the same. But of course I'll get on track with nutrients. What really sucks about the nutrient brand I'm using is they don't have a feeding schedule for autoflowers. So I'm winging it. They say take 30% out, but I dunno. This is my first DWC, so I'm being careful. Adding a little at a time. Autos can be finicky after all. But now I think they are old enough to and established enough where I can start adding nutrients just under 40%. I'll work with 30% when we get to the flowering stage. And then this will be the last auto run for a while. I have a ton of photoperiods and have never run a photo. It's time to grow up. Lol. Although, some would argue that autos are harder because you can't make mistakes with them. I don't know yet. But I feel like having extra time in the veg stage with any mistakes is easier, just more time consuming. However, I feel like no mistakes with a photoperiod will have a better yield. Again, I'm not sure. The 12/12 might be a problem. I may have to buy the updated 3x3 when I run photos. The room the tent is in happens to have a shit ton of light. Like a whole wall of windows and a fully windowed door It's in the morning and then the other wall with windows catches the realst of the day. Believe me when I say, there's zero point in a light for the whole day. Not until the sun sets. No breaks. And for some reason, the AI wants to run lights out in the middle of the day. I'll have to change that somehow. I'll need it to be lights out at night. Like 6 pm to 6 am. I hope you're enjoying my random weed thoughts. Long winded I know. But there's basis to them at least. Finally, today's environment. It's a bit warm and a bit humid. Honestly I think it's just right for these flourishing plants. Just booming with life. Booming, not blooming, we aren't there yet. Lol It's hanging out at 77° to 78° today. The humidity is a little bouncy, but seems to favor the 68% range. Our VPD looks good though, pretty steady, around 1.0 kPa. That's a happy number. So we covered the light, the water, the temp and the environment with a little fluff. That's good for the day I think.

Prilyfe13 10/14/2025 I almost waited til tomorrow. Oops. But I caught it. We have some good things coming our way folks. These ladies grew about 25% bigger in 6 hours. They are definitely hungry and enjoying life. I just changed the their water and am keeping an eye for the next hour for any issues. I haven't done a water change before, so I'm not sure what else, if anything, I have to do. From what I understand, it's get your mix ready, place a plant in different bucket and clean out bucket. (I just used hot ass water for the first time.) There wasn't any buildup and the water is plenty hot. I know I'm supposed to like bleach it, set it on fire and then rub it down with peroxide, but that seems a bit overboard. Hot water for the first time should be fine. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. Then I fix the issue. After my hot rinse, don't worry, I was definitely thorough, I placed the bucket back in the tent and filled her up. Then I pHed for a final time and placed the plant back in the bucket. Sounds right to me. Anyway, these ladies! Wow! I haven't measured them yet. I will after I'm done with this. But these plants are moving quite fast. I know they're autos and that's what they do, but I've grown autos exclusively so far and I haven't seen a plant grow so much in 6 hours in the veg stage. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or this hydroponics dooder really works. Personally, I think it's the hydroponics. And it's so easy to control. Add nutrients, take measurements and add or take away. Not hard at all. As for who's winning the race, it's neck and neck. There's no real difference between the two at the moment. Neither othem are stunted, or showing any signs of deficiency or toxicity. Not entirely sure what to look for when it comes to hydro. Like what is common? You know? I don't know if I mentioned that I jacked the light all as high as it would go. It's about 4 inches from the roof of the tent. Like 34 inches from the plants. Correction! The light is now 27 inches from the canopy and I increased the PPFD to 450 with the light being at 70% power. Hopefully this isn't too bright, but everywhere I've read says 200 to 500 PPFD during the veg stage. So it should be fine and dandy. Good light too, so this should be a great spot. The AI system is keeping the environment in total check. I dropped the RH down to 63% I'll knock it down to 60% next week. Then 50% the first week of flower and then down to 45 and then 40 and so on. I'm gonna stop at 45 for the majority of flowering. Temp: 74° RH: 65% VPD: 0.97 kPa 10/15/2025 So I added about 250 ml of nutrients water to the other one's tray. Lots of green coming in. Such a tiny plant. Watch her spit out a handful of super tight potent nugs. Like lowers. The pH spiked up from 5.8 to 6.7 in 24 hours. Any thoughts? I pHed it, but what caused it is my question. Maybe it was the new water settling. Either way, it's all set now. But still... Anyway, they really seem to like the light intensity. So we'll leave it there for the time being. But I'm gonna have to raise it soon. I wanna try to mimic the sun as much as possible. Also, I feel like the plants will grow a bit taller with the light being so high. Like how they get so big outside. They know. They have to know. They are plants. The tiny one I have is a perfect example. It grew to the height it could in the surroundings it had. A bigger light foot print with the same PPFD should make things insane. I'm gonna do that in a couple days. Temp: 74.5° RH: 63.8% VPD: 1.06 kPa 10/16/2025 OMG I forgot to mention that my air filter was clogged up so bad that even at level 10 on my exhaust fan got zero air. So I pulled it off. The new one will be here later today when I do my actual daily entry. 10/19/2025 I got locked out of Grow Diaries for a couple days. Cached data issue. Anyway, I have an issue now. I asked about it the other day with some pretty good answers. But I figured out the issue. My Papaya Cookies has a fungal infection. 2 days ago, I had some serious clear nutrient lockout issues. Or so I thought. It could have been cal/mag, so I did a light flush and added a bit of cal/mag. NOPE. The next day it was way worse. Like leaves are starting to die. Clearly sucking the life from the poor leaves. (Didn't realize how easy nutrient deficiency is to identify) So I added a little bit of nutrients to the mix. THEN I saw it. The stem! It's choking itself? WTF? Nope. I took a picture and had Android Gemini AI dona search. Sure enough it pulled up pictures of exactly what my stem looked like. Fungal infection! The stem did that in about 11 hours. I went back and looked at the camera. I also have a pic of it posted. Someone suggested bugs. I checked but with the discovery of the stem putting a chokehold on itself. It's so weird. It looks like the stem is going to pinch itself in half and the whole plant will fall off. Fortunately I have Crop Defender 3. Now I get to use it. The annoying part is this is the first time I've had to really use it. Never had a fungal infection before. I did have white flies once, but I killed them off pretty quickly with neem oil. I might have used the defender. It was a couple years ago. Anyway, I dosed both plants just before lights out yesterday and will be doing another one at lights out today as well. The issue seems to be slowing down. But I'll keep it up until I see the stem start to repair itself or well, until I see the stem is completely healed. I also removed the really bad leaves. There was only 2. There's 2 more that were also starting to get eaten away, but it seems to have slowed down. As for Lemon Cherry Cookies, she's perfectly fine. I still dosed her just in case. I also removed 2 leaves. These 2 were huge. And I know, taking off huge leaves is kind of a no no in this stage, but we are nearly at week 3. These 2 were covering at least 6 bud sites. So I took them off. Just the 2. I might take the leaves closest to the bottom off as well. They are starting to touch the containers. And the salts build up pretty quickly from the top feed system. I was considering putting more pebbles on top to cover the water outlets better and to better support the plant. But I don't think she'll need support. Her stem is starting to get super thick. Back to Papaya Cookies. I will be adding some more pebbles for support. Well, and also for the water outlets. But mostly for support. See picture. Lol. I also checked her roots. Very clean, very white and no slime anywhere I can see. Good roots. I've also made a holding bucket with clean filtered water pHed to 5 8. I feel like a little soak in the clean water will help dissolve salts as well as clean out the top water system. And clean the pebbles, kinda, as well. I've been working the pH and whatnot while they are in the bath. I think I can get a couple days out of it. Maybe 3. So I'll be changing it tomorrow. I'll check the PPM first though. I forgot to do the daily environment. Sorry everyone. 10/20/2025 Today was a snip day for Lemon Cherry Cookies. I took off the lowest big fan leaves and one more set one node up. It freed up so much space for the branches underneath. Now she looks like a mess with her leaves all flopping in all different directions. Kinda like me in the morning. Floppin around and pretending to be able to make coffee. Ahem. Back to the report. Anyway, she'll be fine after she has a nice rest. So I'm starting to think maybe a week or so longer and she'll be in pre flower. I just have a feeling. Ya know? And if she keeps growing at this rate, she should be a pretty decent size before the flowering stretch. I'm thinking about the scrog net, but I'm not sure. I think I'll put it up at 3 ft. And if I have to get another one, I will. Papaya Cookies is... I don't know... Sick. Really sick, but still growing. Her fungal infected stem and the weight of the still growing plant, is starting to make her tilt a bit. I'm really worried the infection is going to cut her off completely or she snaps and the whole plant falls down. And I have no idea what to do if that happens. Dead plant I guess. I was thinking about finding a way to stabilize her, like a Popsicle stick or something. Which I don't have. I would also need some thick plant wire. I don't have that either. I think I'll have to order both. Hopefully they get here in time. It could be any day. Maybe even today. Unless she doesn't snap, but bends over enough for the weight to ease up a bit. Then boom. I have a really strange plant structure. As it's lights out at the moment, I'd like to say the tent environment is perfect. I have it set to 68° and 63% humidity. Spot on. Nothing is running except the fans. The exhaust fan stays at 1 to keep the air exchange going. 10/21/2025 Forgot to do the environment specs last night. My main concern is the Papaya Cookies. She's starting to lean from her weight on the affected part of the stem. See picture. It's not good at all. This was my main concern. The thing is, I can see the plant trying to heal. The knot above and below the infected area shows that it's still alive and kicking hard. I'm not sure she will heal enough to avoid tipping over. What the hell should I do? Try to find a way to prop her up? How? Popsicle stick? Small metal spoon? Lol. I don't have Popsicle sticks. Lemon Cherry Cookies looks fantastic! She's really putting in some double time. I think I'm gonna order some plant training clips. Big ones. Her branches are all standing at attention. If I train them down, her total canopy area will triple. And maybe she'll be the same height as Papaya Cookies. She has obviously been stunted. Although, if I were talented enough and had the right stuff, I could train Papaya Cookies down and use the tie downs to keep her from leaning on any direction. As I said the other day, I added more clay pebbles. It seems to be working really well. At least for the top feeding system. It's no longer spitting water everywhere. I couldn't get them to stay up so I couldn't cover the weak point on Papaya Cookies. Oh well. The spitting water is what I was really going for. Let's talk environment for a minute. So I ordered an Exhale 356 bag. It's getting replaced. It was already active and should not have looked white at all. Anyway, I have it hanging up in the tent for now while I wait for the new one. It seems to be working? I haven't hit over 800 ppm in about 3 weeks. And now it bounces in and out of 800. And it's only been in there for about 12 hours. We'll see how the new one works. I've been told it takes a couple days to get going. So I'll have to start recording the daily CO2 ppms. Temp: 75° RH: 63% VPD: 1.10 kPa

Prilyfe13 10/14/2025 Week 3 of veg. We are looking great for Lemon Cherry Cookies. She's 8" tall. Not quite the 12 inches I was hoping for at this age. But she is strong. Great stem, or should I say stalk or trunk? It's hardening off now and getting big. She's not taking in a ton of water. I'll top her up this afternoon after lights out. Papaya Cookies looks like she's about to tip over from the affected area on her stem. I think the infection is gone now. It's just a matter of healing. I'll continue using crop defender 3 until she's totally healed and no longer cannibalizing herself. But I don't know how I'm going to prop her up. As it is definitely needed. Or well from what I can see, she needs it. See picture. Anyway, this week, I'm going to try to be a bit more organized. You know, organize the pics so you see the same plant over and over. So you can see the progress without having to flip through pics. Also, I'll try to keep my thoughts in check. Environment this week. So it's about the same as last week. 63% humidity and 75° for temp. The VPD should stay around that 1.10 kPa. The difference is I'm increasing the nutrients a little bit and officially adding silica blast. I'm also trying to increase the CO2 so I can increase the light intensity. The light distance is also going to change. I may lift it up and crank the power so I have a tent flooded with light. I'm gonna want a DLI of like 30 mol. Right now it's around 20. Should be higher than that. Who knows, maybe I'll start today at 25 mol, and bring it up slowly to 30 by the end of the week. If I'm not mistaken, I should be around 40 when flowering hits. 45 to 50 if I can get the CO2 to work. The light is 300 watts in a 3x3 tent. So I should t have a problem with intensity. I'd also like to note that the hangers the light came with take away about 8 inches of space. I'll be fixing that as soon as I run out of space. I also have the CO2 bag sitting just above the light. The bag is pretty big, so it might take up more space than I can handle. I'll figure it out though. For the light, I think I'll add independent clips to each corner. So I can lift it up high enough for more growth. Anyway, that's my pre lights out briefing. I'll be back with the days numbers. Although, the numbers should be spot on. And they aren't. I'll be back with more stable numbers later on today. They really are mostly stable I promise. PPFD: 650 DLI: 42.5 mol (kinda high, but I'm seeing no light issues.) Temp: 73.3° RH: 62.9% VPD: 1.04 kPa 10/22/2025 I'd like to start today with a thanks to all that have been answering my recent questions. If you are one of those and you're reading this, again thank you all for your fountain of information. I'd like to explain what I believe happened. The environment was and still is perfect. The humidifier is barely running. There's also heat in the tent, so there's no issue with things drying out as they should. While I 100% believe there was a moisture issue, I don't believe it was from the environment. It's super perfect thanks to the efficiency of the AI controller I have. The roots look perfect as well. Nice and white. So no root rot. Also, for those of you who don't know I have a second plant in the tent and it's doing wonderfully. It's a Lemon Cherry Cookies by FastBuds. Great branching, awesome color, no issues whatsoever. She was fed and treated exactly the same as the dying Papaya Cookies. What I think happened is the splash from the top feeder was getting onto that specific area of the stem. You can tell when you touch it and all that comes off is salt. Not powdery mildew, but salt. Lots of it. SO, it was definitely from moisture, but not where everyone thought. But all your answers helped me to know what to look out for next time. Personally I don't think I need to go back to soil. As this is my first hydro grow and I have 1 plant that is perfect and one that is still growing pretty well, but is definitely having feeding troubles now. I do like the idea of tying a string to the top of the tent and holding her up. I might do that instead of the stake. The EC and PPM are on point. So it's not that. It has to be the splash of the top feeder. Which I fixed by adding more clay pebbles to help block the splash. So far it's working wonders. One last thing and I think it's a shot in the dark, but I have "The Other One" which is also a Papaya Cookies. If you're reading this you already know. But I haven't mentioned it. That one has what looks like the exact same problem. It was no where near the salts, humidifier or anything wet except for the tray with the water in the bottom. She has great roots for still in a seedling tray. But also has the same squeeze on her stem. Doesn't anyone find that odd? Let me know in a dm or the comments. I'm keeping her alive to see what happens. With that. I mean, she has no oxygen getting to the roots, so she will die eventually. But til then, I'll use her as a reference for under feeding and overfeeding. As I've done both so far. And she's not dead! But it definitely is doing the same thing. I took a picture just now. I'll post it for everyone to see. This makes me think that the specific type of fungus is dangerous to this specific strain. Has to be something like that. I'm gonna contact FastBuds for some insight. Again, thank you all for the help. Oh, the dying Papaya Cookies isn't dying anymore. She looks healthy except for the already damaged parts of the leaves. But nothing is spreading anymore. So I killed the fungus and the plant seems to be on the mend. I'll keep it and see what happens. If anything it's for... SCIENCE! Back to our regularly scheduled program. So today is a great day for Lemon Cherry Cookies. I'm not training her yet, I'm gonna wait for the scrog net I think. However, I really do want to train her down a bit. Maybe I'll do that today. Just a bit. I can't express how healthy she is. Never have I ever. And this is my first time in DWC. I think I like it to be honest. It's easier than guessing what's happening in the soil. I bought some training clips for her. I'm not really sure how I would attach tie downs to this particular bucket system. The lids kinda seal themselves to the bucket... In a way. So there's no space to put a clip or hook. So training clips it is! I really don't like them, but I've only had experience with cheap small ones. Maybe these larger ones will do better. They're the BudClips brand. So good I guess? I haven't really seen anything else that I recognize. So I just hung up the Papaya Cookies with some plant tie. I also took the largest 2 leaves on top. It opened up so much space and took some weight off. I know when a plant is recovering, clipping leaves is a no no, but as it stands ,she might die anyway, so why not give the bud sites a chance. Temp: 73.1° RH: 61.2% VPD: 1.08 kPa Quick update: I increased the light intensity to 450 PPFD. It was a bit too low for this stage. I think next week I can put it up to a 35 DLI. We'll see.