Atlas F1 One-to-One

drakkon Day eight and all's well with the Atlas F1. I mist the young plant a few times a day and irrigate the soil with a tiny amount of water as needed. When I'm not inspecting or photographing the plant, I cover it with a clear plastic humidity dome. The second set of leaves to emerge includes a one-leaflet leaf and a two-leaflet leaf.

drakkon The Atlas F1 is looking pretty good on day 15. There are a few small dings and discolored patches, but I inspected the whole plant and found no pests of any kind. I suspect the marks are from handling while I added a layer of white pumice to the top of the soil. I added the pumice as a proactive measure to inhibit fungus gnats, of which I've spotted a few recently. My grow area is under a desk in my office, which is also home to a couple of houseplants, and even more in nearby rooms. As an added precaution, I'm layering white pumice on top of those, too, where feasible. Furthermore, I'll be letting all plants in the building, autoflowers and houseplants alike, dry more thoroughly before watering. Transplanting and training are on the near horizon. I haven't decided whether to top the plant, as I often do, or to try fimming for the first time.

drakkon The Atlas F1 underwent transplanting on day 16, and is now settling in to its final container, a 3-gallon (~11 L) fabric grow bag, on day 22. I decided to try out a fabric container to see how it compares against air pots and plastic pots. I've had successes and failures over the years with both types, so I'm not set on one over the other. We'll see how it goes with fabric. In recent grows, I did not amend/aerate the soil with pumice, but I'm learning and experimenting as I go, so this time I went with about 70% soil and 30% pumice, plus a ~1/2" layer of pumice on top to discourage fungus gnats. After transplanting, I boosted humidity at first with a dome, and then in the room. The plant paused for a day or two after transplanting but is growing every day now. Given the pause, I changed my mind and will neither top or FIM the plant. I plan to apply some LST in the coming days. I watered the plant in its new soil on transplant day (16), but have not watered it since. The container still feels on the heavy side. There's a small patch of mite bites on a lower leaf, so I'll monitor that situation. To help discourage mites, I plan to introduce small peppermint and basil plants to the area. Those seedlings just emerged two days ago, so we'll see if they grow fast enough to have an impact on this Atlas (I've had success with that strategy for small grows in the past.)

drakkon Good news, the Atlas F1 is looking healthy on day 29. Bad news, it's growing slower than I'd like. Hopefully, its roots are developing and spreading out and it will pick up speed in the coming weeks. It's currently ~16" from my 130W lamp, which is set at 70% intensity. The light currently measures ~440 PPFD at the top of plant. I'll increase that a little at a time over the next couple weeks. The plant appears to be in the pre-flowering stage, but hasn't really stretched much. If it doesn't stretch significantly, and soon, I fear it will end up kind of small. Either way, I imagine this will be the diary's last veg-entry. The plant hasn't been drinking very much yet. I've fed it once with dilute grow nutrients and will introduce bloom nutrients soon.

drakkon The Atlas F1 has grown a little, but not a lot, over the past week, and it's definitely flowering. In the first half of the week, its overall health and leaf-appearance worsened. After consulting some leaf charts, reading comments here, and using an AI diagnostic tool, I had a short list of possible issues. Transplant shock, overwatering, pH issue, and N or iron deficiency. I've really tried not to overwater, but I suppose it could still show those symptoms, especially if it's not happy in its pot after transplanting and water is just sitting there. In all of my plants in Happy Frog, the pH generally stays around 7, and I don't measure often, but the Atlas checked out at 7 (I typically water with ~6.5-7.0 pH). Whatever I was doing wasn't optimal, so I decided to change up my feeding and a switch to a low concentration of GH FloraMicro and FloraBloom. The Organics Alive dry solubles I've been using have served me relatively well for quite a few grows (with and without diaries), but as far as I know they do not contain any micronutrients. I thought maybe the FloraMicro would help in that regard, in case iron deficiency was indeed one of my issues. I also gently skewered the soil a little to aerate it. I made the nutrient switch in the middle of the week, and after a couple days, the plant does seem to be doing a little better. The newer growth looks pretty decent, and the plant put on another inch in height in relatively short order. I'm under no illusion that it will attain the size, health and yield that it would have had it not experienced post-transplantation issues, but at least it's improving a little rather than getting worse.