Caring for Angry Bears

Grow_for_Happiness Well here they are, looking happy and healthy so far! First set of leaves has come in and already they are working on their second set. Watered 1L each late week as the pots were drying out. Watering just outside of the leaves around the plant to help keep roots dry and promoting root growth outwards and downwards. Been a while since I've run fabric, forget how fast it dries vs plastic.

Grow_for_Happiness So here we are at the end of week two and the girls are now on the autopot system and in the main tent. They are now residing on the Autopot Tray2Grow in their 3 gallon fabric pots. First time using the Tray2Grow for weed, but have used for peppers before with good success. Also means no air domes needed, bonus! The girls are sunning themselves under the Mars Hydro FCE-4800 inside the Mars Hydro 4x8, both of which I picked up on a huge "divorce deal" I stumbled across marketplace in the spring. The taps were turned on the last day of this week, so day 21 from seed in soil, right on time! I have turned taps on as early as 16 days but usually around 19-23 days. Should see some good growth this week as a result, will have to start leaf tucking but not very much because they seem to have a wide stance already. 500 umol/s all week Stay tuned!

Grow_for_Happiness Well it's been one week with the taps on, and the girls have doubled in size and the roots are pushing through the bottom of the pots and into the root control fabric on the tray! Pretty impressed at how easy this tray has been to run so far. Set the mats in, put your fabric pots down, turn on the taps and watch your plants flourish! Girls were getting 550-580 umol/s with nice airflow thanks to the 6" AC clip fans. Haven't done this strain before but seems to be a little on the bushier side so far. May have to defoliate a bit next week if it doesn't start to stretch out a bit.

Grow_for_Happiness Well it looks like we have reached the end of veg! Girls are starting to grow up fast, and even with a light defoliation and leaf tucking at begining of week they are filled right back in by the end of it! Other than that didn't do much this week as I was quite sick with the flu. Had me off my feet for 6 days, luckily thanks to the Autopots I only had to worry about filling the reservoir, hand watering would have been very tough/painful. Girls are getting thirsty, picking up to about 2 liters per day. Must be because of all the roots busting out onto the root control fabric! Both fabrics pots have tons of roots coming out the bottom, and just like we want to see they are nice, thick, and white healthy roots.

Grow_for_Happiness Well it looks like the veg stage is behind us and the first week of flower is already done! These girls shot up 8" this week and got noticably more bushy with bud sites popping up all over the place. Which is why mid week I decided to do a light defoliation of mostly inside fan leaves, with 2-3 small inside branches per plant. They were just looking much too congested in the centers, and could see some drooping damp looking leaves. While doing the work I noticed that the exhaust fan was cycling up and down much faster than normal. I took a look at the charts and humidity was swinging from 60-65% within seconds of the fan cycling down to idle. That combined with the droopy leaves made me realize that I was not getting enough inter canopy airflow. So I MacGyvered myself a fresh air intake diffuser rather than rely on the passive air intake on the tent. Basically a piece of 4" drainage pipe cut to length with the holes bored out to 3/4". Capped one end, and the open end I put through a hole which I cut slightly undersized so when I slid the pipe through it sealed quite well. Pipe runs entire length of tent and is hung by ratchet hangers. Connected to a 4" ACI inline fan which feeds through the wall into my basement main room which is 21°C and 35-40% RH. The inline fan is running at 3 while idle, and increases as the 6" exhaust fan cycles up. Now the environment is at a steady 57-58%RH and 25-26°C and the fans are running steady at 30%! Very happy with the results, will be a permanent feature in the big tent going forward. Only other change was increasing the base nutrient feed by .25ml to help with extra demand for nutes during flower.

Grow_for_Happiness Wow these girls really filled in this week! Only 5" of vertical growth but the girls are noticably wider and looking more full. Also looking quite healthy with a nice green colour, save for a handful of leaves at the very bottom but that's not uncommon. Still blown away by the amount of roots that have grown out of the base of the fabric pots! Vary thick and tough feeling, but white and healthy looking as ever! Bud sites really starting to come in as we end the week, looks like these girls could have great potential if everything keeps running smooth (knock on wood). Environment has been on point since uprages last week, fans running mostly at a steady 40% with the occasional spike to 60% and keeping the RH within 2% of target. Light is still at 80% and 18" hitting 650-750 umol/s