Baby Yoda & Ice Cream Cake

RandomGuyGrows Free cuts, figured why not grow them out. Baby Yoda was in bad shape, took me awhile but I got her back, you'll see. Ice Cream Cake is a legit pleasure to grow, bushy, takes anything you throw at her, wild lateral branching, don't need to top, though I did. Started about 0.8 EC with quick ramp to 1.2 EC

RandomGuyGrows I'm calling this week 2 of veg. Cuts were obtained one week apart. Baby Yoda still a mess at this point. Ice Cream Cake is just a beast, started LST. One of the cuts, Ice Cream Cake, came with a thrip, noticed some damage on the leaves early. Dr. Zyme foliar treatment to both, 3 days in a row, then 1 treatment with Safer Garden 3 in 1, raw DE added to top of coco and more importantly, coating the base of the plant to interrupt the lifecycle of the thrip should they not be killed by the foliar.

RandomGuyGrows Lots of LST. Baby Yoda coming around. Started weekly root drench which includes: Stash Blend, Molasses Powder, Thrive Alive Kelp B-1 Green, Orca. They get 0.5gal normal nutrient daily in 70/30 coco. The weekly root drench, I give the normal feed then give the root drench. Baby Yoda got a few CalMag foliar sprays at lights out with Yucca. Both got a silica folair with yucca.

RandomGuyGrows Week 4. EC is pushed to 2.0 with Crop Salt and the listed additives this week. The full Crop Salt dose (4.6/3.1) with listed additives comes out at about 2.25 EC. Root drench was done 11/18, 11/25, 12/1. Growth is steady, Baby Yoda pulled thru. Ice Cream Cake is a beast.

RandomGuyGrows They exploding. Lots of LST. Weekly root drench (Stash Blend etc.), weekly foliar (silica/kelp/MagSulfate). Just training the tops in place. Periodic defoliation. Ladies are doing well, Baby Yoda is at full health. Pretty simple setup at this point. Periodic defoliation, two sites I'm trying to creep back into the canopy on Ice Cream Cake, one on Baby Yoda, overall timed everything decently.

RandomGuyGrows Time to flip. Prep work. Defoliation. Lollipopping. Light switched to 12/12 on 12/20/25. IR started, 15 mins runtime twice daily, before lights on and after lights off. UV started, small doses, 10 mins, at hour 6 to start. UV will be ramped to 10 mins every hour of lights on after 1st hour. PPFD on the canopy is 850, HLG 225 Diablo X set to 50%. Once daily feeds, 2.25 EC, 0.5gal @ 5.8 pH. Checked run off recently. Baby Yoda coming out fine, Ice Cream Cake EC coming out at 2.8, I'll alternate full and half strength feeds for a few days.

RandomGuyGrows Week 1 of flower (stretch) 12/20-12/26. Everything looking good, ladies are stretching out. Trying to limit defoliation etc., I have a tendency to abuse Ice Cream Cake trying to open up the canopy to help the lower tops up. She can take anything you throw at her, some great genetics from Seed Junky. Baby Yoda was annoying to start, thrives on full dose CropSalt. Fertigation started this week, 0.6gal over 3mins, 30 mins after lights on, and 6 hours later. Sticking with two fertigation events in 5 gal fabric pots.

RandomGuyGrows Week 2 flower (stretch). 12/27-1/2. RH down to 50% by end of week. No issues, everything looking good. They got the Stash Blend root drench Tuesday this week. I'll do 1-2 more weeks of Stash Blend before switching out to Grower's Recharge for the weekly drench. Stash Blend is the base, I add a bunch of stuff to the weekly drench which includes; Sea-K, MicrobeLife Vitamins & Aminos, powdered molasses, Cannazym, Canna Boost, Orca, Thrive Alive Kelp Red w/ B-1, SuperThrive. I mix them up in the drench once weekly, but don't overlap them if possible, no Thrive Alive + Sea-K, redundant, etc. I don't like to introduce the stress of the Trichoderma in Recharge, which will rapidly outcompete the Mykos in the root zone, until after stetch when the increase in root volume has theoretically plateaued. Trichoderma and the associated stress from crowding the root zone, plays a solid role in early to late flower to increase potency and breath/width of buds, basically the PK+ window to harvest.

RandomGuyGrows Week 3 flower. 1/3 - 1/9. Little bit of light stress on two Ice Cream Cake tops, caught it quick, weaved it down into the trellis net. PPFD just a bit over 1000 right now at 50% power.

RandomGuyGrows Week 4 Flower (1/10 - 1/16). They're doing quite well, they recovered quick from day 21 defoliation. Dropped the silica down from 4ml/gal to 2ml/gal, I'll run this until flush. RapidStart/rooting supplement stopped end of week 3. Added P31 microbes, 0.5ml/gal, swapped out the Orca. Been considering the concept of adding phosphate solubilizing bacteria throughout the post stretch period to see if the theoretical advantage matches the increase in potency/yield, we shall see. The reservoir is way more stable right now with the CropSalt Bloom switch and no more Orca. I run microbes in my reservoir, I expect some type of pH drifting because of it, but I will say, just running what I have in there now(Cropsalt/Canna Boost/Mr. Fulvic/TPS Silica/P31), comes out at 5.8 pH and is rock steady over 2-3 days to where I think I have to pH up to 6.2 or so. My set is nothing crazy, Mr. Fulvic I run the whole way thru, constant baseline of micro fulvics grabbing all those charges and helping them into the roots. Canna Boost is a favorite, have to be smart with it, hormone isolated from alphalpha, I run a baseline starting about 2 weeks before I intend to flip, starting 4ml/gal, so as not to interrupt those other hormonal pathways I'll be inducing by switching the light to 12/12 and inducing flowering, I bring it up to 10ml/gal by week 4 of flower and hold it there until flush. Lowered the PPFD to a better target of 900, somewhere in that 800-900 is where I'm trying to be right about now, seeing those burnt tips, not horrible but typically when you see that it means the plant is expending too much energy to repair all that excessive photon/nutrient 'damage' to keep the leaves healthy, so that they aren't expending that energy into making frosted buds, I try to dance that edge of barely burnt tips. The light, first time with it, the HLG 225 Diablo X, super powerful, I read that some people run it at full and at 18" in flower, but there's no way, because for me, light is at 50% and 18" from canopy, pushing 1000PPFD all over the canopy. This is my first run with CropSalt, I think it might be a little hot for Ice Cream Cake, it's going in at 2.8EC, runoff is like 3.2EC.

RandomGuyGrows Week 5 flower. (1/17 - 1/23). Some of the leaves showing some upturn, could be a sign of too much light. Most of the tops getting 900-1050PPFD, never was able to turn the HLG above 50% in this tent. Rolling at 70-75F and 40-50%RH post stretch, that new 1.5+ VPD they're dealing with, probably annoying them a bit. Some advise getting RH in the 30-40% range when deep in flower, I never bother getting below 45%, it'll sit 45-55%. My goal is usually just under 60%, unless I know the strain is prone to PM or other issues. PM not something I need to worry about running Seed Junky and Compound Genetics cuts. Overall, they're coming along just about right, synganic approach really has smoothed out the run and the results should impress. Terps from sugar leaf rub: Baby Yoda = mint and funk, Ice Cream Cake = vanilla ice cream.