100l/26gal RQS Biscotti Experiment

viejo 2nd March She popped up to say hello after only a couple of days. No sign of any stress or mutation. Off to a promising start, my only concern is that there's no airflow in the box, but it's too cold to remove her yet. I air the box out each time I check on her, maybe once or twice a day, just to be safe. As an aside, I've had great experience with RQS seeds and have only had a few seeds fail to germinate over the years! I'm a great fan of their Shogun strain, but decided to try something different for this experiment.

viejo 09 March I've been looking forward to updating the diary! My timekeeping isn't the best, so from this point on I'll update every seven days. Next update on the 16th. Water is pH'd to around about 6.5, but I'm using litmus paper and eyeballing it. This method has served me well throughout the years, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't use a fancy tester if I had one. I often wonder at the pH of the soil itself, but some things aren't meant to be known by mortal men. I lower the pH of my tap water with BioBizz's made-for-purpose mix, an aqueous solution of citric acid. Keeping it simple! I tasted it to confirm, wouldn't recommend. I always let the water sit in the can for at least 24 hours (in the sun if possible) to allow any chlorine added to the water supply to off-gas. This is a small detail, but seems to make a big difference over time. Smell your water when it's poured vs 24 hours later, it's night and day. We don't like drinking pool water, and neither do our girls. I've begun adding some root-juice to the water, only 2ml per liter (I half whatever their chart suggests for fertilisers too, team anti-burn) mostly because it feels good to do so. I like to imagine it helps, but I've noticed that they oftentimes begin growing root-nodules from the stem itself as a result, starting around an inch or two from the top of the soil. If this happens, I raise the height of the soil to meet them and they grow into it and flourish. I dunno if that's a common thing, but it seems weird to me that a plant would grow roots above the soil, so I'm guessing it's caused by the root-juice directly. A cursory search suggests it's full of humic and fulvic acids designed to "stimulate plant growth", which sounds cool to me despite my ignorance of the mechanics at play. I wish these companies would explain the mechanisms behind their products so we might get a better handle on what they are, and what the big idea behind them actually is. Anyway, if it happens again this time I'll be sure to take some close-up photos.

viejo March 16th Knocking on wood so I don't curse myself and my girl for saying it, but she's looking perfectly happy and healthy. No sign of stress or mutation so far, but it's early doors. I've added a drop of bio-bizz fish mix and calmag to the baby bottle to ease her into the swing of things, as a preventative measure and to show her I care. I explained what I was adding and why, on the off-chance she understands. To my great regret and embarrassment I've lost my litmus paper, so no pHing the new solution. I've read the fancy soil she's in does some work to pH itself appropriately, so if that's true nothing awful ought to happen until the new papers arrive. Fingers crossed, but it's not cool and hardly ideal. I apologised and explained I'll be able to pH her water properly within a couple of days, thanks to Amazon Prime. It was more difficult to explain Amazon Prime than my thoughts behind amending her water, but I think in the end she understands the basics of drayage now, as it'll be arriving from overseas. There's nothing worse than burning your babies. More jellybeans is better than less jellybeans, but that's jellybeans. I learned that as a kid. This logic is not the same when it comes to plant fertiliser, however, and I'd rather she not try to claw me for going overboard. Less is more. (Unless we're talking about jellybeans.) I plan to repot her as soon as I see some exploratory roots poking from the bottom of the pot, but there's no sign of that yet. We're going into a 20L fabric pot first, then into the final 100L, though I expect I'll have to cut her out of it... but sacrifices made in the name of science are hardly sacrifices at all, especially when you buy your fabric pots in sets of six from china.

viejo March 23rd I got a bit of a scare. The transplant didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, I think I maybe let her dry out a touch too much before making the move to the intermediate fabric pot. When you're used to a happily praying plant and suddenly she's drooping and even showing signs of early nitrogen deficiency it feels like you've really fucked up... but since we're on the same website I'm guessing you know the feeling. After a couple of days and some extra fish-mix to counter the mild chlorosis she perked up again, much to my relief. Next time I think it's worth moistening the soil and letting it "cook" for a few days, too, rather than putting the plant directly in without allowing the soil to settle in terms of microorganismal growth. I'm still letting the water sit for at least 24hrs before watering with the addition of worm hummus in the water to produce a weak tea. Then I add whatever nutrients to it before pHing. This stuff is magic. The big 100L is now full and moistened throughout for the same reason, the thought process is to allow the soil to do its invisible business for as long as possible for the best result. I don't understand much about soil, but I understand there's a lot going on in there that maybe I don't fully appreciate. The mix is about 75% fresh light mix to 25% worm castings. I also added in some of the old soil reclaimed from a previous grow in the hopes that I'd re-seed the big pot with an active population of springtails. A cursory search suggested their eggs can live in a dormant state for months, coming alive again when moisture returns. Fingers crossed! edit: Those egg boxers are unrelated, just some sunflowers and camomile for the garden. The big light works wonders for fast and loose propagation.

viejo March 30th With the addition of a fan aimed slightly to the side of the plant rather than directly at her, she seems happier than ever. I've aimed the flow of air so that the plant barely gets blown around at all, but has a constant exchange of air to aid in transpiration. At least that's the idea. I'd turn it to face the plant fully but I worry about wind burn, so I'll save that for when she's a little larger. Since transplanting into the intermediate fabric pot I've only watered her once, and even then less than two litres (0.5gal). In terms of nutes, I'm keeping far on the side of playing it safe, adding only 1/4 of the bio-bizz chart recommendation, and even then a couple of leaf tips have sustained an ever-so-slight burn. I dunno what they're thinking with their suggestions, but I'd caution anybody to take it extremely easy before ramping up to following their instructions in full. Their chart is pretty though, no denying that. Every day I've been increasing the light intensity by the barest turn of the dimmer, aiming to reach 100% for the remainder of the grow by the time she's ready to be moved into her final 100L/26gal pot. I've also begun turning on the extractor fan for a few hours to remove some humidity, as the addition of the moist medium of my sunflowers and chamomile in old egg boxes has made a noticeable difference to the feeling of the air. Best to make the most of the big light while there's space though :) Other than that, nothing new to report!

viejo 06 April Finally transplanted into the big pot! This was the dream since the start, and the result looks exactly as it did in my mind's eye. I've never transplanted from such a large pot before, only from smaller ones where the process was as simple as turning the pot upside down and lifting the plant out. Obviously this wasn't an option this time. To cause as little stress as possible I opted to cut her from her pot and lift her into a premade hole, which I measured with another pot of the same size. This way she slotted in more or less perfectly, allowing me to backfill the space ensuring a snug fit. I got a little overzealous though and put the light on at 100% for a few days, and you can see the damage it did with some yellowing on the larger fan leaves. There are also a couple of brown and crispy dead spots which I'm a little concerned about. I've since raised the light by around 20cm, and lowered its intensity to 80% on the dimmer switch. Another error I made was connecting the fan to the light timer circuit, meaning the fan was turning off with the light. The fan is now plugged in elsewhere, so it'll be on 24/7 from now on. Check the photos to see the yellowing and the brown spots, if anyone has any thoughts on them I'd love to hear what you're thinking! Cheers :):) Hopefully it was just the light stress, fingers crossed as always.

viejo April 13th As suspected it seems like the discolouration issue was from an overzealous light setting. At 100% and only 50cm/19.5inch away she was becoming overwhelmed. Fortunately I caught my mistake early and she has bounced back with gusto. The fan leaves that had begun to burn and turn a lighter green/yellow have returned to a healthy colour. Thank goodness. I haven't watered since last week. The huge pot holds a lot of juice, so I'm erring on the safe side to prevent root rot. The pallet the pot is sat on is still moist where there's contact, I can see where the water is wicking into it so there's a sure sign the medium is still plenty wet towards the bottom end, especially compared to the top of the soil where I can check easily with my fingers. I'm hoping she'll be extending her roots chasing the last of water to make the most of the enormous pot. Every morning when I wake up after the light has been on for a few hours, I've found her praying beautifully. I haven't removed a single leaf, other than two very early fan leaves that were drooping enough to hit the soil, and that was over a week ago. I have no intention of removing the huge shade leaves. I don't believe in cutting these off to provide extra light to the leaves below, as doing so seems counter-intuitive. She put so much effort into growing them, after all, and I find if you leave them the lower stems tend to grow out from under them in search of light anyway. I know people swear by defoliation, but this is an experiment and I'm going to go with my gut. Let's call it "no stress training". The proof is in the pudding, right? I'm also unsure how long to continue vegging, as space for height growth is at a premium, but the idea is to go as big as possible, so I'm going to push it at least another week of veg and decide from there. RQS say to expect the Biscotti strain to stretch from anywhere between 50-100% of its height at the start of flip, so I'm bearing that in mind. It would be a shame to ruin the grow by misjudging this, so I'm keeping an eye on it. Fingers crossed as usual!

viejo 20th April Flipped to 12/12 on the 16th as I was beginning to worry about how tall she would stretch. If things get too close I can always remove the wooden pallet underneath for an extra six inches of wiggle-room. As you can see in one or two of the photos, things aren't going perfectly. Some of the leaves have are exhibiting a peculiar wilted, dying-off look. Some growth is stunted and warped strangely. Research suggests a calcium deficiency, but I can't figure why that might be as I've been adding calmag from the start. pH lockout seems unlikely too, as I always check the pH of the water/nute solution before watering. Also been watering sparingly, making sure not to water until the top couple of inches are dry. Otherwise she looks great. Not all leaves are effected, only a few, and I've since cut them off to allow her to better divert her energy to the rest of the healthy growth, as the effected areas weren't progressing. Fingers crossed as always, but I'm unsure of how things will go from here! Added some bio-bloom and topmax to the mix. Perhaps this will help shore up what might be a deficiency of some kind. I wish I could say I'm super happy about how things are going, but the truth is I'm a little worried. Wish me luck!

viejo April 27th After adding some bio-bloom and topmax along with upping the fish mix a little, as well as watering her a little more thoroughly, she seems to have perked up a lot. The weird leaf-tip wilting issue hasn't continued, which was the worry. I've since read that too much nitrogen might stunt the flowers a little, so I'm going to cut way back on the fish mix, and add more bloom instead. Her height has increased a lot since last week, from around 74cm/29in to 102cm/40in. I might have to start thinking about removing the pallet she's sat on before I figure out how to raise the light further than the pully cords currently allow, which won't be impossible if necessary. I see a lot of people talking about the benefits of defoliation, especially surrounding the larger fan leaves so that the other bud sites can get light, but as you can see, (and as I had hoped) they're growing laterally out from under them anyway! So, light all around without the need to snip anything off. Somehow this makes more sense to me, but I think of leaves as solar panels, so what do I know? Fingers crosses as always!

viejo May 4th Had to remove the wooden pallet from underneath for the extra five or so inches, space from the top of the plant to the light is getting tight. If I have to move the light higher in the future I'm going to have to use wire rather than the attachments that came with the panel, and that'll give me another five inches or so, but after that we're in trouble. Fortunately she's well into the flowering phase now so the initial flip stretch should be over. I've also cut out the fishmix altogether and doubled the bio-bloom. As soon as I did that she really begun the flowering phase, as evidenced by the photos. Either it's true what they say about too much nitrogen continuing to bolster leafy growth and size, or it's just a coincidence of timing. The addition of an elastic net is easing my worries about the potential size of the buds to come. In previous grows I've had to tie strings to limbs to support their weight, as branches were literally snapping under their own girth. This time we're prepared for that eventuality! Whoever thought of these elastic scrog net things deserves a medal. Super clean, super effective, and pleasing to the eye. The addition of the net even makes it look like I know what I'm doing ;) I've also been playing eight or so hours of unlooped natural birdsong to her while the lights are on, but unfortunately my phone must have got disconnected from the WiFi and burned through my meager data plan for the month hahah. Worth it. Fingers crossed as always.

viejo May 11th As you can see in the photos, we're really running out of space now. Spiderfarmer suggest going no closer than 30cm in flower for the SF4000, and she has grown so tall that that gap between the main cola and the light board is now 25cm. Uh oh. All I can do is bend her over a little with some string, but so far there's no sign of damage or stress... yet. This is what I get for not topping I guess, but we live and learn. Even once might have been enough to avoid this. I've added a second fan on the other side to compliment the first, blowing upwards to get some air circulating around the main stem. The flowers are really starting to come in now, and although I can't smell much when I'm in there, the smell follows me outside. My clothes pick it up and suddenly I'm getting whiffs of it while writing this entry. Other than the new fan and the quickly diminishing head-space, there's nothing else to report. She's growing beautifully and I couldn't be happier! Fingers crossed as always.

viejo May 18th Time for low-stress drastic measures. Her height has now reached the point where all google inquiries suggest she's sure to become badly light stressed if left to her own devices. We're flying too close to the sun, folks. I'm not convinced heat is an issue, as there's great ventilation in the room and two fans blowing constantly, but something had to be done about the diminishing distance to the light. We're down to 20cm~ from the tip of the main cola, to 25cm~ after pulling her to the side a little with some trusty red string. Somehow there's no sign of stress on the leaves, but they say this usually shows up after the damage has been done, so we'll so how things pan out. I'll keep pulling her further away as needed. Hardly ideal, but not exactly unexpected. I've also ripped out some mosquito netting that was blocking some of the airflow from the window the extractor fan vent tube leads to. It was all gummed up with dust and cobwebs. Since removing it the airflow from the room is venting outside much more smoothly, lowering the humidity of the room by a few points. I've even seen it reach as low as 55%, which is a new low. Previously the humidity wouldn't go lower than 69%, which is a funny number I admit but I'll take a number without meme-connotations in favor of a lessened likelihood of bud rot any day. I've doubled the dose of top-max from 1lm/l to 2ml/l. Bio-biz suggest 4ml/l at this point, so we're playing it safe. Fingers crossed as always.

viejo May 26th After so many weeks of sitting around 69% relative humidity, I decided to look into how suboptimal that really is. Turns out, pretty suboptimal. That's danger-of-grey-mold territory. So I shelled out for an upgrade. We've gone from a 100mm 170m³/h extractor fan to a modern 150mm 587m³/h version. The difference was immediate, even running at 75% of its capacity. It was even cheaper than the original! Technology is advancing even if we're going backwards. The weight of some flowers have begun buckling their stems, so I've given them support using some wire on the scrog net. Bought a bigger watering can too, so I'm giving her around 11L~ (a full can) every three or four days as necessary. (update: since the change in RH and massive increase in ambient temps, it's 11L every 48 hours~ish) Her main cola is way too close to the light for comfort. If I could raise it I would, but we've been out of room for a while now. Astonishingly enough, no signs of stress as yet. Maybe some foxtailing? No discoloration. Smells lovely already, if I disturb her at all the air becomes a stage for subtle wafts of something heavenly lmao. Fingers crossed as always.

viejo Jun 1st This week was uneventful, which is what you want when things are going well. No changes other than noticing I need to water a little more often now the room is sitting around 48-50% RH down from 69%. Wired a couple more limbs up. Fingers crossed as always.

viejo June 8th There's little doubt that the light is too close, and has been too close for too long. There's nothing I could do about it two weeks ago, and there's nothing I'll be able to do before harvest either. Lesson learned. The main cola doesn't seem stressed as in burned or bleached, but it's definitely looking a little odd. It's huge, and has no orange pistils, whereas the buds below are a mix of the older orange pistils and newly grown ones. Weird. There's also a lot of foxtailing going on, which i'm guessing is a direct cause of being far too close to the light. Temps, pH, humidity, and watering are all dialed in, so that's my best guess. Even though only the top of the plant is light-stressed, the foxtailing seems to spread throughout. Is this a thing? I'm thinking next time I'll do the same, a single plant in the large pot, but I'll top her once or twice to lessen her height avoid this issue altogether. One huge cola is impressive, but the way things have shaken out has robbed some of the lower flowers of a more optimal distance to the light, so everything is out of balance. We're top heavy, folks :):) All is well, fingers crossed as always.