Sour Diesel Haze Grow #1

So far, so good. Everything according to plan, except I didn’t follow the plan. I set up the SuperLocker and filled the chamber with water. My intent was to let it run for a couple days, monitor pH, temps and humidity and adjust as needed before starting a seed. I filled the chamber, added water and nutes, and pretty much immediately started a seed. I still don’t feel like I’m ready, but fuck it dude let’s go bowling. A couple days in I checked the temp/humidity sensor this morning and saw the same numbers I’d been seeing every day, down to the decimal. That seemed like too big a coincidence, so I started looking a little more closely. The sensor was set to record the max values and that’s what I was seeing, not the current. Poked a couple buttons and I was seeing humidity numbers in the mid 50s, not 88%. I wet the seed on 6/21 and it poked out of the rockwool on 6/25. I moved the seeding from the smaller chamber to the main chamber on 6/27 and did a full water change on 6/29, trying to get myself on a weekend water change cycle (DWC). Nowhere to grow but up from here! (Though my planned LST will keep it from going too far up.)

Terrible week for my girl. Right around mid-week I noticed she was looking a little sad. Leaves were starting to curl and show weird colors. After the holiday I came to the realization that I had been using the wrong nutrient schedule and dramatically underfed her. The schedule I was looking at was for the Flora series from General Hydroponic, but I have Technaflora. GH calls for about 1/3 of what Technaflora does, plus Technaflora recommends Sugar Daddy and Thrive Alive. So I have been chronically underfeeding her and she’s responded in kind. I’ve adjusted my schedule and even at half of the recommended strength I have increased nutes by about a factor of 5. I’m hopeful that this will help us get back on track. All in all a very humbling experience.😒 On a positive note, I got my pump on a timer schedule and added some tubing directly into the net pot so she can get fed directly. Hopefully that will help deliver some of these additional nutrients and aid in her recovery. And she has put out roots (just one big one so far) so she can drink directly from the reservoir as well. Fingers crossed for her.

When we ended last week our heroine was in peril. She had several larger leaves, but some were coming in deformed. I realized that I had been using the wrong nuts schedule and dramatically underfeeding her. A week later and she’s looking very strong. Still a few more deformed leaves, but it seems like the ratio of good to bad was getting better. Strong enough that I started some low key LST. I have done further reading and I wonder if this is a low humidity issue. I ordered a humidifier to see if that helps. I also upped the nutes from a 50% dose (of the correct schedule) to 75%. I did up the HydroGuard to full strength because there was a pretty significant increase in slime in the reservoir.😀

Big increase in size this week. Apparently she needed to eat. Started the week at 4” in height and would easily be over a foot if I hadn’t been doing LST. I thought it might be a little too early to start it growing sideways so she can fill out. At the end of the week I think it was the right call. The main stems are getting thicc and would be tough to bend at this point. I keep adjusting as needed as the plant grows, and she’s starting to spread nicely. I also started the week with the light about a foot away again, adjusted for growth. Still seeing a little curling at the edges of the fan leaves, but I’m just going to monitor her for now and move to full nutes next week to see what happens.😀

—

We are definitely moving into flower now. This week I reduced my Grow nutrients by 25% and added 25% of the recommended bloom nutrients (Awesome Blossoms and BC Bloom), as I didn’t want to do a hard cutover from grow to bloom just in case it shocked the plant too much. Still seeing thirst, she is taking in one additional gallon at mid week like she has for the last several weeks.

Decided that after the initial 25/75% nute changeover last week had no noticeable negative results in just going to 100% flower at this point. Keeping the MagiCal still at 2 tsp rather than the full 2.5 but otherwise full throttle flower. Thirsty girl again this week. She took a full gallon on Tuesday, which seems to be our standard routine. But I also gave her another full gallon on Friday. Even though I changed the water on Sunday, it’s pretty easy to top the reservoir off and make sure she can take what she needs. I’m running into problems with height at this point, as the plant is bumping up against the light, which is at its highest setting. I may need to create a SCROG net to help gently push her down. My lesson learned is that I need to really stay on top of the training as she starts to go into flower for future grows.

After changing the water on Sunday I decided I had to do something about the height of my canopy. I had stalks that grew right into the light. I spent last week trying to do some LST with wire ties, somewhat in vain. So I made a SCROG net out of 4 magnetic hooks and some paracord. Unfortunately I snapped one of the main stalks when putting it in place. I taped it up, and after a few days it seems fine. Growing 90 degrees sideways, but not dying. The SCROG brought the overall height of the canopy down about 4-5 inches. I’ve kept moving it down slowly, but there are a few stalks that are still growing upward around the net. Still taking in an additional two gallons per week, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.

Things are starting to get frosty! Seeing a lot of trichome production pop over the last week or so. Mostly on the taller stems that popped through the SCROG, but also on others to a lesser extent. The ones above seem to be thriving with the additional light, but they are also showing signs of light stress on the leaves and buds that are closest to the light. Kind of a Catch 22 situation. I’ve used ties to pull the tall ones away to the side so they’re not directly under the light to minimize stress, but I’ll just have to see how things go. Also, I have decided to switch nutrients. I originally planned to use the General Hydroponics three part series, but because the setup I bought included some Technaflora nutes I decided to go with them. However I’m getting low on some and after comparing prices I’m gonna switch, probably at the next feeding. Should be interesting to see how they react.

New Nutes! The schedule for recirculating hydro in late flower calls for 7.5ml of Micro and 15ml of Bloom. Converted to imperial and stepped up to 5 gallons that is 7 tsp of Micro and 5 tbsp of Bloom. Nebula recommends these nutes at half strength, but I am a little unsure of that. I went with approximately 60% as a compromise. I kept the MagiCal and HydroGuard as is. The pH seems to be good at these levels. This will be a short week (I changed water a day late due to the holiday) so I will keep an eye on things during the week and adjust if needed. Gotta admit I’m a little anxious about the change. After a week of observation this change doesn’t seem to have had any negative impact. The buds are starting to fatten up, and all the leaves seem to have the same color and no signs of stress.

Dammit. I mixed up the quantity of FloraMicro and added 3 tablespoons instead of 3 teaspoons, or approximately 3 times the normal amount. I’m a cheap bastard, so I decided to up the FloraBloom by about the same ratio rather than dumping out the whole water solution and starting over. Everything seems to be fine after the heroic dose of nutes. Buds seem to be putting on weight, not seeing weird discoloring on the leaves or anything like that. I am seeing some light bleaching on a couple buds that are directly under the light, which is to be expected given the proximity. I dismantled part of my SCROG net and used the hooks and cord to try and pull those more to the side and back so they’re not directly under the bulb, but at this point there’s not much more I can do but hope the damage stays localized and try to minimize it. I’ve noticed a spike in humidity this week, with a high reading of 71%, the first time above 70 this grow. But we’ve had a lot of rain and our basement gets damp when it rains, so I’m guessing that’s the cause. I’m going back to the correct amount of nutrients this week, correcting last weeks error. Per a recent IG post from Nebula, I will start to ramp down my nutes as I get closer to harvest. Lots of people say flushing is bro science, but I trust Nebula. She went down to 1/6 of the recommended, essentially cutting her usage by 2/3. Since she said she has never gone this low before I’ll monitor for her updates and change course if needed.

Not much to report this week. Buds continue to fatten, still trying to minimize the localized light burn from the couple that are directly underneath the light. I was out of town over the weekend, so my water change got pushed from Sunday to Tuesday as I was too tired to deal with it sooner. And it made me think that lengthening the interval for water changes this late in the cycle may actually be a good thing, as I’ll probably start tapering the nutes off anyway. Lots of stuff (mainly Reddit) says flushing is bro science but Nebula does it and that’s good enough for me. Plus, it saves a few bucks on nutrients.

As noted in last week’s update, I skipping the water change and did not provide any new nutrients this week. However, I did finally address my concerns about not being able to see what was going on in the back of my box. I grabbed the plant my the main stem and rotated the entire thing about 180 degrees. As seen in this week’s photos, several of the buds way in the back were super pale and unhealthy looking, most likely from being light deprived. We’ll have to see if they recover or not.

I’m dropped the two primary nutrients by half this water change, as she’s getting more and more frosty. I also backed my light schedule off an hour in the morning and in the evening (2 hours less per day) hoping that this will help with some of the light burn and also encourage her to finish up as we are overdue for harvest. The pale buds from the rear of the tent are looking surprisingly good right now. Glad I decided to turn her last week. I turned her again this week, but only about a quarter turn or maybe even less.