RQS~Astro lemonade

Theia Diary 1: Astro Lemonade (Royal Queen Seeds) ​Entry 1: Germination & Sowing ​Big shoutout to Royal Queen Seeds for sending this Astro Lemonade over as a gift to test drive and review. The journey starts today. ​The Start: I started by dropping the seed into a 24-hour soak using 22°C dechlorinated water. After the soak, it went straight into wet paper tissues inside a zipped plastic bag. Just 22 hours later, a healthy taproot had already broken through. ​The subsyrate: For the first home, I prepped a 100ml cup filled with BioBizz peat-free Light Mix. To give the soil a solid organic kickoff, I blended in 5ml of Startrex soil conditioner and a tiny touch of Bactrex to wake up the beneficial microbes. The sprout is now tucked in and settling. ​The Lights: Right now, it’s sitting under the Invisible Sun B60 (Samsung lm301h with added royal blue). I've got it running on a continuous 24-hour cycle at a gentle DLI of 13. Those royal blue diodes should do a great job of keeping the early growth nice, short, and stocky.

Theia Week 2: Astro Lemonade Growth & Development Astro is sitting beautifully squat under the B60. The 450nm spectrum completely caught the early windowsill stretch. I was a bit of a lazy boy and in her first few days of life I left her on the window sill as we had amazing weather. She leaned and went lanky... I was a bit worried she would topple but the blues have done the job giving her a really thick stem and incredibly tight node density. The leaf profile is wide, lush, and spreading perfectly flat. She’s massive for this 100ml cup now and raring for the transplant. Substrate & Pot Prep Prepping the 35L bulk mix tonight (30L Light Mix, 5L Perlite) along with the scaled doses of Startrex, Silicium Flash, Mycotrex, Bactrex, and Gypsum. Letting the whole lot sit for 3 to 4 days to allow the initial biological reaction and heat to level out completely before potting up. The drainage base is fully sorted too. Last run's clay pebbles have been recycled using a strict over the top clean—60°C water, a 24-hour bleach drench, 3 clean hot rinses, and a proper sun bake to clear any potential pathogens. Transplant goes down later this week once the substrate has stabilised.

Theia Astro Lemonade — Pot Change & Transplant week. ​Growth & Structure Pre-Transplant is spot on the B60’s 450nm royal blue channel did exactly what it was engineered to do. It completely took back the early stretch from being left on the windowsill forcing the stem to thicken up and the nodes to stack incredibly tight. She completely filled out the 100ml starter cup, leaves spreading wide and flat perfect for the move into the 15L forever home. ​ The transplant was executed using my pot forttess plan. I have a layered sequence to protect the roots and maximize early microbial contact: ​The Base: Laid down 2.5cm of fully sterilized, recycled clay pebbles at the bottom for solid drainage and to keep the soil out of standing water. ​The main substrate. Added a 3cm layer of the pre-mixed, stabilized substrate (30L BioBizz Light Mix + 5L Perlite, amended with bulk-scaled Startrex, Silicium Flash, Bactrex, Mycotrex, and Mouldmaster Gypsum).​Placed 3 BioTabs in a perfect triangle directly on top of this 3cm foundation. ​I covered the tabs with a 2.5cm layer of the amended soil mix. This creates a critical boundary layer, preventing the fresh root ball from resting directly against the highly concentrated nutrient tabs on day one. I Set an empty 100ml starter pot onto the buffer layer as a spacer, packed the remaining amended substrate firmly around it to fill the Autopot, and then pulled the empty cup out to leave a perfect impression,this was sprinkled with a healthy, heavy coating of Mycotrex straight into the cavity for immediate mycorrhizal contact. Slid the seedling out of her starter cup and dropped her straight into the hole. ​Burying the Stretch: Filled the remaining space up to the cotyledons, burying that early purple windowsill stem entirely underground so it can spread out into a massive network of new adventitious roots. ​Post-Transplant Left the sharp sand barrier, injection loops, and AquaValve lines completely off for the first 14 days. Hand-watering strictly from the top with plain water during this fortnight to keep the core damp and force the root system to hunt down to the bottom pebble layer. Substrate hasl been topped up with about 2 inches of sharpsand to act as a layer of bug protection. This will stay dry as I am wick feeding from the bottom and I have my feed injection lines buried about an inch below that. This is so I can inject 500ml doses of Bactrex and water during the grow. Trying to eliminate any salt build up in the top 2 CMS. Lights are running as 1 channel of lm301H Evo with 4096 diodes running at about 15%. I've also deployed 20w of a deep red and royal blue channel to act as my invisible ceiling. DRFR comes on at lights off for 15 minutes putting the girls to sleep much quicker and resetting the ps 1 and 2 photosystems. Temps are an issue as it's 37c outside. I'm managing to maintain a 27c and 65% for now . Bit high as I would rather be sitting about 0.9 in transition week. But it's okay. I'm sure there's more but I can't think right now.. Grow well growmies.. ☘️💚