Day 08 - Watered ALPHA and BRAVO with 8 oz RO and 8 oz of the nutrient water (making it 50% strength). Watered CHARLIE with 16 oz RO. ALPHA seems strong and robust. BRAVO is lagging a great deal in growth. It's not clear if this is an unintended genetic trait or a parental trait passed down somewhere along the line. Though it is tiny it seems otherwise healthy. CHARLIE has yet to make an appearance despite having been put in the root sponge 11 days ago.
Day 09 - 16 oz RO water (no nutes). ALPHA continues to grow steadily. There may be a bit of nutrient burn at the tip of one of the first true leaves. BRAVO remains very, very small. It appears one of the cotyledons was undersized or underdeveloped. It's not clear what caused it, but I think that may have contributed to it's small stature. Despite it's small size it looks otherwise healthy.
Day 13 - ALPHA continues to grow as expected, but BRAVO remains inexplicably small. She has had the same environment and treatment as her sister. Despite this, the plant has had virtually no growth over the course of the week.
Day 14 - I'm treating ALPHA for calcium deficiency. I've looked at the spotting on the leaves and the marginal drying at the tips, and since I'm using RO water I'm fairly certain calcium was lacking. I use Cal-Mag+ in my nute formula, so I upped the nutrient from 1/4 solution to 1/2 solution (8 oz RO, 8 oz full strength nutes). New growth on the third node appears to be unaffected as of yet, and thee fourth node is just beginning to emerge. BRAVO seems to be getting larger yet remains exceptionally small. There are no signs of deficiency, but I upped the nutrient level for BRAVO as I did for ALPHA. This is a prophylactic measure to prevent calcium deficiency.
@Puffer_Bill, I have not moved the tent. I decided to tighten things up on the shed, and it seemed to help; however, I did find a couple more caterpillars. I'm out there every day, so I plan to just keep eyes on them. I don't want to stress the plants with a move at this point. They've been stressed enough. After the plants in the tent now are harvested I'm going to move the setup into the garage for more grows.
@Zollies_zn, Me too! And thanks for the encouragement.
I'm going to try a new variation on LST. It may turn out to be a couple variations. I'm going to take rabbit fencing and make a circular fence to put over the plant. It should give me at least sixteen vertical inches of wire all around the plant. I might be able to tease out a bit more height, but I'm not sure I'll need it. As they grow I'll either stake branches and main cola until they reach the side or tie them to the wire fence. The grows I've seen in the diaries here show robust branches on the plants. I should be able to reach in between some of the wire gaps to do maintenance (e.g., defoliation, watering, LST).