Lemon AK (Fastbuds) + Quantum Boards

INTRODUCTION ============== Hi there, In this grow I'll be growing FastBuds Lemon AK (It turns out this grow is now 5 Lemon AK and 4 Girl Scout Cookies due to me killing 3 of the 10 Lemon AK seedlings and 2 of the Lemon AK Seedlings not growing past their first set of leaves, despite looking great for the first 5 days). This plant is a recent release from their new 2019 range. Fastbuds describe it as mostly sativa, and extremely strong. They say it responds well to intense light cycles of 20 hours or more. Thank you for coming along for the journey with me. Please feel free to comment, ask questions and make suggestions - all feedback and interaction from other growers is highly welcome. AIMS FOR THIS GROW ================== I intend to attempt to fill the tent space (1.4 square metres) with 9 minimally trained plants (xmas tree style) with the intention of maximising the amount of bud produced. My core goal for each grow is to get 1000g from a 12 week autoflower grow (2g/watt) with a target range of 750g to 1250g (1.6g/watt to 2.6g/watt). I almost achieved this in the Zkittles grow which yielded 33.5oz (932g). Those plants were trained, but the training was late and compressed the canopy and really wasn't optimal. Since then I've made the decision that when packing together this many plants in this sized space, that they possibly don't need training. AIMS FOR THIS DIARY ================= My primary goal is to document my grow setup, process and method to the level of detail required for someone else to be able to take this diary and use it as a complete growing manual. My secondary goal with this diary is use this diary as a means to help me diagnose any problems or issues with the grow. My third goal for this diary is to use each grow, via the diary, to refine and improve my growing setup and processes. BASIC GROW SETUP ============ This grow is 5 LEMON AK and 4 GIRL SCOUT COOKIES autoflowering plants from Fastbuds, in a 1.2m by 1.2m by 2.0m grow tent. I plan to just let the plants grow naturally without any major training, with the aim of getting a field of mini xmas trees filling as much of the tent space as possible, creating the biggest canopy possible. MEDIA AND POTS ============= They are growing in 11.4 Litres airpots. Each Airpot has 2 Litres of Canna expanded clay balls in the base, followed by a 30/70 mix of Perlite and Canna pro plus coco coir. I have read that perlite can affect the PH buffering capabilities of coco, so I thought I would try reducing the amount of perlite in 4 of the 9 pots and seeing if I notice any difference in the plant grow and/or how the media handles moisture. These would be about 15/85 perlite to coco. LIGHTING ======== * The lighting is four quantum q288 boards, each has 288 samsung LM301b diodes for a total of 1156 diodes, they are 3500k spectrum. * They are running at a combined 480watts for a total PPDF of 1176 umol. * This is a DIY clone version of the HLG-550 (purchased from Kingbrite on Alibaba for $400USD including International Express DHL Shipping) * I have built my own custom frame out of 20mm x 20mm x 3mm angle aluminium to spread the lights to the same dimensions as the original HLG-550 light. This light doesn't necessitate any active cooling even at full wattage, and it ticks along at around 40c at 240w, and gets to around 50c at a full 480w (Heatsink temp tested with infrared gun). * Each light is fitted with an inline wattage meter of eBay. This cheap but awesome accessory allows me to see the exact wattage the light is set to and using. It even allows for w/H cumulative usage display. Its about $8 USD and the LCD screen has a blue glow. Every Quantum Board should have one of these for accurate light intensity setting. * I generally start with a very low wattage for new seedlings (120w), or have the lights up at the top of the tent. I then move to 240w at 80cm for the first stage of vegetative growth. As the plants go into flower, I slowly increase the light intensity and lower the height above the canopy until its at 480w at 60cm. I try to get it to this point around week 8/9 so that the key bud growth weeks are done under maximum light intensity. LIGHT CYCLE ========== Normally, unless otherwise indicated, I grow using a 18/6 light cycle from seed to harvest. Fastbuds indicate LEMON AK will respond well to as much light as it can get, so I will be experimenting with a 21/3 cycle, and with increasing the light intensity at a more rapid rate. If I feel the plants aren't enjoying it, I will dial it back though. COCO PRETREATMENT ================ I use CANNA Pro+ coco. My nine 11.4L pots end up using around 100L of Coco, and 10-15 (previously more) litres of perlite, and around 15-18L of Aqua balls. Which is more than the pots can theoretically hold, and confused me for sometime. I think it's just that the different sizing lets the perlite mix into the volume of the coco without increasing it much, if anything. The Coco was given a pretreatment (on the day I put the seeds into the paper towels) with straight tap water that had it's PH adjusted to 6.0 I have previously used low strength nutrient pretreatments on the coco with a minimum EC of 1.2 but so far I've also had early nutrient build up issues, and so I'm going to try taking it back to minimum, and go with breeder recommendations for no nutrients in the coco for the first week approximately. GERMINATION ============ The seeds were germinated using the tissue paper technique. They were left to germinate and then transplanted directly into their final pots. The light was set to 120w at 90cm for germination day, and then once the first leaves appeared they were set to 1/2 intensity for this initial seedling stage (240w) at 80cm above the canopy. This arrangement feels about right. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS ========================= Air circulation is to be provided 24/7 (continuously through day and night cycles) is via three pole-grip 18cm oscillating fans. These are placed at a height above the canopy to give a gentle breeze for the seedlings. They are lowered as the plants go into flower, to give more forceful air circulation around the buds. After trying other fan setups, I highly recommend the pole-grip, they save you a bunch of ground space, they are out of the way, and they are built to be easily aimed and oriented. I use the oscillating variety. Air Ventilation is being provided via (continuously through day and night cycles) 100mm inline mixed flow fan and 300mm Carbon Filter with 100mm ducting that ducts of the grow room and into the roof space. I have two tents ducting to a Y joiner, that then ducts via one duct to the roof space. The Y joiner is mounted on the grow room wall between the tents, and the I've used fittings that allow me to slip on the tent ducts at will, which allows me to change from venting out of the room to venting back into the room and setup a recycling air system. I have a dehumidifier running in the grow-room on high 24/7. This partially warms the air, and drys it, which is essential for me when the ambient humidity is high, or the tents are recyling back into the room. I have it draining to a 23L container which means I only have to empty it every week or so... it varies. I will get a bigger carbon filter when its time to upgrade, and I'd like to get a more powerful fan (and I'd stay with adjustable speed control) HUMIDITY/TEMP CONTROL ======================= Each tent has a humidity controller and temp controller. These have a wall socket in them to enable the control of any device that can be plugged in. Nothings currently plugged into either. I generally control the tent temperature and humidity by 1) leaving the extraction fan on 24/7. 2) Leaving the ventilation fans on 24/7. 3) Turning up the light wattage to get the right tent temperature, and then moving the light far enough away to get the appropriate intensity. I've found even though they don't get massively hot, four Quantum Boards in a 1.2by 1.2 tent is the most cost effective heating solution. I ventilate to the roof space usually. When the grow room gets very cold in winter I recirculate the tent air back into the grow room, so the heat isn't lost. I run a dehumidifier on high mode pretty much 24/7. It runs at under 250w which is fine with me. This warms up the room air a bit, which is great during the colder half of the year. TENT TEMPERATURE / ROOM TEMP ============================= Heating is provided in the grow room by the lights, the dehumidifier (which warms the air as part of its dehumidification process), and occasionally a fan heater in the grow room The ideal goal temp and humidity at any given week are set based (at this stage loosely on Vapour Pressure Deficit metrics, and optimal photosynthesis temperatures which research shows is a Leaf Surface Temperature between 25-28c. I generally try to keep the humidity as low as possible, and haven't had any issues yet with having to try and raise it. NUTRIENTS ========== My Nutrients are the full Flairform range (Flairform.com). GreenDream-1 Grow : ONE-part Vegetative nutrient for hydroponics, coco and soil GreenDream-1 Bloom : ONE-part Flowering nutrient for hydroponics, coco and soil Roots : Promotes vigorous root growth CMX : Calcium, magnesium & iron additive GroStorm : The All-in-One organic additive SilikaMajic : Silica additive for enhancing plant weight & strength BudStorm : The All-in-One flowering additive BudGenie : For improving resin output I also have "Plantmate" Trichoderma powder. This range is not coco specific. This I think leads to some Cal/Mag issues. I'm trying to mitigate with foliar sprays with epsom salts and possibly the CMX additive. I'm going to drop Flairform BudGenie. I found out from the MSDS that its just a highly dilute version of Flairform Budstorm. Pure empty money maker product, and encourages me to try a whole new nutrient range. I am considered CX Hydroponics as their product range seems quite well designed. EC OR PPM ========= When it comes to setting and measuring the strength of nutrients, and run-off, the standards are EC or PPM. I switched from PPM to EC, and now measure everything exclusively in E.C. measurements. This is primarily because PPM is not standardised and there are 2 or 3 base PPM standards, which effectively makes comparing PPM numbers impossible (if your meter is different standard to mine, we will get different PPM meaurements of the same nutrient). EC is simple, and always the same. My feeding/watering schedule is based entirely on PH and EC numbers, making it nutrient independent, this way you can follow it with any nutrient range, by just using whatever amounts get you the same EC number. I generally use a set percentage the base nutrient, and all the additives. By this I mean, to get a certain EC number, if I use 25% of the base nutrient, I will use 25% strength of all the additives as well. This seems to be the most logical way to decide which strength of each product to use. That said, because my nutrient is not coco-specific, I often use 100% Cal/Mag additive regardless of the strength of the base nutrient and the other additives. FEEDING/WATERING STRATEGY FOR THIS GROW ======================================== After two grows, I've decided that the best way to do coco is to water to run-off daily (after the first water to run-off, so about 2 weeks or so in to the grow) and to set the nutrient concentration using basic EC ranges for each stage of the plants grow. This effectively flushes the pot every day and I'm guessing gives the most consistent pot conditions (EC and PH value). With periodic waterings, I found I would have salt build ups and or swings in pot EC conditions and probably PH as well. I loosely (very loosely, it really is strain dependent I'm finding) base my feeding schedule on the following structure I found on the autoflower network. Its based on my tap water EC level of 0.35 It should be noted this schedule is based on my municipal tap water having an EC of 0.35 WEEK 1 EC 0.65-0.75 WEEK 2 EC 0.95-1.15 WEEK 3 EC 0.95-1.35 WEEK 4 EC 1.15-1.35 WEEK 5+ EC 1.5-2.0 PH - At this stage I have decided to aim for a nutrient PH of between 5.5 - 6.3 (so generally I try to let the nutrient PH swing between 5.8 to 6.3 and back if I can co-ordinate that over successive waterings. I find the attempt to get the PH down takes more and more ph adjusting additive the lower you go. So its quite easy to get my PH down from 7.5 to 6.5, but getting it to 5.9 usually takes twice as much again. WATER TREATMENT ================ My municipal tap water is around PH 7.5-8.0 and around 0.34 EC out of the tap. My PH pen is Bluelabs, it works great, and comes with a cap that has a well for the probe storage solution, so it always keeps the probe protected. For PH Control I have a standard PH-UP and PH-DOWN, as well as PH 7.0 and PH 4.0 Calibration solutions, and KCL probe storage solution. MONITORING ==================== Humidity/Temp monitoring is provided by a wireless monitoring station with 3 wireless monitors. It lets me keep a passing eye on the tent conditions during the time I'm home. Visual: I also use a webcam in each of my tents, this allows me to remotely view each tent from anywhere else. Its great, and more useful than I expected, wouldn't be without it now. Spot temp measuring is being done with an infrared temp gun. This technology is incredibly cheap (around $7 on eBay), and allows for checking leaf temps, coco temp etc from pot to pot. It is a useful tool when setting up and making sure the roots, and leaves, across the whole floor space are at optimal temperatures. PH monitoring is done via a bluelabs PH Pen. (Top quality NZ made device, I tried a cheap one, they are unreliable and need lots of calibration). EC monitoring is done via a cheap EC Pen (the budget versions of these seem to be quite accurate) WEEK 1 ====== DAY -3 - Gave coco pretreatment with tap water PH adjusted to 6.0. Gave about 3000ml per plant to get around 1000ml run-off. Placed seeds in Paper towels for germination. DAY -2 - The seeds (which are all huge by the way) have cracked. I have them on top of the light for warmth, but with enough padding between to make sure they don't get cooked! DAY -1 - The taproots have appeared and are slowly growing. Looks good for a planting day tomorrow. Day 0 - Planted 7 of the seedlings. The other three are growing a bit slower and will get planted in the next day or so Day 1 - Planted the other 2 seedlings. Day 2 - 7 of the 9 have sprouted fine. 2 of them have still got the husk stuck on them and appear to be struggling to fully germinate. Day 3 - Had some issues with the husks of a few seeds not opening up, and ended up accidentally killing two of the seedlings trying to remove the husks so I now have only 7 seedlings. I've decided to put down two more seeds to fill the empty two pots. I don't have anymore Lemon AK seeds, so I'm reluctantly putting down two Girl Scout Cookies seeds. Normally I prefer to only grow one strain per tent per grow, but I don't want to lose the potential 2/9ths of my yeild. From now on I will be increasing the number of seeds I buy and germinate, so I have some leeway for germination issues. Day 4 - Gave first watering with nutrient solution at 0.8 EC and PH of 5.9 at 400ml per plant - Planted the two Girl Scout Cookie sprouts today. Day 5 - No changes today Day 6 - Gave watering with nutrient solution at 0.8 EC and PH of 5.9 at 400ml per plant - The two Girl Scout Cookies seedling have sprouted and are showing their first set of leaves. Looking healthy. Day 7 - No changes today. Two of the seedlings are not showing any growth after the first set of leaves. Very odd. I'm gonna give them a few days, in the meantime I'm putting down two more Girl Scout Cookie seeds. Looks likely this grow will be 5 Lemon AK and 4 Girl Scout Cookies. I'm a bit annoyed, I really didn't want to do a mixed strain grow. OH well. Nevermind. In the end, I'd rather have a full tent.