Ahoy There Me Hearties! Yarrrr

[[ Introduction ]] Hello and welcome to the first ever grow diary of Captain Dank, and if you’re reading this then you’re going to witness me becoming a dank dad to four lovely auto fems for the very first time ever; I’m not going to lie, I’m actually quite proud of this achievement, but then again my therapist told me I should spend more time outdoors, and I'm really not fucking around. As any proud (*) new parent, I want to give my girls every opportunity in life, in a thinly veiled attempt at making my own life seem less pointless and utterly mediocre, and what better way to do that than to shamelessly spam photos of them growing up to strangers on the Internet in exchange for a false sense of popularity? So if you want to follow me attempting to reconcile what many might describe as a mid-life crisis (**), and to find out whether I succeed in getting them through to harvest before having a relapse, then please hit that follow button now! Seriously, please follow my grow, I genuinely need as much help as I can get .. The is the second set of seeds I've popped, since the first set sadly succumbed to a fatal case of neglectful underwatering. Now I know what you're thinking, "But Mr. Dank, aren't you growing your plants in water" why yes, yes I am, Billy, and thank you very fucking much for pointing that out. It's true that I managed to under-water in a hydroponic garden, but old Danky has learned from his mistake, and so now nothing stands between me and ultimate dank yields! [[ Grow Environment ]] For grow environment I decided to go with the “tried and true” rather than be a trailblazer (***), the girls are in a 4x4x8 tent with a 600W dimmable ballast, cool tube reflector, and 600W MH lamp for veg and 600W HPS lamp for flower. I wanted to give them really as much light as possible, and I know everyone knows that the girls need both blue and red light spectrums, and LED's emit more light per watt, but who am I to question this time honoured tradition? Besides, the light from the lamp is actually quite useful at this time of year, damn Europeans, taking all our jobs, and dignity, and warm weather (probably). FYI I went for the T5 fluoro for germinating / seedling phase, as the HID lights are just too intense for seedlings (I learned this out the hard way too). Perhaps somewhat ambitiously, I am going straight for hydroponics / DWC. Yeah, fuck soil, you're not hardcore unless you live hardcore! To this end, I got 2x XL 70L reservoirs, thinking that the extra capacity would give me a little extra buffer on my water cycling schedule. The way this actually went down was I completely cocked it up, wasted a load of nutrients, my seedlings dried out, and I had to start over. Not quite the epic beginning I envisioned. So I'm back at square one, and THIS time I'm starting with 4x individual 20L reservoirs, which is working out much better because each plant has very slightly different needs (read: I like fussing over them). Maybe for my next grow I'll smash out an epic photoperiod plant in the 70L reservoir, I've got some Wonder Woman fem photoperiod seeds which would do nicely! For climate control I have 2x air circulating fans to try and get as much CO2 to the leaves as possible, and a Prima Kline fan/filter/ducting kit for cycling clean air / dumping hot air from the lamp outside the grow space without alerting the entire neighbourhood to the fact that I'm making dank right under their noses. I’m also using the inkbird temp / humidity controllers to automate temp and RH climate control, because being a gardener isn’t my full-time job, despite it being oddly therapeutic, whilst simultaneously causing me quite a lot of stress, what I don't need is the extra stress of turning shit on and off to maintain basic climate conditions necessary for life, which means I have more time for taking photos, and writing my poxy blog. The high tech part is I’m using the UbiBot W1 Wi-Fi hygrometer, which records temp, rh and light lux, which is actually really good. My only gripe with it is the Wi-Fi is only 802.11g, so you need the hygrometer near the router. However, it is worth the hassle, because it means I have an up to date record of the climate conditions throughout the grow, and it's helped me keep the climate under control. [[ Feeding Schedule ]] For feeding I’m going with Reno nutrients, which seems affordable while also being well suited to the shit municipal water I have here, and it's still cheaper than a reverse osmosis water system. For plant foliar health I’m going with CannaCure, partly just because it has "Canna" in the name, which is a lot like "Cannabis", which is what I'm growing (!!!), so someone's clearly thought this through a lot more than I have. My seedlings were treated to 1/4 strength nutes, and because I'm working on my OCD I created a spreadsheet which I've calibrated with TDS readings from the Remo nutrients and each day I take a reading it tells me how many ml of each nute to add, and since this is my first grow (well, technically my second if you count my aborted attempt), I’m definitely fucked, so I need all the help I can get! So for those who are interested, here's my strategy. First of all you start with 1L of shit tap water, which has a base reading of X ppm. Now, using the Remo nutrients feeding schedule, you add the food for week 1 and you get a new reading of Y ppm, so X - Y = the amount of ppm the manufacturer recommends (R), and you also know what percentage of each nute contributes to it (P1..Pn). So whenever I take a new reading (T), I can subtract X to find out the added nute content (A), then subtract R from that to figure out how much more I need to add (A-R x Py). If you're still awake, then in addition to this, as the plants eat and drink the TDS will range up and down based on whether the plant is eating more than it is drinking (nutrient solution is too weak), or drinking more than it is eating (nutrient solution is too strong). So I'm keeping a daily journal of TDS and PH readings, because if the PH is in check and the nutrient solution is strong enough that the plant can absorb solids at the maximum rate without toxicity, then my plants will thrive. To maintain PH and prevent nutrient lockout I’m using the Bluelab PH / EC meters, which will also help me to control feeding and avoid nutrient burn, or, more likely, completely misunderstand or just simply ignore what I’m reading and do the wrong thing anyway. I don’t have RO water readily available (does anybody?) so I’m using Ecothrive Neutralise to treat the chlorine present in my shit tap water, which would otherwise kill all the beneficial bacteria I’m adding in via Hydroguard, which I’m using to prevent root rot (****). [[ Genetics ]] I’ve chosen to go with auto seeds for my first grow, which is slightly less forgiving due to the shortened grow cycle, but hey, go big or go home! I’m already at home, so going big is all I’ve got. Please grow big .. So it's with all the pride of the father of the kid who came third in the egg and spoon race on school sports day, and all the ceremony and pomp of Boris Johnson's big red Brexit bus (We're still waiting for that £350m a week. Chop chop, Bozza!), I'm pleased to present to you my girls: Jill (back left), Jane (front left), Crystal (back right), and Mary (front right). Jill and Jane are both Sweet Seeds Black Jack Auto's from Seedsman, while Crystal and Mary are Purple Haze Auto's bought from a dodgy high-street store in Amsterdam, under the vague pretence that they would never be germinated and are actually a souvenir (*****), cross my heart I would never dream of germinating any of the vast array of seeds you have on sale, even (especially?) the really high potency and high yielding ones, oh but no fucking way is that Purple Haze??? Honestly, to say I am sceptical of the genetic lineage of this plant is the understatement of the century, the Spirit Seeds website isn't even up and they don't reply to my emails. Perhaps old Danks got blocked for doubting their legitimacy? Who knows, and more importantly, no-one cares, because soon I'm going to have Purple Haze, all in my brain! These girls are getting treated to a 24/0 light cycle, as the whole idea is to get as much light to the leaves as possible so they can photosynthesise all of that energy to grow big and strong, and since these girls are autos, that means they don’t need a 12/12 cycle during flower like regular photoperiod plants, which makes them special, just like their dad (******). [[ Training ]] I intend to avoid HST techniques during this grow, now for those with a weak heart I advise you to brace yourselves because as is already clear, I know maths and I'm not afraid to use it .. The limited veg cycle means that for every day a plant takes to recover, I am losing 3.5% of my total veg time (4x recovery days = 14%!) which is totally fucking outrageous. Because the ruderalis genetics in auto flowers means that switching to flower is on a set time, that energy just gets wasted, when what I really want to use that energy for is to get ME wasted, which is the whole point of doing any of this. So, I am instead opting for LST, and a trellis (ScrOG) to keep my canopy nice and flat, and to make sure that every cola gets the maximum amount of light possible by keeping the light close, which seems like a Good Thing, because the optimum lumen output is remarkably close to the bulb. I also intend to defoliate, without stripping these ladies bare (*******), which also helps to make sure that the light penetrates the canopy to reach the rest of the plant. Besides, the light intensity from the lamp is an inverse square, which means pretty much the only stuff really benefitting from the full light output is right at the top of the canopy. Defoliating also improves airflow, and I do NOT want to have to deal with mould or PWM after doing all this work, so - screw that, defoliation it is! [[ Germination ]] To germinate, 3 of each seed were soaked in tepid tap water overnight, and after 24 hours they were all then planted in Root!t plugs in a heated propagator under a T5 light. This technique lead to a 100% success rate, but the weakest seed from each strain was discarded. The remaining 4 plants were migrated to net pots filled with pre-soaked clay pebbles in PH adjusted water as soon as the tap roots reached the bottom of the plugs. The plants did stretch a bit looking for more light, so I switched out the T5 for the MH dimmed to 250W, and set the maximum distance from the plants. At this point I did cock up the watering (again). I had a fan on the seedlings to strengthen the stems, but the plant nearest the fan started showing signs of what initially looked like a boron deficiency, but then when I noticed the corner of the leaf start to curl I recognised that the plug was way too dry. So I adjusted the reservoir water level, then to correct the issue I used a calmag foliar spray and added a little extra nutes to provide the much needed boron the plant needs to absorb the calcium and magnesium. The plant survived and the others made a good recovery, so I'm chalking that one down to experience. New soil growers definitely shouldn't over water their plants, but hydroponic growers should be careful not to underwater their plants! [[ Week 1 Veg ]] This week I'm mainly working on cranking up the feed schedule to the maximum possible without causing toxicity. I intend to gradually increase to the manufacturer recommended dosage in small increments over a few days and see how each plant responds. I'm keeping a detailed daily grow journal and a daily feed journal, so I've got work to do, but I've done as much preparation as I can to take out the guesswork. I'll also be lowering the light over time to increase the lux, even just a few inches can dramatically increase the lux output, so this will be a very gradual change, possibly only 1inch every other day or so, but to get the optimum yield it's really important to optimise light as well as feeding. Other than that there's really not a lot for me to do. Honestly, if anyone can think of something constructive to do to pass the time, maybe write a poem about growing dank, or stringing together a few chords on an acoustic guitar whilst mumbling about being the middle-class OG, I'm open to suggestions. Will I be able to resist further needless meddling? Will I fluff the feeding schedule and have to start over? Will my spreadsheets be my undoing (very unlikely)? Or will I finally absolve myself of years of accumulated guilt and bitter resentment and finally move on with my life? Tune in next week for answers and so much more from Captain Dank! * but also, extremely annoying. ** and they would be wrong, because, it’s not just a phase it’s who I am. *** I'd much rather be blazing, boom. **** which fucking failed last time, but also has the side-added benefit of making plants more resistant to salt-stress. ***** just one where they happen to provide the genetic lineage and average yield in a handy pamphlet. ****** or so my mom used to tell me. ******* as difficult as it may be to stop myself, or at least it was for some poor idiot I saw on YouTube who literally stripped his plants of practically all of their foliage .. I nearly jumped through the screen to try and stop the massacre.