Granddaddy Purple

Mad_at_sun First grow, week 4. Still dialing in feeds. Running Nectar from the gods. Topped a couple times and doing more Lst this week. Girls aren't that tall but are bushy as hell. Blue dream in the back right hasn't started training yet due to branch injury. Goal for next week is to get them to stretch a bit more.

Mad_at_sun Starting week 5. Adjusted a few environmentals this week: -Fixed some nute issues. Was using too much Bloom Kaos foliar feed without compensating with extra calcium. *Be aware of this if running NFTG line. Causes symtoms of calcium deficiency* - Ran a flush -Changed feed schedule to: Feed, Feed, Tea, Feed, Feed, Flush -Moved the lights up to try and get a bit more stretch. These girls are getting bushier everyday which is starting to present some challenges while working them. Trying to keep up with LST to open them up but stems are thick as hell which caused a few breaks (fixable). Between the overall density of the plant and thickness of the stems I'm having a hard time making progress with the LST. Going to Scrog soon which should help with the training. Planning on 8 week veg. Really want to get some more height out these girls before I flip them.

Mad_at_sun Goals for week 6 of Veg: - Defoliate - Stretch - Fill out the canopy This was a productive week. Definitely spent more time in the garden than any previous week. The changes I made last week to the nutrient levels and feeding schedule have resulted in better growth. Getting your nutrients dialed in is a huge relief and confidence booster. Also allowed me to focus on more important aspects of the grow. Leading up to this week the girls have been short, bushy and dense. This created some challenges in terms of access to the plant for watering, training and other general maintenance. It was also overwhelming when trying to visualize my plan for controlling the growth of the plants. This is what drove my goals for the week. Each of my goals relied on the other and were achieved in this order: Defoliate --> Stretch --> Fill. I would then continue to Stretch --> Fill until fill was complete. Defoliating was pretty intimidating as a first time grower. I had a lot of growth and no experience to guide me on how the plant would react. Did a lot of research and felt comfortable enough to move forward. Happy with the results and the plants have been thriving now that the light and air have better penetration. For the stretch, I raised my lights and dialed them back to about 50% power. Desired result came very quickly. This was exciting as I was worried the girls would remain short. However, my excitement was short lived. Each time I gained some height I had to immediately sacrifice it in order to fill the canopy by tucking it under the net. This is where I learned why patience is key to a successful garden. Things were coming together, I just had to stick to the plan. I made a lot of progress towards filling out the canopy. Added a trellis net for scrog and assigned each plant a quadrant it would be responsible for filling. As the larger branches moved outward, a gap in the middle opened up. This is where the recent bedefoliation, initial topping and LST I had done came into play. There was newly exposed growth happy to fill in the gaps. I'd say I'm about 65% of the way there. Still some uneven areas on opposite sides of the main branches. Confident I can fill the rest in during flower. Unexpected/Unplanned challenges: My exhaust fan for the tent started to make a loud noise. Determined it was due to the bearings rusting from moisture. Was under 2 months old. Turns out it's a common issue with this model. Replaced with an AC Infinity brand. So far so good. Lastly, the temperature outside has been a crap shoot. One day it's sunny, the next it's raining and then it's freezing. Managed to keep temp/RH under control but it's obvious I'm going to need to add a heat source as we head into winter. In summary, this was a very rewarding week. By assessing progress from the previous week I was able to create clear goals for this one. Through the help of this site and others I was able to create a plan of action and it actually worked. As a new grower this was a huge confidence boost and has really motivated me to continue learning and experimenting. Very cool.

Mad_at_sun Week 7 Riding off the successes of last week, I did my best not to rock the boat in their last week of Veg. They continued to respond well to feeding regimen. There is a tad bit if nute burn showing but I'm not worried as they are all getting nicely. Really happy with how the plants bounced back from the defoliation last week. You can't even tell unless you look under the canopy. The scrog has done a great job of filling out the room. I will add 2nd level with tighter spacing in a few weeks. I just flipped them to 12/12 last night. Relieved I made it to this stage successfully. Definitely a few left turns but all in all I think we did good. Super excited for flowering! Lots more work ahead.

Mad_at_sun Week 8: First full week of flower. Sex is showing on all 4 ladies. Canopy is now close to 90% full. Lots of bud sites coming through and stems are thickening. Will need to do some defoliation soon. Kept the lights at the same height but turned the intensity up and added the red spectrum only from an Amazon special LED I wasn't using. Added an "exhale" bag at the beginning of the week. This should get some extra CO2 in the tent and help the plants handle the extra light. No way to measure so trusting it's working. Lastly, I got some Soil Balance Pro by Kind Roots, Mammoth P and Aphrodite's Extraction. Will play around with these to get some additional microbes going. Using Recharge from seed has really created crazy root structure. Literally have roots filling pots to the point they are coming out of the top, bottom and sides. Time to get some more life attached to those roots.

Mad_at_sun Week 9: Most days I spent minimal time in the tent. Just enough to water and check for any issues. My plan was to let them do their thing the majority of the week. I would then have a better idea of what each plant wanted to do and could plan from there. That being said, it's funny how my biggest plant during Veg now seems to be taking a break and has turned into the runt. If she doesn't start stretching I'll have to raise her up in order to level the canopy. Up until I flipped to flower, I had been very focused on growing the canopy out and keeping it level. Going into flower the canopy was basically wall to wall thanks to a lot of training and scrog. However, this caused the girls to be a bit squatty. The past two weeks I've just let them grow free hoping to get a good stretch. By the end of the week all but 1 of the plants had stretched about 2-3 inches. At least 20 bud sites per plant were showing with pompoms coming in. While 20 bud sites is good, there were many more hidden just under the surface. They had not been getting light/air because of how bushy these girls are. They definitely had catching up to do but they had potential. That being said I did my 2nd and hopefully last defoliation and it was a heavy one! As a new grower I hate defoliating as I don't have any experience on how the plants will respond. Lots of opinions online both for and against it. Regardless, I determined it would be beneficial to expose those extra sites so I went ahead with defoliating 3 of the 4 plants. Left 1 of the plants untouched just in case things went South. Only time will tell. Lastly, I added a 2nd scrog net and a few things to assist growth. More CO2 and "The Kraken" from NFTG nute line. Kraken is shrimp and crab shell and is supposed to strengthen stems and flower sites. Hoping this will help the newly exposed sites catch up. 🤞

Mad_at_sun Week 10: Wrapped up the 3rd full week of flowering and for the most part, it was a pretty easy going week. Other than getting their normal feeding schedule and doing some minor tent maintenance, the girls didn't require very much attention. There is still consistent stretch happening for 3 out of the 4 plants. Bottom left plant is still not stretching at all. It is packing on flower but there's been basically zero vertical growth in the branches since flipping. I am going to raise her up a few inches to keep the canopy as even as possible with the other plants. The feeding regimen I'm using at the moment is for early flower stage. This coming week I'll start the transition to using the mid flower regimen. I also incorporated Mammoth P and Soil Balance Pro into my tea days. My new tea recipe consists of 5 gallons of PH'd water with the suggested amounts of Mammoth P and Soil Balance Pro. I then add a helping of Aphrodite's Extraction for it's glucose/carbon and bubble Brew it for 24 hours. Still don't have enough experience with these microbes yet but both companies make some pretty bold claims. We'll see as time moves on whether or not they are as effective as they claim. Lastly, since I've left the plants to grow how they wanted to these past few weeks, the canopy I had worked so hard to create has started getting out of control again. In the upcoming weeks I'll start using the 2nd scrog net I had installed and hopefully get the canopy nice and even again.

Mad_at_sun Week 11: 4th week of flower. As I had feared, the stretch I was hoping for didn't come. The plants have remained relatively short. It's really hard to say but if you twisted my arm Id contribute it to the quantum board LEDs I'm using. Fortunately the nodes are stacked tight and the buds seem to be going most of the way down the branch. At this point I'm just trying to keep them happy and fatten them up. I've adjusted the nutes to a higher ppm. Will back off first sign of issues. Terps and colors are starting to come in along with a nice coating of frost. 3 of the plants have a nice earty/piney smell. However, there is one with a completely unique smell. It's very fruity and sweet. Closet thing I could pin it to was Juicy Fruit bubble gum. Smells amazing. Having difficulty keeping my VPD where I want it due to high humidity. I have a few degrees I can increase the temp so will try that for now.

Mad_at_sun Missed a few weeks. Will be added missing updates here. For now, throwing up some bud pics.