Inaugural grow - Amnesia Haze ILGM

This is not so much week one as day 1. I wanted to use this to chart every stage of life for my plant, both this grow and moving forward. Today I added a very weak nutrient solution to the reservoir, with a bottle of full strength seedling nutrients to top off to slowly raise the nutrient levels in the tank. I have three plants started, hopefully by day 10 I will pick the real winner, and rearrange everything to maximize growth. I am slowly lowering the lights over a few days to 24" and then I will fine tune the light levels.

This was kind of a crazy week in terms of the grow. I am posting this on day 9, when all the pictures above were taken. All three seedlings loved the weak nutrient solution I put them in. Seedling A is definitely going to be the chosen one, but I haven't yet culled C. I noticed the Rapid Rooters starting to break down, so I'm going to need to keep a better eye on pH. The water I removed from the reservoir had jumped from 5.8 to 7.0 pH, so I definitely want to control anything like that. I also added a Vicks WarmSteam vaporizer to the room my tent is in to try to boost the RH. Currently, my RH is rising by roughly 1% every few hours. Seedling B's nutrient tube was knocked out on Thursday, and it was pulled to save time. Thursday, I drained half of the existing reservoir and topped it back off with solution at 1/4 nutrient strength to boost the levels and step up to today's reservoir change to full 1/4 strength solution. I am going to keep checking every day for light/nutrient burn. I have debated bringing the light a bit closer, but I don't think I will for now. I plan to try to add mid-week pictured, but we will see.

This week, I decided to make some serious changes to my growth environment. Firstly, I noticed some spots on lower leaves on each plant. After a little research, and some common sense, I wound up diagnosing the plant with some mild phytotoxicity due to overusing my prophylactic fungicide, so I dialed it way back, started regular foliar feeds of plain water, and since then, the plants have started to really take off. Today, while I was changing the reservoir and cleaning it out, I noticed that both plants are starting already to get very pungent. They are still tiny for now, but I think that by the time I reach flower, I am going to be thanking myself for getting a carbon filter right away. I also have decided to raise my pH to 6.3 for the veg period to help promote calcium, magnesium, and nitrogen uptake. Pant B (I will find a better designation for these, maybe not) I moved to the opposite corner, as it was given a death row reprieve when I noticed it starting a growth spurt (splitting its stem without the stem thickening noticeably yet), and today I was vindicated in my decisions as the stem is already thickening. I hope it wasn't stressed too much being moved. The final real note was that I read a number of studies that suggest significant additional growth from the addition of Voodoo Juice, and I wanted to add humic acids as well to help nutrient uptake. So there were the big changes this week. I'll start posting more regular pictures as well.

This week I have been working very hard to re-solidify my technique. First impressions of the Voodoo Juice, it is much better than Hydroguard. Wih just Hydroguard, my reservoir would develop a faint acrid, almost epoxy-like odor. With the Voodoo Juice, the reservoir has no smell. The roots are definitely huge. I also decided to bite the bullet and go with RO from now on, after a bacterial bloom in my top-off bottle earlier this week. Today, both plants received their first topping, headed toward a manifold. Plant B deserves an award for most improved. Each plant was growing between one and three quarters of an inch per day. I'm loving this shit.

I'm a day late on this update, but hey, what the hell. I have a stressful job, and this is how I relax. Anywho... the plants are growing like crazy. I started LST a few days after the first topping, when I removed the fan leaves and let the growth tips have their day in the sun. I learned a lot of lessons this week. For one, right now, it's not a good plan to have my fan directly on the plants. For two, I won't be shy about minor pruning from now on. These plants grow quick and bushy, and leaves often sit on top of each other, which is not OK. Today I topped both plants (though plant B was done VERY carefully, with my thumbnail, after picture time), removed most of the fan leaves, and I just want to see these colas grow. From this point, no more cutting, only defoliation and LST. Also, while I know most growers go for 8 main colas, I left all 12. That means that between both plants, if all goes well, I will have 24 main colas for this grow. I am so excited.

So, I have largely spent this week fighting plant stress, because I definitely should have waited a few more days before I topped either plant last week, but they definitely recovered. I turned on the flower switch for a few days to induce a bit of stretching while the plant's base structure forms. Plant B... well I was uncharacteristically clumsy in training and pruning it today. My hand slipped while pruning, cleanly severing a growing cola, and I broke 3 stems training. Plant A I sis not screw up, and it will still develop the full 12 colas, at this point at least. The nice thing is, however, that I finally get to just let them grow, prune fan leaves that get too big, and LST them until they're about 22" high. Turning the bloom light off soon. Give the plants several days to recover.

This week, I added a couple of things to my setup. For one, I upgraded to a serious humidifier, and for two I finally upgraded my TDS meter to something I can calibrate. This week's main challenge has been learning when and how to adjust the humidifier, as it can very easily put my grow tent into the 70s or higher. Since last week, I cut the other broken branch, and bent the whole plant forward, putting the cut growth on bottom, and everything else pointing up. At this point, I am just letting them grow as they are. Once all the branches on plant A turn up, I will start defoliating the top colas to slow their growth to get everything even. As of now, between both plants, there are 21 main colas growing. I can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks bring.

I'm really settling into my stride. The plants are responding immediately to what I want them to do. Plant A has a wonderful structure, with four central colas (the island), surrounded by 8 colas roughly evenly spaced around the plant (the ring). The ring is lower than the island currently, as all colas that form it were originally bent horizontally to grow out. During the period of stress and slow growth brought about by manifolding too early, I was worried, but they all have pulled out of that phase, and are entering a phase of strong, fast vegetative growth. Plant B has a less defined structure, but the basics are the same. Because of the damage early, there was a lot of stretchy growth to compensate. On each plant, I am defoliating the tallest colas to put the brakes on the island so the ring can catch up. I am largely letting the plants grow, removing a leaf here and there to allow light to penetrate to the center of the plant. I have never removed a single growth tip, so there is a ton of yield potential in this setup. The plants are almost even, and ready to grow up and big.

Let's see... So it would have been Tuesday, I finally grew a brain and bent down nearly ALL of the colas on both plants to match the lowest. That seems like exactly what the plants had been waiting for me to do. The very next day, every cola I had tied down had turned up, and since then all growth has been even on both plants. Another thing I did was to look back over the page on ILGM for this strain for any tips to look for. The following is from the strain page on ILGM: "As an indoor plant, the limbs grow more horizontally than they do vertically. This allows the plants to grow into a wide bush, generally less than 3-4 feet in height. These plants require plenty of light and air to reach the nodes flowering on the lower branches. Therefore, it’s vital that you trim the wide leaves at the top of the plant." In my experience, these plants definitely like to bush out. There are a ton of leaves, and they only take a few days to get to be the size of my hand, so I do need to regularly check the light penetration through the plant, and remove a few fan leaves here and there as needed. My goal for now, however, is to just let the plant grow. I have the 21 main colas growing strong, and a huge number of secondary colas reaching up to match them. So far these two plants have a combined area of a hair over 5.5 Ft^2 (769.5 in^2), and they get taller and wider by the day. I definitely messed up when I topped the plants a second time. Immediately after I did, it was like each plant froze, especially B. It was more than a full week before the plants resumed the strong growth they had before. Next time I grow this strain (I still have 7 seeds in reserve), I will make sure there are at least 10 days between tops. Topping as early as I did not only cost me the week of basically stopped growth, but another of significantly slowed growth. The second thing I think I'll do for future grows with this strain is to back off a hair on the defoliation. Even through the plant does grow extremely leafy, and defoliation is necessary for light penetration, I have made a habit of stripping fan leaves. Since I've backed off, I've noticed much stronger, faster growth. Some of this is, admittedly, from the increased size that fan leaves are able to achieve, but the stems are also growing quick. The third thing that I have learned that was not the result of these changes is that, at least in the late vegetative stage, these plants LOVE light. I am, as I have mentioned, running a BestVA Dual-Chip 2000w, and at various points early in the vegetative stage it seemed like it was too much at 24", but now? I lowered the lights to 24" total, so currently the lights are around 18" from the canopy, and I see no signs of light burning. I think that 16" might even be doable, which by extension means that the plant may be able to get as close as 10" in flower, though I don't want to be much closer than 12". Bearing in mind that I started this journal on day 1, and that I am making this entry as I BEGIN week 9, and not as I end it, I am predicting two to two and a half more weeks in veg as it's growing. That will put it inside of week 11. I think the next journal, I will see if, learning from my mistakes will see me changing to 12/12 in week 9, rather than week 11.

Growing growing growing. So, I have an extremely stressful job, and even though working with plants (of all types, not just weed) is how I unwind, it is coming to a head. Therefore, while I am still trying to get my updates up on Saturday or Sunday, sometimes, I spend the weekend just short of catatonic. However, enough about that shit. These plants are BUSHY. B-U-S-H-Y. Thankfully, the plants have realized where each other are and aren't really growing into each other. We're getting closer to one square yard by the moment it seems like. Other than that, not too much to report. Whenever I open the tent, I am hit by a blast of smell. I can't wait to see what these smell like when they're actually flowering. I have already decided what I will be adding in for the flower cycle, so we'll see. Update: after a bunch of deliberation, I spent a good chunk of time between the past 2 days defoliating, LST, and supercropping these plants to stop growing into each other. I'm happy with the results, and pictures will be up soon.

Would you believe I overslept for a week? No? Whatever. Mid-career change, and I've re-examined my feelings about defoliation in Veg. These plants grow so bushy that defoliation never seems to slow them down much at all. So, I've made a decision that every Monday, I will be skinning the plants again. Fan leaves only. I won't touch a growth tip. The idea here is that the plants keep choking themselves out of light. Monday, I removed nearly 80% of the fan leaves on both plants. The looked like a pair of skeletons. After giving the plants 2 days to recover, the next step was to supercrop all of the tallest colas on both plants. That brought the plants down to a nice, even 10.5". I think after this grow, I will be changing my length units to metric. Pictures Incoming later with the other update.

I am back. After two months of personal tumult, I can finally start posting again. The good news is that the plants are doing fine. Long and short, I have been learning a ton on this grow. First is that when it comes to nutrients, less is definitely more. I will be coming up with a custom nutrient schedule for all grows going forward based on my findings for now. Right around the time I stopped posting, I started getting very frustrated with slow growth. It was the nutrient levels. Immediately, I started diluting my reservoir, but even when I got to 50% of original concentration the roots were still rejecting nutrients like crazy. Eventually, I changed the solution to 1/4 the strength I was at, and very soon the plants stopped spitting nutrients back into the reservoir. Apart from that though, there wasn't really anything to post about. Slow growth isn't exactly amazing to look at. Today, however, is special. Today, my plants reached a revised goal (18"). As such, they got a heavy defoliation and cleaning. I removed any and all colas that will never reach even near the top, any with slow or damaged growth, and took a bunch of fan leaves (though mostly I took bad colas). I have also officially changed to a 12/12 light schedule, so once I start seeing pistils, we're flowering.