It's been two weeks since I applied the lime to the soil and things seem to have improved overall, just not as dramatically as I had hoped. The leaves are looking pretty yellow but the bud production has increased fairly substantially. The grow light makes things look a lot more yellow than they are under normal lighting so I'm regaining a little cautious optimism and I plan to see this grow through to end.
I was worried about all of the Cal/Mag Plus I had dumped through the soil so I got a flushing agent and flushed every plant. Run off pH is now 6.3 for every plant but 1 and 5. Run off TDS was around 400 to 650 for every plant before flushing, even plant 4 which had never been flushed. Fed them all at about 500 ppm, and run off after first feeding was about half of what it was going in so I'll give another full feeding next watering and hope it keeps them happy.
I watched a video and learned a bit more about lighting and I'm going to try to keep the brightest part of the canopy at 650-700 PPFD. Because the light is on for 18 hours with autoflowers, you get the same DLI at lower light levels as you would running 1000 PPFD for 12 hours. Most lighting advice you'll find for cannabis is assuming a 12/12 cycle in flower.
I also started adding a tiny bit of epsom salts to every feeding. I learned that sulfur is responsible for terpene and flavonoid production so I figured adding a teeny tiny amount of epsom salts to every feeding couldn't hurt. Plus, plants 2 and 5 are showing what looks like a sulfur deficiency so they got a little more but they'll be getting the same amount as the rest from now on.
I'm going to let this grow go until I see some amber trichomes this time. Last time I didn't want a single one but this time I want more bulk. I'm assuming that means it will go about a week longer than it did last time and I'm planning to flush about 5 to 7 days before harvest so I've still got a couple of weeks that I can feed them and give them proper light. Harvest isn't going to be ideal but it's not going to be a complete waste of my time and energy like it felt a week ago. I seriously can't believe plant 6 is still alive and producing buds no less.
I also wanted to mention that plant 4 is doing the best as far as bud production but the leaves are so dense I'm really worried about mold. So, I put my harvest dehumidifier in the tent and at this point it's been able to keep the humidity around 55% when the light goes out which should be low enough that mold won't grow. It would be a shame if the “best plant” had to be thrown away.
@MisterPandaBear, Light used was an HLG 550 3000k V2. Tent was a 4x4 Gorilla Grow Tent. Exhaust Fan/Can was a 6-inch Vivosun package on Amazon. Main air circulating fan in the tent was a Honeywell Quiet Set. That's all of the equipment I can really think of that matters.
Some lovely colors on that lady. Fantastic work. Beautiful purple color starting to come in nicely. Keep doing what your doing and best of luck the rest of the way growmie
Just wanted to add that I got the opinions of some growers I respect and they have diagnosed the problem as too much calcium. Lesson learned for next grow. I'm not going to supplement calcium in any form until I see an actual deficiency that isn't caused by lockout, which I may or may not be able to recognize, but I'm willing to try ;)
I'm posting this on day 43. I watered a few plants tonight and did the same nutes for all of them, but used 10 drops of pH down in one gallon, and no pH down or up in the others. All gallons used had the same pH (6.5) when I measured them with a digital meter. I then went and tried the pH test kit that's done with drops of test solution that came with my pH down/up kit. That also shows the water is at 6.5.
I tested run off for pH. The gallon that got the 10 drops of pH down produced 5.9 run off. Liquid test confirmed it was very close 6.0. The other gallons produced 6.1 run off and liquid test was a tiny bit greener meaning the pH was slightly higher.
I think I'm going to flush with some straight up plain old water that hasn't been pHed and see if I can get the soil to be less acidic. I think I finally understand what's happening with the multiple deficiencies and I'm hoping that things haven't reached the point of no return yet.
Is it normal for tap water pH to fluctuate?