Xodus Round 2

Seeds were germinated with the paper towel method on 12/12/19. Less than 24 hours later, the seeds had popped and the taproot was ready to be planted. Seed was placed in an aerated solo cup with Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. Light mist of water on top after placing the seed. Depending on how quickly the cups dry out, I may end up putting the humidity dome over it. This will be an 18/6 veg and the goal is about a 3-4 week veg time and will include topping and LST. Update: Plant broke surface on 12/15/19. Watered with about 1 tbsp on 12/18 19. Plant has been misted daily.

Watered with about 1 tbsp of water on 12/18/19 & 12/21/19 and around 2 tbsp on 12/24/19. Plant will be ready to be transplanted within the next week.

Watered with a few tbsp on 12/27/19. Transplanted on 12/27/19 from solo cups to 3 gallon cloth bags. Plant was fed on 12/31/19 .5 tsp of Fox Farms Grow Big, 1.5 tsp Fox Farm Big Bloom per 1 gallon of water and .25 cups of lime raked in via top feed. Plant was given about 1/5 gallon of water.

Plant was watered on 1/3/20 as well as fed with 3 tsp Big Bloom and 1 tsp Grow Big per gallon. Runoff is quite high, sitting around 8 however plant is showing no signs of lockout. Plant was watered again with water pH'd to 6.1 on 1/7/20 in an attempt to lower the runoff however, the runoff was still at 8. I am unsure if this is because the lime was added as an afterthought and it takes time to seep in and take effectiveness. Plant was topped on the 5th node on 1/5/20 and an LST ring was placed on 1/7/20. LST began on 1/8/20 with the plant staples. I will continue to water with pH 6.0 and will possibly flush depending on if I see any runoff improvement. The plan for the upcoming week is to defoliate in preparation for the flip to flower at the end of week 5. Veg has gone on a bit longer than I expected but for no reason other than I have not yet hung the HPS.

Plant was lollipopped on 1/12/20 followed by a flush of 1 gallon of water ph'd tp 6.2. Runoff still maintains at 8.0 and I believe it is heavily influenced and thrown off by the lime top feed. I have not noticed any slow in growth but rather a good step forward and explosion of growth. Due to lollipopping and last week defoliation, Additional LST was performed on 1/12 - 1/15. I have decided to set back switching to flower until next week at the soonest. I'd like to wait 7 days post lollipopping. I may just swap the bulbs in the T5 and switch to 12/12 until the new light is installed. I am planning a final veg feed to be included either the tail ed of this week or early next week. She will receive the recommended dosing at 3/4 strength. Exhaust fan has been ordered and I anticipate installation next week. My biggest concern is half of the plants are nearly double the height as the other two and my T5 setup allows for me to accommodate that. I do not know how the transition from that to HPS would be so I guess the decision will rely on the install of the HPS.

Plant was watered with 2.5 tsp Grow Big and 4.5 tsp per gallon (3/4 dilution) Big Bloom with a pH of 6.2 on 1/17/20. Runoff still reading at 8 however there have been no signs of lockout. Additional LST was performed from the 17th to the 20th. Plant received about .4 gallons of plain watered pH'd to 6.2 with runoff finally dropping below 8 but still around 7.8. HPS was finally installed and plant was flipped to 12/12 and placed under the HPS on 1/20/20 (Week 6 day 3). Color may be slightly off in the day 3 pics due to the HPS still being on. She is definitely filling out a bit.

Plant was flipped to HPS and a 12/12 schedule on 1/20/20. Plant was watered on 1/23/20 with 2.25 tsp Big Bloom and 1.5 tsp Tiger Bloom, followed by 1 gallon plain water feed on 1/26/20 which actually turned out more like a mini flush accidentally as I would have preferred not to have as much runoff as I did (around 50%). After comparing the difference between the 3 days I am seeing a little less green. I did not do an extra feed as it was not even noticeable until they were side by side. I will keep my eye on this to make sure it is not actually light bleaching. Continued with LST where possible but this is the point where I am going to let her begin to stretch as opposed to spreading it out and keeping it wider. Plants appear to need more water than previously as I think they would have been better off two days apart as opposed to 3. I notice that the substrate is not holding water very well and I think between the increase temps in the room and the stronger light, they are drying out much quicker than I anticipated. Next feed will be a full strength flower feed and I am anticipating a 2nd defoliation at the end of week 2. In terms of the runoff previously reading so high, turns out the pH pen has been having issues jumping between reading in the 6 and reading in the 8 range. For example, I had to calibrate it twice in one watering session alone. This is concerning in terms of knowing what the actual pH going in was however, I have seen no signs of issues of lockout and so I believe the pH out was the only thing reading off. The runoff from the 1/26/20 watering was around 6.7.

I had initially wanted to defoliate around week 3 but as I was watching the buds develop and I evaluated the bushiness and leaf coverage of a lot of buds, I decided to go ahead and do the final defoliation at the beginning of week 2. I have read that it is better to wait so that it does not take away from that early bud growth due to the stress. But my thought was, how will many of the buds get growth anyway without getting proper light. So I went ahead with the defoliation. Only way for me to know is to diary this experience and try a week 3 defoliation next grow for compare. A few grows ago I had an issue due to over defoliation so this is something I am still honing in on with my craft. I saw no stress from defoliation. Instead, I feel like she had a great growth spurt after. Watered with Tiger Bloom (2 tsp/gal), Big Bloom (3 tsp/gal) and Grow Big (2 tsp/gal) on 1/29/20 and again on 2/1/20 with plain water both times pH'd to 6.4. She shows a good amount of color change after the feeding. She is stretching a lot. Although some LST was performed, she is at a point where I have to let her do her thing. I should have been more aggressive with her LST in veg. Her structure is not unreasonable however and she is not terribly leggy. She has not nearly the flower growth as her FastBuds garden mates. All of the FastBuds plants have a significant flower size compared to garden mates. She has not had any obvious recovery time from any of the topping, LST and defoliation. Speaking of pH, I had to go invest in a $40 pen from a grow store (probably half that on Amazon) because I was having to re-calibrate the old one around every 20 min and I could not take it anymore. The new one seems to stabilize on the numbers better so I am hoping I am now getting true readings.

Watered and fed with 3 tsp Big Bloom and 2 tsp Tiger Bloom on 2/5/20 pH'd to 6.4. Plants clearly do not like to wait 4 days to be watered. All plants were droopy. Stretch continues gaining over 4 inches during the week. It was difficult to keep the light at 15 inches. Plants were rotated and swapped to different areas of the footprint throughout the week. Watered and decided to feed again on 2/8/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Grow Big and 2 tsp Tiger Bloom pH's to 6.5. I was unsure if I wanted to do a 2nd feed in a row but decided to try it and see what happens. I should have waited for week 3 defoliation because it is as if I never even defoliated. Very light LST done as the structure is pretty set and all the growth is now vertical.

Started the week off with a watering of the plant on 2/12/20 with 1 gallon. pH'd to 6.4 with runoff around 6.3 and up to approx. 30% runoff. Followed up with a feeding on 2/16/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Tiger Bloom and I decided to vary from the recommended Grow Big feeding and only did 1 tsp rather than 2. I am starting to wonder if I should have gone with the extra tsp of grow big because she is showing signs of nitrogen deficiency and it seems a bit early for it to be flowering stage fade. The final feed for the week happened after a 4 days with no water which I estimate she needs every 3 days so she may look a bit droopy on the 2/16/20 pics. Runoff was again around 6.3 pH. Alternatively, the yellowing started on the bottom middle and this could just be a calcium deficiency. I do not believe I will give her any cal/mag in the next week as I think I will instead adjust the next grow to do a supplemental feeding of it sooner unless she takes a turn for the worse. Also some light defoliation of yellowed leaves as well is anything blocking on the top of the canopy. I am a little frustrated at her structure as it varies so widely from last grow (https://growdiaries.com/diaries/30651-exodus-freebie-grow). She had really nice compact stocky buds last time and this time she is tall spindly and wispy instead. I do not know how the end bud structure will appear to be but this simply isn't what I was expecting from her. She is the tallest thinnest plant in the garden which is surprising being that there is a mostly sativa strain growing with her. It is almost as if it is the lights fault and that this happened during her stretch but regardless of how far she was from the light (16 inches HID) she should not have better structure from the T5 used on her for flower last grow. It will be interesting to see and compare the end results. Due to her height, I ended up opening her LST ring and allowing some of the stalks to grow under and out. I think perhaps I should have made better LST choices along the way as she is now poking out of the lights footprint.

This week began the beginning of a family emergency that caused some spotty care during week 5. Plants were watered on 2/21/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Tiger Bloom, 2 tsp Grow Big and .8 tsp of Cal-Mag with water pH'd to 6.6 Runoff was low around 6.1. Once again 3 days proves to be too far from last watering as it is consistently droopy after the 3rd day. There must have been a watering somewhere between the 2/16 and 2/21 however it is not noted. Light defoliation of a few fan leaves that were blocking light. Plants were rotated under the light footprint. Nothing else of note due to my absence from the plants.

Week 12 was also a week of spotty care due to family emergency. Plants were watered on 2/24/20 with 3/4 gallon of water with pH'd to 6.5. Runoff was 6.4 with runoff of 6.4. Watered again on 2/27/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom and 2 tsp Tiger Bloom pH'd to 6.4 with about 10% runoff. Plants were rotated under the footprint. Nothing else of note.

My family emergency pulled me out of state and completely prevented me from even being able to do spotty care. Luckily my fiance was able to water for me on 3/4/20 and 3/7/20. I had to walk him through how to pH the water and instructed him to water without any nutes as to not complicate things any more than needed. He was aiming for 6.5 pH both times and used 3/4 a gallon on 3/4/20 and a full gallon on 3/7/20. Light fading noted by him which I told him was likely late flower fade.

I finally returned home long enough to give about a week of care before having to leave town once again. She is showing good fade but she is also constantly thirsty and I will not be able to sustain her thirst through this pandemic. Flushed with 2 gallons pH'd to 6.5. I would have liked to do a much larger flush however, the current pandemic has really limited my access to distilled water so I used what I could get. She had another water during my absence on 3/14/20 of 1 gallon pH'd to 6.5. For the first time ever she had to have spring water as there was no other bottled water available to get her by until my return. Continued to remove any dead foliage. I let her go into week 11 last harvest seeking amber trichs however, her garden mates will be ready much soon and I utilize the room I grow in as my drying room as well so she will likely be chopped MUCH sooner this grow. I think the earlier harvest is what is making a difference with the bud structure from last grow versus this grow. She had some really fat nice filled out colas last grow and this time she wound up pretty lanky. Trichs are all milky. I generally like to aim for about 20% amber but she is much more sativa leaning and others prefer a much more heady high and so I said I would give a full milky little to no amber harvest a try! The following week from this will include harvest including trichs but it will not be completed until after the drying and curing process is finished so that I have a chance to sample.

Plants were harvested on 3/18/20. She was hung completely intact, no leaves removed. In retrospect, I am going to start removing all fan leaves before hanging. They can still get a slow dry from all the other plant content but A) they are so much easier to remove wet and B) I think they actually hindered the dry too much. They had last been watered on 3/14/20 so I expected them to be prime in terms of water content. Drying conditions were near perfect RH wise. I remained between 45-50 which is a huge improvement from my last dry. Normally my RH is on the very low end (30s) so I used a humidifier to keep the room even. The temp in the room however was dropping down to 60. I did not want to run the heater because my goal was to achieve the slowest dry possible. I thought things were going great. I had made it to day 7, the longest I had ever gone when I started to get some concern regarding how slow it was actually going with those temps. It was day 7 and it still felt like it could be 4-5 days. I had not encouraged the best airflow and so I decided to open the room up to allow the temps to equalize and to encourage the airflow. I placed my fan in the next room and aimed it at the wall before the actual room to keep it from aiming directly on the plants. This helped bring the plants to a point where they were ready for cure within the next day, day 9 (which I did not love because I then began worrying about missing my cure window). Flower went into the jars on 3/29/20 fully trimmed. RH was right on point. RH stabilized to 65 and a Boveda pack was added to help keep them in the zone. Now lets talk about the weight. As I mentioned in the review of the HPS used, I was a bit disappointed with the performance on this first grow with HPS. I would have expected to double my weight in harvest going from T5's to HPS. The return was about equivalent if not less than my last T5 grow. I know what these genetics are capable of and I do not believe it was the fault of the genetics at all. Every single plant was a disappointment weight wise. I think my unexpected absence affected the overall performance. The quality of the smoke was mediocre. The smell did not retain well at all. This taste of the smoke was mediocre as well based on what she has previously put out. Taste was smooth but lacking any real taste at all. She did receive some minor seeds from the self pollinating FF3 in the garden.