Jan 23rd - Day 29 from Seed - I clipped off another low fan leaf today. Marking the second leaf I have removed (minus the topping I did). I will continue to feed as I have and focusing on keeping these 4 side branches tied down so they grow as straight outward as possible.
I will finish up the rest of the mid-veg nutrients I have left in my sprayer tank (little less than half a gallon) and then switch to Dr. Coco's late-veg nutrient solution. I will go ahead and mix that up today and then pH it tomorrow when I pour some into the sprayer tank. The formula calls for an EC of 1.25 and PPM of 625, but that's with H2O2/Hydroguard, RapidStart, SM-90, and Diamond Nectar. I'm not using H2O2, RapidStart, or SM-90 so mine will be much lower (like last week). I am getting some Hydroguard in but that's mainly for Kratky experiments I'm working on. My EC right now seems to be around 1.1.
Jan 24th - Day 30 - I clipped another big fan leaf today to help with branch training. I added another plant tie to one of the 4 side branches that I'm training as it had grown out to the point where it was growing up again. The other side didn't need another tie, for some reason, so I just repositioned the original plant tie on that side so that it's holding down a better part of the branch. Will likely give the top two branches a couple more days of growth before I reposition its plant ties. But we'll see. Nothing is set in stone.
I also mixed a batch of "late veg" nutes, as mentioned earlier, which measured out to 573PPM and 1.21EC after I added enough diluted pH Down to bring its pH to 5.7 - 5.8. This will likely go up a couple of points over the next few days (at least that's how things typically are). I'll recheck again in a few days but as long as it's between 5.5 and 6.5 then I'm happy with it. Naturally, I always try to target 5.8 to 6.2 for my coco grows.
Jan 25th - Day 31 - I ended up clipping the other two big fan leaves today to help with branch training (easier to train branches when big leaves aren't in the way). I also noticed a bit of tip burn during its last watering yesterday so I poured a bit of RO water into my current batch of nutrients. I didn't measure anything out, just poured some in there to drop its EC a bit. Again, I'm just focusing on keeping the plant healthy right now while carefully training its side branches to grow horizontally.
I've noticed it is times like this, and during the middle of flower that the plant really tests your patience. At least for me (as I would say I can be impatient at times).
Jan 27th - Day 33 - I tied a branch down too tight and during the night and into the next morning the growth ended up snapping the branch. This brings me down to 3 core branches but I will be attempting to train two other branches in the direction of the broken branch. All in hopes that I don't leave out any space above the pot that could be filled in by buds.
Jan 29th - Day 35 - Trying to be more careful with the rest of the branch training. I'm wondering if pinching the branches until they crunch (some call it supercropping, others call it chiropractic training) will help with horizontal branch training and preventing them from snapping like it did. I will be researching this later.
There really isn't much else to write about. All I'm doing is watering multiple times a day, watching the plant ties/branches and trying to get these branches trained to grow outward before growing up.