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Saturday Jan 10, 2020.
Germinated seeds in pH 7 water for 24 hours
January 11, 2020.
Soil was ammended with homemade worm castings, activated bio char, endo/ecto microhyazae, diastatic malt and high quality basalt and gypsum. After root tip emerged seed was placed in soil around 1-2in deep, root tip facing down.
Day 1: January 14th.
First day of seedling stage as it has risen above the soil and the chotyledons have opened.
Lightly watered with ph 6.8 Smooth growing so far. Now that the first true leaves are showing I supplement with co2. I'm using an exhale 365 co2 generator. My ventilation creates negative pressure towards the ceiling of the tent so I just leave the co2 bag on the ground covered in an old tshirt to block some uv light.
Easy growin. The cover crop I planted on day 14 is starting to come in nicely. Good internodal spacing on the plants. Still feeding the girls just water. Found some thrip larvae underneath the first true leaves on the sbc. Sprayed with neem oil mixed with soap and water. Will continue to monitor both plants over the next few days and spray again as a preventative measure.
I'm gonna be starting a breeding project very soon using dreamcatcher seeds from GPS. I hope to cross with the purple sunset if she turns out nice.
Beginning of the fourth week the plants were topped to the third node and all growth beneath was pruned away. After 3 days the leading growths were tied down to be flat. Training will continue for the next couple weeks. Plants have only been fed water
The sunday banana cookies seems to be growing in a strange way. I think it might have responded poorly to the nitrogen fixing bacterium I'm using or the neem oil because the leaves seem to forming strange mutations. It could also be from the thrips chewing on baby leaves which cause them to form messed up. One side is growing slightly faster than the other. The plant has some slightly burnt tips and the leaves seem to be contorting in different directions. Additionally the stems have some purple streaks appearing. Might decide to toss it if things dont improve in the next two weeks.
The purple sunset is growing very well. Some slight tip burn is evident.
Update Feb 12 day 28: Both plant received their final topping at the third node. All fan leaves were removed to expose meristems to as much light as possible. The training wires were moved up to the third node and the branches were pulled down. Once the plants recover in a couple days the automatic irrigation system will be turned on. Last thing to do is tie down the meristems to the green cage. Hopefully by the end of week 5...
The sunday banana cookies is still showing mutations. The right side of the plant is also growing at a slower rate with shorter internodal spacing. Hopefully by the end of the 6th week the plant will be recovered.
Plants are fully recovered from high stress pruning and defoliation so the training must continue. The SBC still has a mutated side. I'm considering chopping it and topping all the mains on the other side to get back to the same number of mains.
The purple sunset is growing well with no problems.
Still been feeding them only water
Update Feb 19: Day 35. Both plants are exhibiting signs of stress. Stems are purplish and growth has slowed dramatically. At first I thought it was in response to training but I took a sample of soil and measured the pH. Ended up in the high 8's when I want to be in the high 6's. Quickly top dressed with elemental sulfur and watered. In addition I added parasitic nematodes to attack any fungal gnat larvae. Will give the plants two weeks to recover
Feb 22: This was a setback week for sure. Plant growth has slowed quite a bit. It's been a few days since the the sulfur and it looks to be slowing the spread of purple stems. The last watering I gave the plants a root protecting bacillus strain. The soil has been on the wetter side since a lockout and I'm worried about root rot. Just a preventative measure. Will be watering less frequently now. I'm hoping in 2 weeks I see a full recovery.
Feb 24: Day 40 The plants seem to be in recovery mode. The purple streaks are no longer progressing and the plant seems to be growing again. All of the cover crop has started growing as well. The sulfur has dropped the pH near the short roots of the cover crop and I am seeing some explosive growth. This is a great sign that the soil biology is recovering. In a few more days I'll water again but for right now I want the soil to dry out a little since it's been consistently wet since I added the sulfur to help it move down through the soil. In 2.5 I'll check the soil pH again to make sure the trend is in the right range.
Feb 25: Day 41 pulled all main branches down to complete the mainline. Cleaned up the cover crop and performed a preventative pesticide spray using an organic pesticide.
Went on vacation to Austria. Came back and the plants seemed to be slowing in growth again. Did a pH soil test and still having issues. Plants seem to be stressing a little still. Will correct and test again in a week.
The plants are recovering nicely. I added aluminum sulfate along with elemental sulfur. I have been correcting ro water pH as low as 5 with molasses and lemon juice. I've also been adding very very small amounts of fish juice, and micronutrients. These will stabilize the water pH and act as buffers. Although not truly organic the aluminum sulfate is working very well to lower the pH of my soil very quickly. Aluminum is a great buffer for the soil also forming aluminum oxides. In tandem is the elemental sulfur and the lower pH water we seem to be coasting back to normal growth rates. Since the environment was not ideal I inoculated the soil again with some of my favorite strains of bacteria and fungi. Recharge, oregonism, hydroguard and urb. The plants are liking the soup very much
March 14: day 60. The girls have been growing again at a strong pace and the purple stems are fading. I probably lost about 2 weeks of potential growth due to high pH and nutrient lockout. Just need to learn from this for the summer outdoor grow. I defoliated most of the large fan leaves and tied the large branches down for a final time. The center of the plant is getting some high light exposure right now that it would not get otherwise. Many of the side branches didn't develop very well while the plants were stressed so I wanna give them an extra week to grow before I scrog these beasts. Maybe 2 more weeks weaving through the scrog and we will be in flower
Ayeeee this week plants are still recovering from high soil pH. I bought a nice pH probe for soil media which ive been using to check pH at various depths in the plant containers. Best money I've spent. No more guess work. The tops layer of soil are in the mid 5's as that is where all of the elemental sulfur is breaking down. I drilled several holes in the side of the containers and measured pH. As I moved down the pH would slowly increase till at the bottom wr were still around 7.8. The solution is simple. I have to consistently water these plants and push the sulfur down into the lower parts of the container. I am not going to set up the automatic irrigation until the pH is somewhat consistent.
Update Day 67. So now with the help of my pH probe I'm checking soil pH every time I water the plants and I've been noticing some interesting trends. Some people say that with organics the most important thing is consistent solution pH. If you're trying to colonize soil microbes they each have specific pH ranges they survive best at. Ideally you want these colonies to help feed the plants for their entire lives so you try to maintain the ideal environment. By straying too far I've destroyed most of my microbiology and created a place for non ideal microbes to thrive and disease causing agents to persist. Using the sulfurs and phosphoric acid I'm slowly bringing the soil pH into a reasonable range. As of right now the middle of the container is around mid 7's. I've discovered that the citric acid from lemon juice breaks down incredibly fast and the water returns to near it's 9+ pH origin after a few days which is most likely what got me in this predicament. Phosphoric acid still breaks down after a few days but it's less dramatic of a delta. I need to correct for pH a few days prior to watering to allow for the delta and then I can correct once more before watering. Hopefully with this new technique we can return these plants to their vigorous growth that they had for the first month.
Update day 68. I've been dumping pH corrected water through my soil and measuring runoff pH's and of course they're high. Mid 7's. I've been sucking it up using a wetvac and correcting the pH to get into a reasonable range. What I've noticed is the buffering capacity of the runoff is much higher than the ro water I'm putting in. I corrected the solution to be in the low 6's and dumped into the soil again. I repeated this procedure several times. I noticed that by the last attempt the buffering was much less noticable and it took far less pH down to correct. I will continue to observe.
Update day 69 check the runoff pH and it was very high. I collected this and threw it in my garden outside. I measured the pH of the soil in the center and it read 7.2 which is a considerable drop from the 7.6 it was at the day before flushing. I'm on the right track. Changing pH is a slow process and I don't want to miss the mark.
Soil pH is in correct range. I'm thinking of transplanting these 15 gallons into 30's to help them recover faster and make sure I have no issues in flower and transition. Will probably do tomorrow. Plants are growing strong. I'm hoping as the roots recover we get some quicker growth. Right now the growth rate is pretty good. I gave the plants a haircut and cut off a lot of old fanleaves and brushed off any inferior nodes that won't make it so the plant can focus on the top.
Transplanted everything into 30 gal containers. Plants are recovering. I'm hoping by the end of next week the plants will be fully recovered and we can transition smoothly into flowering.
Things are moving along. one more week before flipping. Been watering the core with 6.2 pH water spiked with calcium carbonate to stabilize the pH. The outer edge has be getting 5.8pH water and doing pretty well. I've noticed if I let the outside edge dry out the plant suffers. Will be setting up the irrigation to keep the outside wet
This week has been lots of setup for getting ready for flowering. Flipping week 15. I've been putting soluble freeze dried dehydrated coconut, chelated micronutrients, and some oreganism in the water. pH to 5.8 and waiting a few hours before watering. It would usually rise to 6.1-6.2. I took an hour off the timer for the light so the plant recognizes the days are getting shorter.
Update: Plants are hanging in there. Defoliated almost all fan leaves and small undergrowth. I also worked in EM1 bokashi to help support facultative anerobic bacteria. I watered in with a bokashi tea spiked with molasses and fish hydrosolate. Both with feed the microbiology in the bokashi
I lowered the timer to 14:10 from 16:8. In a few days I will lower to 12:12. I like to think we should try to mimic nature somewhat indoors so a gradual ease into a 12:12 light cycle is best imo. Anything less than 14 hours will tell the plant to bud so technically it's still in veg. But it's close enough :) the defoliation was pretty thorough. left most of the growth at the top alone minus large fan leave and snipped everything else. The plant needs further training in the center as the canopy looks like a mountain instead of a bowl. I think I pushed down too many times without supercropping so there is some tension on the trellis. Might have to retie it with zipties but a little looser.
In terms of nutrition the soil test I ran said it was low on phosphorous which is surprising since I've been correcting pH with phosphoric acid. So I top dressed with bokashi and high phos bat guano. I watered heavily with ro water spiked with organic humic/fulvic acids, chelated micronutrients, oregonism, recharge, molasses and citric acid to lower pH.
Update day 107: flipped to 12/12 today.
Plants are flipped and growing! I top dressed with bokashi and worm castings. Today I increased light power from 75% to 100%
Some light nutrient burn is evident on the leaf margins. I'm okay with it. It's very minimal.
Update day 4 Flower. We're installing a window next to the tent for the summer to allow some more ventilation and potentially an AC unit. Right now the window is in but there is no insulation and recently we've been having some pretty cold nights in Massachusetts. I've been trying to mitigate this by lowering the exhaust power but I'm still getting temps as low as 64 deg. Not ideal when during the day I'm in the 80's. I would much rather be in the mid 70's. Since plants grow mostly at night I think it's affecting my stretch somewhat. Hopefully the window will be done soon and we can resume normal temps.
Technically the second week of flower. The plants are growing. My wish is that I didn't push the edges of the plant under the first net so much. The trellis edge is much tighter than the center so there is no give from the net as the plants are stretching. Will keep in mind for next time.
Beginning of week 3. Took clones of the purple sunset. I moved some of the colas around for more even light distribution. Soil pH seems to be pretty good hovering around 7.1-7.2. more to come
Update day 19 F: growth has slowed down so I began to defoliate the PS and the SBC. The dreamcatcher in the far corner is having some issues. I top dressed with worm castings and watered in with potassium rich soluble kelp. Tomorrow I will top dress with high phos bat guano.
Update day 21: everything is looking good
Day 24: week 4 is going great for the sbc and ps. The dreamcatcher is hungry for nitrogen so I've been feeding her fish bone meal which is 3-14-0 so that will be good for late flower.
Temps have been getting a little too high around 91 max. However the plants show no signs of stress. This might be due to supplemental c02 aiding in photosynthesis.
Beginning week 5. Purple sunset is started to turn purple at the tips and under the leaves. Really turning into an absolutely beautiful plant. Supposed to be 60 days so It is about half way there. The nugs are already about the size of a golf ball. Based on veg growth and early flowering this strain is an absolute keeper IF the final product is nice.
The Sundae banana cookies is a 10-12 week strain. The nugs are much smaller. Overall I should have done a much better job of defoliating small branches but its difficult to move around when the tent is this full. Cookies strains are notorious for low yield hq buds. Hopefully it holds true. Overall I really like this strain. I'm not planning on cloning as this one had a very strange mutation on one side. I will grow this again however with a new seed.
Bonus dreamcatcher: not officially part of this grow but a fun last min addition. I really like this strain also. Great smells and lovely side branching. Almost no stretch in flower making it very manageable for beginners. I ran into nute deficiencies at the end of stretch which I've corrected and the plants are recovering nicely.
Everyone is changing colors. Very pretty. I top dressed with compost and high phos bat guano. Some minor phos deficiency noted in sbc. The ps is looking great. Some beautifl reds, oranges and purples. Very much like a purple sunset.
Suggested harvest date for ps is 8 weeks so starting next week I'll be looking at the trichs.
Dream catcher is looking very nice. These seeds weren't feminized and cost 1/3 the other 2. For the cost of seeds I'd say a great value. One of the best "beginner" strains for how easy it was to grow and low cost of entry.
I did a partial harvest of one of the dream catchers (worse looking one, definitely ready to be plucked) and started the drying process. It's my first time so I wanna get it dialed in before I harvest the rest. The others all roughly at the same stage of trichome development. The PS and SBC and the remaining dreamcatcher are looking frosty as hell.
Things are going well. Sundae banana cookies most likely needs ~7 more days while the purple sunset needs ~3 days. The dreamcatcher needs ~7 days also. Everybody is looking very frosty.
Minuteman_Organics
