RQS Blue Cheese Auto 24/0 LED

Okay, this is my first grow, so thank you in advance for any tips or tricks! After going down the rabbit hole of cannabis growing that I never knew existed, I decided to experiment with a 24/0 light cycle throughout the entire grow. I've heard both sides of the argument, and would like to document my results in detail for others to see. I can legally grow five plants, so I thought I would grow 2 or 3 at a time, and then plant 2 or 3 halfway through to have a somewhat perpetual harvest. I germinated 3 RQS Blue Cheese Auto straight into a self-watering Jiffy pod kit. Only one seemed to be popping through after a few days, so I became impatient and started my other 2 seeds just in case the others were duds or I messed something up. Of course the "slow" seeds finally popped through a couple days later, as did one of the new seeds. The fifth seed was a dud, but very likely user error. Anyway, week one(starting with first sprout) was pretty typical to what I've seen in other grows. I planted the peat pods directly into 3 gallon smart pots with Fox Farms Happy Frog soil. I do some light gardening in my backyard, and was very surprised with the apparent quality of this stuff. However, I do think the soil runs a little nute hot, and possibly burned a couple of my plants early on. This seemed to completely subside by the end of Week 1, possibly as I added some water and flushed some of it out?

So far so good, the ladies are starting to take off! Lowered the lights to 20in. No nutes, yet. Faint smell when I open the grow room. Also a little more about my setup. I chose a small storage area under my basement stairs to do this grow very discreetly. Sawed a fresh air intake hole as well as an exhaust vent, and built a plywood door to seal the room shut. Stapled up some mylar sheeting all around. I actually bought a vivosun zipper kit and partitioned part of the room for storage of my supplies and eventually drying. I'm in the midwest, and it's really cold, like below zero overnight, and it's been impossible to maintain the temp and humidity without running a space heater and humidifier. I already had the space heater on hand, as well as an outdoor timer(I run for 5 min every 15 min to keep a temp around 75f). The humidifier was an amazing amazon purchase, keeping the humidity around 70 week one, and now down to 45 week 2. I imagine I will be able to remove this as my plants get bigger, and run the space heater less once the temp outside warms up a bit. Lastly, I bought a camera to monitor my grow space remotely. I thought this would be great so I can stop impatiently checking the room every 15 minutes. I also threw my temp/humidity monitor within eyesight so I can just see it on the camera app. I also have a timelapse set up but we will see if it actually works. The cam is Wyze brand and cost me $22. A little wonky sometimes but great purchase so far!! Glad to answer any questions you all have for me about my setup.

You can now see growth every day. Plant in the back left had some damage to the stem at soil level and was falling over. Looks like it was from last week when I was trying to prop it up with my rubber garden wire. I think she's healing on her own, but wouldn't be surprised if growth is stunted a bit. Also note the front left plant was the one that survived out of my second batch of seedlings. She should be 3 or 4 days behind which is why you may see a pretty significant size difference at this point. I did feed on day 14, 1 gallon between the 4 four plants. Will probably double it in a couple days for next feeding. Still real shaky on how much to be watering. Again, this is my first grow so I appreciate any input based on the info and pics I've provided!!!! Day 16 - watered/fed 2 gal between 4 plants, saturated nicely with about 10% runoff so probably still had moist soil on bottom. Gonna wait a few days before watering again. Day 19 - fed again Day 20 - first try at LST on front right and back right plants. Much easier than I thought it would be. I used the soft rubber coated garden wire and a paper hole puncher I had in the office to make perfect holes in the fabric pots. Back left should be ready in the next day or two, but I'm a little nervous as there was some low main stem damage early on. Gonna try it anyway as she seems pretty healthy. After just an hour I can already see the plants adjusting to the LST!

Just started LST before this week started and already seeing results. The smaller sites are getting more light and I can definitely tell it will.make a difference as this grow continues. I am very limited vertically, so I was hoping this would help keep my plants low and all is well so far!!! Update Day 28: plants seem super healthy! The front left plant was a few days behind to begin with, but it looks like it may be a little stunted as well. Not a huge deal, it just didnt bush out like the rest. Maybe I didnt lst the main stem low enough?? Not a huge deal. Also, seeing pistils forming, think we are on to the flowering phase!!!

Let the bloom begin! Just watered 2 days ago and dry already. They're drinking fast and growing faster. Fed today but added Tiger Bloom. Doing 1 tsp of each per gallon, half gallon per pot. Feb 12 - just found out my time lapse isn't working. Probably because I lost power a few weeks ago and the camera was reset. Working on a manual one anyway. These plants are going full stretch, and look super happy. I'm wondering whether or not to defoliate these bushes but definitely dont want to stress them. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Going into Week 6, plants look healthy as ever. Hopefully they stop growing vertically soon as I'm running out of headspace! Day 38 - Noticed some signs of possible N toxicity. Edges of some leaves were shiny, a little clawing. Nothing bad, but I decided to just give Ph'ed water today as I've been feeding with my waterings every other day. Think I'll keep it to every other watering unless I see signs of deficiency. Also, I made some adjustments to how I water. I've been filling up gallon milk jugs with tap water and letting them sit about 48 hours, then pouring into a half-gallon juice container that I had modified the cap to pour more like a watering can. My grow space is low(work on my knees), and with the plants getting taller and bushier, I have to reach and strain while holding a half gallon of water for a few minutes at a time, and it's been killing me!!! I decided to purchase a gardening sprayer for $15 at the hardware store. It has a 2 gallon capacity, with water level markings. Also, the sprayer has a function where I can slide the trigger and it will hold the spray. After adjusting the spray pattern, I was able to find a good spot on each plant where I could rest the spray wand, pump the sprayer up, and just let it go. It took about 10 minutes for each plant(half-gallon), with a fresh pumping every 5 minutes. It sounds like a lot of extra work, and it does take a but longer. However, the water mixing process is now simplified, and my forearms and back are thanking me! I just set one up, and come back in 5 minutes to give a few pumps. In another 5 min switch to next plant. I'm sure I'll continue to make modifications in the future, but I just wanted to share in case anyone has a better idea!! Day 41 - stop growing!!! I'm hoping they're about done vertically as I'm running out of head space. Also, I opened the grow room door this afternoon and I got a huge whiff of STANK. Cheese maybe? Just hope it's not a sign of mold or anything to worry about...

Plants started to get a little close to the light, some only 7 or 8 inches away so I took the lights off the hangers and attached almost directly to the ceiling hooks I installed, only about 2 inches from the ceiling. Hoping this doesn't cause any overheating and gives enough space for my ladies that are now averaging about 14 -17 inches from the light. I will be feeding tomorrow, but probably skipping the Grow Big. Still seeing minor signs of nitrogen toxicity. Last note for today - the sprayer turned out to be more cumbersome than I expected. Decided to unscrew the sprayer wand for a better water flow, and my last watering took 5 minutes! Day 48 - Feb 27 - CATASTROPHE I had to move my operation from my custom grow room to a tent as I had run out of head space, and didnt want to risk damaging the plants. I was adjusting my fan in the tent, and accidentally dropped the effing thing in the middle of my 2 best plants. Multiple branches immediately snapped off, while probably a dozen or so more had snapped over, but not completely severed. I duct taped the shit out of them while sweating, swearing, panicking, maybe crying. No idea of the severity of what I've done, just hoping some recover :( Nute burn looking bad, too. Gonna add some cal mag to ph'ed water and skip the grow big from now on.

So the new tent is obviously rectangular(2x4) and I don't think the light was distributing well, so I bought another one. Also started 2 new seeds and want to make sure they get love. Did some light defoliation to remove dead leaves and damaged limbs beyond repair. Also larger fan leaves which really revealed some bud sites in the middle! Buds are really starting to plump up, and I believe the nute burn/lockout has subsided. Not sure if this is typical, but I feel like they're drinking water much slower this week. Looks like harvest is still a week or two out but getting super excited!!!

Buds started to fatten up, and I noticed amber trichomes appearing. However, I really think the plants need another week or two. Continued flushing with Calmag. On the last day of this week, I opened up the tent to water, and there were 3 or 4 stems that keeled over due to the bud weight. At this point, I just did an early harvest. We'll see how it turns out, and I'll add the weights to the final yield.

Harvested first 2 plants beginning of the week, last 2 at the end. Buds seem to be drying at 4 days, lighter trim on the last 2 plants to help retain moisture and get a longer dry. I'll update next week with dry weights for all 4.

First grow, learned a lot! Will definitely update after I get my first smoke.