RQS Green Gelato Grow 3

Green Gelato, grow number 3. Growing from clones, plan to give these guys 3 weeks of veg before flipping to flower

One of the clones didn't root as quickly and is currently starting life on the back foot. I'm confident it'll bounce back quick but disappointing not to have an even start. Apart from that all the other clones have roots and I've bumped the kelp extract and phosphorus up to promote rooting. 20/02/20 Update: I can neglect the veg tent. Some days I haven't even opened it to look inside. Checked the pH today and it was sitting at 6.4 whoops. Anyways it's back to 5.8 and the plants don't look like they even noticed.

The stunted clone made a complete come back. The roots have set. Got a bit of tip burn five days ago. Increased the lighting to 100% and added CO2. Will be pushing them as hard as I can from here. Starting with root growth promotion. Added phosphorus and kelp extract. Will start pumping calcium into the plant this week.

Kinda neglected these guys...veg is so boring. The little one is all good but will see how it grows compared to the others which are going strong. Will be transferring these clones to the flower tent. Will veg for another week before flipping to flower. Started going heavy on the feed. Dropped the lights, added CO2 and now it's just a matter of getting as much Ca into the plant as possible

8/03: It's been a week since I harvested the last grow, in that time the flower tent was used to dry the buds and the current grow was still vegging. Did a complete clean out and reset plus made some adjustments to keep the environment as stable as possible. Transferred the clones over with minimal damage to the roots. Plants were topped twice. 9/03: Solution dropped 50 ppm after 24hrs. I firmly believe it was the calcium in the micro. Supplementing calcium from today. Noticed the Nitrogen in the Micro is in the form of urea. Next feed, Micro will be reduced to the point where it will be enough as not to overload on Nitrogen when I start using MAP for the next four weeks. Supplemented Ca+ aminos, 15 Litres, ppm was 900 but when added to res brought the solution back up to 424. 10/03: Starting ppm 404 topped up 15 litres to res, exact same feed without the added Ca. Will see if the pattern continues. If so than I should see a further drop in ppm from the insufficient amount of Ca that is present in micro. 11/03: PPM dropped like clockwork...370. plants are drinking more as well...took two days until I did a 15 litre top up. Making up the same feed with added Ca. Did a final reading before top up, 344. Top up recipe: L-Glutamic - 1/4 tsp L-Glycine - 1/2 tsp Calcium nitrate - 6 tsp Also started dropping the micro to 0.8ml/L, will work towards finding the right balance so I can feed the Ca along with the regular feed. Desperate for some MAP to arrive. Want to add just a slight amount of P but there's no better alternative for MAP I have on hand. I could add some more bloom but it will begin adding extra K I don't want just yet. So far I've kept a very stable solution, if things continue the way it's going I won't have to do a res change for at least a couple of weeks. It is a goal to do a no res change grow one day but I don't think it will be on this one. Res changes are only done when I've lost control of the feed and have no idea of the NPK ratios in the solution, typically when the ppm gets above 800. Final reading for the day 418ppm. 8ppm off from the last time I loaded. Right now I'm happy as can be with that. Over the last three days the plants are getting close to exactly what they need. No less, no more. This day was important to note as it was the first time I've tried foliar feeding. I'm using a seaweed extract by Seasol and Powerfeed by the same company. I use a 2:1 ratio of Seasol 2ml/L and Powerfeed 1ml/L then Yucca as a water dispersent. 12/03: Again the plants are feeding so consistently. Starting PPM 398. The only change Ive made to the feed is drop the micro by .2ml/L. Think I'm ready to finalise a complete week 1 feed chart. In really good place to respond to any changes in the plants behaviour. Also of note is that the pH has drifted and stayed at 5.6. I did the most minor adjustment last feed by not pH downing as much after the silica. However, I'm not going to fight the plant on this one. I've seen them in late flower drift up and stay at 6.3 happily. Also I would love not to do a res change so it would be interesting to see when the pH will start rising. 13/03: Seeing amazing results at the moment. Super tight internodal spacing on the new growth. I'm definitely pushing the boundaries with the lighting compared to last. Only 8 inches off canopy but leaf temp stays below 27 degrees. I'd put them closer if I wasn't so concerned with drop off on the edges. PPM is currently at 377 but it's still more than twelve hours before the next proper feed and PPM check. I estimate between 336-338. So far I believe it's pretty close to getting the P it needs but an extra 20-30ppm of it would keep the push going. PPM was at 355, so they've slowed a fraction compared to yesterday. Have a final solution recipe where I'll be feeding daily instead of every off day. Aiming for around 550 after feed and 500 before. MAP arrived...only added 1/8 of a tsp and it was enough to bring the ppm up by 40, strong stuff. Will cut back slightly next feed as I only wanted 20 ppm extra P per feed. Swapped the current trellis for nylon. It did a great job at keeping the plants stocky but I can't let them grow through that netting knowing I have to sort the root problem out in a couple of weeks time. 14/03: Today was the first day since Monday where I gave the plants a back to back feed. The vascular system has grown to make it's consumption almost double to what it was at the beginning of the week. Also, their appetite has come back with a vengeance, not even six hours after my top up feed had the ppm dropped below acceptable levels...338! I haven't worked out the math yet as I'm shit at it but it seems there is a correlation between how much more they are drinking to how much nutes they're eating. About to do another top up. Keeping the ratios the same apart from the Calcium nitrate. Bringing that back to 3 tsp per gallon. Gotten through a whole week with a consistent feed. I don't think I will have an issue with over feeding but with how I'm approaching this I may run into a deficiency in a couple of weeks. At the moment I haven't been supplementing any extra Mg. There's some in the bloom part 2 and some in the bloom booster. The current ratio I run is 4 - 8 - 10, The N and P I'm pretty sure of but don't know if the potassium in the silica is available to the plant as food. Also just realised I may see an N deficiency soon. I've never actually seen one before and have wondered how people can get them. If I do end up with one, I plan on bumping the Micro back up to 1ml/L and foliar feeding to bring them back, if it happens.

15/03: One week into flower and the plants are going great. They look like they've doubled in volume. The feed has been the most exciting part. I'm going to make my own custom PK booster to the exact ratios I want it at. Foliar feeding made a difference...hard to compare or know how much of an affect but super tight internodal lengths and lateral growth everywhere. At the moment I don't know if any growers on here are able to get their plants to each as much calcium as mine do but it is my primary focus on the feed while maintaining adequate levels of everything else. 16/03: I wanted to avoid a res change but I want to get ahead of the clogged pipes. Will be draining the system and installing bucket crates over the outlet. Hopefully it'll be enough so I won't have to worry about it for the rest of the grow. If I waited another week my pipes would have been clogged. Now that that's sorted I can go all out with the scrogging. Haven't changed the res yet. I added a lot of seaweed extract to give the roots another boost. May sound odd but instead of giving the plants a feed, I gave them 15 litres of tap water that was loaded with Ca and Aminos. I run RO the whole grow but whenever I do a res change, I just use regular dechlorinated tap water to flush it. 17/03: Fig 1 - This is my first attempt at making a PK + Mg booster. It was just to see if I could get the salts to balance. Started off with RO and added yucca, then paper filtered the water. Just wanted the saponins in the yucca. I just guessed it but I went P > K > Mg. I took concurrent readings as I went along and it kept adding up. At this point the solution was pretty clear apart from a yellow tinge, similar to calcium. So I added the fulvic to chelate. A tsp of each for a total ppm of 3692. I haven't sat down to work out the math yet as I was expecting to see the minerals interact at some stage of the mixing process but it looks like the yucca really worked. Fig 2 - How I do a res change. I run the outlet from the water chiller into a hose that runs off into the bathroom and while that's draining I'll be flushing at the same time with dechlorinated tap water. Then I fill 30l of RO water and drain it as much as possible. I then pump premixed solution straight back in and the change is done. Fig 3 - Results from my attempt at making a bloom booster. On the left is 1ml/100ml of Liquid Kool Bloom. On the right is my own attempt. Pretty close. About to mix up the batch for the res change. 12 hours earlier I thought I overfed the plants. I loaded even more calcium and upped the PK +Mg. The ppm still kept dropping from a starting point of 700 down to 567. From today I'll be making a permanent increase in certain ratios based off of last week. Silica, Micro and fulvic will remain the same. I'll be going a 4 - 10 - 10 ratio for another 10 days. After that I'll drop the N, P and up the K to 3-7.5-15. 18/03: Took a day off, checked the ppm and pH but that was it. 19/03: Added the next scrog. It's probably overkill and maybe even detrimental but I don't want as much vertical growth as last time. I might just do what I did on the first scrog. Use the small square scrog to keep them spread and set for a couple of days then swap it over with a big square scrog. 20/03: Plants are drinking more again. When I first flipped to flower, they were drinking 15 litres plus every two days. By the end of the week I was adding 15 litres a day. It's past the half way point of week two and the plants are now up to 25 litres a day. First signs of flower began today. Fig 4 - Rejigged the ventilation. Hung the CO2 bags. On opposite ends, short ducting is run from the port holes to the fan below. This way, fresh air is being drawn in semi actively while not disrupting the CO2 that sinks below. To ensure this I have run extraction ducting from the centre of the tent, actively through two 450cm2/min fans. Overall, there is negative pressure. 21/03: Last day of week 2. I currently am tossing up whether to start threading the branches through the small square scrog or if I should repeat what I did the first time and replace it with the larger squares. The CO2 bags I have are pretty much new so they're not producing much. Which I why I found it strange that I'd see a CO2 spike when the lights turned on. It ended up being the heat and humidity. The combination of both put my plants into respiration. Which is a really bad thing considering it should be photosynthesising. I was probably losing an hour a day. I've changed it so climate control kicks in an hour earlier to balance out the temp increase when lights go on

22/03: Going to have to do another res change this week as I've lost control of the feed. Today was the first day since I started this grow that plain RO water was added because the ppm was getting too high 800+. Anyways beginning of week 3 flower. Plants are still nice and stocky but this is where the biggest stretch occurs so I'll have to stay on top of it. Redid the ventilation again, Ive redone it fifty times in my grow life and still can't seem to find that perfect balance/setup 23/03: Plants are going through a major stall...It's like they're getting back at me after I tried to overfeed them. Second day in a row I haven't given the plants a feed. PPM is down to 584 which is a big improvement from 800+. I'm tempted to start over, however; the ratios are still the same as I've only been adding RO water. This is a super important time on the grow, beginning of week 3 flower. I'm going to keep pushing them on the kelp and P for lateral growth and bud sites respectively, then I'll flush and start planning for the finishing feed formula. Got my grow room dialled in perfectly after countless redesigns. When lights turn on the plants don't bat an eye lid an go straight into photosynthesis. I assume this on the fact that my CO2 doesn't spike with lights on meaning they don't go into respiration at the begging because of the heat spike. Moving the water chillers to outside the grow room was also a massive factor. 24/03: Plants haven't picked up much yet, still only drinking what they were two weeks ago. However, really happy that they haven't gotten away from me yet. This is the tightest Ive kept my internodes and apart from a several sick leaves I took off, there has been no pruning of defol since this grow started. 25/03: Ended up replacing the scrog with the large square nylons. Ppm won't go down. Giving up on trying to push the plants and will start under feeding again. 26/03: Flushed the plants and did the res change. Base ppm is at 450 without Ca supplementation. 27/03: Feed is back under control, haven't given it another feed since yesterday but starting ppm is back down to 440. Did a massive supercrop, everything above second trellis was snapped and tucked. They want to stretch badly so hopefully this will put a stop to that for a few days. 28/03: Plants bounced back after a day and stretched a bit.

29/03 Beginning of week four flower. Everything has been going well and week 3 was really involved. I'm glad I'm keeping a much better record of my grow this time round, it will definitely help me improve on my next grow. My previous grow I started keeping good records around this time of flowering, so I should be able to make better comparisons and find areas of concern/improvement easier. After a full day and a half the canopy is back to the stretch again. I plan to put the third scrog down. Previous plants grew to a meter on the last grow. I'd rather they end up 2/3 that if it means fully stacked colas...will see soon. 30/03 I believe I am winning against the stretch. Although they have 6 days to go, I don't believe they'll grow over a meter like last time. Third scrog just went down today too. The height isn't really the issue but maintaining the current stacking that the plants have. In regards to the feed they just won't eat anymore than the base I've found for them. It's only the beginning of week four though and I should see the plant consume higher amounts of Potassium in the last half of flower. 31/03 Not much change in the plants for a day...Feels like this is the first time that's happened since I transplanted into the flower tent. 1/04 The one day holiday is over. Plants are back to drinking stupid amounts. They look strong they look healthy but I may have gone a bit too overboard keeping them short. By the end of week 4 on my last grow the plants hit 1 meter. I stopped training the plants two days ago but not much vertical growth since. Haven't opened up the tent yet but I'm hoping to see an inch of growth when I do. The last two days the smell has come out of nowhere to seep it's way through my apartment and 3 flights of stairs. 2/04 Was a good day...I'm happy with how they're coming along. Compared to my last grow it's like night and day. I'm back to underfeeding. Third grow in a row I have tried to push my plants at this point of the grow and third time they have pushed back. Keeping the base ppm at 350. Did a complete leaf strip of all the unhealthy leaves. 3/04 Been tracing the top colas back to their joints...it's amazing how much fight some of those lower branches give. In the photos above I have an example of a branch that most growers would've lopped off seeing it as one of those "sucker" branches. The mould resistance of these plants is off the charts considering I'm not using any kind of fungicide. Those water droplets have been on the leaves the entire time with not a single leaf succumbing to any kind of damage.

Day 28 of Flower Switching over to days instead of dates...seems more impressive lol. Everything is going great. I pretty much spend most of my time just watching the garden rather than handling any of it. Check for any signs of anything negative. Nothing. Well for a couple of days the lights were too close as I found a few leaves with damage. Feed has been consistent the whole time. It would have been but I tried to push them end of week 7 beginning of week 8. Flowers are growing visibly by the day. Still a long way to go in flower. This is just the beginning of the next phase. Day 29F Fourth scrog layer went down. Flowers are really establishing themselves across the colas. No major stretching, just consistent steady growth. D30F Will be easy growing from here. Most of the time I spend in the garden will just be for observation D31F No issues, regular routine. Should note here I lost control of the feed again. Plants hit a wall with how much Ca they were eating. Up unitl this point they were eating over 200ppm a day. The next three days they stopped eating this much. Had to adjust the formula down to around 100-120 ppm of Ca. D32F Have a very simple routine now. Apply a feed at lights on. Remove any sick leaves from the canopy, apply a feed at lights off. Will be rinsing and repeating this all the way to harvest. The flowers are well and truly established and have nice colours coming through. D33F Fed the plants, removed any sick leaves. The buds are coming along a bit slow but the growth is even and steady. D34F Fed the plants, removed any sick leaves. D35F Call out to James from RQS for the promo pack, great to deal with :) Changed the formula I was giving them to match flowering, was pushing calcium too hard. Down to 100 ppm a day.

D36F Everything is going well, no complaints. D37F Plants look to have reached saturation levels with Ca. Might be able to rely mostly on the Ca that is in the Micro for the rest of the grow. D38F Swell is really in full swing, the smell is amazing as well. It has that tropical pungency of red paw paw but the aroma of mango. Very happy with their progress, hardly have to touch them. D39F Plants are filling out at a rapid pace. Completely happy with how they're going. D40F Calcium uptake is going back through the roof, have never seen the ppm drop so fast. Added 2 tsp of calcium nitrate and it was gone from the solution within an hour if not less....Pretty sure there's no Ca in my solution right now but will see how they girls respond to 160 ppm a day. Also the bulking is still in full swing. Now that I know it's happening I might put more of my attention on the veg stage of my next grow. I'm probably the laziest in veg. Make up one solution, top it up once and check ph once over three weeks than transplant and flip. Not even close to good. The New mother is going off too and has been more exciting than something I've seen a couple of times now. Had a bit of fun with the lighting...hope you enjoy :) D41F Still not providing enough calcium. I add it as part of the main feed and it's gone within a couple of hours. Gonna give them a heavy dose next feed, hopefully the ppm will stay above 350 for longer than a couple of hours. Been a bit sloppy with keeping them in the dark. A few reveg leaves are showing up but shouldn't mess up anymore with that from here. D42F Back on top of everything, they look great for the first week of swell. Really excited to see how they look after another.

D43F The plants are still mid push on the budsites. Last week was a blast and the smell is really intense. This week they should continue fattening up, can't wait. D44F I've finally learnt my lesson with the feed. I will no longer push my plants until they tell me so. In my head I think late flower you girls want more potassium right? Wrong. It's just left there on the plate till the next day. Anyways, my plants are happy at 350 ppm no more no less. D45F Going well. D46F Came to a realisation it's too late to listen to the plants haha...Going to push the feed. They've had a stress free life with it so I'm aiming to push the ppm up to 800. So far at 550ppm. D47F The plants smell a lot, I can't describe it well but the best word is fresh. Everyone that has smelled them have all used that word. Very pleasant as though it makes you feel good just taking a whiff. D48F PPM is hovering around 650. Going well. D49F PPM still around 650 but going well.

D50F Garden is still going well, same pace. Lots of outwards growth. D51F Not going to play around much with anything, learnt a lot from this grow though. I thought it would be close to something that was my best but the more I learn and see for myself the more I know I can improve. D52F Not much change but no issues. D53F Plants are taking on a creamy smell, still fruity. D54F Pistils are starting to turn orange which tells me they only have a couple of weeks to go. D55F Checked the Brix for the first time. 6.5%

D57F This may be the last week for this crop. Went pretty well in general but still massive room for improvement. D60F The plants are eating less and less the last couple of days. Only going to top up the res with plain water for the next two days then will let them drink it dry then chop. D62F Plants are getting so close I can almost taste them. Maybe five days tops, three at the earliest.

D65F Took the garden down today, wet weight totals: 1735 1120 1560 1390 1605 1455 1600 1305 11770g After the initial chop I proceeded to trim all major fan leaves off and hang cola's separately. I'm aiming for a six day dry. Starting RDH on day one was 70% Day 2 of dry, humidity is at 65%. Will drop it down to 60% for the rest of the dry starting tomorrow. Day 3 of dry, RDH is sitting around 57%. Smells grassy atm but it's not too overpowering. Day 4 of dry, RDH is still 57 - 60% steady. More of the Gelato's true aroma is coming through. Day 5 of dry, RDH is still 57 - 60% steady. More of the Gelato's true aroma is coming through by the day. Place will be smelling strong by tomorrow. Day 6 of dry, dropping the RDH down to 50% for the last day.

Overall I saw an improvement on the last grow which was all I was hoping for. From a 2.7lb harvest to 3.5 pounds on this grow.