Week 6: Overall a very good week, but lots of time and effort needed to make it through. My tent now has a complete green canopy and the ladies are beginning to compete for space. Each one has developed a unique look and growth pattern, and one in particular stands out, OB3. She has gone through a dramatic cycle each day, happy and perky when I first check on her in the morning (8 hrs. after lights on) but gets very droopy during the last 4 hours of lights on. She has also stretched the most I’ve tried many things this week to appease her – 1) Adjusted watering from afternoon to morning, no difference. 2) Lowered light intensity 20%, might have been a slight improvement but inconclusive. 3) Adjust light schedule 1 hr. per day to allow for watering at first light, this will take a week. 4) Lower shelving to allow more space from lights and reduce wind stress on top colas, just done last night, we shall see if this helps. At this point I feel I might be taking away from then others, particular the indica dominate BBs, by adding this the additional space between lights and plants after lower the intensity. If changes 3 & 4 don’t help reduce the stress OB3 is saying she’s under, I will turn the lights back up and look for other solutions to her afternoon droopiness.
Managing nutes has also become more interesting this week. After a feeding near the end of last week, there was some slight tip burning, seen most acutely on the smallest but the most quickly maturing BB3. The 5-gal of both strains have much less tip burn that either 3-gal so they seem to be able to better absorb the half strength doses of nutes. I’ve deviated from feeding every other watering by throwing in a few extra nute free waterings in-between the feedings while also watering down the nutes given to BB3 in response to the tip burn. This virus is causing supply chain disruptions, so I decided to stock up on soil and nutes for my next grow. I was going to stick to just FF 3 part but decided to throw some Terpinator into this grow since I had it on hand.
Along with dropping my shelves from 18” to 12” high at the end of this week, I also installed a larger air filter and fan. With the onset of flowering, the previous 4” filter/fan setup was beginning to limit my ability to drop the humidity below 55-60% inside the tent. While I can drop the humify in the grow room to the 40% range, something bigger was needed on the tent ventilation side to manage all the moisture these 4 ladies are beginning to put out. In comes a 6” fan and filter from Vivosun with the 4” setup moved over to the 1’x3’x6’ side of the tent for use in drying. It’s annoying how loud this 6” fan is, but it’s getting the job done. In fact, I was very impressed with how much larger this 6” filter is that the 4”, likely has 3-4 times the charcoal in it over what the smaller one had.
I’m open to all comments and advice this community can provide. Anyone have any ideas how to make OB3 happier towards the end of the day?
Grow Summary:
4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent
250 watt full spectrum LED
FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio
Dutch Passion autoflower genetics
I have some discoloration happening to OB5,more pics in week 6. Started first on few old fan leaves with yellow & brown/purple patches and now is occurring to the several of the colas and is spreading to more fan leaves. Water pH may have been in the 5-6 range last week. HlpPlz
The purple is natural. The yellow is from the plant sucking the nutrients out, which to is natural. Eventually some fan leaves will yellow and fall off. No worries
It seems that you need to give it more water each day, or water more than once since your leaves are dropping at the end of the day. The purpling seems to be natural, not a deficiency.
Ummm so that rack inside the tent system you set up is brilliant. I need to figure something like that out for my next grow. My biggest struggle in both my grows was where to store my stuff! :P
Good luck, I'll be following this one for sure!
@GreenAlchemist, this has my head spinning with ideas haha. I think I found a set suitable for my grow space (my tent's a little smaller than yours) and I'm figuring out how to convince my better half to spend that much more money on my hobby. Lol. Not sure if your tent has a removable waterproof layer, but if it does you could easily put it on the shelf under your plants, so stuff below doesn't get wet or exposed to as much light. Sorry for the novel, but this setup is bomb and I keep coming back to it lol.
@Mousey, Thanks for the comment. It's a tight fit to get those shelving units in there, but it worked. The shelves are 16" x 36" on 34" x 1" posts that were found on Amazon and a restaurant supply website respectively. I too struggle with storage and need to find a few more solutions to get things properly organized.
It seems that you need to give it more water each day, or water more than once since your leaves are dropping at the end of the day. The purpling seems to be natural, not a deficiency.