1st Grow! Dutch Passion Auto Blueberry

GreenAlchemist Setup: Grow Equipment: Tent - VIPARSPECTRA 2-in-1 4'x3' with a 3'x3'x6' primary grow space Primary Lights - Homemade welded aluminum LED fixture featuring HLG QB132 V1 3500k (x4) wired in series and run by a Mean Well HLG-240H-C1750A Power Supply Seedling Lights - HTGSupply GrowBright 2" 2 Lamp HO T5 with 6500k GE bulbs Lighting Control - STITCH Wireless Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring & Reporting Fans - VIVOSUN 6 Inch Clip on Oscillating Fan (x2) & 140mm Case Fan (x2) Primary Exhaust - VIVOSUN 6 Inch Air Carbon Filter & 6 Inch Inline Duct Fan with Variable Speed Controller Seedling/Drying Exhaust - VIVOSUN 4 Inch Air Carbon Filter & 4 Inch Inline Duct Fan with Variable Speed Controller Humidification - Cool Mist 6L Humidifier Dehumidification - Frigidaire 50-Pint Dehumidifier Heater - Lasko 200-Watt Personal Ceramic Heater Controllers - Inkbird ITC-308 Temperature Controller & IHC-200 Humidity Controller Seedling Heat Mat - VIVOSUN 10"x20.75" Seedling Heat Mat and Digital Thermostat Seedling Starter - Jiffy Windowsill Greenhouse Water Supply - Aquatic Life RO Buddie Three Stage Reverse Osmosis, 50-Gallon Test Equipment: Etekcity Lasergrip 630 Dual Laser Digital Infrared Thermometer Digital pH Meter Digital TDS Meter Dr.Meter LX1330B Digital Light Meter Digital Kitchen Scale 10kg ThermoPro TP50 Hygrometer & Thermometer (x2) Besmon Soil Moisture Meter 3-on-1 Needed: Digital Microscope Grow Supplies: Containers - 3 & 5 gal. non-woven fabric Soil - Top Half: Fox Farm Happy Frog, Bottom Half: Fox Farm Ocean Forest, both with 15-20% additional Perlite Nuts - Fox Farm Big Bloom, Grow Big and Tiger Bloom, Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus, General Hydroponics pH Up Seedling Starter - Jiffy Peat Pellets High everyone! I started this grow about two weeks ago and recently found this site. I'm calling this my first grow, as the only other time I tried growing was 10+ years ago in what was a very small gorilla setup in in 3'x2'x3' cabinet. I don't really count that one cause the 1/4 oz wet that came out of that grow was garbage. Wow how things have changed with the grow technology/tools in the past few years! Developing the concept for this setup took about 10 hours or so of research. The most challenging part of putting the setup together was building the frame for the lighting. I used 3/4"x3/4"x1/16" aluminum angle stock from the local hardware store to build the frame that supports the lights, power supply and a set of fans the push air upwards. For this setup, it took 3 different plantings to get past the seedling stage. The first planting was 4 fem. autoflower seeds (don't recall strain/breeder at the moment) that have been stored for 5+ years in a damp, cool basement. Not the best conditions which caused germination challenges. One of the 4 seedlings popped and made it to soil, but growth quickly stopped and she began producing abnormal growth. I've narrowed it down to two things that could have caused this: problems from storage or exposure to excessive light intensity. Light fixture was left at 100% (250 watts) and I did not have a proper light meter at the time. After 4 weeks stuck as a seedling, I killed her off and tried another 4 seeds from the same batch. No luck with any of those. Time for a selection from Dutch Passion's Fruity Autoflower Mix. I chose 2x Auto Blueberry and 2x Auto Orange Bud for this grow, and I would not have any issues like before. Unfortunately I did not take pictures during the first 2 weeks, but I did document many data points during that time. Planting: In the morning I put seeds directly into expanded Jiffy pellets and placed inside a humidity dome. I put the dome in the side compartment of the grow tent that has just the right amount of space for the seedling stage. That evening I went to check on my ladies only two find two holes in the Jiffy pellets where seeds should have been 😱. Thankfully the seeds were still sitting on the counter where I left and they were promptly put into there home in the peat pods. This resulted in about a 12 hour difference in planting time between the BB and OB. Heating pad set to 76F, seedling lights on 20/4 schedule. Day 1: 72/60 Hours after planting, I had 3 of 4 seedlings have emerged, left under humility dome Day 2: Last seeding immersed in the morning. First 3 seedlings were almost touching top of humidity dome and tap roots had all emerged from pods, so that afternoon they were moved to there forever home. I choose to use two type of Fox Farm soils for this grow and put Ocean Forest in the bottom half of the container and Happy Frog in the top half. During my research, there seem to be a consensus that 3 gal containers are at least the smallest container that one should use to maximize returns with an autoflower, but I also see many people using 5 and 7 gal. ones as well. I figured I'd do a test and plant one of each strain in a 3 and 5 gallon and see if there is any difference is harvest quantity or root mass between each of the different container sized which will inform future grows of mine. This now gives us identification for each lady based on strain and container size: BB3, BB5, OB3 & OB5. Dry weights were taken on each pot. I did not flush the soil prior to planting and gave each contain 1 cup water per gallon of size for there initial watering. Starting Conditions: Lights at 15k lux at soil & 20/4, 71F, 72%RH Day 3: Growth begins immediately, 1cm x 1cm growth on every plant. OB5 is a little smaller as this was the last one to emerge, but it is keep pace with the rest. Day 4-7: Growth continues at similar daily pace. Watering based on weight of the containers and watered when about 25% of prior watering weight was left. I'll have more pics from here on out!

GreenAlchemist I read up on the need to keep single strain diaries so I created a second journal and made each specific. I'm also having trouble entering temp data in my journals so I will provide that data below as well. ***** LUX MEASUREMENT DISCLAIMER ***** My lux readings come from my Dr. Meter LX1330B, an inexpensive lux/fc meter bought on Amazon. I'm still trying to understand exactly what these lux readings mean. Is the scale such that they can be compared to others measurements found online? How does my tent LEDs compare to the sun's output? According to readings on the meter, my lights output is currently at 280,000 lux at 150 watts (60% max watts) which makes me think the scaling requires further understanding. I tested the meter under our late winter midday sun and came up with a reading of about 130,000. The solar intensity this time a year peaks at about 510 watts/m^2. If 130,000 equates to 510 watts/m^2 and the max solar intensity that these ladies can absorb is 1,000 watts/m^2 (this was the consensus amount I observed which is based of the max solar intensity at the equator), than an equivalent reading on my meter would be 260,000. I plan on checking the suns output again near the summer solstice in June to see if this conversation is correct. Until I can understand this further, I am going to assume that the meter is off by a factor of 10 and reduce my tent readings accordingly. Please feel free to comment below if you see any errors in my reasoning. Day 8 - 10: Early growth continues at about the same pace of 1cm x 1cm a day for most plants. Turned up the power on the lights on day 8 to 25,000 lux at the leaves, Temp range 66 - 76F between day and evening, 70%RH, Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) ~ 10.0, watered with a couple cups each today Day 11: Fiddled with the lights a bit lowering them and turning power up a bit to reach 30,000 lux at the leaves. Temp and RH same as above. Day 12: Growth continues, looks healthy Day 13: I grew a little concerned today that there might be bleaching happening from my lights. The top leaves appeared to look a little too pale under the grow lights, but under normal room lighting and I didn't seem as bad. As a precaution I raised the lights back to 40cm above soil which lowered the lux readings to around 28,000 lux. Watered today with a couple cups each. Day 14: I discover GrowDiaries.com and realize the need to take pictures of this grow. Ladies continue are doing well and almost ready for a little LST. Day 15: I through this in here even through it's technically part of the third week as it was the first day that I had picture and I'd like to get a few into this weeks update. LST is done to all 4 ladies. 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'll see everyone next week!

GreenAlchemist Day 16 - 18: Ladies doing well, received a watering with pH'd cal-mag solution, beginning to notice accelerated growth after each watering. I'm letting the containers get pretty dry between watering, with soil moisture content around 3-5% (by weight) and adding about 5 oz/gal soil each watering. Adjusting LST daily. Day 19 - 20: I've been maintaining ~70% RH in the tent but after a bit of research, it looks like I need to start bring this down so 65% it is. I also increased light intensity by about 10% to a ready of ~31,000 lux. This increases the temp in the tent requiring increase in the ventilation speed to maintain ideal temps. Water again with cal mag which I increased to 5ml/gal. No nutes yet, FFOF is doing its job well. Day 21: End of week 3. Noticing a bit of a downward curl (claw effect) on a few leaves today and this is shown in the pictures. I'm guessing its wind stress as no nutes have been introduced yet and its not consistent enough to indicate light stress. Adjust my 6" oscillating fan upward a bit to reduce the amount wind they are subject to. Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics

GreenAlchemist Day 22: Continued to LST the ladies and gave them their first set of nutes, but kind of screwed that up. Last time I grew I used the old FF schedule from 15 years ago, so I had that schedule around for reference at the same time I was using their new schedule. One schedule uses Tbsp and the other Tsp which helped screw me up a bit. I accidently watered them with a 1-½ times strength solution instead of the intended ½ strength solution of Fox Farm Big Bloom not realizing my mistake till the watering was done. Thankfully I made this error with a fair light organic fertilizer so I decided to roll with it as flushing and stripping the soil seemed like it might cause more problems than it would solve. Time will tell. Still seeing severe curl on some early leaves, but they seem to grow out of it as the advance and I’m seeing very little curl on more mature leaves. I’ve investigated how others with these same lights run their setup and I’ve seen claims that others have run these lights at over 200 watts (with the same power supply as myself) while being able to have the plant touching the light panels without issue. While I’m slightly skeptical of this claim, I’m currently running mine at ~175 watts and this gives me some confidence that my lighting intensity is at a good level (~31,000 lux) and I should be able to further bump up the wattage once we get into the flowering stage. Day 23: There are no complaints from the ladies for yesterdays overfeeding as I’m seeing over 1-2cm of growth on every branch that was LST’d the previous day. The plan before the overdosing was to begin a cycle of feeding every other watering. There was a thought of modifying that schedule in the short term but the response I’m seeing says otherwise. I will go back to a ½ solution of FFBB and add in ¼ strength FF Grow Big for the next feeding. I have also began weighing the containers daily as to keep a keep an eye on their approximate moisture content. Using a scale, I have been able to maintain a similar amount of moisture in both 3-gal and 5-gal fabric containers by watering with like ratios of water to container size. This has allowed me to have 1 watering schedule for the entire grow. My assumption is that maintaining this schedule may become more challenging as primary source of moisture loss switches from soil evaporation to root consumption. My hope is that this weight data can help me determine and maintain a health amount of soil moisture. In practice this means lower volume watering (at a current rate of 8oz water/1gal soil) on a more frequent basis (currently at every 3 days, likely to move up to every 2 days this week) vs. the more common practice of watering till x amount of run-off. Humidity has been lowered to 60% as well so this will contribute to needing more frequent waterings. I also adjusted and LST’d several more branches on each plant. Beginning to think I mixed up my germinated peat pods. I noted in week 1 that I was growing each strain (Auto Blue Berry – Indica; Auto Orange Bud – Sativa) in both a 3 gal and 5 gal for comparison purposes. Well, both my 3-gal containers are short and stocky with very little stretch while both 5-gal containers are spreading out and stretching much further. This has me thinking both the 3-gal are the Auto Blueberry and the 5-gal are Auto Orange Bud as I don’t suspect container size could cause this much different this early in the grow. I’m going to give it more time before making that call and if I do, I will need to rearrange my photos for these two journals. Day 24: Weighed containers and they were dry enough to water again, pH’d cal-mag solution. Backed off the daily LST treatments, going down to every other day. Ladies are growing more vigorously than I imaged they would, I think they will be happy with some nutes in the next couple of days. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately so haven’t been taking pictures like normal. Day 25: Vigorous growth continues to impress. The two 5-gal ladies continue to demonstrate a higher internodal growth rate than the two 3-gal ladies which makes LSTing the 5-gal ones is much easier than the other two. In a way its good all 4 aren’t turning out to be as big as the 5-gal ones as I think space could be an issue in a few weeks if they were. Weights taken. Day 26: Weighed the ladies tonight in anticipation that they would be ready for some H20. Came to find they were bone dry in only 48 hours, particularly the 3-gal containers. Going to have to plan on watering more frequently from here on out as growth seemed to slow a little today. I’ve been getting a little bit of burn on the leaves from watering & feeding as maybe noticeable in the pictures. Replaced the measuring cup I was using with a small watering can which should help with not burning too many more leaves. Fed them with ¼ dose GB and ½ dose BB. Day 27: Some more LST today, crossed my mind that perhaps even every other day is too often? Happy to hear feedback from the community on this or any other aspect of the grow. Day 28: I gave the ladies an early morning watering and lowered the humidity to 55%. Looks like we’ve reached the point where the humidifier won’t be necessary to maintain that level. Dropping below 50% is going to require use of a dehumidifier and I’m unsure what the impact of that will be on the temp in the room the tent is in. Once we switch from heat to A/C the temps will be easier to manage, but that’s a few months away yet. I’ve been messing with the fan setup a bit, trying to find the best way to get both oscillating fan setup so they are both moving air around the ladies. I have a set of cycle timers coming that will allow me to alternate which fan is blowing at any one time. Looking back over the pictures this week its I amazing to see how much these ladies have grown. Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics

GreenAlchemist Day 29 – 32: I had a little too much free time last week and I will be cutting down on the TLDR factor this week. Pre-flowering has begun this week and I’ve stopped the LSTing. Need for watering has increased and because of this I’m beginning to see clear differences between the two strains. The OB ladies seem to consume much more water and are much more dramatic about having dry soil so daily watering is now in order with each plant getting an amount of water based on its weight. I had previously mentioned that I thought I might have mixed up my germinated peat pods based off large difference in growth between my 3- & 5-gal containers in weeks 2 & 3. With a clear difference in behavior between the two strains related to water along with the changes in plant structure as the plants enter pre-flower, it appears the plants are appropriately labeled and the early increased growth rate seen in the both strains’ 5-gal containers appear to be caused by the extra soil and/or extra moisture that soil can contain. At this point I believe I can say with a high enough level of confidence that I see no reason not be using at least a 5-gal container for autoflowers, especially with these strong genetics from DP. Perhaps a 5- vs. 7-gal test is for a future grow. The transition from veg. to bloom nutes has begun. Last feeding was a mix of veg/bloom nutes as I used up my veg. mixture. Next feeding with be with only bloom. With the canopy filling in and vertical growth taking off, lights were raised from 40cm to 55cm above the container. With recent growth the light intensity at the canopy had gone up from ~31k to 35k lux. I turned the power up till we got to 45k lux at the canopy which increased power consumption from 175 to 257 watts. Looks like we may have reached peak output on the lights. Day 33 – 35: The pre-flower stretch has begun. I’ve been seeing about 3 cm a day of growth from all 4 ladies. Removed my previous LST and pull down a few colas to even out the canopy one last time. These ladies are becoming very thirsty, particularly the OBs. The weight method of determining when to water as the plant is putting on weight to quickly so I’m moving on using a moisture meter and now I’m beginning to learn how to read theses ladies. OB3 is turning out to be quite the drama queen when it comes to water as you may notice in this week’s pictures. I’ve installed the moisture meter in OB3 so I can have a better idea of when to water here. Found that when the meter is at 4 (1 – 10 scale), her leaves begins to droop. So now I’m watering when the meter reads and applying the soak/runoff watering method. Noticed some minor tip burning on BB3 after there last nute watering on day 34. Going to have to start applying a different feed schedules to each plant because of this. The increase in light output and the need to run a dehumidifier in the grow room is leading to challenges managing heat in the tent. I plan to run this tent perpetually and will be using the 1’ x 3’ x 6’ side of the tent for seedlings and drying. This will require additional equipment to manage the environment on that half of the tent. I ordered a 6” carbon filter/fan and will be swapping out my 4” setup in the main tent for the bigger 6” setup then using the 4” on the other side. I’m hoping the increased airflow of the 6” will help me maintain a proper temps and humidity. A few less pictures this week, my phone died on me. Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics

GreenAlchemist 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

GreenAlchemist Week 7: The most challenging yet. Began seeing changes to OB5, yellowing and purplish to a few colas and lower fan leaves. I went ahead and asked a question about it and was told it was normal. That makes sense from Blueberry but not Orange Bud, so it looks like I final figured out how I mixed up my germinated seeds. OB5 is Blueberry and BB5 is Orange Bud and the plant structures are communicating that as well. At least I got one of each strain in each size of container. The only real issue from this is this journal and all the mixed-up pictures I’ve posted for 7 weeks now. Don’t really want to go back and correct which pictures are in which journal. Thinking I’ll just start posting the correct pictures in each journal and writing using the corrected names this week. I turned up the power on lights again this week, hopefully they can handle it. Also completed the light schedule shift, so I can now water at first light. Also working on increasing Terpinator up to its recommend dosing. I received my digital microscope so have a few pictures of the trichomes. All and all these ladies are doing well. BB3 is short and seems to be about a week ahead of the others in flowering. BB5 is a about the same height BB3 but is at least twice its size. OB3 is the most stretched and the farthest behind in flowering. OB5 is also about twice the size as OB3 and its buds are filling in nicely. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on this grow. Catch you all next week! Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics

GreenAlchemist Week 8: This was an educational week. I had posted a question early in the week about some changes I was seeing in one of the ladies. Turns out the cause of the yellowing and purple/brown I was seeing was a reaction to light stress. As I’ve noted in early weeks, I didn’t fully understand what the appropriate light intensity is for my DIY QB light fixture. Since I am entering the last stages of flowering, I thought I’d turn the lights up a bit because that what I’ve read people do. I ended up turning it up too high for about 24 hours and ended up causing a fair amount of purpling and bleaching. The sativa dominate Orange Buds seem to have more bleaching, likely because they have stretched more and were closer to the light while the indica dominate Blueberries had more purpling. Since correcting the lights, the amount of purple in the plants has not increase much. I have learned a valuable lesson about where the limits lie in how much light to be dolling out; need to keep the lights at about 65% power. Since getting the lighting back in order, its clear that 2 of the ladies seem to have stunted while the other 2 are flourishing. OB3 has been problematic for a while and I can tell she is complete root bound. Combine that with heavy bleaching of the upper colas her water consumption dropped in half this week. OB5 (actually Blueberry) has also slowed a bit and I’ve had to remove a dozen leaves that were more than 50% damaged. BB3 has been my favorite one to watch and look at under the microscope. She’s the smallest but most mature of the 4 and I can see her buds fatting up on a daily basis. BB5 (actually Orange Bud) has become the most prolific of all. Dominating the tent with the biggest and most colas she’s likely to be the biggest producer. Smells are becoming enchanting. Need to be careful with doors being open when watering the ladies as the smell will quickly fill the entire level. The Blueberries began with a very earthy aroma that has grow into one of strong berries as one would expect. Orange Bud is developing the typical citrus tones in is known for. Also beginning to keep a close eye on the trichromes,. I’m trying to learn to tell the difference between clear and cloudy and I can tell it’s going to take me some time to develop a good eye for that. No sign of any amber yet. I’m trying to decide when to start the seeds for the next grow which will be Zkittlez Auto from Seedman. Any guess from anyone on how much time I have before I have chopped all 4? Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics

GreenAlchemist Week 9: This week everything was stable and progressed nicely. Trichome watching has become the name of the game. By the end of the week the Blueberries were beginning to show single amber trics here and there. BB3 is looking very mature but is still popping new white pistils daily. Its been fun watch being able to see her buds fattening day by day. She is by far the frostiest at this point and her smell is intoxicating. BB5 suffered a little bit more from light damage and still seems slightly stunted. She still has plenty of health canopy remaining and more bud sites while she’s looked a week behind BB3 for several weeks now, so perhaps she’ll catch up to here smaller sister in output as we wrap up in the next two weeks. Hopefully her smell becomes as potent as BB3 The best part of growing these two strains, Blueberry and Orange Bud, is the smell that is coming from both the strains together. While BB3 has a more robust berry smell that its larger sister, OB3 has a purer citrus smell that reminds of lemon drops. I am truly pained by how light bleach she has become. Some of the lowest fan leaves have become thin, soft and white from the light damage the other week. If everyone else in the tent wasn’t happy with the lights where they were, I’d turn them down for her sake. Enough through I’ve likely lost a good amount of yield from her, it’s going to be hard for me to let her cure for more than a few weeks. OB5 on the other hand is the queen of the tent. She’s hardly skipped a beat with many massive buds and pistils so thick it’s hard to look past them to peak at the trics. Neither of Orange Buds are showing signs of amber trics though I am beginning to see them cloud up a bit. Looks like these two are going to take a bit longer than the Blueberry, as noted by Dutch Passion. I’ve also begun germinating a few Seedsman Zkittlez and will be starting a new journal on those. Grow Summary: 4'x3'x6' 2 in 1 tent 250 watt full spectrum LED FFHF & FFOF soil w/FF Trio Dutch Passion autoflower genetics