MaxGrow No.1 - Denial and Error

First time grower, criticism will be well recieved😀 Two plant ebb and flow setup in a 3x3 as a test run Top feeding until I can afford the rest of my setup🙄 Started seed in water balanced to 6.0 Sat. Feb. 29th Tap roots within 12 hours, directly into pre soaked rockwool cubes. Broke the surface march 3rd. Began 1/4 strength micro, grow, bloom and stress relief Using very hard water for the next couple days, roughly 450 PM out of the tap. Ro system to be installed march 6th Ro system now installed. Start of week 1 will be Saturday the 7th of March. Day 2: Turned the light down to roughly 50%, instead of raising it, due to the fear of light burn. Will look into it soon. Plants seem to have recovered after I decreased the light intensity. Fan and filter purchased. Alternating flush and feed cycles 12 hours apart to keep salt sats down. Day 3: Bumped light intensity back up to roughly 75% of the ts1000's capability or 700 "light units" from a cheapy 3way meter. Adding as much co2 as I can through baking soda and dilute phosphoric acid. Day 4: Exhaust fan with climate control installed March 10th Day 5: Girls exploded now that I have my salt build up figured out . Day 6: Light back up to 100% Day 7:little droopy on the one plant, gonna let them dry out a day Setup should be complete for start of week 2.(actually sick right now and having trouble getting supplies) Still need a flood table setup.

Day 8: Plant 2 is drooping quite a bit, skiped a day of growth. Plant 1 is perky and resist wind very well, plant 2 not so much. What an interesting week.... Okay so. The drooping was a a few rookie mistakes folded into one. First off, plant 2, drooping. I assumed to be soggy rockwool as I was drenching them. I then decided to crush her with my timelapse phone....yes, right. I picked her up and thought nothing more of it. I then introduced the wind... after a few day she started to show signs of "overwater".... Once I noticed severe stem splitting I taped her up and she bounced back.... All that...and she is still growing... Things have settled down, plants are finally in their final location. A little close together but I was limited by my tray. I intend to scrog out so it shouldn't be an issue. Switching over to general hydroponic nutes as it was the most convenient and 2 day shipping. They didnt seem to mind much. I will add some magic juices later maybe. Setup is now complete. Adding the trellis eventually.

Switched to GH flora 3 part. Playing around with flood times. The are taking up water at an exponential rate. Started with 3, 3 minute floods, up to 6, 4 minute floods and they're still drying up the puddles within an hour. Plant 1 is ahead of plant 2 by a day but it is half the size🤷‍♂️ Topped day 16. Not obvious in the photos as I had hoped but they bounced back within minutes Thank to evryone who gave their input, every little bit helps🙌 After all your suggestions, I've, backed off the light, backed off the flood time and count. We will see if these girls perk up a little more👍 Day 17 I noticed progression of what I believe to be a calcium deficiency? That's on me, forgot the calmag originally🤦‍♂️ another thing I decided to look into was the twisting of the leaves as the plant 1 is also starting to show. Could my ph be alot higher than I think? 4 gal res I added a couple ml of phosphoric acid at the start and about 1ml a day since(I didnt prep my cube as well as I should of) seems like alot to me. The system would rise from 5.3 to 6.3 throughout the day. A flood cycle doesnt seem to affect the ph, more over time. I am constantly stirring the mix and no my meter is not yet calibrated. I have ordered what I need but I'm considering calibrating with the chemicals I have and doing a res change. Good news is, they do seem a little more lifelike after implementing all your suggestions. Okay drained and rinsed my res, ro water into the tank was holding 6.97ph, good enough for the girls I go out with🤷‍♂️ gonna mix up a batch, do a top feed to waste, and see what happens. It has been nearly 24h since my last flood. Also, struggling with lows of 30% humidity sometimes. Dont know if that plays a role here. Okay something was off.. I did a top feed to waste with fresh 5.3 nutes and the runoff came out at 7.5.. so I did it again...and again...maybe a half doesnt times to each block with no change. I started to reuse the runoff as I wrote off the batch at this point. I then switched to a pump and did recirc feed to each block aprox 20 litres at a time, stopping to rebalance. Literally 100s of litres later I am stable at 5.5....going to drain rinse and refill. The interesting part is that what ever was saturated in those blocks is non conductive, the ec didnt change the entire time🤷‍♂️ Spent the next couple days recovering. Looking better now. Sardine catcher installed.

Just waiting on two new main branches to start training. Plant 1: Got this knot building right at the surface, I remember now, this one had a hard time righting itself during germ. Do I pull it strait as I am doing now? Also, scrog net is fully adjustable and currently being used for lst to bring the top fans down. I also intend to maintain an 8" profile true scrog instead of a skeletal structure for bud support👌 I am following lbh's famous scrog tutorial Day 22 started light training Day 23 opened the tent and got a nice whiff of green. Co2 system purchased, that should help Day 24 the stress response to my lst smells fan-fking-tastic! Day 25, half supercroped one of the 2 main branches of plant 1 just for shits...to compare I guess

Day 28, decided to take one inner branch from each, so the scrog plan will be revised to 3 main branches instead of two. Looking healthy all around Healthy babies! Day 29, lovin life. Day 30, took a look at @Nickeluring's aya harvest. I am worried about how much she stretched and the massive internodal spacing for an indica. Should I be switching over soon? Day 31, broke a branch..... no big deal, back to training. Luckily if I had to chose one quadrant to have a bad branch in, it would be that one... also the branch I "super cropped" so this branch will be a champion if it keeps up, doubled cropped😂 Quite busy from day 31-38

Moving onto week 6, Started reconfiguring the setup a bit, really trying to get my solution temp at 18c, currently steady at 20.5c regardless of the light cycle. Increased flood time again, I was at 4 times daily for 1 minute to try and promote a root mat. This ended up working.( That was the beginning of week 5.) On day 35 I upped them once again to every 4 hours, for still, 1 minute. Biggest rookie mistake of all was made, turn your water back on folks😭 Fairly serious drought occurred...(15 hours from last water. Sounds like nothing but its alot for my setup.) not enough to kill the plants but definitely enough to harm a portion of the root mass and capillaries, most likely. Full recovery after 48 hour, however, some leaves didnt make it. I am now worried that the water uptake has been seriously hampered. Roll with the punches and hope for the best😔 Roots dried back, shrunk. I was worried I would lose I large portion of anything outside of the block, but they seem to be continuing their adventure across the tray. A little less vibrant white now but... Added a couple cheapy bloom lights. Went for $/w and ended up getting two 45w lights for 40usd Total near 200w since my ts1000 doesnt actually draw 150w from the wall.. these new panels are rated 150w, draw 45. Considering adding two more. Busy trying to setup the other section of my indoor garden, and now my outdoor. I've been away in consequence.

Good recovery week from the drought. The girls seem to have kicked it into high gear, growth wise. Almost looks as if they went into flower but I am also getting fast root growth so🤷‍♂️ Getting quite agressive with the nutrients imo, they seem to like it. Lowered the calmag again since I think I still have too much magnesium. Less and less leaves are showing cal def so I'm not worried. Finally have a stable feed cycle that works, thought I'd share. Week starts out at the indicated salt levels. As the plants consume, and water evaporates, I gradually top off about 1.3L of fresh ro water daily, no ph adjustment. Ph adjustments are made when I hit 6.3, this is usually twice a week. At the end of the week the solution level is the same 5gal I put in when I mixed but the salts come down about 30%. When I go to change my reservoir, I flush the plants manually,from the top down for a couple minutes of recirc, then drain to waste. Rinse the tank and refill. The tray floods less than an inch for 1 minute, every 3 hours. Going into week 8, I think that will be the last week of veg.

Week 8 was good. Explosive growth both in plant and root mass. We go to flower now, finally. New meters came in aswell so I got to cross calibrating and now know I was quite a bit off on the ph, fairly good on the salts. I had been starting with a ph of 5.8 and drifting to 6.5 ish. In reality this was more like 5 to 5.5 but it's hard to say with the logarithmic scale. Did a mass defoliation and they put their leave back on in a few days. Looking good, fingers crossed.

Started flower cycle with 34 hours of dark, mainly to set my optimal dark time. Roots continue to explode, veg growth about the same. Day 6 of flower, did another round of defoliation as many bud sites were obstructed and was getting a little crowded, air circulation wise. As for food, went with what general hydroponics recommends for transition to bloom. Going to refill with higher strength food in a few days.

Week 2 went well. Plant 1 kicked off the bloom cycle with a bang, plant 2, still asleep I guess🤷‍♂️ finally showing a flower formation on day 14. Plant 1 was showing after 34 hours of dark, day 2. As far as the canopy goes, 74 out of 81 squares filled. I'm guessing one more tucking session in a week and we sit back and watch. Cranked up the food to, again, what general hydro recommends at this stage aswell as some bud start I had a sample of from a buddy. I dont intend on buying any magic potions this time around, just the future harvest samples I have. Setup needs a reformat, at that point I will settle on a nutrient line for the next grow. The root mat seems to be working as I hoped. How this affects yield/quality vs extra veg who knows🤷‍♂️ but more roots more buds right? I'm also zeroing in on the dryback cycles which I believe is causing more branching and less tap root entanglement. Hard to capture but the root mat is a crisp white for the most part. In the photos, the dead yucky brown rot looking portions are actually only slightly darkened. Hopefully light leak, not fungus as the brown is only on mature roots and not slimy in the slightest. What can I say about barneys ayahuasca purple. Its purple already😅 I must add, flower set is a beautiful thing. The anticipation is building, fingers crossed🤞

Another fun week! Really starting to believe in this strain. We have now filled 80/81 squares with atleast 1 bud, most have 3. The lower flowers have made a sprint for the surface so happy with that. Applied some high stress training this time around as I really wanted a flat canopy from this point. A dozen or more branches bent off at a 90 degree angle to achieve that. Only one casualty. Upped the food to about 125% what ghe recommends along with some future harvest ton o bud. Did a really good flush and clean with half strength solution as I refilled. Decided to add a little phosphoric acid as i hadn't been for a few weeks. Flower set is coming along nicely. Plant 1 is still way ahead, but fairly docile whereas plant 2 finally put on some flowers and had started to stretch. Plant 1, oddly enough, has actually slowed its internodal growth and is starting to pack on the buds🤷‍♂️ As far as the phenotypes go, I think I lucked out and got two different purple varieties. I could be dead wrong, but both plants seem to show purple on early flower set. The mature fans look oddly lanky for a pure indica🤔 I have a half dozen clones that will hopefully take as I'd really like to give this strain another go. Til' next week🙌

Interesting week, to say the least. My weirdo made an attempt to self polinate. One round of Male growth that I caught a little late, removed aprox 20 pollen sacs. Throughout the week I found maybe a dozen more here and there, all immature. I've put alot of time into the study of this beautiful plant and am starting to think I may have had nothing to do with it but here's what i think it could be otherwise. The 34 hours of dark thing..okay maybe not the most common practice, and many blame that. Another thought, I had been running extremely rich environments(co2,salts) We have had a couple weeks of rain here and so I've been fighting with humidity. In consequence, I have had my tent open for some time, dropping the co2 levels back about 33%, without adjusting nutrients. This is showing in the tips. Third, and the one I like best, since it excuses me😏 this plant had been weird from day one. Maybe shes just a little special and was easily set into desperation mode self polinate, a natural thing for cannabis to do. Either way, fingers crossed we see no seeds🤞 As for the rest of the week, The special girl is stacking buds nicely plant 2 is still a fair ways behind. Began another big defoliation on plant 2 last day of the week but couldn't complete in time. Weirdo isnt really wasting any energy on fans👍 Plant 2 is stretching a bit more, doesnt seem to be a problem. Far left corner of the tent has plant twos dominant tip, kinda just left it alone. Seems to be filling in nice. The trichomes, just beautiful.. from light pinks to purples to blood reds...just awesome... The weirdo actually has a decent amount of cloudy heads with the odd amber chucked in. Plant 2, mostly clear, building frost fast as of the last day of the week. Sorry for the earful...

Not much to report this week. Going well, 4 more male growths. These girls are on autopilot for the next 4 or 5 weeks. Finally done the last big defoliation. I am happy with the amount of tips, I dont mind sacrificing a little size and quality for a potentially much larger yeild. No real stretch to be seen, I guess the scrog is to blame for that. A side note, I may have a little bit of a micro nutrient deficiency, iron in particular. I know this is rare but I did miss the iron last week, long story. Its presenting from the top down with choloris near the leaf base moving outwards. I also think I have a slight k abundance at this stage but the plant should take care of that as it begins to demand more.

Looking good😃 Girls are on autopilot now, lowered the ghe nutrients, and gave them a little extra PK. No Male growths this week. Buds are stacking well, a decent amount of cloudy trichomes at the top sites. Weirdo isnt frosting up as much as plant 2, I hope that will change. Purples are really starting to come out now where the light level is higher.

Weirdo is at it again. Seems to me like she is in her final phase. Most of the leaves dying back buds starting to fall over but still a little immature🤷‍♂️ the other girl has a few weeks it seems but weirdo could be within the week. Ambers are starting to appear on the lower flowers. I am a little underwhelmed with her progress this week. I took a lower sample to evaluate things a little better. Plant two is moving along. Both plants cut their water demand down🤷‍♂️ After inspecting the sample, i notice alot of amber, mostly cloudy, with a few still clear, trichomes. I dont think she is ready as the buds are still developping new bracts. Hold out for a day or two, and go from there

Going into week 9. Weirdo stopped dying back and pumped out another set of bracts. I guess she has time, maybe this week. I just dont know anymore.. Plant 2 has atleast another week, stacking buds well. Increase in mass is apparent now as the buds sway in the wind. Something must have happened for weirdo to die back like that. Not quite sure at this point as I haven't changed anything in a few weeks. Maybe a little pk boost. Looks like the symptoms I had when the plants suffered a drought but my system has been operational the entire time, as far as I know. I'll update if weirdo gets the axe this week, but I'd rather pull them together if I can.

Plants are hanging! Back with a harvest soon!

First things first! Big thanks to Barneys Farm! Amazing genetics, unkillable weeds! This strain yields frosty, beautiful looking buds, even when grown by an amateur. Additional numbers: Weirdo 50g A grade               80g B grade               100g trim Plant two 120g A grade                    30g B grade                    20g trim When I say "A" grade, it is relative to the plant it was from, not some market representation.  I would say only the "A" grade from weirdo is sell-able where as both A & B of plant 2, I would buy. Total dry weight could be considered closer to 200g if you factor in the above. All measurements were rough as I started consuming.(forgot to include the water cure aswell) The short: Went into my first grow ever with full head of steam! Sometimes that's a bad thing. What can I say, I am one who often likes to overcomplecate everything I do, growing cannabis is no exception.  a few rookie mistakes, a reliability issue  with my pump, and alot of denial and error later and here we are. The two plants were obviously two separate phenotypes from the early days, the plant I have named weirdo has always been weird.. She decided to self polinate due to stress, lighting, combination of everything🤷‍♂️ it's been a rough life. I was worried weirdo wouldnt yeild useable bud right up untill harvest day. I am glad I was wrong. As for plant two, I am happy with yeild and quality. She did produce seeds, but only a gram of good fem seeds. Weirdo has some micro seeds throughout, maybe a crackle or two per bowl, nothing horrible. I wont call the smoke amazing, but better than I am used too, so I'm happy. I wont report taste, quality or anything really as I didn't do this strain justice. The long: Let's start with setup; Lighting: My ts1000, great little light. Wall draw:154w @121vac Board draw: 118w When I bought it, for the price I payed, I really do think it was the star of the show. Decent efficiency and price even now adays. The PAR map they offer for this device is accurate, as far as I can tell. Highly recommended, buy goggles! Thanks Mars Hydro! Other than that, those octopus light things are fairly efficient aswell, the caveat being you need a metric ton of them to produce anything decent. They draw about 24w each, before the driver. They produce about 100k lux @3000k at contact with the plastic cover.  I may use them in my new room, one per plant for veg or something. Alot more LED enginerding to come😬 The nitty gritty: I started out measuring ph, tds, the whole 9. I dont do that anymore..   My point here being, using RO water and a mild salt solution will, as far as hydroponics goes, be just fine. Ph is obviously important, but testing can be eliminated if you mix the same recipe. Even further, understanding how your nutrients affect your Ph is enough to keep your plants happy. That being said, a ph meter, at least, is necessary to engineer that recipe. Ebb & Flow: Very good. Few things to consider, but good. When I go at this again, in the near future, I believe we can take full advantage of what this method has to offer. If you want a low maintenance system, intend to leave it for weeks at a time, then this may be for you. I went into it backwards. I wanted some sort of flood system that would take advantage of large surface area for root development and chose my medium poorly. Rockwool cube are an amazing product and work wonders when used properly. Using rockwool in conjunction with my surface area root mat approach lead to overwatering. I would use netpots and lay them flat on the tray in hindsight. I will revisit that one day, diversity for now. Carbon dioxide: Has it done anything to my yeild🤷‍♂️ Hard to say, a lot of variables involved. My understanding is, co2 can increase metabolic rates to a certain extent as long as equivalent light and temperature are provided. My belief in co2 comes from minimal research into the carboneferous period where ferns grew 100ft tall(30m), largely in part to the high co2 concentration in the atmosphere. The global  ambient co2 levels are well over 400ppm and I can easily keep my room at 200% these levels at the cost of about 200g of citric acid and baking soda monthly. I will continue with this "ghetto" approach, for now. Food: One thing I learned, most of us overfeed. Keeping in mind, testing has all been done with one strain, on 6 plants, the threshold between under and overfeed is a massive line. Your plants can have everything they need with half the salt concentration required to show signs of stress, maybe less. These are "weeds", after all. I will be doing "minimal feed" experiments to see how efficiently I can deliver the salt to the plants. So far, I'm seeing on par growth with 1/20 the concentration I started with. Another thing i did not consider going into this grow, the chemistry in a hydroponic reservoir is alot more complex than it seems. Many of the elements required by the plant have to be in a very volatile state to be readily available to the roots. Simply put, your reservoir is one giant mix of many chemical reactions that cause your food to deteriorate or be locked away from the plant. Less food, more water changes seems to be the way to go. Looking into efficient ways to drain to waste because of this. Vivosun: Yeah they deserve a sub title. I have purchased 8 things from vivosun, mostly rebranded Chinese crap but I am very impressed with literally everything I've bought. The 3x3 tent is high quality, no plastic corner pieces. Other things worthy of note are that they are my goto because of their availability though amazon and low low prices. Thanks Vivosun! I will probably add more detail as the days go on.