Zams Gumdrop Forest

Day 1: Greta is finally born! I germinated her in a paper towel, inside of a sealed Tupperware and kept warm on top of my wifi router. 16 hours later, she showed her taproot and I dropped her into soil! Unfortunately, this is my first grow, so my first mistake was planting her too deep in the soil and she had a hell of a time trying to get out, which led to a crooked stem. Day 2: Her stem is looking better and she looks like a happy girl. I moved my lights from the 24 inches they were at, to 36 inches because of the PPFD values of my LED. I was worried about scorching her. I watered around her thoroughly and will leave her be until the soil is dry and she needs to be fed. Day 3: Greta is looking a bit small for her age, compared to other grower's pictures, so i'm hoping i didnt stunt her growth with the whole stem debacle. But either way, i am so so so happy with her. The most difficult part of this being my first grow has been trying to dial in my environment, but i think i've finally come as close as i can do it -- im following an LED VPD chart. The light i have doesnt emit too much heat, so in order to keep my temps up, while also running my exhaust fan, i installed a ceramic heat emitter into my tent and am blasting my humidifier at all times. Keeping the tent at a steady average of 75F and 68% RH. I have an order for an Inkbird Thermostat/Humidity meter coming in a few weeks so hopefully at that point, i'll be able to dial in my values even more efficiently. Day 4: Heard from HLG Customer Service and they recommended my light be hung at 24" for veg and as low as 18" for flower. So I moved my light from 36" down to 30" from the plant. I'll keep an eye and see how she likes it. Day 5: She seems to be tolerating the new light height well. A new set of leaves is starting to come in! Also, after talking with an experienced grower, I decided that my tent is small enough to not need to be running an exhaust constantly. My tent only needs about 25 CFM in order to have an air exchange every 60 seconds, so in order to have far more control over my humidity and temp, what i'll be doing until Greta grows up a bit is to run my two muffin fans (each output 20cfm at the lowest setting and 69cfm at the highest) to move the air around, and just leave my passive intake flap at the bottom open. Temps and RH have been holding steadily at 75F and 65% respectively for a few hours now. I am elated that i've finally dialed in my tent settings (for now). Day 6: Temps and RH are finally holding steady and Greta is looking so happy! I overwatered on Day 2, but the soil is starting to dry, so i'll probably water a few oz of pH'ed water either tonight or tomorrow AM. Day 7: Closing the end of her first week of life as a very happy plant. Her leaves are starting to taco just a LITTLE bit so I watered her just a little and will keep an eye on her leaves to make sure she’s not getting too much heat.

Day 8: I rotated Gretas pot so she’ll be a little closer to the humidifier in her early days. I also dig up her bent stem a bit, and in just a few hours she went from crooked to pretty much straight. I raised her light from 24 to 37” because I was seeing some heat stress as well as I noticed that she was staying a little squat — and Zamaldelica is a naturally stretchy plant so I figured she needed a little more space. She is looking happy and healthy though! Very pleased with her progress. Once she’s at 4 nodes, I’ll top her and then give her a little rest before starting LSTing. Day 9: She's starting to pick up speed with her growth! Very impressed and excited! Though i wish there were more inter-nodal space, which will make training easier. Regardless, she's looking gorgeous. Watered 10oz of pH'ed water in the morning. Her new growth is showing even more signs of heat stress than the older leaves, so that tells me that the light is still too close -- so i moved it up to 43" above the canopy. However, that is absolutely the upper limit of my tent, so I just ordered a 2FT extension for my (5'8") tent and that will ideally be enough space as she grows, especially during the stretch. Worst case scenario, i can dim the lights a bit. Day 10: moved my muffin fan so now it’s blowing a gentle breeze over her. This will help stimulate a strong stalk. She’s looking happy and healthy! Watered 12oz of 6.5pH water. Day 11: I finally decided to start some easy LST'ing. Im attempting to bring the top of Greta towards the center of the pot before Quadlining her once she reaches 5 nodes. I planted her off-center as part of an earlier plan to grow her horizontally, but i decided to abandon that plan. She's taking to the training well and her leaves are already facing the light again. No water today. Phew tons of changes in the tent today!!! First, I finally got my infrared thermometer and it confirmed my suspicion that I was frying the absolute shit out of my plant...the surface temp of my leaves was in the high 80s! Even though I had kept my tent at a steady 75, my leaves were way hotter than that. No wonder they looked stressed. Just goes to show how important leaf surface temperature really is and how different it can be from environmental temperature. So...after some advice from another grower, I dimmed my lights to about 16K lux and lowered the actual height of the lights to about 36” from the canopy so the plant would remain a little warm. I will keep monitoring to see if it made a difference.

Day 16: Started process of quadlining. removed bottom two nodes. Day 18/20: Topped and trained her down. Fed first round of nutes Day 21: Seeing some clawing from a nitrogen overdose. i think this strain is very nitrogen sensitive.

Day 24: The things on her leaves that i kept thinking were bugs may actually have been deficiencies. I fed her cal-mag and a bunch of other stuff to remedy it. Day 25: Shes looking TONS better, still a little bit of clawing. Her pre-flower stage is quickly turning into her flower stage! Day 27: Yesterday i found proof positive of some type of pest on my sticky traps (under a microscope). 90% sure they're thrips. I foliar sprayed SNS 203 (natural insecticide) as well as a soil drench and dusting diatomaceous earth just before lights out. In 3 days i will also spray her down with Monterrey to make sure these little fuckers are eradicated. LOOK AT WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO MY POOR PLANT. =[. on the up-side, greta is growing .5" a day! END OF JOURNAL. SHE DIED. RIP.