ES High Level - Micro Grow 63W/78W Run 2

Athos Started a new run on my still new micro grow box. A couple of Eva Seeds High Level Strain. The seeds were put in water pH'ed to 6.8 for 24 hours and then planted into 16 oz party cups with BioBizz All-Mix; they sprouted 2 days later and 24 hours after that they had their first pair of true leaves (which I call day 1 of veg). Day 5: Plant B which is the slowest of the two, is as healthy as the Colombian Gold that I had in the last run. Plant A is coming along really nice and already you can see a 3d pair of true leaves. Day 7: Noticed a slight curving on the leaves, so I put more distance to the bulbs, even so, the seedlings look great. Late update: I added pictures of the grow box and some of it's details. For those that care it's made out of plywood, 15 mm thick and it's dimensions are 100 cm tall x 60 cm wide and 40 cm deep. The fan is a Noctua NF A6 FLX a 60mm fan rated at 17 CFM, 19 dB attached to a carbon filter CAN 705.

Athos Wow, what a difference with first run, the seedlings are growing at an amazing speed. I guess the touch of Calcium / Magnesium has made a lot of difference. I increased the distance to the bulbs from 3 to 5 inches and the curving i on the leaves disappeared. Will upload new pictures at the end of the week Update 1 - day 10: I uploaded a photo of a leaf on plant A that looks like it has some problem, any idea what it can be? Update 2 - day 13: it's nutrient burn caused by using Cal-Max too often. I was using it every 5 days on every watering, perhaps once every 2 weeks at 0,4 EC is safer? Anyway I did a little flushing. Since plant already had 6 pair of leaves and working on it's 7th pair I defoliated all the fan leaves, except for those at the top. Update 3 - day 14: Seedling B is working on it's 6th pair of true leaves, so following our schedule it'll be defoliated in 2 days.

Athos Day 15. Just posting a couple of pictures. Plant A looks good and plant B is 1 day away of been defoliated. Will post a couple more pictures in a few days. Update 1. Day 16. I decided against defoliating the other seedling since I'll be using it as a control individual. Update 2. Day 18. In the next 2 or 3 days I'll be potting up to 2 liter pots. I'm really liking the way the defoliate plant is developing and I'll go ahead with the other one either today or tomorrow. Update 3. Day 20. You can see in the last pictures that the seedlings were transplanted today into 2 liter pots. The party cups were packed with roots. Let's see how they like their new home. I gave them a minor feeding after 10 days of plain water (due to a minor nute burn) Update 4. Day 21. No signs of transplant shock, in just a day I can see a jump in their development. Even though they are small, which is good given that this is a micro grow, the defoliation has made the side shots develop up to 3 nodes of their own.

Athos It's day 25. The soil was really dry and so I just watered, which is why the plants are looking sad. They took the up potting really good and are working on their final pair of leaves (9th for plant A and 10th for plant B) which will be topped either tomorrow or the day after. That should give me around 18 tops each At the end of the week they will undergo a second defoliation and after that 2 more weeks and then it's flowering time. Final day of the week. Both plants were topped 2 days ago and I'll give them 2 more days for the top shots to develop more before the 2nd defoliation.

Athos Day 30. Both plants were defoliated again yesterday; every major fan leaf was removed once again (have I said how much I liked what the defoliation did to the plant structure? how much the side shot developed even before the plants were topped? I'll give them until day 42 (for a total of 6 weeks of veg) before switching to 12/12. Also at the end of this week I'll put them into their final container of 11 liters (3 gal). Day 35. Both plant were transplanted yesterday to their final container (11 liters). Even when watered with a 70 PPM solution (with a touch of Cal-Max) they show sign of slight nute burn. After my current bag of soil is finished, I'll try a light mix, Anyway both plants look awesome, so sometime during next week it's flowering time.

Athos I decided to go to 12/12 at the end of the 5th week of veg, since both plants were just at the height I wanted (15 cm) with enough side-shots (like 18 each plant, I upped slightly the Cal-Max in order to avoid any burn and because I know I have some deficiency of it (purple stems) I'm keeping the plants at 5 inches from the lights, when they reach 3 inches, I correct the distance again. The plants are growing 1 cm each day

Athos Day 10 of flower. Here we are half way through the stretch. I just watered today and as always, I only added Cal-Max. I've been doing some low stress training in order to keep the canopy more even and to fill all the grow box area as shown in the panoramic photo that I uploaded. The growth in this 10 days have been explosive; I guess that's the result of potting up plus going into 12/12. Next update will be at the end of the week (day 14). Day 14 of flower. Plants are still stretching, the canopy is full, not like last time. I’ve been doing a bit of LST and even tried my hand with some supercropping, to see how the plant react and to give some of the shorter tops time to catch up. Even though this strain is a sativa, the height is completely within what I had planned and currently at 9 inches; I guess the 6500K bulbs are helping to keep the plants shorter during the stretch, just one more week and I’ll change them for the 3000K ones.

Athos Day 20 of flower: The plant is a little over twice their initial height, which is exactly what I wanted. Flowers started forming halfway during this week. Last watering, I didn’t use Cal-Max because the foliage was a little on the darkish green side, perhaps next week I’ll resume it, maybe. Tomorrow I'll change the bulbs, let’s see how the plants like the new 3000K ones. Day 21 of flower: I went ahead and changed the bulbs for the warm ones. After I took those last pictures, I also defoliated the plants to expose the covered bud sites and to prevent excess humidity (and wet) leaves / buds. I already like what that did during veg phase, let's see what happens during flower stage.

Athos Day 23 of flower: yesterday I noticed a couple of lower leaves were kind of brittle with black tips and/or edges, I suspect a slight phosphorous deficiency; on the other hand, the plants are 2 months old and other than cal-max, there’s been no additional nutes, so no surprise if the soil needs some additional fertilizer; I went ahead and watered (and fed) 1 days ahead of schedule. Day 25 of flower: The stretch continues, very slowly; It's been 4 days since I defoliated and many mid-lower bud sites were exposed and reached for the light. I’ve done some more HST, other than that nothing to report. Day 28 of flower: The stretch seems to be finally over, hopefully since there's no more room for the plants to grow.

Athos It's day 30 of flower: it's been 9 days since I defoliated. Bud sites popped up everywhere, truth be told it's hard to say if it would have been different without defoliating. I can only compare to how the last run was at this same stage and there are definitely more bud sites, even though it was a different strain. On other topic, I've had to super crop a couple of branches that were getting too damn close to the lights. I expect 6 more weeks of flowering. I'll be updating with new pictures at day 35. Day 33 of flower: Stretch appears to be finally over, I've been doing some more LST and / or HST. Buds seem to popping everywhere and growing by the day. Other than that I've been plucking some lower dying / dead leaves. Day 35 of flower: Uploaded some pictures and a video, I've been plucking some lower dead leaves, doing a bit more of LST and watching the buds grow.

Athos Day 40 of flower. I’m still tying down the odd branch that reached the bulbs, but all in all the plants are in cruise control. The smell has gotten really strong all of a sudden, it went from a slight smell to really noticeable; I have but to feather touch a branch and the smell hits me like a freight train. I noticed some purple petioles and I suspect some minor Mg deficiency. Last feeding, I added a touch of epsom salts, which put my feeding just shy of 1.4EC/700PPM. In just a day I noticed some of the purpling in the petioles receding and going green again. Next update will be in 2 more days. PS: I uploaded a video last week of the plants. Day 42 of flower. New pictures uploaded. Buds growing by the day.

Athos Day 45 of flower: The flowers are filling out; I expect the flowering phase to take 10 weeks, so that makes it 3 and a half more weeks. Next time at the beginning of week 8, I expect to give them their last feeding, and not a full one, without the grow nutes at least, not sure if to cut back the Cal-Max. Next update should be Thursday at day 49. Day 49 of flower: Uploaded the end of the week pictures. Other than that, I've saw a few leaves tip burned, nothing serious, anyway I decided that I will not feed anymore, giving he plants 17 or 18 days to consume whatever is left on the soil and on their leaves themselves.

Athos Day 55 of flowering, expecting 15 more days until harvest. Since I only fed 4 times and rather mildly at that, I didn’t see the need to do a heavy flush; Sunday night I watered to a run-off just shy of a liter each plant; 18 days should be enough for the plant to consume everything remaining in the pot and plant tissue. I managed to get springtails. Although they are not harmful, even beneficial, I prefer my grows bug free, it seems I’ll have to let the 3 gallon pots dry out further between watering, 7 days was not enough, so next grow I’ll let 10 days between watering’s. I hope you enjoy the pictures out of the grow box and the video, I think the buds are easier to appreciate. Before I forget, it's still early, but it seems the defoliation did work, I notice in the pictures outside of the grow box that the lower half of the plants have some nice buds, opinions?

Athos Day 60 of flowering: finally calyxes have begun to swell and right on time. I hope you can appreciate it in the pictures, but I can't risk taking the plants out of the grow box for a better shot, when I did that they really stank the house. I haven't given any water this week yet, probably will do on Thursday (day 63). I expect the plant to take 10 more days, 5 for the bud swelling and 5 for the thricomes to finally mature. Day 63-64: Pictures were taken just after lights out. It's been 12 days since watering and after checking the thricomes I decided it's time to harvest. Next update will be with a dry weight and a harvest report

Athos This is the first diary that was completely done from start to finish while on GD. I vegged 5 weeks with 63 watts of screw LED bulbs. Then after the stretch I switched to 78 watts of screw LED bulbs. It took just as the breeder stated 8 to 9 weeks. The buds are long and thin, really sativa like. I still have some minor trimming to do, so the weight could become lower, but nothing earth shattering, maybe a couple of grams. All in all, this been my second indoor experience, it totally surpassed my expectations of 2 oz (I got 3 👊).