RCDWC Sour Stomper

This is my first diary on here but not my first grow. Been growing for several years now and I find myself trying methods of growing I was unsure of. This system will be ran with minimal reservoir changes. I recently learned about Bioponics and have been trying to replicate in a small recirculating system. My first attempt was in a single 8gal dwc set up with a photoperiod. Nutrients used for that were RAW NPK complete set except for their nitrogen. For the growth nutrients I used iguana juice and that was a real interesting grow. My next set up was the recirculating system using the same nutrient feed. Now I want to use MegaCrop in an attempt to reduce the number of individual parts being incorporated to the feed. I’ve switched to advance nutrients root trifecta because of data from growmed university in the efficacy of those microbial products, so fuck it. Haven’t done an auto flower in hydro before, I am excited to be trying this with Mephisto Genetics! Also the actual amount of water being use is roughly 10-15gallons because it is recirculating. So the MegaCrop for 10 gals of water I added two teaspoons of it. The piranha and tarantula I gave 80ml of each. The voodoo juice is not here....

End of the 2nd week and one plant is experiencing faster growth. Issues with humidity and heat have arisen. If I don’t keep the ultrasonic fogger filled the heat can spike into the 90s and RH drops to the 10s. As long as it running the tent stays down around 86-72% with RH around 60-50%. I foliar fed once before lights off but I won’t be listing the nutrients through the site because none of it was added to reservoir. No ph fluctuations and the EC was bumped to 1.0 with the addition of 1 teaspoon of MegaCrop in about 10-15 gal of recirculating solution. This is where I miss stuffing my tent and doing a sea of green with a bunch of plants. Humidity not an issue and there’s a lot more options for venting out my tent with the extra outlet space. Once I get the air to my house turned on the temp should drop to a more comfortable 80s even without the ultrasonic but I am yet again doubting methods and my choice of growing. .....Octopots! That is what I will do next after this harvest! Stuff the tent and say fuck it!

Another week complete. The Sour Stomper on the left was showing impressive growth so I decided to do some defoliation and also start on the LST. The Sour Stomper on the right is starting to pick up the pace but I’ll probably only LST because the growth is not nearly as prominent so there’s still plenty exposure around the plant. The one on the left had fan leaves that we’re honestly just going to over take the lower growth. Big fan leaves are nice but too much shade. I am impressed with MegaCrop so far. I add directly to my system and stir with my Truncheon meter for a little bit. The ph has remained stable and a tsp bumps the EC perfectly for the entire system. I will probably stop adding MegaCrop and let them ride with an EC of 1.2 until I start to seek pre-flowering. After which I will bump to the final EC of either with BudExplosion. One difficulty of my prior grow without a reservoir change was ph fluctuation. Around now I would start to see a huge dip in the ph I started with which would require draining and adding regular tap to bring back up. With the MegaCrop there hasn’t been any fluctuations. Advance Nutrients Root Expanders are doing great as well. I used Great White last time and it just seems like the powder was not nearly as soluble as my purposes required. Last grow with Iguana Juice and RAW NPKs individual products just created to much of a mess. Excited to see how long I can keep this nutrient solution going, maybe until flush??

Week 4 was a very active week of low stress training and defoliation. The left Sour Stomper has taken very kindly to its environment and is showing potential to bush out. So far I am very impressed with the genetics, like I said this is the first autoflower strain I have ran in a hydro set up so it’s very rewarding to see that there’s no real sign of deficiencies or stress. Something else that was really cool was measuring the EC strength and finding out it dropping! This means my plants are enjoying the solution and since the PH didn’t change at all I can assume my microorganisms are handling the system as well. Usually around this time I can notice a drop in the PH and this can be a sign of the microorganism populations dying. But since switching to the MegaCrop there hasn’t been any swings in PH and I have only added water back never drained. My order of BudExplosion was to late so now they are out of stock til mid to late June. I wonder if I should try to ride it out with just the mega crop or if I should just introduce the PK booster through my left overs of RAW NPK Industries. Either way this next week will be the most important for obtaining the plant structure I want and depending on if they start flowering it could be the final week of foliar feed also. A lot of shit is going good this grow and I’m not use to that. Reducing the number of nutrients fucking saved my ass a lot of stress and appears to have save my plants a lot of stress too. Well, here’s to hoping another week goes smoothly.

Very exciting week. The growth for both Sour Stompers is very impressive. The hunger they show is intense. 16L of water added this week and 5 tsp of MegaCrop. EC was at 1.0 and I decided to gradually bring it up to 1.6. It eventually dropped to 1.3 and is going to start off week 6 with EC 1.5. Bud Explosion is not expected in stock until June 20th so I decided to buy Advance Nutrients Big Bud Dry Powder. I will let the EC drop back down to about 1.0 and then bring it back up with the PK booster. I am really impressed with the genetics of this strain, the left one has been defoliated a shit ton! Every time I look in there that fucker has bushed out! It’s going to to be very fun to watch it flower over the next month or more. I give it probably like 5-6 weeks with how long it took for it to actually show preflowers. No complaints so far I haven’t ran into any issues and still have only added water to the reservoir. No drain or change outs and so far from the evidence of water intake and EC drop the plants are thriving! Day 36 will start off with reintroduction of the microbial supplements. Will probably dose for compensation of total loss of water since last inoculation. So...about 40mL of Voodoo, Tarantula, and Piranha. At the rate the plants drink water I look forward to looking at the root growth once I can access them at harvest. The plants response to LST and Defoliation also show me that I can probably continue those techniques into week 6 and still see benefits in stretch of lower buds. You know, I almost was going to do this entire grow with MegaCrop and no PK booster but looking at the nitrogen content I just couldn’t justify it. Haha I want these motherfuckers to get faaaaaat!

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Buds are starting to fatten up however at the same time I have ran into the first Ph fluctuation. Ph seems to be dropping towards 5.5. To correct I drained about 8L then put in 8L of no Ph adjusted water. This has brought it back to 6.0 for the start of week 8. Leaves are also slightly yellowing which could be due to light intensity and strain sensitivity or it could also just be because of the slight ph fluctuation. Either way should be able to figure it out over the next week. Hasn’t hampered bud development which is coming along nicely. Also picked up a California LightWorks UVB light so will be adding that to the tent at 15 minute increments. Been a crazy week. My son is about to be born as I type this so not sure how the frequency of the data will be this next week. Possibly be away from tent so we shall see the PH react to a water drop of about 8L-12L. EC is being kept at 1.6 after the ph dropped to make sure plants feed to heavy during these coupled days after adjusting. If PH continues to drop I will do a full nutrient change out. Regardless, I feel that we are three weeks out from harvest.

Ph fluctuation stricken like a motherfucker. A whole lot of leaf damage in two days and still seeing some leaves wilt and die. Buds are coming along fine luckily. Oh man yeah and there’s a nice smell coming long definitely fruity. Plant on right is developing some nice frost. Going into week 9 we will see how the plants. recover from the ph issues. Probably the worst time to encounter ph problems but alas fuck it they shall ride for two more weeks let’s see where they end up.

9 weeks through and the plants seem to be nearing the end. The UVB is running for an 1hr 15min and in a couple days we shall have it blasting the plants at 2hrs. Trichromatic production is really starting to pick up and the smell is finally noticeable. Despite the ph fluctuations they seem to be finishing. A lot of small buds with nice internode spacing. Yield will probably be affected, however, the thc that these two seem to be putting on is impressive. Going in to pluck a leaf and my hand comes out shiny with oil. The only other experience I have with Mephisto is a Fantasmo Express freebie and that was in my first year of growing. The plant was less then spectacular and nothing noteworthy from the grow. These fucking Sour Stompers are insanely adaptable and are showing the power of F7s, like god damn very excited for the end product. Going to start 4 Sour Crack now and use a Soil/Hydro setup.

Plants have been harvested! Will update within a weeek with dry weight and review. Overall really impressed with this strain and can not wait to try! The plant that was on the left never really filled out as much as the one on the right and this is probably due to the ph fluctuation I left unaddressed. The smell off of both of them is extremely pungent the sweet grape smell is there along with the sour citrus. I have started 4 Sour Cracks so here’s to seeing what the original Sour from Mephisto has in store. Sour Stomper has so far been a beaut to grow and I wish I could have done more justice towards the end but I pushed them to far hahaha.

Whaaaat a fun fucking grow! I screwed myself towards the end and believe the ph fluctuation affected the plant on the left the most because of the circulation. 53 grams from the monster that was handling defoliation everyday is underwhelming haha but her fucking sister! Like, damn! 87g with a simple mistake that fucked the other but she rebounded and overcame! Mugs are small and dense on both. Plant on the left developed more of a diesel undertone with the sour berry smell while the plant on the right has more of a sweet berry with sour undertone missing the diesel. Next is sub irrigation with Sour Crack 🤠