First Grow: Essie

Day 50: So this will likely be the last true Veg week. Next week I'm going to to start walking the light schedule down in daily increments similar to how I went from 18 to 20 after seedling stage. I won't be pulling down so much this week either. We're at 6.5-7" tall and 11x13 wide, maybe slightly wider. She is starting to give off a very weak grassy smell with what seems like myrcene or perhaps pinene in the background. You really have to get into the leaves or LST a bit to smell it strongly. I'll continue to update/edit this week with the daily picture and post as I go. Day 51: Net on it's way Day 52: Watered: 2.5L purified water, 927 PPM, 71F, 6.45pH, 3tsp FFBB, 2.5 tsp FFGB. Day 54: Will install scrog net tonight. Day 55: She snuck up on me, 9" and 17.5" to the light. Looked fine, but readjusted to 20 anyway. See below: I did not install the veg net... I did begin to attempt to, and in fear of doing more harm than good at the moment decided to hold off. I may use the flowering net if nothing else. As I got into the plant I started removing fan leaves that were not getting any light: under the canopy in the center and a few outside, perhaps 9-10 total leaves, but still the most in one session to date (more on this in a second). I paused because I wanted to dedicate more time to the defoliation than I had, including snipping off 2-3 potential clones (first attempt) from the suckers near the bottom outside areas. I have successfully propagated tomatoes before, so I have minor experience. This will be attempted tomorrow morning. Upon review of the leaves I removed I found that several of them have discoloration. I know that some of these leaves took some major damage during my LST attempts by fault of rough plant tie work, all of them received very little if any light recently, and the rest of the plant looks fine (**note yellowish color in Day 54 picture is solely poor camera work, new growth was a lighter green at first, now all uniformly green elsewhere old and new growth both). So I don't want to worry too much, but I will put it to a question. I want to note that I plan to flush with 1-3 gallons of plain filtered watered in the next watering (holding flushing solution til harvest) to prevent salt build up. I have been getting minimal runoff, but with the super soil / coir 70:30 mix and half strength nutrients I have been avoiding it on purpose. Will post before and after picks tomorrow. Day 56: Some considerable defoliation, especially including yesterday's removals as well. There is a before and after I'm the pics, I'll try to get some side shots tomorrow to show the space below the canopy. I was careful to mainly remove fan leaves or areas without hope of decent light. I also took 5 potential clones, all from near the bottom - 'suckers' as I've heard them called. I will update with those to start week 9. Three of the clones are pretty small and may not make it, but I'm hopeful for the other two. Pics tomorrow!