First Grow Attempt

Wrote my labeling of the strains on my paper towel when germinating the seeds, but the water made it fade, so not sure which is which but there should be a Gorilla Zkittlez from Barney Farms, and I think a Northern Lights & Amnesia Fast from Seedsman & a Red Diesel from Dinafem. One of them didn't germinate properly, which I think was either the Diesel or Amnesia, but I will just have to take a guess later. Will number the plants soon for the sake of clarity They were under a 75W CFL for the first week or two of life, but are under a 400W MH at the moment in a 4'x4'x6' Grow Tent. This is probably week 4 overall of life post-germination. I have a 400W HPS to switch to once I start flower. Temperatures are quite stable, at about 24C (75.2F) outside the tent, and about 28C (82.4F) in the tent under the lights, the top of the plants don't feel uncomfortable to the hand though Current soil is a generic general purpose potting mix for vegetables/flowers/fruit. One of the plants seems to have started to have some brown spots, light yellowing of 2 of the lower leaves & upward curling, which I understand may be a nutrient defficiency, so I moved them into some larger smart pots. Roots had started to reach through the bottom of the starter pots, so the timing seems good. I've made a soil mix out of the generic soil, coco coir & mulch, organic compost with a little bit of cow & sheep manure with some ground up egg shells mixed through. Applied some water with kelp extract to help with rooting & transplant stress I've mostly been feeding them plain tap water, but occassionally I feed them water with a kelp extract (maybe every 3 or 4 days), and I watered them once with a little neem oil to prevent pests, and plan to do so every few weeks or if I see any signs of pests showing up.

Day 1: First week in their larger pot, 2 plants seem to be growing quite happily, but Plant #3 is still looking a little sad. I may add a little Canna Bio Vega nutrients to it tomorrow if it continues on this trajectory. Only fed them a little drizzle of plain water on day 1 of this week as the bottom of the pots was still a little moist, but the sides & top were dry, but the roots likely haven't spread too far yet so I don't want to have the soil too moist & risk root rot. Day 2: Plant #1 & #2 still looking good, bit shorter than Plant #3 so starting to think #1 & #2 are indicas and #3 is maybe one of the sativas? but I think #3 broke the soil first and had the longest time under the CFL, so that may also contribute to the stretch. Plant #3 doesn't seem to be anymore stressed than it was before, I think there is some healthy new growth at the top, so I'm not too worried about it, but I decided to give all the plants a very light nutrient feed with their water today & will see how they react. Pots were completely dry before their watering, soil doesn't seem to be too compact, didn't pool at all at the top & drained out the bottom fairly quickly. Drainage seems good Day 3: Plant #3 has new growth at the top, mostly looking fine although I think there's a slight yellow discoloration at the tips of the new leaves. Still wet at the bottom of the pots, so I gave them a splash each. In the future I'll likely just give them a light spray of water when the soil is still wet. Other two plants still looking good as usual

Week 6, Day 1 All the plants look plenty healthy. Topped the 2 larger ones, and FIMed the smaller one, as I heard plants recover quicker from FIMing so I thought it might catch up in it's height a little bit. I don't plan on topping or FIMing my plants again before flowering unless people think it's a seriously good idea, but I'm not sure I'd get many extra gains under a modest 400W light with 3 plants. Probably going to LST/Scrog through to harvest to avoid delaying harvest any further.

Week 7, Day 1 The topped plants seem to have established their new main stems quite nicely, can also see increased overall growth on most branches other than the main old main stems. The FIMed plant is continuing growth fine although I'm not seeing the same extent of strengthening of what should be it's new nodes as the topped plants, however this plant I think is just growing slower than her sisters, not sure, but I'm unlikely to FIM or Top it again if I decide to do that with the other plants, but I'm planning on just sticking with them through to harvest at this point with maybe some LST or Scroging. Some of the lower leaves are dying on the plants though, which should indicate malnutrition. I have seen some small flies around my soil, possibly fungas gnats, so I sprayed the soil & some of the lower leaves with a neem oil water mix today to help curb their population, but I'm going to start decreasing the frequency of my waterings further & maybe start giving some veg nutrients every second feed until the population subsides & the plants are looking pristine.

Week 8 The 2 topped plants have developed what looks like 4 main stems, 2 from where they were topped and 2 from lower branches that have caught up to the same height. The FIMed plant hasn't developed any clear new main stems, although it's lower stems have thickened a bit, it still hasn't really bushed out like it's sisters. One of the topped plants top growth has started to get a little lankier, bigger spacing between nodes & less outward growth. All the plants seem to be under some stress, lower branches starting to yellow & some leaves falling, but the middle-upper growth is fine. Could be nitrogen depletion in the soil, or the gnats may be causing them issues with nutrient uptake. The fly/gnat population has gotten a little bit larger, with 10+ flies (didn't really count) moving around. I've been watering with neem oil more often (almost every water now) & giving minimum 1 day gaps between watering, once a 2 day gap to try and curb the population, although I know the neem's effects are delayed as it makes the children infertile. Going to add some yellow stickies tonight & maybe catch some daddy long legs to move into the tent. At this rate of growth, I think I should be ready to flower in about a week, but I'm a little hesitant to if the gnats are still around, since I don't want them to be under stress through flowering, and the water will dry out slower under a shorter light cycle. How large should the gnat population be for me to be really concerned? I've been adding a light amount of nutrients as well with each of my waterings, figure it may help if they're having issues getting nutrients from their attacked roots, or if the soil is depleted, so I thought it couldn't hurt either way. With the gaps between watering I have seen the leaves canoing/cupping more often which makes me feel like I should be watering every day, but I want to keep the fly population under control so I haven't been. Is my watering schedule I good idea or should I be going more regularly? Not sure if the gnats of dehydration would be a bigger worry for the plants (maybe it'd be alright if I'm using neem every 2nd water?). A comment mentioned what I suspect to be gnats may be springtails, how would one be able to tell the difference between them? Any advice would be much appreciated. Update: Pretty sure they're gnats now, but the yellow sticky has been quite effective, definitely a large drop in population from yesterday. As long as I keep the soil a little drier than I have been, and maybe occasionally using neem oil & prevent them from getting out of control again, I don't think they'll be much of a problem anymore. I also think some of the signs of stress I was seeing was because the light was probably a bit closer than it should have been, so I've raised it. I've also added a small mint plant that I'll keep in the shade near the fan, hopefully it can act as a little preventative for pests returning, and maybe attract some beneficial creatures. Worst case, have some more mint to use

Switched to my 400W HPS bulb, added the activated carbon filter, changed the exhaust & tower fan to be 24/7, and changed the schedule to be 12/12 at the beginning of flowering 2 weeks prior (making this the third week). Things seem to be going fine first week, gnat population decreased significantly, but then the plants seemed to be under nutritional stress & dehydrated, lower leaves started defoliating themselves in particular, leaves cupped a little bit & started dropping a bit, general yellowing seems present even on some higher leaves although it's harder for me to tell under the HPS. Not much stretch occurred on them except for a bit on the tallest one, the other two are not much taller than they were before. I realised that I was well under the recommended doses for nutrients on the label, so I started giving a little more which seems to help, which makes them look healthier, but brings back much of the gnat population causing stress again. They're all under 90cm tall including the pots (included a shot compared to my tower fan which is 90cm tall), and I don't think I will get the most out of them if they continue flowering at this time, so I've changed the light cycle to a 19/5 one, whilst otherwise leaving their other environmental situation the same in order to return them to veg & let them recover before trying to flower again. Is this an overreaction? Are they just taking some time to respond to the new schedule?

Reverted to veg schedule 3 weeks back & plants haven't quite recovered yet. I switched to a 19/5 schedule on the day that I posted & have been feeding them more nutrients with minimum day gaps to keep the soil dry. Gnats still present to some extent, but usually reduced. Plants haven't reverted to vegetative growth yet, just ran out of veg nutrients so I will likely have to order more. Plants haven't grown much, although they developed some basic flowers almost immediately after I changed the schedule back to veg. Should I cut the flowers to revert to veg? Should I return to flower and finish? I'm okay with waiting a little longer, getting some extra nutrients and getting them to a healthier stage before continuing flowering to get a better yield & healthier plant, but I'd also like to not kill my plants so if going back to flower, and using my flower nutrients that are already here is the way to go here would be good to know. I also think that some stress on the plants may have been due to cold nights, had the intake & tower fan on 24/7, but the weather has been incredibly cold lately so I've put the tower fan on the same schedule as the lights. This may also be why the stems are quite dark/not green in earlier photos, so hopefully that makes some difference. (I can put the exhaust on the same schedule as well if need be, but I don't think it's that cold) Took photos just after lights off with phone light, as the HPS light makes it difficult to judge leaf color accurately I think