Early Miss Rd. 2

This is my second grow and most of what I used in the first grow I'm using in this one as well: Bloomgrow 16"x16"x"48" (it is big enough for one plant with training) Growstar 150W COB LED (draws 63 true watts from the wall) IBionionics 4" Inline fan with speed control and matching carbon filter, bought together as a kit 3 Gallon Fabric pot (I moved up to 3 gallons, from 2, now that the fan and filer are external and not wasting tent space) Pro-mix Premium Potting Soil (which I also used last grow and had good results with - I'm okay with it not being organic) Pro-mix Perlite (a change from last grow was to add 15% extra Perlite which improved drainage) Probably the biggest change from last grow is that I have everything I need this grow, and I discovered on day 1 that I could use my Vivosun shades to take pictures through, which filters out the blue/red from the LED (though I take some of those too). This is something I'm a big fan of, and would have done last grow had I thought to try it. I'll be adding such pics with each weekly update. Whereas my first grow was a little "ad hoc" - owing to information overload - this one should be more scientific. This grow I have all of the nutrients I think I need (there's additions I could make in the future, and will in an eventual future grow). I opted not to go with Advanced Nutrients, General Hydroponics, or Fox Farms as my options for nutrients were limited to what I could find on Amazon Canada. and when I was ready to order nutes the prices were higher than I'm willing to pay. Except for Humbolt's Secret Golden Tree, which I used last grow with good results and will use again in certain weeks, all of the nutes I went with are made by Canadian companies here in Canada - it doesn't make any sense to me to buy American nutrients when we actually produce this stuff here in Canada through many companies. Since, last grow I found the soil delivers a lot on its own, at least in veg and early flower, but especially when paired with kelp, I'm going light on nutrients this grow: not so light that I create a deficiency (not intentionally or through neglect or from lack of experience from a prior grow), but light enough that I hopefully get minimal to no nute burn: that is a big goal. With the filter outside of the tent, I also have higher hopes for this grow and the only thing I plan to add to it that I don't have yet, is a scale so that I can get exact weights to measure any improvement from grow to grow as an estimate only sufficed for the first. I'm open to any training technique, though I got such good results from LST last time that I'll most likely stick with it again, unless there's a reason to do something else at some point. I don't plant to do any 'true' defoliation, just tucking when needed and clipping only as a last resort - and the bare minimum if/when I do. The first 7 days have been pretty uneventful, compared to my first grow. The first time, because I thought my hydrometer defective I didn't use one in the tent (the one in there now arrived around day 22 of the first grow, and since the first wasn't defective, I keep the cheaper one on an end table) and that contributed to some early environment mistakes. You can see the results of my early mistakes in my first grow journal, and much of this week has been spent comparing pics of the first grow to this one, and analyzing the more detailed journal I kept offline to try and identify and avoid those early mistakes. A big one was humidity: the first grow, I thought it lower than it really was for the first 3 weeks until the new hydrometer arrived; I'd thought it to be much lower than it really was, so each week the plant got more humidity than I thought it was receiving and you can see that on the leaf margins which begin to look increasingly mottled/wet/rubbery until about Day 23 when adding kelp and reducing humidity, just as the stretch hit, led to an explosion of healthy growth that wasn't subjected to the high humidity of the first 3 weeks. This grow, with the hydrometer in the tent before the plant even broke ground, the humidity was dialed in from day 0: I started at 70%, but after about 5 days - when the first true serrated leaves began to really come out (after lowering the light which I'd left too high a bit long), began to lower it toward 65% as the target for day 7, which is what is recorded above: plant height on day 7, humidity, etc. A small tweak I picked up was not to run my fan 24/7 as this does stress the plant if its never turned off. This grow, I waited 24 hours before turning it on. Then I ran it only for short spurts: ha;f an hour on, a couple off, no fan at night except the exhaust which runs 24/7. The goal is to increase the frequency and duration of the air and I rotate the pot, as its easier than the alternative (moving the fan). That was a contributor to the mottled appearance of the early leaves in that grow. Future leaves didn't get as much direct air because the canopy was so dense by then. So the idea is to progressively increase the amount of fan air while not running it 24/7. I don't mind the extra bit of intervention. I'm also making it a point to not fuss with the light as much and that is something that isn't captured by the online journal for that grow, though the photos do show some of the bleaching it got from the days where I tried too much light too soon. This grow, I went with a "germination" height and watched the plant to see how it would respond to it. I didn't mind a little stretch, as something the photo doesn't capture is how short the slightly stretched seedling is on day 5, in the photo taken before it began drooping and I brought the light down. Its actual height on day 5 was still under 2" - however stretched it looks. On day 5 I lowered the light from 20" to 17" where the PPFD output of the light is rated to be just higher than the minimum for seedlings. When it responded well to this after 36 hours (leaves in the "praying" position but no cupping, tip curl, or signs of stress or bleaching), I lowered it half an inch and it responded with more "praying." Which is what its doing on day 7, after being "fed" for the first time though the NPK value of what I used is 0-0-0 and its why I chose it for day 7: its nutrients for the soil plus essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids and other bio-stimulants plus kelp and humic acid work especially well together, and there is humic acid present in the soil already as a byproduct of the humus they add to it. Its good for the soil and the plant, though with the 0-0-0 NPK rating there's little risk of nute burn (really no risk in the dose I used). I followed the convention of introducing it at quarter strength, though since the plant isn't big enough for a full watering yet, it got half a feeding: I fed it 20% strength nutes in 750 ml de-chlorinated tap water (ph 6.5), which is 15 ml of Marphyl- one full measuring tablespoon -for this first feeding. When I feed it again, on day 14, it will get another dose of Marphyl but at 50% strength - I don't think using more of it that week will bring additional befits. After week 2, I may not use this again this grow since I'll be using kelp from other sources. I wanted to introduce it once I had a fully established seedling though, on day 7, so it can begin doing its thing on the soil now when its most beneficial for it. Overall a good first week: the plant is healthy and growing well with no environmental or nutrient damage. And I learned from my watering mistakes in the first grow to not repeat them, and there are no signs of over-watering or under-watering, so, so far, so good.