Delagdo's Gelato & Other Autos Agogo

Day 33 to Day 36 They are bigger, bushier, and more developed, and a darker tone of green, as the increased feed levels set in with the latest leaf growth. It's great watching the plants get bigger and more developed every day, and smelling them too now. I've had a cold for the past three weeks, but even so I get a nice strong whiff of everything when I open the tent lately. Hopefully I'll see the end of this bug soon and get my senses back fully at just the right time. It's been cold outside with the storm over the weekend, and then we've had a bit of snow and hail since. I've cranked the heating up slightly but it's still been a little cooler in the tent, mostly 25-26°C, maximum 27°C and minimum 20°C. Humidity has been between 55% and 76% but I am finding it is often over 70%, so it will be time to set the dehumidifier up shortly, very soon after the humidifier was taken out. On day 33 I switched the nutrients over from the veg ratio, to an intermediate ratio before full flowering. This is 0.75ml/l each of Gro, Micro and Bloom, to give an EC of 1.2, which I pH to 6.1 or 6.2 every day when I make each batch. I am right at the upper limit here, I think. I like their current dark green colour and thought they were a little pale earlier, but maybe I should bring it down a fraction now they aren't as light. I think the plants are looking nice and healthy overall though a small number of the early leaves are dying off, as in the above image, at the bottom. I don't mind this so much at this stage. The lower levels are very shaded now the canopy is full so these leaves aren't doing much work absorbing light. The old leaves are a store of mobile nutrients, and as the plant grows upwards it can reabsorb these and use them in new growth. This happens and they start looking like the above, I give them a gentle tug to see if they are ready to come off - the plant will naturally release them through the process of abscission and they come off easily. If they don't come of easily I just leave them and try again tomorrow. I tried the obvious one in the picture above (lowest leaf bottom right) but it's not ready, another day or two maybe. *** Day 36 contd. Unfortunately I have a further update today as I have just noticed something in my tent, as I was taking a break from draining the runoff to gaze at my plants. I spotted male flowers :-( That is a shame as it was doing so well! However I could do with the extra room in my tent for the remaining five plants, so I have no worries about putting it on the compost heap. I originally started with five and I only put this extra one in as insurance after trouble with the original Sweet Gelato Auto seedling. The tent should still be full by the end anyway. I pulled off about ten male flowers I could see dotted about the lower parts. None appeared to be mature and shedding pollen yet. Oh well! This is my first ever hermie plant, so I can tick another first off the list lol I am not sure what might have triggered it. I have a few ideas: - Supercropping? I've done it many times before without problems but maybe it caused stress? - High feed level? I went up to EC 1.3 for a few days and am at 1.2 now. I've gone higher before but perhaps it's too much for this plant? - Just one of those things? I've been lucky in the past, I have grown photoperiods of several strains from different seedbanks years ago, and more recently multiple auto strains by Sweet Seeds plus a few from other breeders. The only other time I have ever seen male flowers was my first ever grow in 2008 - I grew three Mandala Hash Plants for six weeks from seed. I flipped them, then went away for a long weekend. When I got back I opened the wardrobe and found I had raised three boys and no girls, that felt much worse. :doh: I made a couple of grams of headache-inducing hash, and since then I always bought feminized seeds. But I knew exactly what to look for - it's always a learning experience. I've been thinking a lot about this possibility since I started this year's grow. One of the non-Sweet Seeds plants in the tent is quite a freak which I've been thinking of culling almost since day 1. I've been keeping a real close eye on that one, paranoid that she would grow balls, but I really didn't expect the Gelato to! I'd been thinking, I've never seen a hermie yet, but surely it's inevitable if I keep growing, and rolling the dice this many times? I think hermies are a natural occurrence - not the norm, but not abnormal either - like for example with human pregnancy and twins. Most pregnancies are of a single child but a repeated fraction of them are twins or more, and human treatments (ie fertility treatment in the case of pregnancy) can make it more likely to happen. With plants, some have male flowers, some have female, and sometimes they have both. I thought, I must see it sooner or later so I was keeping a close eye out for this, especially with a mutant plant lurking in the corner. I don't want to stop supercropping since it has worked well for other plants, and I don't plan to make any major changes to my auto feed schedule. Maybe it was something I did, but moving forward it seems more attractive to blame random chance than anything else, and just keep watching the others with care. *** Day 37 to Day 40 I am pleased to say I have not found any hermaphrodite flowers on any of my remaining plants, at least yet/as far as I can see. My original Sweet Gelato Auto is looking fantastic and full of female-only flowers. I set the humidifier up outside the tent on day 37 to see what difference it would make. Not much - the air going in from the house is already fairly dry, and humidity was staying around 71% most of the time which is too high. Having five plants again now, as I originally planned, I have been able to move the dehumidifier into the tent and did this on day 39. Drying the warm wet air from the tent is having a great impact. It has a built in digital humidistat which can be set at 40%, 50%, 60% (or you can run it constantly). Running at 60% is making the air pretty much exactly that at the top of the tent, and slightly dryer (eg 55%) at root level. It drops down when the tent is opened and quickly returns to those constant levels soon after. The dehumidifier raises the temperature a couple of degrees, so I have adjusted the heating to compensate. It's typically 28°C but I had a maximum of 30°C when I first set it up inside, and the minimum the past few days has been 20°C with lights off. I decided to cut the food slightly on day 37, to 0.7ml each of Gro, Micro and Bloom, which is EC 1.1. I am not sure if feed levels contributed to the hermie but I think it's possible. The Ice Cool Auto is growing well, but I have noticed the top of the buds are starting to look a bit leafy and don't have so many white pistils. There's still plenty on the lower bits. The other plants aren't doing this, and it wasn't any closer to the lamp so I don't think it's heat/light. Hopefully it's just part of its normal development (I have had similar looking plants before) but I thought it could be a sign of being a little overfed.