The PhenoTent - round 1

~The Plan~ Well here we go back indoors, this time I’m setting up my tent, for the short term I will be using this to collect new genetics and do some pheno hunting of my seeds, eventually I might use this to also make some new strains. Either way I’m going to have some fun. First up, I’m still in build out and I am waiting on some supplies to arrive to finish it out, but for now it is operational on the cloning chamber which is where I have place my seedlings. In this chamber I will have (1) 18watt 18” LED light from Sunblaster it is a 5500k and has sufficient light for clones. This chamber will not be well ventilated just due to how the Secret Jardin Lodge 90 is designed, this is fine as I don’t expect much heat from an 18watt LED light, if anything it could use some extra warmth and humidity in the cloning chamber. In the chamber above which has more headspace. I will have a carbon filter/extraction fan which will help to refresh the air in what will be the Veg chamber. This will have a decent bit of air-flow as the extraction fan will be shared and controlled by the Flower chamber. In the veg I will have (2) 18” 18watt sunblaster LED lights for a total of 36watts, I’m not convinced this will be enough but it is a start, if I choose I will add more later. The Flower Chamber will then have my California Light Works SolarExtreme 250, this will be my first run with the SolarExtreme but I have run the CLW SolarSystems for the last couple of years on larger grows and really love them. This will be temperature controlled by the Titan Multi-Function Speed Controller hopefully this will keep my humidity, CO2 and Temps all in range with minimal cost and effort, but I will monitor and document those numbers. ~Soil and Nutrients~ Finally, an A-Z grow of only Roots Organic, it has been a very long time since this has happened, actually it hasn’t happened since my very first grow. I have tried several other brands but always I gravitate back to Roots. This time it will be Roots 707 soil, all three Uprisings used as soil amendments when planting/transplanting, and Roots Organic Terp Tea dry amendments done as a simple top-dress for minimal effort. I will also water in their Essential Earth(Humic acid), Oregonism and BioForce to help control the microbial ecosystem. This should be very easy. The seedlings and clones will be All be started in Roots Organic Microgreens which is an extremely fine textured and light soil, to this I’ll be adding about 10-20% worm castings by volume. I started my current seeds in 50% worm castings to MicroGreens and the result is a soil that is way too heavy and holds way too much water, I can’t wait to take clones because root root in that soil is a real possibility. ~Foliar~ Again sticking to ease and simplicity here I have 3 Foliar additions. First up is the Roots Organic Extreme Serene for a Kelp spray, and Ancient Amber for a transition to bloom spray, each of these will be accompanied by EM-1 as a Lactobacillus inoculant to prevent Powdery Mildew or other diseases. ~Final Notes~ You may notice some damage to my seedlings and some missing leaves, this is because they were started on a bench outside first, where some mice found them and decided to almost eat them to death with exception of the largest plant, luckily just enough plant material was left to recover and they seem just fine and happy now. Although they did spend lots of time in a west facing window following this so they got a bit lanky.

Week 2 update coming a bit late but I have spent the last few days dialing in my tent, boy did I quickly remember why I don’t like tents...controlling the environment has been issue #1 this week and most of last week. I do have a tracker on my Humidity and Temperature which has helped tremendously, I’ll jump into those later. ~The Setup~ Everything has come together fairly well, I have my tent with its “dual carbon extraction system” running off one fan, the fan is controlled by a Titan modulating controller that runs the fan at a very low idle until it is needed to run full blast to remove excess heat, you can see this in the graph. ~Environment~ Temperature in my tent is running about 10dF above the ambient room temp which is controlled by a portable AC that is plumbed out the window. Interestingly you can follow my temps have become lower and more stable with time, this is contrary to the heatwave we are experiencing and I can explained it by the concrete floor is acting as giant thermal heat sink, I have had this explained to me before by an AC specialist but never been able to show it visually like this. Humidity is being added but slowly as I have to treat the entire room it is in and with concrete floors I think I have to first “hydrate” those but I will be attempting to get my environment in range of a good Vapor Pressure Deficit. ~103.3degrees~ Yep, not good! You may notice the spike on my weekly Temperature and Humidity tracking, long story short, my A/C’s Heat output fell out of its window mount and began pumping hot air into the room. Luckily I run LED and with the exception of some pretty heavy stress the damage was minimal and no plants were lost, just some leaves and now recovery time. ~50/50, Seedling soil/Worm castings~ Don’t Do It! I thought it would be cleaver because of the nutrients built in with the worm castings would be super beneficial, nope. The soil was constantly waterlogged, very dense and difficult for young roots to penetrate and held heat like crazy, while in the small pots my root temp was around 90degreesF, once the 103 degree day hit my plants took a nose dive in health so I quickly replanted into fresh pots with nice light and fluffy Roots Organic 707 with some uprising. Moral of the story, the soil companies don’t do stupid things so if you buy seedling specific soil, use it as they recommend. ~Final Notes~ Overall I think by next week the plants will be much happier, this week has been about building and testing the room. And to that end it was a successful week as the room is now done and complete, outside of that my plants are pissed at me so I’ll have to give them some extra love.