Operation: Heady Energizers

This is my first try in a very long time and certainly the first time where I feel like I have a "complete" setup. Previously, I've done a few moderately successful plants using the "closet-under-the-stairs, as cheaply as possible" methodology. Now, I'm finally in a financial position to build out a real indoor tent and I'm just so tired of getting mediocre flower of unknown origin through a third (or fourth, or fifth) party. However, I'm a greenthumb with quite a lot of non-cannabis growing experience (both edible and ornamental), so I will be monitoring the conditions closely and noting my thoughts and observations on a fairly regular basis. I will be selectively applying some complementary training methodologies as I see fit. My plan is to begin with a top around node 4-5 to break the apical dominance and then start LST bending the new mains horizontally. I will consider topping each main a second time depending on how vigorous the growth seems and then install my ScrOG net to help spread the canopy across the whole tent. Finally, I will do some selective defoliation in the lower half and insides to keep up good airflow and minimize the amount of leaves that are receiving close-to-zero light. 7/10 Temp controller keeping tent between 69-75 Fº. Will adjust a bit warmer over the next few days. The RH in my basement is ~50% ambient, so I'm hoping the damp starter plugs might increase it a little in the tent, at least until they start poking out. Obviously, nothing has happened yet. 7/12 Morning Check: Still nothing popping out of the soil. Tupperware getting too humid again, took the lid off. Hit them with the tiniest bit of Garden Rich Root and Grow. Mixed at ~half recommended ratio and watered with just a few mL on each plug. Evening Check: We have liftoff, couple tiny necks poking out. One of each variety so far. 7/14 Morning Check: Everything is looking pretty healthy. All the initial leaves are now exposed. Maybe a tiny bit stretchy imho. Checked light, don't have a lux meter but I do have a footcandles meter... noted plant-level of ~600 fc = ~6500 lux, which is not enough. Based on some googling, decided to bump that up to ~1500 fc = ~16,150 lux (plus, apparently, the uncounted light from the UV/infra). Maybe that will help. I kept the light turned down and a bit closer to the plants because I don't really see a reason to blast it at full power from far away. Will continue to increase over time. Evening Check: Lookin good. Turned a couple of them so they would straighten out a bit. 7/15 Morning Check: Things are going pretty great so far. They don't seem to be exploding vertically since the light change yesterday (👍). I want to monitor the overnight conditions (mainly RH) and I'm probably going to buy a humidity controller similar to my temp one. I figure I'll wait and see how things progress as it's only day 6. Overnight conditions: Temp Range: 69-77.5F (exactly as expected, it's on a controller) RH Range: 51%-74% (hypothesis: 51% was probably when the exhaust was on... it's on a cheap timer that can only do 15 minute intervals, my ambient basement is 51%.) I'm happy in the RH=60-70ish range for now, but will want to dial it back a bit eventually. Will continue to monitor but I probably should just shell out the 40 bucks for the controller so I can be more lazy without having to worry about it. Update: 10:30AM - Inspected the starter plugs and realized the tap roots were already exploding out the bottoms and getting tangled in the netting. Wasn't planning on putting them in the pots yet but, fuck it, they are in the pots now. Cut the netting off with sterilized scissors being as careful as I could to cut around/not disturb the exposed root, but one of them got damaged anyway. They are thus far happy, healthy, and getting a minor dose of rooting chemistry/hormones, so I doubt it's going to hurt the plant much if at all. Honestly, don't feel like I really need the starter plugs anyway. I have a billion plastic nursery trays/pots in the garage, I don't know why I didn't just use that stuff with a handful of starter dirt like I normally would. Evening Check: SLH 1 is looking a little yellow for my liking but I'm just gonna assume I shocked it a little bit and it's fine. It's the one where the end of the tap root got damaged. Everyone else looks healthy and not stretchy. 7/16 Morning Check: Day 7 since the first 18/6 light cycle, tomorrow starts week 2. Looking pretty good, but I definitely feel like they weren't *really* ready to transplant. Still, standing tall. SLH 1 (slightly damaged root) is still a little on the yellow side, but it seems fine otherwise. Overnight conditions: Temp Range: 69.5-78F RH Range: 47%-73% Going to start warming this up a bit and dialing it in on a tighter range shortly. Probably ~74-79F. Don't like that 47% RH overnight, so I ordered the new temp/humidity controller (this time w/ wifi real-time data logging). That should be pretty cool to play with. Evening Check: Looking pretty good. First set of leaves is coming in nicely. Goodnight week 1.

This week will be pretty simple growing time. The soil is nutritious, so I won't be starting the FF nutes yet. I may give them one more hit of the GardenRich Root&Grow so they can comfortably escape the plug and get a firm foothold in the good stuff, but, really, they're plants doing what plants do. Won't be ready for another water for another day or two anyway is my bet. I've decided I don't like the way my stand/rack on the floor is. It's too low to the ground. If anyone actually reads this and has a great solution, feel free to comment. The catch-trays I bought barely fit and are extremely cumbersome to remove or access with a shopvac. Probably gonna re-imagine that over the weekend. 7/17 Morning Check: First leaves are starting to get much bigger, about 2 inches tip to tip now. Looking a touch on the bright green/yellow side, but still growing healthily imho. I'm gonna chalk that up to a combination of low nutritional value in the plug, slight early-transplant stress, and new growth coming in at a good pace. Forgot to hit the reset button on the overnight conditions monitor so it's the same as yesterday. My humidity controller should be here soon anyway so probably doesn't even matter. Evening Check: Messed with the exhaust schedule and the tent got real hot (>100F) for a bit, luckily I check on them way too frequently so they seem unphased. Still waiting on my new controller but it seems to be delayed due to covid possibly. Decided to turn the single, low-profile plant shelf into 2 separated benches and add some 8" legs. 7/19 Morning Check: Slapped a couple coats of poly on the stands yesterday and sprayed them down with 10% bleach solution overnight to help kill any potential germs/mold. Put them in the tent this morning. Plants looking very healthy now, the slight yellowing seems to be evening out again. Gave them a bit of water and a light dose of the rooting nutrient. Evening Check: Noticed the two closest to the fan were starting to exhibit a slight curl/warp in the edges. Could be genetic I guess but, through the power of deduction, my bet is overkill on the wind. I moved the fan to the opposite side and shifted all of them as far from it as I could, while deciding what to do permanently. Otherwise, healthy and noticeably bigger. 7/20 Going to switch to 1/day updates. Ladies are doing just fine, pretty much just doing their growing thing. I went and bought a handful of 1/2" pipe clamps with a 1/4" 20 bolt mount, drilled holes through my fan, mounted it to the back left tent post with carriage bolts and lock washers. I think that ought to solve the too-much-wind issues. Now it's ~2ft to the closest plant instead of 6". I also attached an additional failsafe strap to the light mounting situation. Don't trust that single, plastic ratchet pulley, really. Two is one, one is none. I feel the humidity was staying on the low end (~45-50%) a bit too much. Lowered the exhaust cycle and put some trays of water in there, seems like it's hovering in the 60s better now. New controller just shipped yesterday morning so hopefully a day or two and it will be here. 7/22 Yesterday I noticed that SC2 was leaning towards the back of the tent. Raised the light up an inch or two. Seems like maybe it's standing up straighter today. Watered with ~2 cups plain tap water per plant, adjusted to pH 6.2

Beginning of week 3, everyone looking perky and green. Really starting to pop off growth now. Node 4 starting to show, it's probable that I will top by the end of this week. I was thinking about doing it right now but my plan from the beginning was to top node 5 so I'm going to resist the temptation and stick to that. 7/24 SC2 has been growing a little... sideways for some reason. Decided to stick a bamboo stake in the pot and gently tie her upright with gardening tape for a few days to see if she will straighten out and fly right. Realistically, plant is still healthy so I'm not that worried about it. SLH2 is the pretty girl. Starting to smell vaguely like cannabis in the tent. 7/26 Decided it was time to top today. The 5th nodes were about 1/2" long. Everyone looking super healthy. Going to hold off on water until tomorrow I think. 7/28 Starting to see 2 healthy growths coming from each topped node now. It's been 6 days since I watered so I'm gonna hit em again with ~2 cups of plain, pH 6.2 water. Got my new temp/humidity controller today (after waiting forever for the shipping), only to find that I ordered the wrong item and it's actually a temp controller and humidity *sensor*. Scooped up the correct one off amazon, I'm not sure why I ordered it direct off the mfg site in the first place but I guess I'll have to figure out how to send that back. 7/29 They are growing pretty rapidly now. Quite a bit larger every day. The SC plants are both displaying a small amount of cupping around the leaf edges. It hasn't gone above 83F in there this whole time, so I backed my light up a couple inches. Using the phone lux meters, I'm reading around 30k lx now. Not sure if that is super accurate, but I have a decently new phone and all 3 apps I tried had similar readings. According to some conversion calculator, that's around 770 umol/s/m2 which should be within an appropriate range. Anyway, will continue to monitor the condition to see if they look any better over a day or two. 7/30 Last day of week 3 and plants are looking pretty healthy. Starting to see the new chutes come up after the topping. One of the new chutes on SLH 2 is looking a little jaggedy but I think it will grow out alright. I set up a humidifier and put the exhaust fan on the new controller, so I'm hoping that will help me tighten down the environmental parameters a bit. The leaves on the SC plants are possibly looking a little better with the slight reduction in light intensity. With the new environmental controller I plan to try and keep the daytime temps a bit cooler, around 75-80F. Previously it was hovering around 83.

Going to be another plain, pH 6.2 water week. I think I will start introducing a light nutrient feed next week and continue to veg for a total of 6 weeks. Might start some LST stuff later on this week depending on how quickly those new mains grow. 7/31 Hoping a *slightly* lower daytime average temp might help with the light cupping on the SC plants. Shouldn't go above 80.0F starting today. I'll have to continue messing with how the environment controllers are set up because I don't think I got it perfect on the first try. It was closer, but I don't really like the way the humidifier works. It has a maximum setting of ~70% RH (based on some testing, it has it's own on-board hygrometer/controller but doesn't have a digital readout). Additionally, it doesn't seem to turn back on if it's attached to a timer/controller that switches it off; can't just be 'On' or 'Off'. May end up returning it and checking if they have a slightly different one. Also, I may end up keeping the "wrong" environment controller I bought. It has a stand-alone sensor with wifi data logging and it might be nice to know when/how long the various peaks and troughs are. I'd be less nit-picky if I knew the humidity lows were only for short periods while the exhaust fan was on or whatever. Optimally, I'd like to see: Daytime: Temp 75-80F, RH 62-72% Night: Temp 67-70F, RH 50-65% 8/4 Been a couple days of not much to report. Temps and humidity have been pretty much spot on since updating the controller settings. Letting the new tops catch up and things are going pretty smoothly. One of the new tops on SLH2 is looking a little ragged, must have nicked it. It's starting to do better now though. The original fan leaves on the super lemon haze are up to 11 blades and are getting face-sized. I fed a bit of 6.2 plain water, applied lightly around the entire outside surface layer. Since transplanting directly into a large container, I have been lightly but more frequently (~2-3 days) watering there to encourage any roots that are up in that zone. The deep watering lasts a long time in 10 gallons of dirt but I can tell the upper 3-4 inches are bone dry after a few days. Decided today was the day to apply a little light bondage. With SCROG in mind, I've used pins to lay down the mains and gently bend/position lower branches into a more "8-way cross" so they are all as exposed as they can be. Hopefully they will all catch up with the top by the time I'm ready to install my net. 8/6 Tightened down a bit on the bondage today. Looking nice and evenly spaced so far. Some of the garden pins I was using were kind of short and not really holding anything so I made some longer ones from a spool 14 gauge wire. Pinched a few of the 3-blades that were touching the soil. Temp and humidity levels are chilling right in the ranges I want them right now. I haven't watered thoroughly for quite a while but they are still looking vigorous. Pots are starting to lighten up though. Tomorrow will be day 1 of week 5, I think that seems like an optimal time to water again and give them their first (half) dose of actual nutes (FF grow big and big bloom, in this case) At this point, my intent is to half-feed tomorrow, plain water the following watering (probably at least 5-7 days out), feed again whenever it's time (mid-week 6-ish) while beginning to incorporate my FF solubles (Open Sesame in this case), Sledgehammer flush, defoliate a bit, and then flip to flower end week 6/early week 7.

Plants are looking vigorous with bright new growth popping all over. Love that lime color. The SLH plants are getting surprisingly bushy for a Sativa. I pinched a few lower leaves that were touching the soil. SLH2 has some massive fans and her weird/jaggedy new top is starting to actually grow properly, going to give it a couple more days before I tie it down. 8/7 This week's plan is to keep training the branches while allowing the lowers to catch up. I think all the sets can easily be at canopy height by the time I get around to putting the scrog net in sometime soon. The pots are big enough that I can get away just using pins for now I think. I fed the first light dose of nutrients today with ~1/2 gallon of pH 6.4 water per pot. Maybe unnecessary with the good soil but they are growing so vigorously that I think they can handle some extra. Apart from a tiny amount of root/starter fert early on, they've only had water so far and I'd prefer if they were accustomed to some nutes by the time I flip in like 2 weeks. I hooked up the data logger sensor for temp and humidity monitoring so I may add a couple screencaps of that when a few days of data has been recorded. 8/8 Realized my humidifier had some blue lights on it that I conveniently couldn't really see while the lights were on in the tent. Made sure to tape over any and all indicator lights on the thing. They bounced back easily from the training work yesterday. I tucked/pinned some larger fans down so all the tops have better exposure. Later update: Was examining the plants and decided to top again. Topped the primary and secondary tops, left the lowest branches alone. That should be plenty and they will have almost 2 weeks to grow out before flip.

Had a busy week last week, not a whole lot of time to post incremental updates but here's a synopsis: turns out the soil was still a little too hot for a 1/2 feeding and a few leaves started to indicate nutrient burn/a slight N toxicity clawing. Ended up flushing with clean water after about 3 days and everyone is fine and happy. The damage is extremely minor, just a little frosted tips. Dumped the flush runoff into a bush outside that is looking a little sad. Also, I ordered some 10" landscaping pins off amazon and tightened down the LST a bit. Plants were too strong for the shorter pins and 14 gauge wire that I had. 8/14 Lots of fresh green growth this morning, everyone bouncing back nicely from multiple toppings 5-6 days ago. I've decided it's time to put the screen in so I added the corner mounts (made from some pipe clamps and carriage bolts) at a height of 25" and stuck it in there. I have to go find a piece of paracord or something to tie the corners of the frame down but for now it can rest on it and still keep the plants held down. I made the screen from some cheap pine 1x2" pieces, a spool of nylon marking string, and about 100 small eyelets. Coated with a few coats of polyurethane and eventually sprayed it down with a 10% bleach solution prior to actually putting it in the tent. SLH1 is a bit shorter than the others but still bushy and vigorous. I have little doubt it will catch up to the screen over the next couple weeks. Planning on giving them one more water early this upcoming week with a tiny bit of just FoxFarm Open Sesame. Doing a bit of defoliation and flipping to 12/12 next weekend seems like a good plan to me. 8/18 Tuck, tuck, tuck. So I'm pretty certain I've got a little mag deficiency going on, which I guess is to be expected this many weeks in. The telltale signs are light green/yellowing around the edges and between the veins, especially on older leaves. Mag is a mobile nute so the plant begins to pull it from old growth and send it to the new stuff. I probably should have started supplementing last week. It's ok though, I went over to my local indoor gardening/hydroponics shop and scooped up a bottle of Botanicare CalMag Plus and a little bag of Recharge (microbe stuff). I also had a good discussion with the store employee about CO2 injection and I've decided to incorporate that into my setup. I already own the CO2 tanks from some kegerators and he showed me the type of regulator I need and a calculator for how to use it to get a reasonable estimate on PPM in a smaller space without buying a really expensive controller. Watered with pH 6.4-6.5 water, ~1gal each plant with the listed supplements. 8/19 Doin' some tucks. Ran across town to a nearby welding/gas supply store and had them fill/top off my CO2 tanks. Based on some napkin math, it seems like I'll probably have to go fill the larger canister (10lb) once more to make it to the end of flower. Since I have 2 tanks, I can swap in the smaller one (5lb) for a few days while I get over there again to fill the other. Seems to me the extra ~$30-$60 is a no brainer. Also, I *slightly* shifted some stuff in the tent and managed to stuff my room-sized dehumidifier in there (barely) in preparation for flower. It's just short enough to fit under the screen and have enough space above it for canopy to exist. After reviewing data for a couple weeks, I've decided that using the exhaust to control humidity just isn't going to cut it for flower, especially if I'm spinning up CO2 injection. Kind of a waste if you're just exhausting 24/7. 8/20 Maybe it doesn't look so pretty in the pictures since everyone is getting tucked under the net frequently, but man there sure are a lot of tops in there already. Some of the nodes from the last topping began shooting out 3 or even 4 new "mains" instead of 2. Might have slowed down growth a bit for a week, but seems like everyone is healthily and steadily pushing out new chutes. Not sure if it's discernible in the images, but I think they are responding well to the mag supplement. Visually, it seems like some of that light green fade is less pronounced/darkening again. Amazon sent me a roll of saran wrap instead of the accurate cycle timer I ordered to handle the CO2 strategy, so that's a little annoying, but another is already on the way. I was planning on getting the CO2 set up and ready, and then flipping on Saturday but the new timer might not be here yet and I want that CO2 rolling for the flower stretch for sure.