First Grow Ever - GGAuto

2/3 seeds germinated. I am keeping an excel daily journal that ill post in pics until i can figure out a better way to xfer it to comments. below are highlights This is my first time growing ever. My goal is to get to harvest and experiment as much as possible. Mistakes will be made - best way to learn. I am not expecting the greatest of yields. I am using a coco nute schedule from growweedeasy.com and making adjustments as needed (https://www.growweedeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/coco-coir-flora-series-schedule.pdf) Figured I'd try a 24/0 schedule and move to an 18/6 schedule for flower since they are autos, but foolishly ignored the manufacturer suggested light power and distance for seedlings and burnt the shit out of them this week. you'll see that next week they recovered quickly. On day 6 i changed lights to 18/6 at 60% intensity *** I am writing this at the begining of week 4 - all photos after week 3 will not be in the over

Recovered from light damage this week Transplanted to final 4 gallon pot. Plant 2 root-ball fell a part - that was a fun surprise no transplant shock

This week was a bit rough as far as heat was concerned. Turned both LEDs on and tent would hit highs of 86F and RH lows of 30%. I bought a humidifier and placed it next to the fan (turning it into a mini swamp cooler) and that stabilized the tent to 82F / 50% RH consistent during lights on. I came up with a sustainable solution in week 4 that I'll post at end of the week. These chicks blew up in growth this week. Like I stated earlier I wanted to experiment with this soooo.... Plant 1 (which is the strongest of the two) got Topped on day 21 and defoliated bottom burnt/sickly leaves Plant 2 got LST'd at a 45 degree angle on day one of week 4 and defoliated bottom 4 fan leaves that were crispy/sickly. more to follow these.

Highlights from journal: Tent was getting way to hot and unstable with temps. Rigged the room AC vent to blow directly into tent Which has brought down the temps directly under the lights at canopy level to an very stable 77-79 degrees LST'd Plant two. Like I said in the beginning of this journal. I am trying to learn as much as possible so I have one plant Topped/LST'd and One only LST'd. Plant two was the weaker of the two so that is the one that was not topped. I was surprised how quickly the middle shoots took over and swelled to get to the top of the canopy. LST'd Plant One 5 days after topping. I am preferring topping and LST as opposed to LST only. Easier to manage/manipulate and just look more symmetrical. lol. depending how this topped plant goes this is probably the route I'm gonna take next grow when I try to SoG my tent Flushed this week. part in prep for bloom nutes other part was me misunderstanding the measuring of run-off and coco. Probably for the best in either case because I now believe that I have not been watering enough which would raise EC measurements etc etc. TDS meter comes tomorrow. switched to frequent feeding smaller amounts using distilled water until I can measure with TDS meter. The smell from Plant two has been noticeably stronger than her sister since last week

- This whole week was spent experimenting with my new TDS meter and watering/feed schedule. I have ditched the nute schedule I found online for coco and have moved on to the manufacturer's suggested amount and then diluted to the correct PPM/EC. What I have changed my nutes schedule to closely follows the original schedule I was using. But I am able to fine tune the concentration to what the plant is able to handle in comparison to the PPM/EC of my tap water. - run off EC is still very low compared to in-flow, but it is slowly creeping up. This I am attributing to the flush from last week. - Pistils are every where on plant one - they popped up all week. Plant two is just starting this process as of day 34. - I forgot (again) how strong these lights are and I let the plants break 18"s(manufacturers suggested closest distance at this phase) and I started to see a little light burn. Looks like nute burn but it is only concentrated on the top canopy and not throughout the plant. tricky tricky. - tent is only 5' if these things keep growing like this I am gonna end up running out of space. I got plenty of room horizontally so I am gonna start a little more aggressive LST next week. Sad - I was hoping to run a Lazy SoG and burn my remainder seeds next grow. As of day 35 my tallest plant is 15" after LST'ing the main cola. this leaves 12" left of vertical growth allowed before the plant creeps past the manufacturer's suggested distance. - I did light defoliation every every day ( no more than 1-3 snips) to remove small or dying leaves at the bottom of each plant. they are slowly joining the lollipop guild.

I didn't keep up with pictures or my daily journal this week because of finals - this week will be brief I defoliated both plants on day 36 and 42 - lollipoped the plants. I picked big fan leaves blocking bud sites and removed wispy mini colas that are just a waste of energy. I didn't do the best job but it was a great learning experience so I have a better idea of what to do next grow. Cant wait for this heat and humidity to go down so I can start round two in the garage. RH where I live has been in the high 80's to 99% - I bought a dehumidifier but the tent is still at 60%-70% daily and rises to 75%-80% at night. There isn't much more I can really do. I have three circulation fans, an exhaust fan, and A/C dumping into the tent. No WPM has shown up so I think I will be in the clear. Only thing I can think to do is have neem oil on stand by in case it shows up.

This week was the worst!!! Like i mentioned the previous week - RH had been getting out of control. Luckily because I had so much circulation within the tent white powdery mold (WPM) did not settle any where on the plants. I did however notice that my tent no longer had negative pressure when the AC kicked on and the smell was being pushed out of the tent (positive pressure from AC blower). I took a look at my carbon filter and the edges where covered in WPM. took the outer cover filter off and gave it a little slap and a white cloud poofed every where!!! like a cloud of baby powder. lol. So i removed the plants and sanitized the tent and carbon filter and washed the outer filter sleeve. Now there is a constant negative pressure in the tent regardless of AC or not. and RH has been somewhat under control. The problem is the plants were too leafy and i cant keep RH below 60% unless I keep the tent door flap open - this is not acceptable during lights off because of light leak - but then RH creeps up to high 70s. Sooooooo.... I super duper defoliated the plants - I know this is a kind of a big no no with Autos but it was either this or let the plants rot. Luckily this is the end of week 3 for flowering and the stretch is over and the plants have been very healthy other wise so they should take it like a champ. I took out the rest of the wispy colas, giant leaf fans sweating everywhere and blocking bud sites, and strategically removed other leaves. I definitely over did it and I will see lower yields because of it but this is better than no yields because of bud rot. This grow is about learning and I am definitely doing a lot of that. RH is now under control and hovering in the high 40's low 50's after defoliating. gonna keep up with week 8 diary better than the last two.

Day 51 - Two days after major defoliation and they bounced back immediately - it was like nothing happend. They seem happier because they can breath now. RH is finally under control-ish (RH where i live is 70-99% and the tiny dehumidifier is not able to get the tent RH below 55%). The cola pic is a selection of one cola per plant and represents an average of what the rest look like. Day 53 - RH is stabilized. 60% with tent closed and 55% with tent open. This is as good as its gonna get until the end of September when RH goes down where I live in north america's basement.

Day 57 - Tent RH was getting unmanageable again conducted another round of major defoliation. I removed any fan leaf bigger than my palm and left only the smaller ones that were not blocking any bud sites. Plant 2 wont need another round but looking at plant 1's development it may need a final round at the end of the week. I'd prefer to leave them alone this late in the game but I neglected to do I proper round before flowering b/c I am new and didn't know better. Because the leafy-ness has been vastly reduced I was able to lower and flatten the canopy with some LST. You can see from the pics I am starting to get some nute burn - I am keeping the same nutrient concentration but I am going to run PH'd /calmag water every other day because I already mixed 8 gallons of nute water yesterday.

Day 67- Toward the end of week 9 RH was getting to 60%. I defoliated plant 1 heavily and RH is holding steady at 48% to 55% as the high low. These girls got so tall that I've had to anchor LST wires along the walls of the tent. Right now I'm just in cruise control trying not to over nute. Plant 1 is the lady I topped as an experiment. It didn't stunt her but it definitely extended her life cycle compared to her sister who only received a lazy 90⁰ LST. Plant 1 is one to two weeks behind in bud and trichome development compared to plant 2. I don't know how I'll hang dry yet. Day 69 - Run off from day 68 was 600 ec above inflow on plant 1. I don't know about plant 2 because I vacuumed the run of before testing. I flushed both plants since they were both showing signs of nute burn. 8 gallons of ph'd (6.3) cal mag water. Gonna stick with the same nute schedule I've been using (alternating between nute and plain water). Plant 1 trichomes are finally starting to come in well. She is about 2 weeks behind her sister who is plastered with the stuff.

Cruise control from here on out. They took well to the flush last week. Just waiting for these girls to fatten up. Plant one is starting to form more trichomes, i expect her to look almost like her sister by the end of the week. I'll start scoping plant 2 for ambers next week. Gonna need to order bovida packs.

Nothing significant to report. Gonna start checking trichomes on plant two at the end of the week. Probably looking at harvest for plant 2 at the end of week 13. Most likely week 14 or 15 for plant 1.

Plant two is coming along. Still not done. Still mostly clear trichomes. I'll keep checking throughout the week. To be honest though it's super hard for me to tell. I can't find any ambers. I might post a question for help Plant one has some colas trying fox tail. I moved them down and out but I think I'll still need to reduced light intensity to 75%. There just isn't enough room in the tent until i harvest plant two.

Had to skip a week in the journal and then another week of documentation of harvest. Life happened. More updates to come. ========== Week 14: This week was uneventful. I found a small amount of amber trichomes on plant 2 (per pic) in the beginning of this week and mostly cloudy trichomes (75+%) on plant 1 that same day. Life events had started to bare down so I decided to begin the flush then ---- I started a 4 to 5-day flush. Concluding the week and creeping one day into the next week I started 36-48 hours of darkness. The darkness explains the droopy plants on harvest day. ========== Week 15 (The Begin of Harvest) This week was supper exciting but very rushed and disappointing because I was not ready for it (time precious). THE HOUSE REEEEEEEKED! My wife could smell the house from her car 5 doors down driving in. lol. I didn’t tell her I was harvesting so I know she wasn’t exaggerating. I was able to wet trim almost all of plant two. I didn’t have time, so I had to hang plant one without trimming. After trimming plant one; I absolutely and whole hardily advocate wet trimming. Total hang/dry time was longer than I was hoping for – 10 to 11 days. Luckily, I did buy Bovida packs and all is well. I have been monitoring the jars with hygrometers in each. They are all sitting at about 58-63 %. *** I fucked up hard and had to drop most of the plants in card board boxes for a day. that is why there is a 2 day split on the pictures. I luckily had enough of fresh boxes to use. this is also why I don't have sweet close in bud pics. THEY LOOKED AMAZING, but then they looked flat sided. ========= Top VS. LST with this Auto If you want to top this auto it is totally doable. I got a about an extra 1+ oz. off the topped plant (dried). the un-topped plant was much heavily covered in trichomes and a lot easier to manage. So, it was a tradeoff. Plant two buds were far more denser and plant one's buds ended up being very airy. Your preference, I guess.