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A little background about this grow:
My 2nd grow ever. My 1st grow was with 2 plants, with bigger, but similar setup and a decent harvest, even though used only CFLs.
It was like 5-6 years ago and the reasons are still the same: better quality, less risk and an enjoyable hobby, to sustain the helpful recreation in the long term.
It didn't went all well though.. Had PH problems from the beginning until the end. Now the same issues, but this time I managed to tackle them.
She is 5 weeks old now, when I decided to open this diary. I don't have photos from earlier, so I'm going to present my setup and continue from week 6 flowering.
Also testing this system in the meantime, as it's my 1st diary ever.
The end goal would be 60g harvest, or more.. We will see if I manage it from the first try!
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The purpose of this diary is to share knowledge, which I obtained on similar channels, sharing is caring 😉
Today's topic: Ventilation
I have a 100mm, 150 m3/h (practical capacity), 165 m3/h (technical capacity) carbon filter, paired with a 100mm, 2 speed motor, 150 m3/h, 180 m3/h, in-line circular duct fan. The fan is set to the slower, 150 m3/h speed, so it doesn't sucks more air than the filter can support and so no smell bypasses.
Air inlet is bigger, 125mm, so the extractor fan is not overwhelmed. Air and light filtration is done with the usage of a black pantyhose, perfect for the job, but must be cleaned regularly.
Air circulation assured by silent, big airflow, PC case fans.
Humidity is controlled by a dehumidifier in the whole room. Initially I had a CFL for the seedling, but it got too hot when I needed to use the dehumidifier too (sometimes I need to use it for days/weeks). So in the end I decided beside LED only. I'm waiting for my second lamp, a 36W Sansi LED bulb. Couldn't get my hands on another SanLight M30. 😑
As a safety measure, I have a circuit breaker for the light, in case the temperature gets above 30 °C, for example, extractor fan R.I.P.
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Today's topic: Irrigation
I had an "Autopot - 2 pot system kit" from my previous grow, so I DIY made a smaller kit for this grow. 😎 Shoe box, aluminium tape and a glue gun (for the little plastic part, which keeps the Autopot in one place).
My medium is coco + clay pebbles, 50/50. A layer of clay pebbles at the bottom of the pot, beside the Autopot filters.
Nutrients: Hesi Coco Starterbox, without the Root Complex. All added at half strength, cuz AUTO. These nutes are from 5-6 years ago, still work like a charm! 😁
As mentioned previously, I had PH problems with my previous grow, as well as here, in my first 5 weeks. It seems resolved now, so I'm going to detail my current "fail proof" steps for the reservoir PH maintenance:
1. Stop the water, so it can't get into the shoe box.
2. Check PH/EC.
3. Adjust as needed with PH down. The goal is 5.5/5.6 in the reservoir.
4. (optional) If PH is too low, then keep the tap shut and start the aeration using an air stone and an aquarium pump. That is, increase PH through aeration, instead of PH up (speed up the lowering of water alkalinity, instead of adding additional buffers).
5. Release the tap and check PH every 6/12 hours.
The reason I had PH problems and continuous iron deficiency, is because of my tap water's alkalinity (at least this is my best guess). In a day, or few days my PH got way too high, in the upper 6 or above 7 range. So the water alkalinity greatly affected my medium's PH at the root level (got even higher, than in the reservoir).
So I began to mix my tap water with the RO water from my dehumidifier, plus applied the water aeration process from above. I researched all this mostly on aquarium and pool forums, because I faced the very same PH problems they face with hard water.
The goal with all this is simplified and optimized irrigation, while I'm able to leave for longer weekends, or even for few weeks. Didn't manage the chill vacation part yet, but the rest is working out quite nicely.
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Finally you get some pictures of my lady MJ! 😁
You can see this week's training progress on the first few pictures. After the training I also got a picture of the break point, at the stem, where I almost broke her in half while trying to LST her. It was at the very beginning and now even I can't tell, where exactly is the place.
PH management goes quite well too, the aeration helps with the reservoir's faint sewage smell too 😋
I'm pretty sure this was the last week when I was able to take her out from the grow box. With this week's progress, I'm going to leave her in one place now. Otherwise I might hurt her while handling.
From next week on, I'm going to supplement "Hesi - PK 13/14" too with the rest of the nutrients.
As this whole grow is an exercise, to see what is possible and what not in the current setup, I'm going to raise the nutrients strength to 3/4 of the recommendation, let's see how she takes it. Until now it was on half strength, because auto.. 😉
I'm still waiting for the new LED bulb to arrive. I'm going to need it with the additional nutrients.
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# Day 47
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I had nothing much to do, so I made some SoG (Sea of Green) sticks. Maybe I will need them, maybe not, dunno yet.. 😇
I also moved the light more to the right side, so the "undeveloped" part can get some good sunshine too. No news about the light bulb yet..
I observed some nutrient deficiency like symptoms. Maybe I overdid the PH controlling part, so I leave it to drift more to the upside, before re-adjusting it. The aeration idea seems legit, as PH seems more stable after the process.
# Day 50
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Some strange drooping and nutrient problems appeared. To reduce stress, I moved the light away and in the center. I'm going to let the PH to drift more, as already mentioned, because it seems quite stable, at least in the reservoir.
No defoliation and such, as I want to minimize the stress in the current conditions. Outside weather is unstable and I need the dehumidifier, but with it I can barely remain under 30 °C room temperature. I try to remain under 50% humidity also, to prevent any mold problems, when outside humidity is too high and can't open the windows. The carbon filter helps a lot, it really filters out the smell. 😮
It may even be light burn, because I try to maximize out my options. If so, then without a lot of changes and further stresses, the problems should be maintainable, we will see..
The development on the (original) main cola is nice, so I don't worry too much for now. 😶
- Plant min height: 10 cm
- Plant max height: 20 cm
- Plant avg height: 15 cm
- Light final distance from plant max height: 20+ cm
- Light final distance from plant min height: 30+ cm
- Weekly outside humidity: 30-60 %
- Weekly inside average humidity: 50 %
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This week has been an emotional roller coaster, because as you can see, the symptoms worsened.. I got worried most because of the smell, because it's almost gone completely.. 😒
# Day 54
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I did some research about what may be the cause of the issues and I can think of mainly about root issues. I'm quite surprised, as I didn't expect root problems in Coco. I already had a successful grow with Autopot and ~30 °C temperature, plus that mold-like thing on the Coco, which I tackled the same way in the past, that is, with decorative stones. I also researched it, but I don't think it's something to worry about (it appears on other houseplants too and they don't have issues).
Just to be sure, I also did a flush and checked the PH, but everything seems fine now with it. The runoff water smelled a little bit like rotten potatoes, so it may be root rot? I hope not, as that's quite fatal as I understood. I don't think the nutrients are the problem, as they smell very nice, especially the bloom booster. We are back at half nutrient strength.
I removed the Autopot and now I'm hand watering. I also turned off the dehumidifier and left the window open instead for these last days of the summer, even if the humidity gets around 60%.
To further reduce the stress, I moved the light even further away, at max height. I also did defoliation, as it may help with root issues, because the plant doesn't need to support more leaves than it actually can.
# Day 56
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I removed the decorative stones, hopefully this makes the roots breathe more. I was surprised to see roots right under the stones, so I did some more research. I figured she may be root bound, but I didn't really find other solutions than transplanting, which I don't want to do at this stage. I found a single possible solution, that is, to make 4 cuts in the 4 sides with a knife. The cuts should continue at the bottom, but then I would just go with transplanting.
As this grow is an experiment anyway (before an even bigger project, hehe 😜), I made the cuts and defoliated again, at least to see the progression of the problems, as after this "technique" we should wait at least a week to see any relief. Plants don't like at all to disturb their roots, but if I need to do it anyway, then I would rather skip the mess of transplating now.
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Nothing much to say, I only wait patiently and follow the development.
We can see some drooping reversal, new growth, but also worsened symptoms. Who understands this? 😑
I only hand watered when the pot got lighter and the surface seemed dry, but the mystic mold is back nonetheless.
PH is still good, half nutrient strength, very weak rotten potatoes smell at runoff.
Watered directly at the stem, as in case of root rot, it should wash off the bad stuff. Added Hesi Root Complex for additional aid.
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Not really happy, because as we can see the symptoms are still worsening. 😐
The only good part is that we can see some nice trichomes. At this point I'm happy if I can harvest anything acceptable at the end.
Defoliated so at least we can see the progress of problems. I'm really curious about the root zone, going to inspect at the end.
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Symptoms are still worsening, as you can see, now the buds are affected too.. 😓
It smells amazing by the way, when squeezing the buds, but other than that really weak smell overall. Definitely going to grow this strain again in the future, as I'm impressed by it. 😋
I'm already preparing my next grow and I don't really have much time to waste, if I want to have a harvest before the end of the year, so our little adventure ends here.
I kept only the main cola to harvest and smoke, going to return with a smoke report and feedback about the root zone.
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I was quite surprised by the healthy roots 😲
So I guess it is root bound, or something else? It's strange, because at my first grow the roots looked very similar after harvest, that is, they concentrated at the bottom because of the Autopot system. I need some advice here.. 😅
I smoked the main cola with a bong, nice taste, beside the chemicals, as I quick-dried it. No effects whatsoever and I'm not sure if I even could get a somewhat decent harvest out of this grow, after the buds got affected too by the burn. 😣
I saved some green leaves from the beginning, at the first few defoliations and stored them in a book.
Finally I have a great book recommendation for you guys, check it out. 💪
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1. Root bound
2. Heat stress (but then why didn't recover?)
2. Over water then under water (but why didn't over water earlier?)
4. Root rot (but why roots seem healthy?)
5. Other suggestions?
I don't get it.. 😣
I used half strength nutrients, so I don't overfeed. PH and EC were always good at root zone level, that was the first thing I checked every time and I was surprised every time that they were ok. 😲 I had iron deficiency at the beginning, but after sorting out PH and alkalinity everything went fine.
Okay let's say I used too many things at once, even though I followed the official growth schedule at https://www.hesi.nl/application/files/7615/0946/3346/EN_Coco.pdf
I know fewer stuff should be enough, but I got the starter box, so I'm not going to throw away the nutrients just because.
So why on earth had we a ~1.5 week of successful flowering stretching, after switching to the flowering nutrients? Lot of new leaves after the first defoliation in flowering, then all of a sudden drooping, wilting, stunted growth, lot less water drinking, etc., she all of a sudden just disliked the feeding schedule which was fine until then?
No word about the roots at all? 😔 I ask because root problems like rot and root bound can look like anything and everything else seemed fine until the second week of flowering. If I search for root bound the images look very similar and it would explain a lot.
Currently I'm following the same feeding schedule with my new grow, so we will see if the same problems arise and if so, then I will try to minimize as many feeding variables as possible. 💀
Since I cannot edit the question, or reply, here is some more context:
I used half the indicated nutrient strength and checked EC together with PH, that is, the runoff PH was slightly higher, not lower, EC reading was very similar to input, so I didn't even think of overfeeding.
I had nutrient burns with the same nutrients in my previous grow, as I used full nutrient strength. The leaves were dark green and every leaf had burned tips, even then, I had no such heavy burning overall.
I didn't know about alkalinity then, so I had hard time managing correct PH. Overfeeding then was obvious as EC was higher and PH lower at runoff water.
Hey there Grass_Maestro, well from what i can tell your plant was fine then you cut it down, so you're the one responsible for the "end" you know ? anyway that's the main reason the plant is not potent : you harvested too early. But you're right that there were some nutrient issues. That's because you're feeding a lot of stuff. You should always check the ingredients and composition of the nutrients you are feeding. I only use supervit from HESI, it seems the rest is kind of scam based on what i can read here : Root Complex, PK, Boost, and Coco are all NPK even though they have fancy names. So that's where the burn comes from ! actually you can just use one of those products and you would have much healthier plants. Next time think in this way : you want to have one NPK, one chelation agent (for you that's the PowerZyme which is a good product!) and one micro nutrient like cal mag. Dont overthink it , anything more complicated than this is un-necessary. But basically your plant was hurting but still alive, it take a while for trichomes to mature and you cut it down too soon, simple as that. What you want to do next time is make sure you have a good magnifier to check your trichomes, as you can see it's well worth it harvesting when it's ready. harvest when there are no clear trichomes, all milky and few ambers for max potency. Hope this helps ! 🚀
@grass_maestro, could be amplified by a genetics or pheno issue like being more sensitive all I know is what I see growmie it’s a lot of additives that’s it
@CRiSPrGrow, Got it, but I already had a grow with Hesi nutrients, used same schedule, same Autopot system with reservoir. The only difference was the nutrient strength and that grow went much smoother, even though I messed up PH control at root zone. So I didn't expect at all the current problems 😕😔
grass_maestro
