King Tut Feminized

This will be my first non recirculating hydroponic set up, how hard can it be? The seed was soaked for 24 hours in regular tap water, before transplanting into a1.5 inch rockwool cube. The rockwool cube was prepared with water ph adjusted to 6.0. Once the first true leaves appeared, I fed them with their first feeding of nutrients. I have some Terra fiber cubes on the way that I am going to use in place of rockwool. Until then I have to come up with some kind of drip system, I guess.😃

I over fed her this week. She was comfortable in her seedling tray and dome; however, patience is not my best virtue. I decided to open the vents in the dome to get her used to her future home. The rockwool cubes were drying out, so I was feeding them 2 times a day. With the dome back on the cubes do not dry out as much, so I only water them every few days now. Nothing automated right now, I am feeding her with a small syringe. I was hoping to transplant them into the 4 inch blocks this week, but I am still waiting for my Terra Fiber Cubes to come in (https://terrafibre.ca/hemp-growing-blocks/). They should be here the middle of next week. I am going to keep hand feeding until I figure out some way to automate. Until next week,

I noticed early in the week that the plants were not looking right; brown tips, brown root tips, leaves curling inward and yellowing of lower leaves. I thought for sure it was an over/under watering issue, so I thought I would just let them dry out a bit. I took a careful look at the tops of the cubes and noticed salt build up! The tent was experiencing some low humidity and the cubes were drying out fast, so I kept watering them by hand with 600 ppm nutrient mix. This led to a salt build up and nutrient lock out. I guess you have to be carful of the cubes drying out before the plants take up the nutrients. I'm hoping that this issue will resolve itself once the roots have filled the cubes and start really drinking. I have been hand watering them with deionized RO water and peroxide to flush out the salt build up. They are finally coming around after just one day of flushing. Lesson learned I guess. This is a whole new process for me. Okay now time for some good news. My Terrafiber blocks arrived, so I got all the plants transplanted in there new homes made from hemp! Also, I got a new ES300 V2 from the Electric sky company, and it is like a Ferrari compared to the 900 Mehzi. Yeah it was expensive but its is way brighter and its only dialed in at 1/4 the power. Seeing how light is the first thing a plant needs to grow, might as well have the best. Lets hope with the new light and the new medium, I will see some more vigorous growth this week.

What a great week in the tent! All the plants bounced back, despite me trying to kill them. I'm not sure if the terrafibre blocks are doing their job or not, since I don't have any comparative experience in rockwool. When I transplanted them into the slabs today, the roots were growing under the block and into the medium below. The blocks themselves should have been filled with fibrous roots I assume. I was expecting to see roots coming from every direction. It very well could be user error. Time will tell, as there is no other medium besides the terrafibre for them to explore now that they are in the slab. I bump my feeding up this week to the expert level GH program. I will feed at 700 ppm two hours after the lights come on, and once again around four hours before the lights go out. This leaves the medium enough time do dry back before the next morning feeding. Eventually I hope to have it dialed in so that there is no waste at all. Also, once the roots have grabbed into the slab below, I will start pulling the tops down to let the bottom branches catch up.

I had to back off the lights this week as the tips of the leaves were turning brown and starting to curl down. I thought at first they had a hard time getting water so i watered them more frequent and raised the humidity to 70rh. This seemed to help a bit but they were still taking a turn for the worse. Then I read an email sent to me form the Green sunshine company that talked about new users causing light and heat stress from inexperience. It all made sense, so I backed the lights from full to 1/4 of the power and they are doing great now. It took almost the whole week to recover. They look like they are growing funny because I am pulling the tops down as they grow up, which forces the bottom branches to stay at the same level as the top, while reducing plant stress. By next week they should nice and bushy, if I don't kill them.

I had to go visit some family last weekend, so hand watering was not an option. I bought an auto watering device from amazon, and it worked exactly as advertised. I set it to feed 75ml every 3hrs non stop. When I got back the tray was 1/4 of the way full with nutrient and the plants were all looking great; I sucked the remaining nutrients out of the tray. Currently, my set up is 150ml every 3hrs, two hours after the lights come on. I have the pump on a timer now, it stops the water just after lights out to have 80% dry back by the morning. I found that a few leaves were blocking light from potential cola sites, so gave it a light defoliation. I have the lights turned up full now and they seem to be doing fine, day two. I don't think I soaked the terrafibre blocks properly because they are bone dry and will not retain any water whatsoever. The slab underneath seems to be holding up well and holding a tremendous amount of water. I thought the cubes would be good after a few hours but it turns out they really need a good 24 hour soak. I put them into flower last night, I can't wait to see it all turning to buds!

This week I am having the same problems, although they are coming around a bit. I have to get the watering problem solved before the next week, if I expect to see any decent size colas. The leaves and slowed grow were telling me they were having a hard time feeding. I thought the terrafibre was water logged so I slowed down the feeding to twice a day, without really much change. I decided to rip open the plastic surrounding the terrafibre and it was covered in mold. I have been treating the mold with apple cider vinegar but it keeps growing back. Lets hope I find a solution soon.

Did a bit of reading on the terrafibre cubes and it seems they are better suited to a flood and drain system, than a drip. I believe, once they are allowed to dry, they take up to an hour to re-soak. This means the 90 min feeding I give a few times a day, will never keep them hydrated. I decided to flood the plants twice a day instead of having a drip. It works much better and I could see results in only a few days. I dumped 10 gallons of nutrient in by hand into the tray, let it sit for an hour or so, and sucked it out later with a hose. Something more permanent coming in the near future, I just wanted to see if it would work. The leaves are getting darker and the buds are really starting to take off. I got this problem sorted out just in time. :) BTW I am flooding twice a day; 2 hours after the lights come on, and 4 hours before the lights go out. It seems to be doing the trick so far. I am getting excited about the next round already.

What a great week! The plants are doing much better with a flood and drain system. I flood two hours after the lights come on and again 6 hours later, (no flooding at night). I also changed the strength of my nutrients to match a flood and drain table on the GH website. I have a reservoir under the table that holds 10 gallons of nutrients. The pump circulates the nutrients thru a chiller 24/7, which keeps it at a perfect 18.5 Celsius. When I need to flood the tray, I place the hose in and let it fill to where I want it. The return hose has a plug, which I remove in an hour or so, to let the nutrients back to the reservoir. The plants seem to like the rhythm of the nutrients flooding in and out, it could be just me.

No news is good news. Flooding twice a day is working perfectly. The buds are starting to fill out and looking dusty already. The ES300 is keeping them nice and dense and I am watching them every day for bud rot. There seems to be three different variations of KingTut growing. The one on the left is much shorter and more dense than the other two. Once a week I defoliate so that the leaves are not touching each other.