Northern Lights Auto Seedsman, 2nd Grow

Welcome! If you're just joining us, glad to have you. Audrey at Week 6, about Week 4 in terms of growth. Nutes are on point (mayhaps a bit too much nitrogen, but can correct that this week), pH is a little higher than I'd like at 6.5 but well within adequate range for veg. Besides some nute splash causing mild spots on leaves and some ragged growth/rips in the leaves from handling during LST, she's healthy. Still LSTing through this week, although I'm going to start allowing her some more height starting midway through the week. Speaking of, it's hard to tell how much Audrey has grown because of the LST and her strange root depth. Her highest point vertically is about 3 inches from the soil, but her main stem is somewhere between 6-8, having stretched in a backwards C shape while LST. This is intentional, as I intend to keep her low until we get close to bloom then allowing her to grow naturally. With my last grow the NL Auto took up the whole tent by Week 11 and was brushing the lights, so I want to avoid that much height growth before harvest (burnt buds aren't worth the hassle). The other conundrum I'm thinking of is that I'm suspicious that these NL Auto seeds from Seedsman weren't actually autos. I had a lot of veg growth in the last grow but virtually no blooming, and no buds whatsoever. Judging from other customer reviews at the time, I think these were regular fem seeds. As such, I'll be switching to 12-12 if I don't see any signs of bloom by the end of Week 7 (next week). At the end of this week I'll start switching my nutes to bloom nutes in preparation. Good luck with your grows! I'll update through the week. For Rock and Stone. Day 39: I've been very aggressive with my LST. Perhaps too aggressive...besides some ripped leaves (which you can see most clearly in the bottom-right cola) I ended up snapping one of my larger colas during LST yesterday and didn't catch it. She's a goner unfortunately. I'll be easing off LST at the end of this week. I've been aggressive because my last attempt at this was a very, very large plant that ended up taking up the tent, and I want to keep her low this time around. One thing I noticed today is the faint sparkle of trichromes coming in! I never had any of those on my last grow, so that's a very good sign. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow if I can zoom in enough. I'm intending to switch to bloom nutrients on the next feeding. If I don't see any impact at the end of next week, it's 12-12 to force her into bloom. I'm not taking chances like I did with my last NL Auto grow! Day 41: So couple updates. I've switched to bloom nutrients using Foxfarm's feeding schedule. I may add some molasses next week into the nutrient schedule, but we'll see. I'm beginning to see yellowing between the margins of the upper leaves (probably can't see from photos, shows up well under the LED). This is a similar problem I had with the last grow in Week 7, eventually devolving into a full blown crisis of dead leaves everywhere and yellowing up and down the plant with no flowering. It's not light burn; LED is too far away for that. Doubt it's magnesium because it's only on the upper growth. Could be zinc deficiency or potassium. My goal is to break the pH from the 6.5-6.7 range and bring it down to 6.2-6.4 range and see if that helps. The additional bloom nutrients might help add in enough potassium. Finally, she's not showing any signs of nute lockout or nute burn, so I doubt it's that. Also! Last week my Vivosun fan's bearings started to fail after 5 months, so I ordered a replacement. Their customer service was a hassle, the new fan that was sent was broken on arrival (fan blade snapped in half, rotor disconnected from hub entirely), and the 2nd replacement fan still hasn't shown up after a delay in shipping. So to everyone, a warning on buying Vivosun fans! The room has been smelling up a storm, and it's started to percolate to other parts of the house. So much for a stealth grow...fingers crossed the new fan gets here soon.