Gorilla Zkittlez Auto DWC Top-Feed

Only 3 days old. Planted directly into DWC in rockwool and top fed with a light mix. Plant currently spends 18 hours under 1200w HPS with my main grow and 6 hours under a 23w LED cob. I am honestly not sure how dedicated I am to this plant at this point and may not upgrade its light when the main girls go into flowering meaning it will only get 12 hours of proper lighting. Roots showed through the net pots on Day 4.

Things seem to be progressing well. I have now enduced light LST simply to expose more surface area and light to the internodes. I brewed a EWC tea and added that today (Day 8).

I have moved the auto to my veg tent with 24 hour light provided by a TS600. The res will be changed for the first time either next week or the following just before flowering kicks in. Plant seems to want to stay short. Internodes are extremely close together despite reducing and raising the light source. No issues to report and other than the squat appearance, everything seems to be going well.

I have decided to remove the air pump and stones as they are extremely noisy. Instead, I decided to use my recirculating pump as a dripper to create tiny bubbles sufficient to provide oxygen. It has been this way for 5 days with no ill effect yet and the girl looks awesome. She has begun sexing but no sign of preflowering yet so I'd say this is also a veg week but it does look like flowering will begin for the next week in a few days. LST seems to have worked well, however, I cannot help but feel maybe I stunted her growth by begining so early. Lesson learnt. As flowering has yet to begin, the res change will be delayed by a week or two until nute change is required after which, no further changes will be carried out.

Week 5 has arrived but still waiting on flowering to begin. It has been a few years since I ran a auto but I vividly remember them flowering much quicker?? Makes me wonder exactly how quick she will be in flowering to keep with the 75 day schedule. If I did indeed stunt her, then an additional week will be added. Moving on, she showed slight signs of calcium deficiency so I topped up the calmag. Still minimum stretch but quite a few sites with excellent light penetration. The res has now been changed. The air pump and stones are still inactive.

It seems flowering may have finally kicked in! Plant has not been in the best health the past week. She was stunted, had what seemed like a P deficiency and has lost at least a weeks worth of growth 😔 I have started light defoliation in the center of the girl as I have never flowered under LED before and doubt the penetration strength of 100w LED would be sufficient to penetrate even such a short girl.

Not much to update. Did another res change and quite a bit of defoliation. Progress is still on the slow side but has noticeably sped up from a snails pace. Maybe my hydro abilities are not tuned in yet? Bearing in mind this is basically my second hydro grow while my first is 4 weeks into flower, so technically, I have never had a hydro harvest before 😅 The girl is bushier than I'd have liked and is now dominating the veg tent so much so, that she is now stealing light spots from other veggers 😡 All in all, slow progress but looking good.

Yet another slow week!! She has however continued growing (which was not planned nor liked) to the point that she is no longer welcome in the veg tent as she leaves little to no light for the veggers. As such, she has been evicted and is now homeless 😥 She has since found refuge in the flowering tent but has found herself locked in on a few occasions when they go to sleep forcing her to get a nap with them. Suprisingly, she has perked up quite a bit since this change and her buds are now actually growing.. 😳 Now, this is not a plant/photoperiod problem. She is definately an auto. However, I think the change of light is the cause of the magic despite the reduced light which leads me to the assumption that LEDs are still shit! Don't get me wrong, they still have their use, but I'd say only in veg, however, I have got a more powerful TS1000 before I totally rule them out for a flowering light to test with. Thy do do a fabulous job in veg though! So, moving forward, she will get a mix of HPS and LED but mainly HPS and 12 hours light.

This girl has been a PITA to say the least. SHE IS STILL NOT READY!! I think 😆 I expected her to harvest before my main crop but now they have come down, she is almost redundant. Anyway, here she is at what I believe is week 11.