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Popped all 6 seeds from exotic genetix. Guides kept saying to only leave seeds in water for 24hours then transplant to paper towels. Many people leave their seeds in water for up to 48 hours! The 48 hr paper towel transfer actually stunted root growth which affected the end yield. Also due to covid, my available bottled water had almost 100 PPM. Ideally you want to germinate your seeds in less than 10-20 PPM. Next run, going to skip the paper towels and plant into peat pellets directly after 24-48hr seaweed soak.
Realized I was feeding 1000 PPM500 meaning 2000 EC rather than 1000 EC. Going into week 3 veg with flushing. You can read up on the proper Athena Feed Chart on their website: https://www.athenaproducts.com/feed-schedules
The diary has precise dosages starting on week 3 of flower when everything is starting to dial in.
Transplanted the pint cups into 1 gals after 1 day flush. The bigger pot with new medium allowed the roots to rejuvenate. Defoliated and topped for the start of a 4-branch manifold mainline. Used LST to tie down the baby branches with garden wire.
EC Meter broke and accidentally refed the plants double nutes at 1700 EC. Also never measured the pH while flushing with RO water. The runoff is all over the place reading up to 2500EC and 7+ pH. Realized the pH doesn't matter as much but the PPM runoff still is important. Flushed them for a day and transplanted them up to 5 gallon pots to refresh the medium. Also highly recommend dusting your roots with mycorrhizae when transplanting. The beneficial microbes attach to the roots and help metabolize the nutrients being fed for faster root intake.
After reading comments from LoudHouseGrow's videos on YT, saw that drying back in veg helps force roots to expand and search for water. Started drying back plants along with last week's transplant. Plants looked much healthier at the end of this week.
Only fed twice this week, lots of drying back for the roots to rebound. Really trying to force that dense root ball to develop before flowering. Lots of heavy growth coupled with heavy defoliation and LST for the mainline. Growth looks like its getting back on track!
Drying back and plants have grown a ton, did some defoliation and cleared the tops. Apologies for the sound muffling in the video. Wish I had a trellis net to put up, would've done it around this week to even up the canopy during stretch.
Still only fed every other day, should've started feeding every day if not twice a day by now. Also regret not trimming up more this week, the lack of defoliation definitely hurt the size and yields of the buds. As a first time grower, it was confusing how the buds would form and how intense the defoliating was needed to be. Learned that doing a heavy stripping on Week 3 of flower is ideal for chunkier nugs. These emerging flowers were super refreshing to see at the time.
Started adding PK booster late into week 4. Ideal time to add PK is end of week 2 so the lack of early PK definitely hurt the density formation. These bad boys began to really stretch this and last week - really wish I had setup a SCROG for an even canopy. Oh well, you live and you learn. By the end of the week, the aroma on the plants began to smell really good like Sunny D.
Ideally you want to drastically up your PK Week 5 of flower. Unfortunately adding PK late last week forced me to ramp up by 2ml/gal every day until 9 ml/gal to avoid shocking the plants. These plants were growing super bushy despite being Sativa dominant. Definitely played it too safe Week 3, gonna go heavy next run.
This week the flowers really started to come out. Got some nice closeups on their formation. Video includes a quick rundown of the nutrient line and supplements. Apologies for the sideways viewing, going to straighten out all the videos soon.
Realized just how intense manual feeding for coco is. Takes up to 3 hours to mix the nutrients, water, and wait to empty the saucers. And I'm just doing this once a day, imagine the experienced growers feeding 3+ times a day. Definitely would be ideal to have a drip/drain system installed in the future. Pheno 2 got so lanky and heavy it fell over! A scrog and bamboo sticks would've helped a ton. Placed a peony cage to support the branches but it's hard to get it angled properly with the branches grown out. Boosted the PK again this week and halved the Bloom Nutes.
Flowers are starting to form, the lack of defoliation, PK, and even canopy hurt the buds formation. Did some heavy defoliation last week, buds are bulking up now but a bit too late into flower. Definitely taking note of this to remember for future runs.
Also the AC broke on me this week. Luckily it's almost end of flower and the outside temps are getting colder now with Fall weather. Going to have to deal with 80F temps during light.
Freaked out this week cause I couldn't smell the plants anymore. Turns out I caught covid, yay! Not much content because I was resting up mostly. Getting plants ready for chop, many seed packs say you can chop by week 8 of flower - that's actually the earliest one can harvest. If given the time like a home grow, one can wait 1-2 weeks longer to harvest. Also in the cases of sativas like mine, they can flower for up to 12-16 weeks.
Everyone says the plants smell amazing but I can't smell them! fml. They're supposed to smell like guava candy. Just gotta rest up more till my smell is back, honestly the worst thing about covid. Started flush this week, going to flush for 10 days including a 48 hour darkness period. The darkness period is when the buds can reproduce the trichome coating. It's normally used as sunscreen for light protection but much is burned off during intense day times. This is why it's best to harvest after a period of darkness.
Flush ended two days before the darkness period. Decided on a 48 darkness periods though some prefer 24 or 72. The darkness did help trichomes reappear at the tops of the canopy. Going for a longer dry of 10 days, best temperatures are 60-70F to preserve the terps with 50-60RH. This has been an amazing experience, definitely putting in more passion into the next run.
Spent eternity trimming! So this is why people call it trim jail.
Yield:
TM1: 205g Dry | 61g trim - Best growth and color, 7.2 oz yielder!
TM2: 177.5g dry | 72.5g trim - Frosty and colorful fruity
TM3: 154g dry | 67.2g trim - Even frostier than TM2 but no color more gas
TM4: 71g dry | 33.6g trim - Super larfy, still decent taste
TM5: 65.3g dry | 19.3g trim - Best Flavor, super gas and sweet
Total: 672.8g dry (23.8 oz) | 253.6g trim (9 oz)
Flavor is a gassy guava candy with sweet cake after tones. Frost and color is up there, structure is lacking in cola formation. There's a lot more popcorn nugs than hoped for. Definitely due to poor defoliation, lack of scrog, and late PK. Also
Besides that, a 672.8g yield would be ~1g/watt - an ideal goal for any starting growers
tokesly
