#TGHNL/Seedsman GelatOG Grow Off 1

Finally have humidity under control with the addition of the humidifier and some adjustments to the speed and run times of the exhaust fan. Daytime parameters are 24-25 degrees Celsius, and relative humidity is at 55%rH, Night time I'm easily able to drop temps to 15 degrees, and the relative humidity increases to 65%. You can see in the first 3 pics, that as the seedling stretches, I chase it with coco and bury it to just below the cotyledon leaves. this not only helps stabilize the seedling, the seedling will shoot new roots out of the newly buried portion of the stem. I'm alternating feedings between the Remo Nutrient solution, and plain water ph'd to 6.2. Currently feeding 2ml/gal each of Grow, MagnifiCal, Micro, Natures Candy, and VeloKelp. Feeding roughly half a liter per feeding

Towards the end of this week, we were involved in a head on collision with another truck, hence the lack of pictures. I was a little preoccupied and tender this week lol. However the plants are doing well. Not much to report in the early stages as there isn't much training, just continue to keep environmentals in check, and continue with alternate feedings of Remo nutrients and ph'd water

Growth rate is really starting to pick up this week, quite a difference in size from the beginning to the end of the week. No training yet, I'm still several weeks away from beginning the SCROG. Nutrient levels increased to 5 ml/gal, still alternating feedings between nutrient mix, and pH'd water, as I will for the whole grow. Temp and humidity seem to have settled in to a nice pattern and are on point for early veg. She's certainly showing her indica dominance as well with those chunky leaves! After a somewhat slow start, I'm hoping this little burst of growth continues

Still getting decent growth this week. Those fat indica leaves are blocking light to nodes and I've begun to tuck them to the side a little to get extra light on the growth nodes below. Otherwise pretty standard week, not much interesting to report this week. Very little training happening yet, and nutrient levels are slowly increasing by 1ml/gal per week

Starting to see some lighter colors in the leaves, might be the start of some sort of deficiency...hmmm...will be keeping a close watch for further changes I also slept in a morning or two this week, resulting in a missed watering before lights out. As you can see, coco doesn't like it when you get lazy and miss a watering...note to self, stop hitting snooze in the am..

A lot more happening this week! As shown in the pics, and as suspected, I have a manganese deficiency. I've been keeping my pH level at 6.2 in coco, manganese is taken up best by the plant below 6.0 pH. Dropping my ph level to 5.8 pH, and flushing with lower pH, hopefully it will solve the issue over the course of a few days. I made a new frame for a SCROG, with a "custom bend" in the CPVC pipe on both ends. The bend will allow me to take advantage of the slack material in the sides of my 4x4 tent. I'd previously taken 4" out of all the upright poles to shorten the tent so it would fit in the room due to low ceilings, meaning I had extra slack in my tent walls. The bend in the net frame pushes the sides of the tent out to 5 foot wide. My first SCROG net was a 6" mesh from Amazon, immediately knew I wanted a smaller mesh. Next time around I built my own with a 4" mesh and used the 4" for several grows. This time I decided to go with an even smaller, 3" mesh, and already I like it better. I don't really see myself going much smaller than 3" mesh though. It seems to work well, and any smaller and it may be too tight trying to work the plant through the opening sometimes, which if not careful, will damage the plant. I usually use a & gal cloth pot, grow off rules stated we 0had to use a 5 gal pot. Seeing as I only had 7 gal on hand, I was stuck picking up a Root Farm 5 gal cloth pot locally, as you can see, the roots didn't really stay contained, nor did they "air prune", i had to tear them off before installing the net above. On the last day of week 6 I finally got my net installed, and the plant SCROGged. I should have put the net in place a week or two earlier, it would have been easier to manipulate the plant, however the plant will still have a week to recover. I tie the net in place above the plant, and slowly lower it down, as I bend and super crop the main stalk over parallel to the net, and work all the branches underneath and spread them out. As the plant grows I'll continue to push branches back down through the net and moving them out to the next hole. This will greatly increase yields by allowing light to more bud sites, keeping all buds the same height and thus the same distance from the light. small budsites on a vertical branch, will transform into their own cola once the branch is laid on its side. Instead of a Christmas tree type of plant, with one large main cola, and smaller and smaller buds as you move further down the plant, you end up with a bunch of colas that are all close to the same size, and more importantly, the same level of maturity. The SCROG method, combined with super cropping, and defoliation has greatly increased my yields. As the plant is getting worked into the net, I'll defoliate where necessary, ie a huge fan leaf covering bud sites, however for the next several weeks I'll be defoliating so mush every night or two, systematically trimming off all fan leaves, and stripping everything below the net, and any small bud sites that wont produce well. Usually by the time I'm half way through the flower stage there are no big fan leaves left to be found. It helps with light penetration, which results in a higher quality, higher quantity yield, as well as airflow, which will help prevent White Powdery Mildew and other molds etc. Once a fan leaf is 14 days old, its ability to photosynthesize light, starts to degrade. Once it reaches a certain point, the leaf drains more energy from the plant, than it's giving the plant. My best yields have been from heavily defoliated plants, my last grow I couldn't physically defoliate quite as heavily as usual, and I ended up about 25-30% less bud than expected

The SCROG net was installed on the last day of Week 6, I included a couple pics from that night, to compare with how the plant looked the next day, which was the first day of Week 7. My nerve damaged fingers caused me to be a little rougher with her while the net was going on than I like, but as you can see, she bounced back very quickly and was reaching for the light less than 24 hours after being mangled lol. I will continue to systematically defoliate the upper canopy every night or two for the next several weeks, and will completely strip most everything below the net. Every night or two I'll tuck any branches that need tucking, and will remove any fan leaves covering bud sites. She spread out pretty well in the net, and truth be known i probably could have gotten away with a 6 week veg after, plants are a decent size in the net with the stretch left to go. Flip happens at the end of Week 7 The manganese issue seems to be getting much better by the end of the week. Will keep my pH levels at 5.8 for the remainder of this grow, and any subsequent grows. I also devised a fan mount to save on space in the net. Instead of standing the fan, i simply cut a piece of 1x3 to length, drilled 2 holes in each end, large enough for zip ties to pass through. then I simply zip tied it to the tent poles, took the legs off the fan, and screwed the base to the board. I placed a piece of foam on top, as the screws were a shade long and I was afraid the small protruding tip would eventually puncture the tent. Works much better than expected. No movement in the mount at all.

Flipped to 12/12 at the end of Week 7. The manganese issue seems to have been solved by lowering the pH levels. Ordinarily I'd strip most everything below the net this week, but a friend asked me to leave him some clippings until week 2-3 of flower. I cleaned it up a little underneath the net, continued to tuck new growth, and started to slack back on grow nutes, and slowly introduce flower nutrients. I was hoping to have a second Aglex 2000 COB LED to add to the tent for flower, but it may be another week or two before I can add it.