Project 1 - SoMango - First Grow Ever!

ProjectPonics This is my first grow ever! I am running a 2x2x4 grow tent. With a 300w Viparspectra LED and two 24w HO T5's for seedlings and early vegetative stage, although I am currently just using the LED for both now. I started germinating one seed on 3/20/2018. Looking healthy, kept between 60-70% humidity and 75-80 degrees F. Germinated in a cup of water for 16 hours, then in a paper towel for another 24 or so. The seed was placed in a rapid rooter in a humidity dome for the first week for higher humidity levels to sprout in.

ProjectPonics Day 10 since the seed has sprouted it's first two cotyledon leaves above soil. She looks beautiful and is coming along very nicely. I see the very tips of roots starting to come out the bottom of the solo cup. Along with the third set of node leaves coming in the past two days as well. Almost ready for it's first feeding, I will be using Bontanicare pure blend pro grow, and cal-mag at first. The recommend first feeding ML for the pure blend pro grow is 15ml/gal, but I will be using half strength and going with 7.5ml/gal. Same thing with the cal-mag plus. Bottom two leaves are still a little "wavy" or "curly" and feel a bit dry but not too much, can definetly feel the difference though between the second set and first set of leaves. I have lowered my LED to 20" above the plant, as the leaves were pointing upward as if they wanted more light, if they stay looking good and healthy I will leave at this distance. If they curl downward and shy away, I will lift the light back up to 24-26". Also I have had the humidity around 60% but am lowering it another 5% so I will be keeping the levels around 50-55% RH.

ProjectPonics Alright so... a little over a week later and I am starting to run into problems. First let me start by saying I was gone 5 days last week working 3 hours away in Atlanta. I had to have my roommates take care of the plant while I was gone which was a pain and still caused problems with humidity, temp and watering. The humidity temps were swinging up and down, and my roommate told me the soil was moist 4 days after I left, which it was not because when got home the next day it was as dry as could be. The leaves were dropping completely to the bottom. So as soon as I got home I gave it the first feeding. Adding 10ML of Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Grow. The day after feeding, I transplanted it from the solo cup to the 3gal fabric smartpot. Then after I transplanted it I also topped it down to the 3rd set of nodes, after it had its 5th set of fan leaves coming in. The next day (yesterday 4/8) I noticed the inner top leaves closest to the light are curling up and there are brown "rust" looking spots starting to take form. In the last picture above you can see the problem happening.

ProjectPonics Things are going great! She really bounced back after giving her first feeding and getting nutrient burn. I am using a 70/30 mix of Happy Frog Potting Soil and Perlite. I fed the main plant on day 18 after her being very dehydrated and leaves were drooping to the soil. Unfortunately as my first grow I wasn't really thinking and realized after how "hot" happy frog is, not need to add any nutes anywhere from 21 days up to almost a month. I added 10ml of botanicare pure blend pro grow to a gallon of water. Watered her down and her leaves started burning up a little. Luckily it wasn't much, I believe she encountered a little bit of pH lockout as well. With the water pH'd at 7.0 going in, it was looking as if it was coming out a little yellow-orange when I checked the runoff after at about 5.2 pH. I do no have a meter yet so I have to do the exact pH, I will be investing in one next week. Other than that I topped her, she has 4 main tops now. I will be topping her again to get 8 main colas. Her leaves are a bit dry to the touch, compared to the second younger plant which has never been fed, topped or had any sort of lst done to her. And as for the second plant I just transplanted it into a 3gal smartpot from the solo cup, her roots and leaves are growing great! I plan to use the scrog method using lst. I may top her one time to get 2 main branches to weave through the scrog going opposite ways. I will continue to keep watering only using tap water with a little cal-mag added for now. In about a week I was give the main plant a 1/3 dosage feeding, and work my way up from there slowly. I took out the humidifier as room was getting cramped in my 2x2 after transplanting the younger plant to the 3gal pot. Also all that extra soil now keeps the tent at a steady 50-55% humidity by itself, so I no longer need it as the humidity levels will only get lower from here. After that week of being gone and the plants growth stunting from the under watering and the nutrient burn. I must say they're both back on track and looking beautiful! Thank you for checking out my first grow.

ProjectPonics Alright! So it's not quite week 5 and what I technically consider going on it's 3rd week of actual veg. But! In 2 days it will be, so I'm making my post a little early. Much has changed again in the past 5-6 days. I was going to let them both grow up, but I got inpatient and decided to top the main plant a second time, creating 8 main colas. I also topped the younger plant once, leaving only the 3rd set of fan leaves so now it has 2 main colas. I'm leaving the main plant alone for good and will not be topping past 8 colas. For the second younger plant, I'm going to mainline it into 8 main colas coming off the 2 main branches. I also notice more signs of deficiencies as soon as I topped them both last week. I finally bought a pH & PPM meter which has helped out incredibly. I did a lot of different tests and figured out I should never of fed or topped to begin with. And should of waited from seed until about now a month later, for the first feeding and topping. But, it's too late, and they are bouncing back again just fine! So no worries. Also figured out Happy Frog soil is pretty hot and high in nutes and should not be fed when using HF for the first month or so depending on the mixture using in the medium. The runoff was pH at 5.2 which was way too acidic and caused many problems when i first topped my plants since all the nutes were going to the two main fan leaves just causing them the burn up. The ppm was also crazy high for being in seedling/veg stage. I think if I wouldn't of fed them or topped so early, they would of grown just fine the past month if I was using plain tap water for feedings. But, since I did what I did, I ended up flushing both plants a few days ago. Brought the run off for both plants pH up from 5.2-5.4 to 6.2-6.4. And since I did that I just fed both of them using about 1/3 dosage of nutes. 3ml of cal-mag/5ml of pure blend pro grow/1.5ml of pH up in a gallon of RO water. The pH of the nute water was at 6.5 and the PPM were at 525. After the feeding, I tested both plants and the runoff pH'd at 6.4 and the PPM were 375. I'm not sure if this is a little low on the PPM side, but I know I'm getting back to close to where they should be for 3-4 weeks old. Anyways that's about it, any feedback would be helpful. Like I said the main plant I'm letting grow up for good now, will be doing a little bit of LST but other than that she will not be touched much over the next 2-3 weeks. As for the second younger plant, I will be main-lining so there will be a lot changing with her as the weeks go by. Thanks for checking in!

ProjectPonics Ok, so I'm on a water, water, feed schedule. Every feeding I add around 3ml cal-mag and 7-10ml of pure blend pro grow for the main plant. I just fed the smaller plant for the first time three days ago. I also add 3ml of cal-mag to every single watering. And I still seem to be having problems. The leaves look like they are trying to eat themselves, or I might have a bug problem :/ but it does not look so much like nutrient burn. But it could very well be. But I also keep seeing new spots of "brown rust" on the lower and new growth of leaves. Not really sure what to do, I thought it was a cal-mag problem but I am not sure. Does it need even more cal-mag? The pH and PPM of both plants after I check the soil run-off is around 6.2 and 450ish ppm. I am using happy frog soil and perlite, but I flushed the soil last week washing out most of the nutrients. Bringing the pH from 5.5 to 6.2 after flushing. Any ideas? Will be switch to flower in about 7 days for both plants. But want to fix all deficiencies and make sure the plant is 100% before I switch.

ProjectPonics Alright! So here we are! About to start the flowering process. :D Pretty stoked for my first grow... should be exciting. On the other hand something not so exciting is my older main plant with 8 tops keeps getting holes in the leaves. Not quite sure if it's a pH deficiency, nutrient burn or bugs that I can not see. I do have a microbrite plus microscope that's 60-120x coming in the mail tomorrow from amazon, so I'll be able to tell tomorrow what the problem is. I was going to wait to start the flowering process but I do not want them getting too big. Other than the holes she looks very healthy! Especially the younger plant. I did top the younger plant that had 2 tops about a week ago. Now it has 4 main tops and looks much better than the older plant with 8 tops. The plants would stand about 8-9" tall but with the lst they are only around 6-7". Plus all the times I've topped them of course factors in. But the main plant in 2 days from the end of week 4 veg, and the younger plant ended week 3 of veg today. So it seems like a good time to start flowering. I might go buy/build a ScrOG in the next day or two but I don't think I'll really need it with how short they are. Hopefully I won't have as many problems over the next few weeks in the flowering stage like I have with vegetation stage. but anyways, here we go!

ProjectPonics Today is the last day of week 1 flower. Making this update tonight because I know I'm going to be very busy this week with work. I did a lot of question asking and research to figure out what has been going on with my plants. I did not find an exact answer, but many different ones that were all sorts of confusing with being told I'm over-feeding and that I'm under-feeding. I have nute burn and others say I don't have nute burn. So I just put my common sense to work and after everyones help and trying to figure it out with me, I think I found out the problem. To my best knowledge I just believe after I flushed them I was way under-feeding them. Which I know a few of you in this post will disagree because a few of you said the opposite. But I think the plants started to eat themselves... I know it was not because of bugs. So I'm not really sure what else it could of been. I am still feeding the plants grow nutrients for the next week or two, then I will be switching to Botanicare PBP soil bloom. I did multiple slurry tests and pH/EC tests to both plants before feeding, and with the fresh HF soil. My plants soil were reading 6.8-7.0 pH with the slurry test, with 100 ppm. That's no good obviously. So I fed both plants with 6.3 pH water with a nice good feeding around 1000ppm two days ago. The run-off was right at 6.3 and the ppm was around 850, now I just need to maintain the plants through flower. They are both looking amazing now! No signs of new holes on the new growth. I also defoliated some of the main-lined 8 top plant a few days back. Got rid of the lower nasty holy looking leaves. She's looking back to healthy and good standing about 7-8" tall. The younger plant with 4 main tops I'm just doing a little lst and letting her be. She's standing about 9-10" tall. All I'm doing for the next two weeks of stretching is a little lst for now, and I will be defoliating at the end of week 3 flower.

ProjectPonics Today is the last day of week 2 flower. Tomorrow starts week 3, which should be the last week they stretch. I am still feeding them Botanicare PBP Grow right now, and will feed them one more time this Wednesday-Thursday with pbp grow/calmag. Then switch to pbp bloom soil formula next week after they are done stretching. They did not stretch as much as I assumed they would, but I guess well see by the end of this week. They are still very very short even after 6 weeks of veg (since seedling) averaging 10-12" after all of the lst/topping and super cropping. But I'm okay with that as I only have 4-6" more to work with, so they should come out to the height I needed for my 2x2x4 tent. Hopefully they still produce a good amount of buds. I watered them yesterday with a basic pH watering of 6.2 with 3ml cal-mag added. I also defoliated both plants underneath and in the middle some as they were getting very very bushy. Now more light can penetrate through the plant and hit those lower nodes/bud sites. Other than that I just seen the first pistils he about 2-3 days ago. They are both looking great! Now for the exciting part! I can't wait to see them slowly flower over the next few weeks! For my first grow ever this is going to be a fun learning experience. Due to the size of my tent I did not completely train/lst or main-line my plants like I planned, I kind of just went along and winged it as they grew, they are touching the side of the tent so I'm going to try and let them grow vertical for the last week since they have another 4-6" to work with still.

ProjectPonics End of week 4 in flowering, tomorrow starts the begining of week 5. Only a few more weeks ahend these babies will be done! Ready to see these buds explode! Did some minor plucking of large lower fan leaves and a few up top in the middle a few days ago, already has grown more leaves back at the lower bud sites where light started reaching to after pruning. Beoth plants looking awesome, did encounter what I believe is a phosphorus deficency, looked like slight nute burn but definetly phosphorus. Will add a little P tomorrow when I feed. Other than that everything is going great! :)

ProjectPonics Everything is look great! The smell is so good, like ripe mangos, earthy, with a little bit of a fruity smell. Just started developing trichomes. Today is the last day of week 5, tomorrow starts week 6 in the 12/12 cycle. She is looking amazing for my very first grow ever! I also just started some new plants, I ordered 2 seeds from Fastbuds, Fastberry and Girl Scout Cookies. Unfortunately the GSC auto seed did not germinate fully and I think is a dud. :/ But the Fastberry just sprouted and is growing it's first serrated leaves, so I offically have my second grow going now. Switched up from a photo to an auto this time. About to order more seeds this weekend and get couple more autos going!

ProjectPonics Today is the last day of week 6 in the 12/12, tomorrow starts week 7. Just fed them 10ml grow, 8ml bloom, 2ml calmag, 5ml pH up. Was about 1250 ppm going in. They look great! Smell is amazing. Just letting her coast while babying my 10 day old fastberry auto which is growing quite fast and awesome! That's about all for now... Might have to do some defoliation soon.

ProjectPonics Today is week 8 day 4 into the 12/12 cycle. It's been over a week since my last post. Everything is looking great! Maybe it's just me but I thought the main colas would of produced larger buds. Can't ask for too much I guess considering I'm using one 300w viparspectra led. Hoping to get a solid 2-3 ounces off of them but with how small the colas look and how small and fluffy the lower budsites are, I don't know if I'm even going to hit 2 oz total. The main "week older" plant with 8 tops stands taller at 18" but has less buds producing and the colas look small comapred to the younger plant. The younger plant that has 4 main tops but created 12-14 tops total with side branches is shorter standing at 16" tall, but has larger more compact colas and buds. Any ideas to this? My only guess is because I put the main plant through much more stress and topped more times, as to where the younger plant I topped twice and let it grow out more naturally on its own. But over the next 10 days.... I plan on feeding them nothing but water to start "flushing" out the plants. And on the last 3-5 days before harvest I will be using Botanicare's Clearex for a final water/flush. Then! on the 1st or 2nd of July I will have my very first harvest ever!!!!!!! Stoked.