Double Black

As everyone knows, the seedling stage is a bit boring. Double black sprouted and took off from the rest. At the beginning of the week she was 2.25" with her first set of true leaves and finished the week at 3" with her second set of leaves with the 3rd set forming at the apical meristem. Now that my girls are going strong, for the next 2-3 weeks I'll slightly extend the intervals between watering to promote root growth. The goal is to have them root bound in their final pots to accommodate multiple feedings per day.

This week I learned that my light intensity, which was at 25%, was well below what it should have been. On 2/01 the Cannalope Haze got leggy and fell over which caused me to reexamine a few things. I read some emails about vegging with the ES 300 from Dan at The Green Sunshine Company and realized I should have had my lights set at 50% and 36" from the start. I bumped my lights to 40% on 2/01, then to 50% on 2/03 and have increased them to 60% since then. My girls were also a little lime colored so I bumped their feed water to 555 TDS @ 5.8 ph. The little ladies responded with a surge of growth thanks to the increased TDS coupled with increased light intensity. It was a decent week for the girls and a great week of learning for me.

On 2/08 I topped little DB right above her 5th node. The apex growth was about 1/8" but I decided to reach in with my dick beaters and tear it off. She wasn't too happy and stalled in growth for most of the week. However, it could also have been exacerbated by some deficiency symptoms that started popping up. This whole grow and for most of my previous auto grow my girls have all had purple stems. I chalked this up to "sun burn" on my last grow, this time it caught my eye because the onset was so much earlier. I began noticing what I thought were calcium deficiencies so I reacted (in what my newbie brain perceived as) accordingly. On 2/07 I bumped the cal-mag to 2ml/gal, mixed 1.6gr MC into 1gal RO water, 5.8ph then watered to 100% runoff. Girls had lime green leaves, very wilted looking in their evening, not very strong looking during peak day, and all had some degree of purple stems.

On 2/13 the deficiencies started worsening so on 2/14 I mixed new feed water 2.5ml calmag, 2.2 grams mega crop, 5.83 ph 755 ppm and watered to 100% runoff. On 2/15 I decided to introduce the girls to a little bondage to begin preparing them for a good scrogging later on. The deficiency symptoms also began to worsen but the plants had a brief explosion in growth. Sick plants aren't ideal so being a good steward I broke out the googling machine and started researching my problem. I eventually came to the conclusion that my problem is excess calcium (the problem became worse with added Cal-mag) and it's causing phosphorous deficiencies (purple stems, burnt leaf edges). With this conclusion in mind, on 2/16 I recal'd my ph meter which hadn't been done in a few months, mixed 3.1gr MC / 1gal RO water, @ 5.78ph & 777 ppm then watered to 300% runoff. Runoff ppm was lower than going in but PH was ~6.1 coming out. After flush DB's PH dropped ~.2 points. Will continue for 1 week to gauge response. On the plus side, DB is very hardy and hasn't been as susceptible to symptoms of deficiency. She's bushy with tight node spacing and has handled topping and LST very, very well. 2/17 increased RH to 60% day and 50% night Light intensity increased to 75% Mixed another gallon of feed water, 3.0 gr/gal MC, 5.78ph, 755 ppm

transplanted the girls into their new 3 gallon hempy homes on 2/21. I probably should have done this 1-2 weeks sooner as they were extremely root bound. I added 3 tsp Azos and .25 tsp Myco to the bottom of each hole before I dropped the girls in. 2 days later they were exploding in growth mosty likely due to their roots being able to expand again. The deficiencies that I noted last week started to subside as the phosphorus and potassium that was being locked out by excess calcium was able to be absorbed. I adjusted the girls' tie-downs throughout the week to encourage horizontal growth. Overall, it was a good week

On 2/27 I noticed some deficiencies popping up again. I mixed .5ml calmag/gal, .5gr/gal Epsom and 3gr/gal MC =1.16EC, 824PPM, 5.75PH and had Runoff = 1000 ppm, 6.87ph Yeah... Not good at all so I ran 2 gallons of feed water through each of them to help flush some excess salts. I added 1 tbsp of Espoma soil acidifier to the top of bucket to help control the rising ph. On the plus side it adds sulfur to the substrate. 2/29 I mixed .5ml calmag/gal, .5gr/gal Epsom, 1gr/gal Ammonium Sulfate and 3gr/gal MC =1.23EC, 940PPM, 5.83PH The ammonium sulfate is 24% N, lowers the substrate ph, and provides a different source of N than what is in MC. 3/04 I mixed 3 gallons spring water, 3gr/gal MC, 1 gram ammonium sulfate 915ppm, 5.55ph 3/05 The end of this week the girls were looking great, growing well, and were ready to flip to flower. So I hung up my second light, built my SCROG nets, got them settled down on the girls and prepared for launch.

3/06 5 gallons RO, 3.2gr/gal MC, .5ml/gal calmag, 1.1gr ammonium sulfate 3/06 Flip to flower 10/14 light schedule 100% lights, 24" above canopy 3/8 I was seeing signs of calcium deficiency. Mixed 5 gallons RO, 1ml/gal calmag, 3.2gr/gal MC 822PPM, 5.8PH The girls are back to a nice green but showing slight K deficiency. 3/10 3 gallons RO, 1ml/gal calmag, 3.2gr/gal MC, 880PPM, 5.8ph, added 2ml/gal TPS Bloom, 1ml/gal TPS Signal Runoff was 1.15EC and 6.0ph, need to reduce feed water EC I did some very minor defoliation on DB to allow shoots to receive light. 3/11 5 gallons RO, .75ml/gal calmag, 2.8gr/gal MC,  2ml/gal TPS Bloom, 1ml/gal TPS Signal 5.82ph, 1.1EC, 780ppm I don't know if it's this particular pheno of Double black but she's way too bushy with not enough stretch to make full use of SCroG.

I started this week off by changing to MC 2-part to dial in my nutrients. The TPS bloom nutes were causing significant calcium precip so I dropped those on 3/18 and started alternating between Greenleaf Bud Explosion and Sweet Candy at 0.5 gr/gal. Along with 1ml/gal calm-mag plus, 2 gr/gal MC Part-A, and 1.2 gr/gal MC Part-B, I typically had ~950 ppm and 1.4 EC @5.8ph. On 3/16, 10 days from flip, I noticed buds popping up all over each of the girls. That's the day after 3 of them went ape shit and kicked the stretch into overdrive requiring me to move my lights up ~12 inches to accommodate. DB, is slow and steady. She's not excited about anything and is in no real hurry to get anywhere. She's perfectly fine just chugging along, sipping on bloom nutes, and making bud sites. Overall this was an easy week of learning my plants, feeding them, and watching them grow like crazy.

Another great week in the books. DB is stacking up nicely and starting to gather some frost on her fan and sugar leaves. She's really bushy and tightly packed but I'm hesitant to remove fan leaves since most tie back directly to bud sites. The buds are exuding a faint black pepper stink. I'm excited for this one. Here's my feed measurements for the week since the inputs don't allow for measurements by weight. 2.4 gr/gal MC Part A, 0.5 gr/gal MC Part B, 1ml/gal calmag, 0.75 gr/gal BE, 1050ppm, 1.5EC, 1.5ml ph up, 5.83 ph added 5ml Earth Juice Microblast

Days 16 - 23 since the girls began flowering. (Counting from 3/11 since I flipped on 3/06 and they began budding on 3/11) This week began with the install of my auto watering/feeding setup which is about a month too late. The SCROG setup made it difficult to get into the room and was just an overall pain in the ass. The measured runoff from Cannalope Haze (the easiest to collect from) was 2100ppm and 4.61ph so I prepped 20 gallons of RO water with 1ml/gal Calmag, added Clearex as prescribed, PH to 5.8 and flushed the plants. Then I followed with 10 more gallons with TPS Liquisoil to finish the flush and replenish microbial life. Ended with runoff of ~660 ppm and 5.7 ph. I did some minor pruning and removed lower bud sites which was another pain in the ass because of the SCROG setup. DB is slowly getting frosty and still smells black pepper. I think she needs to be pruned again to get some additional light to the smaller colas but I'm still hesitant. Double Black requires about half of the feed water of the others so I had to make some adjustments on my watering system. Here's my last feed /water mix : 10 gallons RO water 2.5gr/gal MC Part A, 0.5 ml/gal calmag, 5 grams Epsom salts, 1ml/gal calmag DB is a trooper, and has been easy growing compared to the others and hasn't shown any deficiencies that I can remember. However, I've a worsening phosphorus deficiency showing in Pulsar and Cement Shoes along with the weird deficiency in Cannalope Haze so I'm gonna reduce my EC/PPM next week and reduce calmag as well to see if that gets things corrected. I dropped MC Part B since less nitrogen is needed so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with some of the deficiency I'm seeing. (doubtful)