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.
Why not just go right in to the 3gal pots?
I do and its very nice not to worry about transplant.
I'm even dialing in how much water to give each week pretty nicely
@MrHightimes, I grew 6 autos right before this grow and planted them straight into the 3 gallon buckets. Because they didn't take much water for the first month I ended up with a lot of salt build up that caused issues before I could identify and correct.
I figured, the solo cups would allow me to water to runoff and avoid the build up.
I'm about to try some Megacrop here soon.
My friends are growing some pretty plants with it
my 9 part GH does nice but its ALOT and the ppm is so high!
@MrHightimes, Megacrop is great but keep some extra calcium and Epsom salt on hand if you're using RO water.
If you haven't ordered yet, I would suggest getting the 2 part MC so you can reduce N levels and up PK during the later stages of flower.