Zkittles Auto 3

Third time is a charm, right? One shall see. I am not convinced that my first Zkittlez auto in week 8 is the best I can do, plus I wanted to track a grow from start to finish...so I can check my steps along the way and get advice from seed to harvest. Looking forward to all your input and advice!

So I decided for this run I would start nutes (diluted of course) in week 2. So far, so good, no burn to note and she is reaching for the sky! I typically have waited until mid-week 3 on most other auto grows, but I want to see what happens if I start feeding earlier on. I have 3 Zkittlez going in this run, but will be show casing the young lady on the right in pic of all three. Off to a strong start. Thanks for checking things out!

Great week, she’s standing tall and off to a fantastic start! No significant issues to note. Light intensity is set at 50% on the TSL 2000, and she seems quite happy at this set point with a distance of 22” above canopy. She’s responding great to current nute schedule and has not shown any signs of significant deficiency or toxicity so far...always a good thing! I’ll start some light LST next week...and so begins another journey down auto road! I think this run will be my last zkittlez grow for awhile, I feel like things are a bit monotonous after growing this strain for the last several months. I have nothing bad to say about the strain, I love it, but time to expand my horizon a little. Thanks for checking things out this week, time for me to burn. Take care!

So far plant 3 (far right) is doing great. She’s put on some inches! I thought I would start LST this week, but I’m going to push it off for a couple more days. Will post an update when I do. She’s liking the nutes, and so far things are status quo...which is just freaking lovely! I have 3 plants in this run, all in same conditions, same light, same nutes, same everything...BUT, the little girl in the middle, I guess I call her plant 2, has developed a nasty deficiency. It blows my mind how this happens sometimes. I know each plant is different, but c’mon! Pics 6-10 are of the deficiency, and I added them here so I could ask the group about it...inquiry to follow shortly. Back to plant 3...all is well, LST in the near future, fingers crossed status quo continues moving forward. 2/8: turns out I had to recalibrate my pH meter, thanks again @experimentgreen, so the deficiency seen was due to improper pH. After recalibration and flushing plants these girls are on the mend and surprisingly look pretty good at the moment. I stripped severely impacted fan leaves and left ones that weren’t in to bad of shape. I felt they recovered enough to start LST. Rookie lesson learned!

The pH issue seems to be resolved, and the plant is “acting” happy. Leaves are stretched out and the canopy appears to be active. That being said, the pH issue identified last week and the flush after resulted in little to no “nutrients” available to the plant for too long. Unfortunately, my correction of one issue may have resulted in the creation of another one. I see no more issue with phosphorus, but I do see some signs of a potential immobile nutrient deficiency and a potential Ca deficiency. I have returned to feeding normally and she does appear to be improving, or at least not worsening. It is my hope that these back to back assaults do not impact her too much. Can’t stress enough the importance of not over looking the little things that have huge impacts. Not a mistake I’m proud of and one I hope to never make again. Again, she seems to be rebounding, and I have moved all over to the flower tent now that a few pistils are starting to pop up. Other than keeping an excessively over watchful eye on things, my goal is to get back to a preventable state of practice instead of a reactionary and treatment based one. Thanks!!

There enough pistils now that I think these girls are finally over the veg hump and have entered into flower...tool a bit longer than I’m used to. No more deficiencies to note, growth continues to be strong, these girls are just trucking along. It appears that they are going to be on the smaller and more compact size, which is fine. As I said before this will be the last zkittlez run for awhile. Maybe I’ll plant a few outside this year since this strain really seems to put itself on auto pilot. So far, so good...plan is to keep things just like this. Thanks!

I was unable to post an update for any of my grows recently due to some unavoidable curve balls...sometimes life gets in the way of...well in the way of life! No major hiccups with the plants thankfully, all continues to move along just fine. I had a light issue and needed to replace the one in my flower tent. I picked up a Mars hydro TSW 2000., and the ladies responded really well to the abrupt change. I have been slowly increasing intensity and am ready to go max here shortly. I didn’t want to turn it on full blast for fear of over stressing , so I’ve kept it at 75% for the last week or so. Buds are forming beautifully and that characteristic purple hue is starting to come through.

I have added a few extra items this week, and even though I’ll now be tapering off, I still wanted to see how plants responded. I have been very weary in giving more to my plants, but I fear that if I don’t push the boundary a little then how will I know if I’m maxing out my and the plants capabilities. All have responded well accept for one which developed the dreaded rust spots and I’m guessing this is both pH and Ca related, will flush and hopefully correct issue moving forward. Other than that, plants are doing great, I tried increasing light intensity but plants didn’t seem to like it so I backed off and am at about 80%-85%. The plants like the current height as well, so no more changes this run. One girl, the showcase from start, is doing the best, great bud development with that awesome purple color...other two are same size and not quite as colorful...but still looking mighty mighty fine! Thanks, take care!

I think this week will be the last week of a majority of nutes for these girls. I’ll likely do a week of ripen, then I’ll start to flush. Been doing some research regarding the “burnt” crispy, curling upwards leaves at the top of plants. I could not nail down an exact nutrient deficiency, always looks like it could be 2 or 3 different things. BUT, in my search I came across light burn specific to LED lights and I have to say it’s pretty damn convincing. There is no bud bleaching, just top leaves are affected. Unfortunately I can’t raise my light any higher so I was forced to reduce intensity to around 75%. It’s too early to tell, but fingers crossed it mitigates the issue. One girl, the showcase, is doing much better than the other two. All three are coming along just fine however. Just a few more weeks and I can stick a fork in this run. Thanks all!

I have been debating a light vs nutrient issue for the last 1-2 weeks. I don’t think it is outside the realm of possibility that it is a combination of both, plus these are autos and they are nearing the inevitable end. I decided to for-go the ripen in last week or two and instead I am trying NPK Raw as a supplement for late into flower. I added 1/16 tsp/gal H2O and dosed all three plants with this mix. I will say two things, and please note I have only used Raw this one time so far, first it dropped my pH by a lot. Second, the plants seemed to respond quite quickly. I noticed a decrease in phos related issue and plants just looked better. All that aside, these ladies are stackin up beautifully! I’m pretty happy overall. Last run I flushed with plain H2O without pH’ing, but I don’t think I’m going to do that again. So, for the remaining time that these ladies have I’ll be flushing with pH’d water, no more nutes, just coasting from here on in.

It’s time...these girls are ready! I swapped out these girls with what I had in my veg tent. Those other plants in my orgo run needed to get into the flower set up stat. I’ll let the zkittles go through their dark period in veg set up. I have not had much issue with odors, it’s been fairly manageable thus far. Same with RH and temp...all was manageable with fans and no filter...but holy good lord do these plants have a super strong smell. I had to fire up the old filter and duct fan to get the matter under control! These ladies will be ready for the chop in 24-48 hours. More details to come! Thanks!!

It’s always sad to see the reduction in size after drying...but that’s part of the process. I think this run went really really well. I am happy with the outcome. Each plant produced over 60 grams each, 62g, 65g, and 68g to be exact. IDs are tight, and the smell is intoxicating. Now starts the long cure...after a small sample (or three) of course! Thanks...this was a good run!