By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
this is my first cannabis blog. writing about it makes me appreciate how involved the entire process can be: emotionally, biologically, technically, financially, time - it's a whole-body experience, stressful, fun, and potentially rewarding.
breaking the baby's taproot on the first day, broke my heart. watching her stress, and helping her recover brought me closer to her - i have a feeling we will learn a lot about each other in the next few months.
she germinated and started life in paper towels. when she is big enough, i will transfer her into a high-pressure aeroponics hpa system. true hpa systems use droplets smaller than 50 microns (a human hair is about 65 microns). to accomplish this we pressurize the nutrient solution to about 80-100psi using a booster pump, compression tank, and safety pressure control switches.
hpa can be productive, but it can also be problematic from blockages due to precipitation. to reduce such issues, we will use a10 micron filter at the pump inlet and each nozzle also has a built-in screen filter.
the reason for the contraption shown in the images is the girl will be living in a 24" square tent. it would be nice to contain most of the equipment and accessories inside the tent with the girl for lack of space and a clean innocent look.
we all bring different strengths and personal flavors to our grows, and by sharing dairies - to our communities. this is my second hpa garden, the first one was all manual and i learned first hand about the advantages and potential failures in an hpa system. i have an interest in electronics, software, and control systems. this particular hpa garden will be more data-driven with sensors and actuators helping in deep learning and safeguarding against potential catastrophic issues
hopefully, my girl and i can make it through this first week without further incidents - i am curious and look forward to the second week of growth, tasks, events, data, and magic.
again ... i never realized that this much effort went into starting baby girls ... much respect for the ladies. considering she almost died from a broken taproot she is doing really well. the roots are not showing at the bottom of the pot yet, but she seems to have adopted without showing signs of stress.
i helped her move from the nursery into her new home. as everything is all-new - new baby, new home, new technology, (relatively) new grower - it seems i am behind trying to get to the front. hpa is fun, i think once everything settles in, it will be very easy to maintain and grow.
i have the basic parts work - the high-pressure dosing, the nutrient distribution, the drainage, lighting figured out. i need to vent the tent more to reduce the little heat generated by the lights. i seem to have a few water leaks on at least one push connector on the high-pressure tank. then i think i need to clean up the wiring and nutrient lines.
then for me - the real fun can begin. i already started building a computer for this garden - i really look forward to observing the hpa system from a data point of view to understand better how to maintain the best environment for the girl as well as increase operational efficiency.
i killed the poor girl ... i had too many infrastructure issues in the form of leaks and nozzles falling off. we had a funeral, then i tore the house down and rebuilt it so we not have the same none girl related issues again.
i also started another Hawaiian Thai kush seed from my rare collections of zilizopendwa -. the loved nuggets
small things put big things into perspective this week ... it sure feels longer than 7 days this baby plant week ... the new seedling is doing great, and with the new home I don't have to mess with it as much. i have to bring the light very close to the seedling to prevent stretching. unfortunately, the light directly above the seedling prevents me from really enjoying the growth visually and taking lots of pictures, still, the camera and timelapse helps.
i think i should have started the seedling elsewhere then brought it to the pot when the roots were developed more, but it is safer here - even if it seems a little slow growing. i think the growth will sprout once the roots are directly exposed to the pressurized nutrients.
it was fun dosing and using the diy doser, even though I had to prepare and dispose of a 50-gallon nutrient batch when I only really needed 2 gallons for the hpa garden. still, I can't measure things accurately manually so the plant(s) has a better chance this way. also, i get to run the doser commands manually, which is making me learn and understand better the challenges it will take to make multi-zone dosing reliably autonomous
girlfriend and i are looking forward to a second week of grow
hey there Kijani, so what i do is i look for signs of wilting , yellowing, or discoloration, but that often "just means" something's wrong : little plants really have a knack for surving things and muscling through them. usually they recover, but sometimes they get shocked and grow slowly. you can just tell your plant isnt doing anything anymore. i dont think that's your case here, though. Hope this helps ! 🚀
previously, all my seedlings have almost stretched. this time i put the cm led lights 2 inches away from the seedling, and it seems to have induced self-fimming and divided into 5 or more branches. despite looking at many timelapse videos of germinating seedlings, i have not seen behavior similar to that of my little girl.
besides that, it was a pretty uneventful week. i mixed and changed nutrients once testing the doser - still feeding at 1ec, pH 5.9.
I had one leak, i think the hpa nozzle was shooting water from the side as i was not sitting correctly on the grommet - i must figure a way around this.
i did not build the garden master controller yet with high-pressure sensors, hopefully soon.
at ~2" the girl self-fimmed by splitting rapidly into branches rather than elongate as i have previously observed in seedlings or other timelapse vids ..is this normal growth?
or is it related to the cm led (formally tall trees leds) lighting at 2" above the lights or genetics
It's not a normal grow, but as you say she just shelfimmed. You should do some lst to be able to manage that branches. I dont see any mutation on the leaves.
When I have this kind of problems I always give them 7-10 days more to see if they're able to recover or if they deceive to be thrown to the trash.
Don't worry about the light distance if you are able to keep the PPFD between 50-100 and the temp on the canopy of the plant always <27ºC. The height is not a problem unless you cant check that PPFD values.
another uneventful week. the girl is still creating nodes like crazy ... she is growing sideways rather than rushing for the lights. i raised the lights higher to about 12" from the top of the leaves.
i also changed the nutrients from a seedling recipe to an early growth stage recipe that is richer in nitrogen with a higher ec 1.2. i also got to see the roots for the first time, they are looking really nice - white and fuzzy. i made the main nutrient tank more permanent and relocated the used nutrient and fresh nutrient tanks in their own chamber so, it's even easier to do manual nutrient changes (1 container in and 1 container out sort thing). later on, in the week, i noticed the main roots showing a little discoloration, not sure if i should be concerned about this, but she looks healthy.. it was fun using the doser again as i really hate mixing chem's since my days in chemistry labs. looking forward to new aggressive growth this week.
they seemed to be really white at the beginning of the week when i first looked at them. they seem to have show signs of off-coloring now.
should i be worried and taking counter or investigative action at this stage.
the plants look healthy though. i am using hpa.
Your roots look fine. They will go a little off-white as they get larger and floramicro will stain them a bit too.
I always use hydroguard so I don't have to worry about the roots.
Also, is your res really at 50°? That seems super cold, I think 60° is the lowest you really wanna go.
she is doing great ... growing thick and bushy. she has about 6 main steams and multiple strong-looking branches on each of the main stems. her roots look good even though they are not bleached white, i should put a microscope on the roots one of these days to see the micro root hairs that high-pressure aeroponics tends to promote in plants. i was not sure how to grow her out - i like canopies but she branched out too much to grow in a 2'x2' space so i may have to scrog her in a larger space.
i must learn how to ask plants to self-fim as she did - i have never done such a good job with my own hands, and may never.
she is still branching, so i realized she needed ore space and put her out in a larger 4x4 tent as compare to the orignal 2'x2'. the tent has more cmlights then the single one in the smaller tent - this made the girl start to uptake nutrients such that there is very little drained to waste.
i also put a screen to start scroging over her. the screen has large holes, so i think it may require high stress training to move the stems to the next section without breaking them.
the data from grow rooms sensors etc gets overwhelming quickly and i can't really keep up. so i created a graphical animation visualizing for the composite garden data from the live garden sensor data.
this is fun as things on the dashboard change colors and shape based on the sensor status. it is also interactive as i can also send commands to say control the lights, pump by clicking on them on the animation.
. i am still using my doser to mix nutrients and then refill this garden manually. besides the plant response to the increased lighting , all other conditions i can adjust are still similar.
she self-fimmed into numerous branches as a seedling and seems like scrogging is a good way to give her space.
how long should one scrog a single plant for before flowering?
even though a longer wait, it would be nice to fill the scrog out.
is hst by pinching and tying ok?
To fill the net your going to haveto do some HST or some bending and tying. The stature of the plant looks very vertical. I think your going to need to veg for atleast another 2 weeks in order to fill the net out :) Check out my SOG grow for tips :)
kijani
