Ten Year Break

INTRO Nearly a decade since I last grew but with lockdown limiting my income I didn't want to pay dealer prices for average weed. STORY SO FAR Plants are grown from seed (Barney's Farm Dos Si Dos 33, feminized) and from the very start the plants have been somewhat different. Plant #1 (left) has been very healthy and vigourous from the start whereas plant #2 (right) has been weaker and generally sad-looking since around week 4 of veg, showing some problems on the lower leaves (pictured). Later on in veg these problems disappeared but the newer leaves developed tiger striped patterns which continues to this day, but has become less and less noticable during flower. This makes me think the striping was a deficiency of some kind but I lack the experience to know for sure. I think #2 is just generally hungrier for nutrients than #1. This diary is jumping in at the very start of week 7 flower (day 43). Expecting them to go between 9 and 10 weeks (60-65 days). Mistakes were made before this, including (but not limited to): - I switched to 12/12 FAR TOO LATE. I was not expecting this strain to stretch so much. - I dropped a fan on them, which broke some of the main branches. Plants were topped at 5th node with no LST (mistake). Training in the screen was done by pulling the tips back under the screen - no ties were used. I will probably get some ties for next time. WEEK 7 FLOWER I removed a lof of growth (defoliation) to improve air circulation and get more light to bud sites. There is lots of trichome production - the pics don't do them justice at all. The smell which started out sweet and almost like strawberries has become more musky. Plants are showing signs of over-fertilization currently (plant #1 especially), so will be reducing feed to 1ml/l of OT Bloom and OT PK for the remainder of week 7 to normalise levels. I'm very underwhelmed by buds so far and really hoping they fatten up a lot in the next 3-4 weeks. This is my first time using LED lights and these lights in this space should give me 925 µmols/m²/sec which should be plenty. I don't think they could really use any more light without CO2 supplement. Last time I grew, I used a 400w HPS in this space and yeilds were fantastic - but I did a much better job of managing the ScrOG that time. Hopefully I'm worried about nothing and the last few weeks of flower will fill out the buds nicely. ADDITIONAL FEED NOTES Epsom salts have been added to feed for the since week 5 flower at 1g / litre.

Here we are at the end of week 7 (flower day 48) and it's been a fairly meh week. Little has changed overall - things are not looking great but nor are they looking terrible. I do feel like I'm right on the edge of more serious issues though and if I don't solve my problems soon things could spiral. I've been giving light feed this week after seeing signs of nutrient burn last week. The result is an increase of yellowing on the leaves. I've also got some lower leaves showing signs of what I think is a phosphorous deficiency. Some fan leaves have developed red stems which I believe this is very common when temps are too low. Buds have not developed at all as far as I can tell - though they are resinous and smell very nice. The smell has changed again, developing noticable pine notes. I think what has happened is this; I was overfeeding until recently but as I was identifying and resolving that we had a cold period where I am which has caused (or compounded) nutrient lock and generally stalled development and caused some deficiencies. Some nights my ambient air temperature dropped down to 16.7C. If that was ambient then chances are my root mass was at 15C or below which could easily be causing my issues. At the very least it's something I need to fix to allow further diagnosis of any issues. So yesterday I threw together a thermostat and a couple of reptile heat mats to provide my substrate with some heating. This needed more power sockets than I had, which in turn meant replacing my entire power/control board - all without being able to remove the plants from the wardrobe which was very awkward. It's all a bit messy and not what I would call a 'job well done' so once these plants get the chop I'll be overhauling it and doing a better job. I want to re-do my ventilation to remove a bend from the ducting anyway so I'll probably be gutting the entire ventilation/electrics system to do it again but better :). For right now though, it does the job. Heading in to week 8 I'm going to be increasing feed again - probably start around 2.5ml/litre and see where we go. I need to be keeping a very close eye on for signs of improvement or decline, quickly diagnose any problems which present and solve those problems. With this in mind I've ordered a some organic cal-mag-sulphur-trace, as I am in a soft water area and calcium is the only common deficiency I lack the resources to solve. This will replace epsom salts in my feed. In other, more uplifting news, I recieved a new batch of seeds to pick from once these two plants are done so I'll be spending the next 3 or so weeks constantly changing my mind about which variety to grow next! Currently leaning towards Congo!

Well, here we are at the end of week 8 (day 56) of flower and I think things are looking up. The plants had 3 waterings this week and with my calmag the feeds have varied slightly with the calmag. I started off with a big dose of calmag, before bringing it down to the level indicated above this text and in the last feed I reduced the amount of PK. From now on, I'll be watering with Calmag and Bloom only before moving to plain water. Barney's suggest 60-65 days of flower is about right for Dos Si Dos 33, but given the temp issues which I think caused the development to stall, I had I'm planning on giving them maybe an extra week or two to give them the opportunity to fill out some more - the buds are at last starting to fatten up, but not all of them. The main colas on plant #1 are still quite anemic, but it's secondary sites are now developing. We'll see how the next couple of weeks goes. One thing I have noticed in the last week since sorting my soil temperature out is a HUGE explosion in the population of insects living in the soil - I have 99% sure these are common white springtails which to me indicate a healthy ecosystem. Plant #1 is showing continued yellowing of it's large fan leaves, but nothing too drastic. Overall I'm pleased with how this week has gone. FEEDING BREAKDOWN Water #1 Calmag - 4ml/l OT Bloom - 2.5ml/l OT PK - 1ml/l Water #2 Calmag - 2ml/l OT Bloom - 2.5ml/l OT PK - 1ml/l Water #3 Calmag - 1.5ml/l OT Bloom - 2.5ml/l OT PK - 0.5ml/l

Here we are at the end of the 9th week of flower (day 63) and.. well... the only real change since last week is the drastic increase of yellowing leaves on plant #1. I don't know if this is due to it reaching the end of it's lifecycle or if there is another issue going on, as plant #2 isn't doing this at all. Regardless, I'm accepting that these girls are not going to yield as much as I had hoped and I'm now looking forward to getting them chopped. With this in mind they are now being given only water as of yesterday. I plan to give them around 14 days of plain water before chop - so I should be harvesting around the 18th March for a total of around 76 days of flowering. Even though I have 2 weeks left to go my thoughts are already turning to my next grow - what lessons can I learn from this grow to apply to the next and how will that affect my plans? But I'll save all that for a post-harvest recap when I have a better idea of exactly what I've got out of this grow.

SO, the plants are chopped and the buds trimmed and dried. So what's the result? Dried buds ready for cure: 194g Fresh 'trim' / air buds frozen for making hash: 701g As expected, yields are not spectacular and I'm still not really sure where I went wrong in that respect. The buds are all fairly small - no monster colas here - it is a scrog after all - but even taking this in to account the buds didn't fatten up very much at all. This is my first time growing with LEDs so maybe that had an impact but I'm putting most of the blame on two areas: 1) I managed the scrog badly. I switched to flower far too late. With so much growth above the screen, I wasn't aggressive enough when it came to removing enough of the lower bud sites. It also made the canopy uneven and ultimately not very well filled. 2) The low temperatures I was dealing with mid- to late-flower. I know that this space can produce so much more - the last time I grew in this space (about 10 years ago with a 400w HPS) I filled twice as many jars as this easily - I've uploaded some pics of this for reference. Overall I'm happy, just not as happy as I could have been. I've already got 2 more seeds in soil. I will be making some modifications to my trusty growdrobe over the coming days ready for them to germinate. Thanks for reading, my next diary will be getting going in the next week or so where we will be growing ACE Seeds' "Congo" and I'll be testing out my newly build bonsai mother PC case! Hope to see you there!