Cycle 5 - Papaya under 200W LED

03/10/21 [Day 8]: 4 of 6 sprouts are up after a week of germination (week 0), so I'm counting today as the first day of veg (week 1). Light at 40%, will increase through the week until it's at 100%. Fingers crossed that the remaining 2 seeds sprout. __________________ 03/11/21 [Day 9]: Still not seeing any activity with the 2 that have yet to sprout. the 4 that have sprouted are looking great, and the true leaves are now as big as the cotyledons on 3 of them 💪 Light now at 60%. __________________ 03/14/21 [Day 12]: Light at 80% Started germinating another seed. One of the sprouts tipped over, but it was waterlogged and now it's starting to stand back up as it dries out. Not worried. Fed CAPS bennies today, 25mL in solution, per plant. __________________ 03/16/21 [Day 14]: Still trying to get 2 more seeds to germinate. Did not have the highest germination rate on these seeds and I'll continue trying to get a couple more to germinate and sprout. Aside from that, the 4 sprouts are looking great and starting to grow quicker now.

03/19/21 [ Day 17 ]: Something's up with the bottom leaves, they're turning yellow on 2 of the plants. I'm thinking it must be a mobile deficiency/toxicity since it's only the lower leaves. Don't think they should be deficient in anything yet, they're in new Ocean Forest soil and only been in veg for 11 days so they shouldn't be lacking anything unless it's from lockout. I double-checked that my water pH is 6.5, and my runoff pH is between 6.0 and 6.5 so that looks good. Only thing I've fed them other than water so far is a little CAPS bennies last week. No nutes yet. I let them dry out quite thoroughly before watering (not my first rodeo) so I doubt over-watering is an issue, but it's not impossible. Still not sure what's causing this yet. __________________ 03/21/21 [ Day 19 ]: The more I look into it, the more I'm thinking this is likely overwatering. I'm used to a significantly hotter HPS light, and under the new LEDs these plants take much longer to dry out than I'm used to. Going to go much lighter on the watering and not worry too much unless it gets worse. I'm pulling the most vigorous plant out and putting her into a separate veg area to act as a future mother. I intend to veg her extremely slowly, just enough to give me 6 clones for the next flower cycle in ~13 weeks, so I mean SUPER slow. Put her under a 23W CFL bulb. Will just flower 3 plants this cycle. Switched from 24/0 to 20/4 on the lighting today.

*editing this from weeks in the future* At this point I thought the problem was from over-watering, but would later determine it to be light burn from not being familiar with the SF-2000 light or LEDs in general. The light burn stunted their growth completely, which in-turn caused them to use water far slower than normal, and convinced me it was an over-watering issue because they would never dry out. Once I eventually figured out the LED burn was the issue, the plants started drying out much faster and drinking water at a normal pace. *Read my week 6 entry to see me figure it out and resolve it*

04/04/21 [Day V26]: One of the 3 bigger plants has still not recovered. We'll see if it ever does. 2 seedlings getting bigger so if they outpace either of the recovering plants I'll just replace with the seedlings. Started training the biggest plant (topped above 3rd node for main-lining). Plant in separate veg area for future clones looking great though, that one was not over-watered and is doing wonderfully.

In week 5 I figured out that the real issues I've been having with this grow wasn't over-watering. It was light burn. As my first LED run, I continuously underestimate this SF-2000 and had it at 100% at 16" in early veg when it should be at about 40% at 30" in early veg. I pushed it WAY too hard, burned all my leaves, which stunted the plants completely. Since they weren't growing, they drank almost no water and remained water-logged (why I thought I must be over-watering but couldn't figure out why as I never had that problem with the same Ocean Forest before). From being water-logged, they then showed various other deficiencies / toxicities which made it hard for me to trace the problem back to light stress. Finally figured it out last week and they spent last week getting over all the stress, expanding their roots, and growing a few new leaves. This week they're finally putting out new growth, very exciting! I've topped all 4 plants at least once now and can't wait until they finish getting over all the stress and really start taking off. Many of the light-stressed leaves have already been replaced and cut off, so we're building the foundation for some real growth now even though they're still SO small for end of week 6. Look like 2 week old plants, but hey, I'm figuring out this light which is what's important.

4/20/21 (Day V43): First day of week 7. Smallest plants you've ever seen for week 7, but I finally got the light distance + strength dialed in just right after lots of research and learned how to use this LED jazz. Plants have lots of fresh growth now and hit a big milestone today: 100% of the light-burned leaves has now been replaced with new leaves. I cut off all the old crinkly burned leaves and now the fresh ones are putting in much more work. So the story goes: -Week 5 I finally identified the issue: light stress, which had stunted growth completely for weeks. -By the end of week 5 I had the light dialed in and was waiting for plants to recover. -By the end of week 6, every light-burned leaf had been replaced with fresh growth. -Now, starting week 7 with lots of new leaves, and all topped at least once, the plants are finally on track to do some real growing.

Week 5 I learned how to use my SF-2000 light properly and stop burning the shit out of the plants. They spent week 6 recovering, week 7 they were growing again and this week (week 8) they've totally exploded. Finally vegging at full speed and should only be another 2-3 weeks before they're ready to flip. Slowly worked the SF-2000 light from 60% power to 70% power over the course of the week. It started at 27" from the canopy, but as the plants grew throughout the week they ended up about 26" below the light by the end of the week. Ditched the tie-downs in favor of a scrog.

Ditched the scrog this week, wasn't feeling it. Did a lot more topping on Day V61, which will probably be the last of the topping before flower. Another 1-2 weeks of veg will hopefully do it Turned the SF-2000 light from 70% to 75% so far this week, at 25" from canopy.

Chugging right along. Had a couple fungus gnats show up this week, but I let the plants dry out more thoroughly and haven't seen any gnats in a couple days since. Started my IPM routine. All organic stuff just sprayed around the tent perimeter as a preventative. Grabbing a few yellow sticky cards too. Not concerned. I haven't added my nutrients to the grow diary because it's a pain, but here's all I've used so far: -amended washed coffee grounds at one point -main nutrients are Humboldt Nutrients basic 3-part (Grow / Micro / Bloom) -CAPS bennies for my rhizosphere -Botanicare Silica That's it! Girls have been guzzling full strength Humboldt veg mix.

Getting closer to flower now, just waiting for a full canopy. Topped plants again this week. Think that by the time the new shoots grow out, the canopy should be nice and full and we'll start flowering. Check back soon!

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06/01/21 After 12 weeks of veg (which is really the equivalent of about 6 weeks because of all the setbacks I had), I finally flipped over to 12/12 today. Time to see what these ladies are made of! 😄 06/04/21 (Day F4) - plants are showing pistils already. Starting flower strong, except I have some yellowing on lower leaves between the veins, especially on the back-left plant. I'm fairly confident this is a magnesium deficiency so I'm grabbing some Cal-Mag tomorrow and will see if that curtails the issue. 06/05/21 (Day F5) - Fed all plants some Cal-Mag, especially the back left. Will monitor closely and see if it clears the issue up. 06/06/21 (Day F6) - Yellowing looks slightly worse today, even after feeding Cal-Mag yesterday. I still believe this is an Mg def. and hoping it gets better tomorrow. There's always some delay so I'm not freaking out yet. I'm told Mg def. takes a few days to stop progressing after correcting. The Cal-Mag I fed yesterday was a light dose anyway, and I'll likely repeat with more in another couple days, as this is the first time I've used Cal-Mag all cycle. As usual, my strategy is to not panic and over-correct 😎 06/07/21 (Day F7) - Confirmed this is a Mg deficiency with more research, and the help of a couple answers to my question here on GrowDiaries - thanks! Yellowing spread seems to have slowed. Gave them another touch of Cal-Mag today. Will continue to wait and see.

06/09/21 [Day F9]: Magnesium deficiency has either completely stopped or is spreading so slow it's imperceptible now. WAY better than a couple days ago when it was advancing like the storm troopers into Poland. Feeling good about that, left a couple yellow leaves on in case it gets any worse but I think we're back on track after the double-dose of Cal-Mag and a little transition nutes. Hadn't done any defoliation in a couple weeks so I did a bunch today. Some lolipopping, uncovered every possible growth node and removed the leaves that were completely covered. Otherwise left them as bushy as possible. Another update on my nutes. All I've used this whole grow is: -Humboldt Nutrients basic 3-part (Grow / Micro / Bloom) -Silica -Cal-Mag -CAPS bennies -Washed coffee ground amend that's it! I don't like recording the amounts in the journal because I go by feel and every plant gets a different amount depending on how they're doing. Way too organic of a process for me to measure precise amounts of solution fed each time, but everything is mixed at recommended strengths and fed as needed while watching how the plants react.

I have the SF-2000 light at 75%, and 22" from the canopy and the plants are digging that right now.

4th week of flower! Day F22: -Slowly been working the humidity down. This week I'll go from 55% to 50% and then hold that steady until we're closer to the end of flower. -Light is at 100% around 20-22" from the canopy -Been going too light on the bloom nutes and the yellowing is outpacing my nute feedings but I was erring on the safe side and being light-handed. I'm working the strength up and expect they'll start to look happier and less yellow soon Day F27: -Humidity now at 50% -Light is at 100% power, now lowered to 19" from canopy -Going heavier on the bloom nutes now (and continued Cal-Mag) and yellowing has slowed significantly. Plants are starting to turn darker green signalling recovery from the Mg deficiency.

Yellowing increased over the last few days. I kept underestimating how much bloom nutes they need as I've never flowered plants this big before. I'm working on getting them caught up now and should be back on track soon. Buds are continuing to stack otherwise, and look great. Pretty frosty already

Buds starting to put on some size. Things are getting frosty and there's now an intense tropical smell when I open the tent that's pretty unreal. By the end of this week I started seeing some amber trichomes on the lower sugar leaves, and a lot that were cloudy. Surprised with how fast they're ripening. I'm guessing they'll be done at 10 weeks, we'll see how close I am.

Switched from the Humboldt Nutrients 3-part over to FloraNova Bloom 1-part this week. I think next week will be the final week of bloom nutes before I start flushing, 10 weeks total is my new guess. Buds are getting heavy now! some were starting to lean too much so I tied 'em in with some seatbelts. Can't let them fall off the wagon 😉 Plants are resorbing SO MANY nutrients from the leaves, I can't keep up with nutes. In my attempt to avoid tip burn, I've not been giving them enough food. Had trouble finding the right balance.

Day F55 was their final nute feed. Plain water from here on out.

Harvested all plants progressively during week 9, each on a different day. Glad I set up a drying tent instead of using the flower tent to dry because they weren't ready on the same day.

Dried at 50% humidity at about 70F with some light airflow from the exhaust fan. Took about 2 weeks hanging before I trimmed and jarred. Still going to be curing and burping jars for weeks or months, but it's dry enough now to vape easily. Buds turned out pretty fluffy and not dense, but very crystal-y and very strong. Great flavor! Took forever to trim LOL. I harvested a little too late, and all the tropical smell faded a few weeks before harvest but the peppery / earthy flavors came out strong especially after dry. It smells really peppery, and also tastes extremely peppery, it's delicious. Not like any other strain I've ever had. I wish GrowDiaries had a "peppery" flavor to choose from, can't believe they don't as caryophyllene is the called the "peppery" terp. Really enjoyable this in the Volcano! 😊 Had a few hermies from a light leak that I've since repaired. Found 11 seeds, but not a huge deal. Next cycle that should be much less of a problem, if at all. Big thanks to @Icebox_Kush for the inspiration and knowledge, check him out to see how you've been using your fridge wrong for years.wish