OG Kush ~ Growers Choice ~ DWC ~ 1

Transplanted to netcups & buckets on day 7. (Future grows will be closer to 10-14 days so as to get a larger taproot before transplanting, save some money on nutes, and promote a healthier transition to veg.) Experimented with both placing the rockwool directly onto the net cup, as well as halfway up. I'm partial to halfway up - or even a smidge higher. Start with 4 gallons of water, transitioning to 3 once the roots pop out the netcup. You get more dry roots this way, promoting faster growth, and a larger taproot - you also reduce the chance of drowning or over-stressing the dry/early root system.

Since each plant has a root system outside of the net cup, they each got about 20 minutes in plain water with 1.0ml/gal x 3.5 FloraKleen, before nutrient swap . (Radix/Recharge/Kelp/Molasses are very dark and tend to make diagnosing your roots by eye pretty tough. So this seems like a nice "just in case" measure.")

Wasn't happy with how Kelp Me was gunking up my roots (using with recharge is too much kelp +molasses), so during nute swap I gave them all a FloraKleen bath (about 20 minutes each). Instead, I will be using Floralicious Plus as suggested by GH. (which I should have been doing this from the start - Idk what got it in my head early to use Kelp Me in the bucket... /shrug). May still use the Kelp as a foliar spray. I hear & read good things. Finally got around to cooling off my buckets. Rather than spend more money for a water chiller, or pulling the coils out of 6 humidifiers etc. I chose a more hands on approach - that cost much much less. If you like what you see in the photo's, then here ya go: -Packing Foam Sheets (large perforated rolls - perfect size for 5gl Buckets) -EasyLiner Smooth Top Shelf Liner (20inch x 24ft) *WHITE! -Reflective Tape (I like HVAC tape, made for flex so its strong & will last!) -Binder Clips -Rope (the bottom isn't flush since the buckets bow inward - prevents them from sliding off) *-Food Grade Cold Packs (for lunch boxes) *Buy two sets* (so if need be, you can add another when you take out the old for cleaning) All of this can be found at Walmart. The Shelf Liners have to be cut down to the same size as the packing foam sheets. Leaving 3 inches of extra liner on each side to be folded up and clipped down) I chose to do it this way for an easy on, easy off - to make sanitizing my buckets each week a little easier, and to put less stress on the liner over time. Buckets will now reflect light rather than absorb, as well as insulate, effectively shading the nutrient solution! Add Frozen Cold packs anytime it gets too warm. ---------- 3/20/21 - Recharge should be used at HALF dosage in DWC/RDWC, (or less). The recommended dosage is too much I think - it will take over your root system and deny your plant oxygen, potentially stunting its growth going into mid veg. (We want to boost that growth - more roots, more oxygen, more everything! Gunky roots will deny it all of these things. Even if that gunk is a bennie.) Rather than swap nutes so soon, I added 35ml(10ml/gl) of Humic Acid (Bioag Ful-Power) to break up the gunk. Next week we'll try 1/3 the dosage. Found ONE good thread amongst dozens, where a guy used one single-use packet in a 30gal RDWC system, with perfect results. That's roughly .156ish grams, X gallons used = roughly .5tsp per 3.5g (or ~.15g per gallon). DO NOT add molasses with this product thinking that a smaller dose of recharge needs the sugar to "party" - it does not. The sugars needed to survive are already in the recharge! Add more, and you just make the chelation problem worse. The following morning showed a night and day difference in gunk. But still a little left - added another 10ml/gl to each bucket. We've got visible new growth up top - and light root pruning showed that the roots are still alive and well down below.

If you noticed, week 2 & 3 base nutrients did not change. I did this so as to not overload the gals - I could see signs that something was wrong and I did not want to push them more before fixing the issue. (I would have been locked out anyway*) -TOO MUCH Recharge!!! -Broken BlueLab PH Pen (Apparently we've been living at 7.7-8.7ish this entire time!!!) I have since replaced the broken pen with one locally from an official BlueLab retailer. PH Is now back on track (crazy it took 4 weeks to show any signs of lockout! Luck? Great genetics? I hope so) The 35ml/gl of Humic Acid I added did a great job of breaking up the gunk and to get the girls some oxygen and nutrients. We saw immediate improvements in two hours, and night and day differences overnight in every plant in the garden except for one. The Humic just wasn't enough for her (even with a little extra, and some light pruning). Since the one girl isn't doing so well even after the Humic Acid, I decided to swap nutes a couple days early in hopes that it will bounce her back + another bath - she looked better, just super small :( Now that I've corrected the PH, and will be using 1/3 the amount of recharge, we should be fine to get nutrients back on track and recover, explode - and flip. Fingers crossed! (If all goes well, we will be topping after a little stretch) ------------------ The mystery seeds in the back were somehow unaffected by the recharge situation. (Perhaps because they are halfway up the net cup, the dry roots are protected from the recharge in the reservoir?) Took the opportunity to practice some manifolding 😃 The roots did gunk up like the other 3, but the Humic Acid did its thing and helped a lot. No visible signs of lockout like the others.../shrug. ------------------ Next Day: The unhappy gal got worse over night. Roots are still completely covered - Humic and nute swap didn't seem to help at all. I gave her a BIG root prune - at this point those roots are holding her back, we now need her to focus on growing fresh new ones, not try and build on what's covered. Hoping there are some dry roots above the net cup / inside the rockwool, that will bounce her back. We saw stretch in the other two overnight!!!!! YUSS! -------------------- 03/26/21 The unhappy gal did not improve, the yellowing made its way to the center stalk so I pulled her. Recharge had covered the bottom of the rockwool, and was consequently sopping wet. Not a single root to be found, and a little bit of root rot had started to form in the rockwool. Broken PH pen / too much recharge, & sadly the humic didn't seem to help her. All in all, this could have been so much worse, all 5 plants potentially. Lessons learned! The other OG & Mystery seeds are growing again and doing better! Though it is very unfortunate that I chose to place the OG at the bottom of the net cup - I had no idea just how bushy the pheno is - they would have been SO much happier halfway up like the 2 mystery seeds. I topped them and gave them a light defoliation to help get some sun in and encourage branching.

30 minute FloraKleen bath before nute swap Aside from stunting/lack of stretching - there've been no problems since we corrected the broken PH pen, and started using 1/3 the amount of recharge. Defoliated the larfy lower branches that formed while they were stunted. We're hopefully on track to start stretching, top, then hopefully flip after two or three weeks! Figured some Fish Sh!t wouldn't hurt, maybe even help me catch up a bit :D -------------------- Next Day: UGH! Recharge invaded AGAIN! Even with using 1/3 the dosage...Not sure why it got so much better only to RE-gunk up with the 2nd application (some leftover chelating agents in the root system perhaps?). Roots seemed very happy and doubled in size after reverting to 1/3 the dosage, but after nute swap last night, and checking this morning - back to square one. Covered in black pockets of gunk. I've tried diluting, mixing 4th after Silica/Calmag/Micro, as well as last. Nothings helped. The stuff is just plain old mislabeled for hydro :( FloraKleen bath, fresh nutes, no more recharge. Switched to Photosynthesis Plus, something specifically tailored for Aeroponics/DWC etc. -------------------- 4/5/21 The OG Kush were looking rather dark and eventually started to curl - N Toxicity 😟 Swapped out nutrients and went ahead and switched to what I had planned for the next grow (my next diary entry will reflect this, Flora 2-3-1 veg / 2-1-3 flower). Didn't feel like swapping out the mystery seeds - they look great, they'll be fine a couple more days. I have two sets of small airstones that have been clogging up on me (could even be from the recharge idk), so I broke down and got some bigger/better ones. Replaced my humidifier with a Swamp Cooler w/oscillating airflow, now seeing 65-75 RH.

I adjusted my nutrients a "little" bit. I will now be doing 2-3-1 ml/gl micro-grow-bloom in veg, and 2-1-3 in flower. I had planned on using the recommended dosage for General Hydro's 10-Part Professional System the entire first grow, but since the one OG Kush suffered from Nitrogen toxicity, it seemed best to cut back now! Rigged my AC to vent directly into the tent to improve temperatures. I dialed in 65-70% RH with a relief vent for a perfect environment, and to relieve some positive pressure. (I'm not worried about smell or VPD) This happened to work in my favor. Since I live in MO and the rain jacks up our RH (putting the tent over 80% sometimes), I can now place a fan in front of the relief vent and keep it under 70% anytime I need to! -------------------- 4/11/20 One OG Fully bounced back, and the other has been pretty stagnant - seems as if too much recharge is up in dry root system in the net pot. It's most likely wet and covered in recharge and choking! Maybe it will bounce back maybe not. Will likely keep it going as an experiment, see what happens. Roots keep growing when I prune, and it shot out some pistils... /shrug

Lollipoped and flipped to flower. Could definitely use another week of veg, but I'd very much like to get through these and on to the next project, with a fresh start & 6 plants (No recharge/broken PH pen mishaps, etc.) We look very healthy and fully recovered from everything, so we should be just fine to start a little earlier than preferred.

Would have been the last week for Radix. Will stop using on the Mystery seeds, they clearly do not need it - but will go one or two more weeks for the OG Kush, since they lagged behind due to the Recharge situation. -------------------- Got around to making a C02 generator: 5gl Bucket 2.5 gal Water (No more than 3gal* depending on the strength of your air pump, or the mixture ends up in the airline) 8 cups Sugar (fully dissolved in warm water) 1/4 cup Active Dry Yeast (I mix half with the sugar / the other half at the end for a slow release) *Do not use longer than two weeks* It will start to spoil. - (Good Bucket Lid) Tubing / Air stone ran in from a low watt air pump to the solution, and a 2nd tube ran from the lid out and to a high placed fan. This isn't quite as good as a C02 bag or tank of course, but it does well to get your PPM over ambient with harmless/natural fermentation - and for the price you can't beat that. (Eventually I'll upgrade to a refillable C02 tank*) -------------------- No checkmark on the PH Pen this morning, so I snagged some G.H. PH 7.0 & 4.0 calibration solution. Checkmark is back! From what I gather, this is a common mistake made amongst us newbies, we forget to look for the checkmark, meter eventually strays outside of calibration - and then you get what you assume to be deficiencies. And they are, technically, but due to lockout* from your pen being off, NOT from insufficient nutrients in the reservoir. In that scenario you would be wasting money by adding more nutrients, and the problem would just persist. Good rule of thumb - check your PH Pen before EVERY use, and your plants will never suffer. -------------------- 2/26/21 One of the Mystery Seeds Hermed on me. Not at all surprised, even half expected it with the recharge stuff & the seed being a random local find. Still worth the time and effort, even if just for the learning experience. I need practice! Chose to do it with some random seeds I had collected rather than ones I had spent money on. Roots were looking great (aside from what was stained black by Recharge up near the net pot) Fingers crossed that the other Mystery Seed doesn't Herm as well - have reason to believe it is blueberry kush, but no way to confirm. Since I have the extra space now, I can work from the side - allowing me to trellis and still access my buckets. The OG Kush is stretching nicely and made it convenient. I'll be implementing a stilt system using 4ft bamboo to help with swapping out buckets - hopefully that goes well!

Incredibly happy with how the bamboo support system turned out! Was very simple to make, and was less than 20$ to throw together. This effectively allows me to trellis, and still get away with the 3$ buckets 👊 I won't have to bother with yoyo's, or stress over harvesting early just to keep them from snapping on me. (It is a lot of work however! - eventually upgrading to RDWC, hydrobuckets or something similar, allowing me to trellis easily and not move any netpots!). The runt has been stagnant and on the decline for almost two weeks now, so I had planned on trashing her. But upon taking her out - I noticed that my earlier guesses were spot on. The Recharge stuck to the netcup and invaded the dry-root system / rockwool, and was sopping wet. The poor gal was choking and her stalk was starting to yellow. Her taproots were still very strong however, and the lowest roots showed a little bit of fresh white growth...she's trying at least! So I decided to keep her going for the hell of it, see what happens. Tore off all the gunked up rockwool and gently squeezed out the excess water within the rockwool and got her re-transplanted. -------------------- 5/4/21 The runt gave up on me over the last couple of days. I should have gone with my gut and transplanted her last week, or earlier, while her roots where still trying. Transplanting was the last thing I could do for her to try and kickstart the dry root system (which hasn't been dry this entire time thanks to recharge and placing the rockwool at the bottom of the net cup). All things considered, this could have been all 3 OG Kush - so I really can't complain. Lessons learned! Defoliated a couple center leaves that were covering bud sites and impeding airflow.

The root growth that was covered in Recharge is starting to show fresh roots popping out. Nice to see, all things considered. Not much has happened other than some defoliation for light penetration and airflow. Was the first time I've had to add additional nutrient water to each bucket (1/2 gallon), mid-week. -------------------- I had previously adjusted the 'API Pond Chlorine & Heavy Metal Neutralizer' to .2ml per gallon, to help do away with white tips caused by the excess chlorine/chloramine in my tap water. Noticeable improvement, but obviously not totally rectified. Next nutrient swap I'll up it to .3ml per gallon! (The stuff is dosed for average amounts, my city water is a little harsh - 150-200ppm) Lowered the XS2000's a bit since I've started to do away with the excess chlorine/chloramines. See how far we can get them! (14'' was pushing it, settled on 16'' - will try again next grow, since we'll be starting with acceptable amounts of chlorine)

Doubled the Liquid Koolbloom heading into mid-late flower. These gals are fixing to take OFF! Buds are coming together, and the smell is starting to pick up. Every morning is a little bit frostier ❄️🚀

Removed the top trellis. Since I chose to experiment with two different topping methods, as well as placing one at the bottom of the net-cup and the other halfway up - I'm left with a precarious situation. (I did this to see which I would prefer of course - the Bamboo Support System came later and simply demanded consistency in my canopy!) Both gals prefer the two trellis's to be in different places due to branching at two different heights - or they clip the buds as I swap nutrients. So one trellis, right in-between where both gals would prefer them, will have to do for the rest of this run. Next grow will have the same topping method across the entire garden - as well as placing ALL halfway up the netcup. This will allow for the second teir trellis while using The Bamboo Support System. Aside from that - everything's looking good. Buds are filling out nicely - starting to see some color! ~~~~~~~~~~ PPM on the OG Kush shot up past 1200 - first time I've needed to add plain PH'd water, to avoid excess buildup / toxicity issues. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mystery seed is ahead of the OG Kush - we'll see how she looks going into Ripen and if we should chop early

Things are looking well heading into week 7. Next week will be ripen, and I'll taper off base nutrients as we near fade/flush. ~~~~~~~~~~ Small Defoliation as we start to ripen - boost some bud growth. Took the chance to experiment with some backbuilding (bud pinching). Same concept as Kyle Kushman's Chiropractic Method - triggering an Immune response, but rather than packing on Calcium/Silica like in veg, she'll be throwing on Phosphorous & Potassium. There are two colas next to the one I tested, that look identical in size/width. We'll see how they compare after week 8! ~~~~~~~~~~ The Super Silver Haze OG had to be moved into the 8x4, so these two gals are now in the 3x2 to finish out. Just enough room that we shouldn't see any bud rot - will rig up some yoyo's if need be. XS2000 is a bit closer now so it's at ~70% Mystery seed is ready for flush but I will let her go till the weekend. OG Kush is getting close, should be good to taper off and ripen the last week, as planned. Mystery seed is strong enough that no scrog net is necessary. OG Kush seems fine with some rope tied around the satellite branches, with two zipties strategically placed to space out some colas. ~~~~~~~~~~ I was all happy taking shots with my new microscope phone attachment....only to then realize that there are still countries with Doctors that struggle to get a good microscope, to save people....I paid 12$ for mine....OOF.

OG Kush is starting to show some Amber. Mystery seed has been holding steady around 30-40% so I decided to go ahead and Ripen it along with the OG Kush. Fade is starting to come in strong, getting so close! 1ml/gl Earth Juice Hi-Brix MFP - boost ripen Last week I Stem Crushed EVERY primary satellite branch - in two places* I was curious - and this is a test/first run so, why not!? Its been a week and no banana's - just the fresh calyx's that I wanted to see!!!!🙏 Side-note: I have noticed zero change in the cola that was pinched. Every nug from top to bottom is rock-solid already, so If it doesn't fatten up considerably, I'm going with 'no change'. All other immune response training (lst/hst/topping/suppercopping etc etc) show VISIBLE signs of recovery/regrowth in a week - this one should have been no different. However, could it be adding to the density and just isn't noticeable/visible?...Regardless, it just doesn't seem worth it, unless maybe you show signs of having loose airy nugs early on. Maybe it would throw on some weight? Warrants in-depth testing to really call it worth while, in my opinion. ~~~~~~~~~~ I let the Mystery Seed go as long as I could, hoping to flush the same day as the OG Kush. The amber decided to go full 90-95% in less than 3 days, so she gets flushed a day early. OG Kush is on track for 56 days (Friday), should be just passing 10-20% by then. I'll start a 48 hour darkness cycle on Wednesday, so both will get at least 24 hours of darkness before the chop. ~Flush~ 1-3 days (Depending on how much fade I'm already seeing going in.) Doing two days for both of these. 2ml/gl - Fish Sh!t 2ml /gl- Photosynthesis Plus 10ml/gl - G.H. Florakleen

OG Kush (Feminised Photoperiod) ~Growers Choice Seeds~ https://www.growerschoiceseeds.com/shop/cannabis-seeds/og-kush-feminized-cannabis-seeds/?attribute_pa_number-of-seeds=3-feminized-seeds 45/55 Indica Sativa Hybrid - Hindu Kush / Chemdawg Flowering Time: 56 Days 27% THC ~.5% CBD ~~~~~~~~~~ OG Kush: 82.2g / Mystery Seed: 64.9g / Trim: 27.6g For my first grow, I really can't complain too much. The issues with recharge early on, as well as a broken PH pen - were definitely a bummer, but we salvaged two plants and even managed a QP between the two. For a first go - WITH issues, I think things went as well as can be expected. ~~~~~~~~~~ Should have extended my Veg a week - I was impatient and itching to get on with the next project. Not quite at 1watt/gl with my air pumps, I will upgrade soon - would have helped with the recharge situation / chelation This week marked the first couple days of bipolar summer weather in MO. A 7-14 day dry turned into 6 so I used Boveda packets at the start of cure, just in case we dried too fast* Trimbag is fantastic. I had planned on not using it the first harvest....I got about an ounce in and caved. Worth every penny! (I do not mind the small bit of extra shake, I'll turn into edibles or rub through the ol trimbin for some kief / hash / rosin / shatter) Loss to bag appeal is nearly non-existent, unless the strain your working with has some extra long hairs like this OG Kush did. Those will get cut in half - 100% worth it. ~~~~~~~~~~ My first QWISO attempt yielded 3.1 grams. (and that's after rubbing roughly 8 grams of kief hash from the trimbin) Since it was only two plants, I also froze the satellite branches, and snipped them down to a useable size for extraction. I definitely could have strained the solution another time, some specs of plant matter snuck past me, but regardless - it didn't come out too dark, and has a nice, classic ISO shatter taste 🔥 Avoid brown coffee filters if you can, they are terribly inefficient. Use a strain cloth, or micron bag instead! My second attempt using 3.5g of the OG Kush went very well, yielding exactly 1g ~~For anyone who happens across this diary and decides to give QWISO a try - PLEASE - *Be cautious! *Do your Research!~~ I use a quality cast iron skillet and Pyrex glass pan, that I intend to ONLY use for this. Cooking with the same skillet can cause serious smoke issues. DON'T grease the pan like you would for cooking storage* If you DO reuse your pan, clean thoroughly and expect to see some smoke. DO NOT use this method! with a gas stove*** The fumes put off by concentrated solvents are VERY flammable! Instead, throw your pyrex in a crockpot, rice-cooker, or commercial style food warmer - filled with water. ~~~~~~~~~~ https://bit.ly/3MplXqf ^^^GrowAce Affiliate Link^^^ Use this if you want to show some support! (Link is good for 30 days) ~~~~~~~~~~ In-depth information regarding my day-to-day / common practice may be found on the front page of my profile (in the comments). Questions & Feedback are welcomed, feel free to message me! Thanks for stopping by growmies! 🤙🤙🤙🙏🙏🙏