Day 10F-17F
(Day 10F) Everything is looking on point. Iām going to soak in a gallon of lite compost tea diluted to 400ppms on each plant except for #5. Iām still a little worried I wonāt make it through the stretch but at the same time I fear N toxicity just as much. I will give one more lite tea before the end of stretch, most likely at the end of this week.
(Day 12F) Ladies responded nicely to the tea except for BBB#1. It just isnāt looking as vigorous as it was last week. Itās the only one without an air hose so I guess it couldnāt hurt to grab one. The air hose does without a doubt prevent overwatering in soil and Iām surprised I donāt see more people using it. Itās cheap, effective and gives me similar results to growing in pure coco. Iām going to give one more light foliar spray of 3ml of calmag, 3ml of kelp and 2.5ml of insect frass.
(Day 14) Got the air hose hooked up to all 5 plants now.
I hate that Iāve been forced to defoliate so much in early flower and it is definitely reducing bud size. Last round my bbbās had pistil clumps twice the size at this time and they were dealing with severe deficiencies. Iām hoping itās just genetics or the fact they are larger plants.
(Day 15) Iām starting to see signs of N toxicity on the some of the new growth and overall growth on all plants except #1 has slowed. It was most likely caused by the foliar spray/tea combo. No more feeding anything for the next 12 days at least. Luckily itās still pretty early in flower but I know that N tox can hit really hard after the stretch stops. I would be pretty upset if I vegged for 80 days only to get severe N tox in mid flower. Since itās not breaking down in the soil, I should be fine. Iām going to defoliate some more of the large bottom fan leaves as they hold large reserves of extra nutes I donāt need. Hopefully these small defoliations arenāt stressing them at all. Next round I plan to do a big strip one week before flower, at transplant and a second big strip on day 21.
(Day 17) I think I was over-worrying about the seriousness of the N tox. Iāve seen it hit very hard in mid flower and canāt be too careful. Itās almost always caused by water soluble nitrogen so Iāll try to stay away from that unless I absolutely need it. My case does not look to alarming just yet. I noticed the stunting on #3 right after that last tea so I am going to stop giving the last liter of compost tea because of how unbalanced and separated at the bottom it is. It sure helped out the other 4 plants that didnāt get the granulars from the bottom of the bucket. Iām planning to give a bloom tea around day 26 and a final top dress a few days later. #1 has now out stretched everything else in the tent. I honestly was not expecting that. If #3 didnāt get stunted this whole week I think it would be the taller/heavier plant.