Mother Fucker, Had all this typed out and it fucking closed the tab and would not load last edit. Lets try this again.
This has been a big week, got a transplant in and ran into some issues with the feed.
Transplanted the plants from their 1L to 2Gal/7.5L pots and gave them some LST to keep em low, all went well in transplant process as seen in the video however the Gaia Green burned my plants and this is odd considering I did not use it full strength as per their directions. They recommend amending medium for pots and baskets at a rate of 3tbsp or 45ml per Gal and I used it at a rate of 60ml in 2Gal, not even close to their 90ml recommendation. Seems weird why I would be experiencing this. I reached out to them and have not heard anything back. kinda disappointed about that. I have two batches of Gaia Green 4-4-4 and when I ran a test side by side on them I found the old one I am currently useing has a higher EC value then the new one I got. I dissolved 1/4 teaspoon into 250ml of water and gave it a good stir, I then let it sit for 5 min and measured its PH and EC, I also tested out the Insect Frass from them as well and it was similar numbers to the new 4-4-4 batch. I got readings of 0.98 for new 4-4-4 and 1.43EC for the old batch of 4-4-4. Seems off. I also tested all the other things I added into the soil and they did not spike EC to any significance. I'm hoping they reach back out to let me know whats up. PH was on point and nothing crazy all aorund 7.1
I also tested the PH and EC of the watering solution to confirm it was the 4-4-4, added in some yucca in their as well as other beneficials that I normally do in soil grows. all within range, PH down with Phspohric Acid and EC under 300 A+
In other good news I finalized the PPFD maps for my tent and lights, I use 2x 240w Mini Sun 2's from Medic Grow, They don't normally use the lights in a twin setup in 2x4 tent so thus they had no light maps for me. The grow shop I go to lent me their Quantum Par light meter and I went to town, I demoed this unit last week in a little video and then went onto say how I messed up the readings and needed to redo it all. Well I had to have the meter returned and was working all week so only had time to get one height measurement in at 30" with all the intensities of the light 40-60-80-100% I had a feeling I was over blasting them with light but the amount I was thinking was not even close to how much more I was giving them. I was running my plants before at 80% and maybe 20" hang height. I was nuking them. It shows my ideals are going to be 40% in veg and 60% in flower with altered lighting schedules to accommodate a proper DLI.
As of right now I am giving my plants 42 DLI in veg at 18/6 and that's a bit much for me. I would like to see this number closer to 35. So if I edit my schedule down to 16/8 it will give me a DLI of 37, when I got into bloom if I go 11/13 I will also get a DLI of 37. If I kept it at 12/12 at 60% I would have a DLI of 41, and If i did it like last time 12/12 at 80% I would have a DLI of 55... 41 is not the worst but I think it might be to much. we will see based on how the plants are growing.
I used a free heatmap web page tool to make the PPFD maps, its not perfect but it works out well for me. I did all the intensities on their own image and also did one main image with all the intensities that shows the strength of 100% vs 40-60-80% in colour. The one light on the right side does not seem to be as strong as the one on the left, Or it could be some weird things with my tent, When I looked at the numbers with the door open they did not fluctuate as much. so who knows, I tested them with the door closed and extractor fan on as that's what the plants will be getting when in the tent, I centred the light as best I could and levelled it out with a bubble leveller. It was funny seeing how the PPF readout numbers changed as the tent sucked in around the sides, It is a good thing I have the mid support bar to prevent it from doing that to much. Once I mapped out all my readings in PPF I then calculated its average and PPFD using the grow space dimensions of 2x4, applied the convention and got my average PPFD :)
The pepper are also doing well. I don't think I noticed a difference between soaking the seeds with some peroxide 1% vs plan water. Won't do that again does not seem to help anything. All but one variety as popped, the naga morich, has not been germinated, I was reading online that dehydrated seeds can have as low as 5% germination rate, With this in mind I took a lot of seeds from my older naga morich peppers in the pantry and placed them in a damp paper towel. I have a feeling given their age and treatment previously they will not pop, but that's ok if they don't, I have a large assortment of pepper for this season and they are already well on their way to giving me a good crop.
Have not noticed any other fungus gnats in a bit. Happy about that, don't know where they went, unless it was just a few and they died before breeding. One can hope,
Big shoutout to Medic Grow for sponsoring the lighting in my tent, They have provided me with 2x Mini Sun 2's in the 240w configuration, They use the v1 growing spectrum that is a all purpose seed to harvest spectrum so their is no hassle of switching it mid grow. If you interested in learning more about Medic Grow products please visit the web link below.
https://medicgrow.com/
https://growdiaries.com/grower/MedicGrowLED