April 20, 2024 Happy 420 Everyone! A new diary for a new contest by Seedsman! Sit back, because there's a lot to talk about today. Just like all of my grows, this run will have daily updates with pictures, a weekly video and as much detail as I can muster in the stats. Let's get started. First off, let's talk about the setup. I have 4 plants in my main tent that won't be done for a couple more weeks. So these ladies will be starting out in an AC Infinity Germination Center with their Germination grow lights, a heat mat and a small computer fan to keep the air fresh. The DLI will be around 12 mol/m²/d. They will be planted in root Riot Plugs until they show roots. Then in their final 3 gallon fabric containers. Then into the Mars Hydro 2x2 tent with the TS600 light. 100 watts of pure power. Haha. This should only be for a couple weeks. Just enough time for them to be well established. Then they will go into my AC Infinity 3x3 tent with the S33 grow light. 240 watts of power. I have 2 oscillating clip fans running a slight breeze at all times. I'm using a 4" exhaust fan with filter. I'll be using the AC Infinity bottom feed wick system. I've been using it for quite a while and I find it to extremely efficient. More about this later on in the grow. Let's talk about the strain. Sour Diesel Auto by Seedsman. This strain should be with us for the next 8 to 10 weeks. In my experience, add another week or two just Incase. We can expect a really good yield if I don't screw anything up. Up to 650/m². She has some environmental requirements. Heat is the main thing. Slightly humid for the veg stage and dry for the flowering stage. Being a sativa dominant strain, she will grow tall. I'll be implementing LST and light defoliation for this plant without a doubt. That's about it for now. I'll describe characteristics throughout the run. Finally to our actual ladies. I'm germinating 5 in a glass of water. I plan on keeping 4 total. That's all my tent can fit. So I'll do away with the 5th and work with the 4 best seedlings. They should sink overnight and start to open up. As soon as I see the tap roots, they go in the Root Riot Plugs. That's all for today. See you tomorrow. Oh, and thanks for reading. Wish me luck on this journey. It is a grow off after all. Lol April 21, 2024 4 of the 5 seeds have sunk to the bottom of the cup with my assistance. The 5th one I still floating. However, I don't see any tap roots, so another day or 2. I may pop the sunken seeds in the Root Riot Plugs tomorrow afternoon. The 5th seed may be the reject. If it doesn't pop in a couple days, I'm calling it a loss and working with the 4 other seeds as I originally planned. I could also go down to 3 plants, but I frankly would like the even number of 4. 1 per quadrant. We shall see. I wonder if I should do three 5 gallon plants or four 3 gallon plants. We shall see. The biggest obstacle will be the tight space I have to work with for the next 2 to 3 weeks while the plants already in there are done. I plan on dry trimming for a faster dry. Normally, I like to hang the whole plant. This time around will be wet trimmed and hung in parts. OR placed in my bud drying rack. That's large enough to hold all 4 plants' buds. I should also mention that these seeds are in constant darkness until they go into the plugs. Kind of obvious, but these diaries are not only for my records but set up as an educational piece of work. The environment is looking fine. The air temp is 82°, but the water is definitely no where near that warm. I did have to drop the exhaust fan down and increase the heat mat temp to get the water temp up to a proper temp. Germination Center Environment: I'll be keeping the temp around 82° and the humidity doesn't matter for now. When it matters, I fill the bottom of the Germination Center with water. It helps perfectly with the humidity for growing seedlings. It will also help regulate the temp to around 78° to 79°. April 22, 2024 All 5 ladies have sunk to the bottom of the cup. Now it's just a matter of time for the taproots come out. Somehow, the Germination Center was cold this morning. Like 68° cold. So I took the riser off the dome and cranked the heat mat to bring the heat and humidity up. That being said, the seed water is much cooler than I want. I like warm water for germination. Oh well. The heat mat should fix things in a matter of hours. Everything else looks good. Germination Center Environment: Currently it's at 77° and 94% humidity. It should level out to about 80° and the humidity should stay about the same. I also took the fan off the dome. I'll put it back on when they pop out of their plugs. April 23, 2024 All 5 seeds popped. They all have tiny taproots just starting to form. This is when I plant them in the plugs. They should take a couple days to break surface, but definitely germinated. Now it's just a matter of choosing the 4 best looking seedlings. They are now in the Root Riot Plugs with the temp at 77° and humidity at 95%. The dome is on without the extension for now. Once they show leaves, I'll install the extension and turn the light on. I'll be leaving the light on for 24 hrs. While in the Germination Center. Once out and established, I'll change it to the normal 18/6 light schedule. I was considering starting at 18/6 from the beginning, but I've tried that and feel like it wasn't as successful as 24 hours. Especially because these are autos. The kickstart of light makes total sense. We will see if my theory is correct. Germination Center Environment: Temp: 77.4° RH: 95.4% VPD: 0.15 kPa April 24, 2024 Nobody hopped surface yet today. I don't even see green in the plugs yet. I'm definitely not worried about it. I expect them to break surface in a couple of days. Maybe tomorrow or the day after. Honestly, I won't mind if they take a little bit longer and I can keep them in the Germination Center for a bit longer. It will work out best for my whole grow operation. Small as it is. I gave each seed plug a bit of filtered water today. Just to keep the moisture up. It shouldn't matter too much. The plugs are pre-moistened, so there shouldn't be any issues there. I'll be turning the lights on when I start to see green. They will be on 24 hours for the first week. Then into the main light at 18/6 for the rest of the grow. The environment is a bit bouncy while I work to get the system right. The heat mat is perfect a it's setting, but the fan needs to be messed with and the dome port needs to be adjusted as well. So far it's not too bad, but the temp keeps dropping below 75°. I'll keep a closer eye on it while I get it to acclimate to the proper total environment. Germination Center Environment: Temp: 80.4° RH: 94.7% VPD: 0.19 kPa April 25, 2024 Some ladies are starting to show green! Today we have 3 of the 5 ladies breaking surface with the shells. One of them is absolutely going to have helmet head. Or whatever it's called. I'll be needing to fix that. I'll wait til tomorrow to see how things go. The other 2 are still working their plugs. That being said, I reinstalled the dome extension and turned the lights on to 20% power. The DLI is around 10 mol/m²/d. I'll increase the light power in a day or 2 when the rest of the babies pop up. We should end up with the DLI of 12 mol/m²/d when we start seeing leaves. The environment hasn't been the best. Not my best start by far. I can't keep the temp at a good range. My night time temps are super low and then I get a decent day temp, but then it gets too hot. I'm going to have to figure out the heat mat I think. It's back to normal now, but was like 65° last night. Not good. With the light on now, the temp shouldn't be a problem. Germination Center Environment: Temp: 72.6° (too low) RH: 76.8% VPD: 0.64 kPa April 26, 2024 So far I have 4 ladies fully showing with the 5th lacking any movement. She mush not have actually popped. Or maybe a little late. I'll give it 2 more days and see what happens. Anyway, I think I already have my 4 plants now. They will be labeled A through D. Everything looks great for now. The environment is looking great at 80° and a humidity of 82%. I won't need to mist them at all at this rate. Maybe when they get into the nursery bags I'll need to mist. We shall see. I'll be leaving the light at 20% for another day or two. Then I'll increase the intensity to 12 mol/m²/d. It should start this run out swimmingly. One of the babies had a helmet, so I gently removed that this morning. Other than that, nothing else for the day. Germination Center Environment: Temp: 78.7° RH: 80.0% VPD: 0.69 kPa April 27, 2024 This is when I normally would start a new week, but these ladies are only in the very early seedling stage. Not on veg. Honestly, I would love for a seedling stage week. Now I'm kind of stuck until I see the first set of true leaves. Another few days no doubt. So it throws off my schedule. Oh well. I'll do my best to keep track. I have 1 seed that rooted, but never grew up. I'm calling it a loss for now. So 4 of 5 seeds made it out of the plugs. I also have a 4th one that is super wonky. I'll keep it for now. If it looks all messed up over the next few days, I'll have to toss that one as well and just work with 3 plants. Hopefully it won't come to that. The 3 seedlings that are looking good, look really good. Roots already starting to get exposed. They will be going in the 1/5 gallon nursery bags in a matter of days. Maybe even tomorrow. I don't like too much root to show before transplanting. So that may be a thing tomorrow. I'll increase the light intensity when they are transplanted. It makes the most sense based on the speed they grow. The environment is pretty good. Hovering at a temp of 80° and 87.4% humidity. I also gave them a small misting to keep the humidity up and the babies getting all the water they can get without overdoing it. Germination Center Environment: Temp: 81.2° RH: 88.9% VPD: 0.41 kPa