Plants + Fertilization
At the beginning of this week (and after the stresses and strains of the last few weeks), I decided to give the soil a little boost so that it could get back on track to reach its full potential. For this, I mixed approx. 1 part worm humus and biochar with about 2 parts lukewarm water and let the mixture sit for 30 minutes. This is significantly shorter than recommended, but should still be enough for the biochar to absorb the organisms and then release them into the substrate later. [Without this charging process, the charcoal can also undergo this loading process within the substrate due to its microporous structure, and with that, actually draw nutrients from the soil!]
Besides that, I looked more into the living soil topic and now think that what I noticed at some leaves might actually be a normal side effect from the living soil. The assimilation of nutrients is more complex than in traditional setups and the plant itself takes a bigger part in balancing the whole symbiose of every part of that system. (You can't just 'give' the system the nutrients it needs, it needs to make them available on its own.)
Environment + Organisms +Pests
Due to the removal of the sand and the watering, the humidity rose by about 10% and is now exactly where I wanted it to be at this point in time. A little hack: I filled a stainless steel bowl with water and placed it on the lamp's cooling element. This not only cools the lamp and extends its life, but also creates slight thermal turbulence and increases the humidity in the tent.
II also noticed some kind of mites (I guess Oribatida?) that seem to help deconstruct the organic matter - another sign that the soil is still eager to work!
At day 47 I also (again) implemented 2 sticky fly traps, to 1: observe what kind of critters I have in my setup and 2: keep the Sciaridae under controle. As you can see, there are already some gnatson there (1 day after placing them) but also a hugh amount of spingtails. This is a bit unfortunate, since I want them in my system, but also ain't a significant problem, as it only affects a fraction of the springtails.
LST
The Mimosa Cake Auto grows extremely densely and needs to be defoliated almost daily, otherwise the leaves pile up and form literal reservoirs of moisture. For this reason, I also regularly remove side shoots. My goal for all shoots is to be at least 5-10 cm apart so that they don't grow into each other. (I will introduce a SCROG in 1-2 weeks). Apart from that, the Mimosa could be on the verge of developing a small crack at the top of the main stem, as the nodal spacing is so small that the side shoots completely fill that nodal spacing with their diameters, thus building up a lot of tension.
(Pre-)Flower
During my observation, I noticed that one of the axillary pre-flowers appeared to be a male pollen sac, which I removed as a precaution - just to be safe. Besides that, no abnormalies.