As of day 14, I am happy (although a little worried) about how the grow is going. Growth continues to be somewhat strong and new growth seems to be healthy, but the issue that affected the lower leaves has left me a little spooked. It has continued to the second set of leaves to a limited degree. I have mostly eradicated the fungus gnats who moved in from some houseplants so that is a plus. Poor transplanting technique could have also damaged the roots, as the issues became most apparent after potting up to 1 gallon containers. Although I have been very careful to PH my nutrients after mixing, I realize I was not PHing at every fertigation and may have missed some early swings upwards in my watering reservoir so I am now being more diligent making sure the PH is consistently under 6.2. I am hoping that these actions will have fixed whatever issue was occurring, but if there is anything I may have missed please let me know!
I have a expanded the timelapse to contain all the growth up to day 14, and will continue to re-edit it for every week. Thanks for reading, and happy growing!
Day 16: began LST to expose/encourage the new branches. There has been plenty of healthy new growth, so I suspect that the leaf issues were due to temporary PH fluctuations in my watering reservoir that went undetected. Thank you to those who answered my grow question! 👍
Day 17: FIMed the Blue Dream'matic, which has been growing strongly. I went a little more aggressive because in the past I have messed the technique up by getting mostly leaf instead of the new node of growth. Hopefully it goes well this time!
Day 18: more LST will wait as my smaller plant Staples do not have enough hold, when I transplant to 5g pots I will continue.
Day 20: a few lower leaves continue to show the browning. I will transplant at day 21 which will give me a chance to check the roots, and I will be adding h202 to my watering bucket to prevent pH swings due to bacteria (which I believe has caused the issue). The plant is still growing vigorously and is branching well post FIM.