Total days above ground: 63
Total flower nights: 24
Just beyond 3 weeks into flower and the plants are showing their potential. Three Animal Mints are lookingn strong. AM3 may have a highe rleaf ratio around buds, but should be some nice colas even if a bit more work to trim than the others. This strain is probably the most consistent pheno-to-pheno of the three, but Kush Mints is quite consistent too.
All of the MSNL plants are robust and strong. Second grow with excellent results from this breeder. I did not pay for these seeds, but I am not a shill, either. If one of them grew all whacky like the mountaintop mint, I'd voice the same complaints. The clearly care about such traits in their selection process.
Overall the canopy has filled in nicely. I have a couple spots where light is wasted and I'll make some adjustments to the process to fix that for future grows. Now that I've settled on plant size and number of plants, improvements can be made each cycle until it's clockwork. I like the 12-cola vs 8 cola experiement. I've got a fairly long list of edits to make to various sections of my "bible," which means I liked the outcomes of most of my incremental adjustments. Continual, systematic improvement in action...
One other incremental change on the docket but not yet realized will be dropping nutrient concnetration once vegetative growth ends. Exact timing will be based on what I see in the foliage. I see some minor tip curl and its a bit darker than I want. So, it may come sooner than later. This'll be something I tweak over the next few grow cycles until I'm happy with the late-flower health.
I'll drop fertilizer concentration 10-15% on next refill and see how that plays out. It'll take a couple refills of reservoir to near 100% transition without draining it. If necessary, I'll drain and do a full refill for more pressing needs. A rez scrub before final stretch is coming, regardless.
Side note:
The impacts of VPD can be enormous. Last year (2025-2 diary) I had a humidifier wick get fouled and RH dropped while VPD spiked for more than a few days, thinking I could power through or that the canopy would soon provide more moisture. Nope, growth stalled in a significant way. By comparing day 34-42-49 of 2025-2 and day 38-42-49 of this diary, I can see a huge difference in growth at same point above ground. The consitency with which i do things makes it fairly certain it's the extende period with extremely high VPDs that caused the difference.
Also, interesting that it mostly catches back up by completion of third week of flower. The size difference is nearly undone by this point, though 2025-2 took 4 days longer vege phase to get there. Even so, I still think this grow is more than 4 days ahead of 2025-2 (the difference in vegetative phae duration). Time will tell if the development is ahead of the pace in 2025-2 or whether it's simply mostly an offset due to a less efficient vege phase for 2025-2.