11/18/2025 Week 8 and we aren't done yet. Shame that. I'd say another 2 weeks, so a total of 10 weeks? At that point, I'd rather 12 weeks and have some hefty buds. We'll see. They have ideal conditions, constant maintenance of the water mix. pH was out of control last week, so we are gonna try harder to keep it at 5.8. I might change that to 6.0. I know autos like a slightly higher pH in flower. I'll have to research that myself. Papaya Cookies looks great! She's about 24 inches tall now. Her root ball isn't very big, but we discovered that a couple weeks ago. However, she's still drinking a little under a gallon and that's a decent amount per day. She's not going to be the best producer, but I think I'll get a pretty good amount. Internodal spacing is pretty long, so trimming will be super easy. If I had to guess, I'd say a decent 5 oz out of this plant. From my experience so far, the height of the plant and the amount of bud sites, no to mention the size of the buds. I expect really big cones. The flower surface is huge. My theory is that buds of plants, flowers, etc, grow into their petals. Cannabis petals are the final fan leaves and the sugar leafs of the plant. The buds usually engulf those smaller leaves to make colas. The ones that are on my plant are gigantic. We'll see if my theory pans out. Lemon Cherry Cookies, who is now 25 inches, is definitely the winner in this little race. I know I've said it before and it was quite obvious well before now, but I wasn't sure who would give the most bud. This lady is COVERED in bud. There's about 5 inches of empty space on the bottom, but from there up, it's just bud bud bud. The internodal spacing is really short and the buds look like they will be huge. The flowering sites aren't as big as they are on Papaya Cookies, but plenty big enough. This week we are dropping the environment. I need to get her to 40% humidity and the VPD at 1.6 kPa or slightly lower. Not exactly sure what the temp will be, but it should stay around 75°. Or well, I will make it stay at 75°. I don't think it's time to start dropping the temp. Not for another week or so. I also can't get the water temp below 71°. Not that it matters really. The water will be changed when lights on. And it also drops pretty good at night. Like. 69° 68.5° somewhere around there. I'm not buying one of those diy kits. I've looked, you need a power supply, a mounting plate, water pump and tubing. Obviously you'd need all they with diy, but it got really expensive in my Amazon cart. Lol. So nope. I guess I'll need to get a couple water bottles and freeze them. I have the other ones, but I don't think they stay frozen for very long at all. 11/19/2025 Lemon Cherry Cookies: 11 am PPM: 861 Papaya Cookies: 11 am PPM: 910 I think I have nutrient lockout. Testing the TDS. I'll check again after lights on. I added a gallon of plain pHed water to each bucket. It didn't change much. I have a feeling I'll have to actually flush these ladies. What's confusing is how both of them got nutrient lockout. Also, both ladies were praying this morning. No clue why. Nothing has changed. Maybe they are recovering from the lockout? If it's a lockout. Yellowing tips and an increase in the nute concentration. Not sure if the praying has anything to do with it, but I do find a bit of concern with this situation. On a better note, both plants are loaded in frost. Papaya Cookies has the most. Not bad. We'll see how they come out. The environment is doing great! All on point. 75° and 40% VPD is like 1.58 kPa. Excuse me a moment while I get high as a kite...waiting music... Ok all good now. Anyway, where was I? Oh right. The environment. Near perfect. I want to touch back to the frostiness again. As I understand it, trichomes are defensive mechanisms and also used to catch pollen. The point is that these ladies are stressed and getting frosty. And if they are praying because of light stress...?? Then they would be producing more trichomes. I'm not sure. Honestly I'm at a loss here. Anyone know? OMFG!!! I forgot. I found a 2 sets of balls on the lower part of Lemon Cherry Cookies. I got them off before they had a chance to pop open. Then I searched the shit out of the plant. Nothing else. I even searched all over Papaya Cookies. I've searched a few days in a row. So if that's the case, and those sacks were there, then the plants are right on point for trichome production. Hence why I'm confused. This is the right time for trichomes, but is the plant still stressed? And how much? We have distinctive yellow tips indicating a deficiency. (Lockout) Also, if this is a subtle change over on the stage of growth, like peak flowering or something like that. I'll be back with updated water specs. Lemon Cherry Cookies: 5 pm : Ppm: 882 Papaya Cookies: 5 pm: Ppm: 914 11/20/2025 Kinda same morning today. pH was high, but not too bad this time. 6.4. The TDS was reading 1050 on both ladies. Lemon Cherry Cookies had the pH of 6.4 while Papaya Cookies was a little bit lower. 6.35 to be exact. I added plain pHed water to the mix to dilute it a bit. It dropped them both to around 875 ppm. But the pH was still high. So I brought that down to 5.8. The issue I'm running into is the speed the pH rises. It climbs all the way up to 6.6 sometimes. It's been 4 hours since I pHed the water and it's already at 6.2. I think it's a little too fast. Another thing that was a bit odd this morning is that both plants were happily praying which hasn't really happened in about a week. Maybe they're recovered, BUT the ppms were still higher than yesterday. But now the pH is higher as well. I'm having trouble diagnosing. Any help on that would be greatly appreciated. Now, it's lights out and they are still praying. At least from what I can see. I'm looking through a night vision camera, so the buds kinda overwhelm the lens I think. Too white and sparkly. I dunno. Can't find anything on that either. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. Lemon Cherry Cookies is starting to fill her buds out. The stacks are coming in. I wonder how much they slowed down. Seems like a bit to be honest. Not too stoked for that. I did notice that some of the older leaves are popping off again. Looks like it's time to remove a few before next lights out. I don't think that causes any stress when you pop them off like that. I'm not 100% sure, but I think when they pop off is when they become obsolete and use more energy than taking it in. Just a theory. Unless these are the leaves that will turn colors, I might as well meticulously pop them off over the next few days. It'll open some more space how that the new stuff is now big old stuff. Papaya Cookies is also looking pretty good. Although, her leaves still won't pop off. I know a lot of it was new growth, but there was some older stuff I left on there. They still won't pop off. I wonder what that means. They should pop off. At least the older stuff. I really don't want to remove anything that is still bringing energy to the plant. But at the same time, I don't want her to start to crowd. We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. Just a few here and there, mind you. I'm not doing a full defoliation in the middle of the flowering stage. Lol. But a few here and there won't hurt but will help the rest of the plant direct energy to the buds. If I didn't need the weed and had more plants, I'd try stripping the plant of most of her leaves just to see what happens. The environment is looking pretty stable now. Day temp was around 75° and the RH was about 45%. The VPD was like 1.56 kPa still right where I want it. Night time is pretty good too. The temp is 68° and the RH is 43%. The VPD is 1.34 kPa. Not bad, but I'd like it closer to 1.4 kPa. 11/21/2025 Frosty and smelly! That's what I woke up to this morning. Very happy. Both ladies seem to have recovered from their little issue. Now they are super happy. Slightly praying and stacking nicely. I am going to say another 2 to 3 weeks. A lot more time than I anticipated, but bigger buds, so I can't complain. Especially with how healthy these 2 are now. Papaya Cookies drank just over a half gallon. Her TDS dropped a little, but so did the pH...5.3 pretty low. However, with a top off of pHed mix, everything looks good now. Her leaves still aren't plucking off like they should be. It's very interesting to me. I wonder why. It's not new growth, that's for sure. Anyway, I did a little bit of snipping today. Like 12 leaves. All big and blocking bud sites. Had to dig a little bit to get a couple of them. Those ones were blocking airflow. Nothing crazy. So she won't really notice. Lemon Cherry Cookies is stacking. Or at least she looks to be stacking. In reality, the buds under the top are just filling out. But still a very much needed swell. Hopefully the next 2 to 3 weeks will show some super impressive bud. I also removed about 10 leaves. Those were also blocking bud sites and one big one in the middle blocking airflow. She has tons of frost on her now. So sticky! The environment was a little warm this morning. In fact, 77.6°. nothing crazy. But still a little bit warm. They, of course, probably enjoyed it. Anyway, that's about it for the weather today. I really have to get into the routine of specs again. Like with VPD, CO2, water specs. Like temp, EC, TDS and pH. I just need to get used to it. Never had so much info to go off of. Soil was really messy for me. Not only literally, but figuratively as well. I could never tell what they needed. And I could never tell if there were air pockets. Granted it was easy, but I still find this one more comfortable. Knowing all the things. Very important to me. That's all for now. 11/22/2025 So today was kinda weird. Papaya Cookies pH plummeted to around 4.8 and the TDS was high as well as the EC. Not sure what that means, I'll have to research it, but yah, that got fixed right away. TDS was 1050 ppm EC was 2.0. On the other hand, Lemon Cherry Cookies looks great! Her pH drifted a little. It's at 6.05. So I left it. I'll pH back to 5.8 this afternoon after lights out. The environment was pretty good this morning. The temp was a little higher than usual. 77.6°. The humidity was also a bit high. 48%. I think the VPD was still good though, maybe a little over. I didn't look at it. My bad. I plucked some leaves today. Not a ton, but a bunch. Both plants had some larger leaves that needed to be gone. Blocking airflow and light. I chose wisely. One thing I learned was how sticky these buds are. They are sticky and smelly. It's awesome. And they aren't even close to done. Speaking of buds, they are starting to take a better shape. Both plants have the cone shaped buds. But are also looking like they'll get pretty fat. Just gotta let them do their thing. 11/23/2025 Yet again the pH for Papaya Cookies crashed all the way down to 4.6. In just 16 hours. No clue what to do, so I took a gallon then added a gallon of plain pHed to 6.5 water. Then I pHed it up 6.2 the plain water dropped the TDS down to 850 ppm and the EC to 1.75. I don't expect it to stay there at all. Not in the next 6 hours. Hopefully it only swings down a bit. And hopefully it will be able to take in the nutrients it hasn't been able to get because of the crash. There's no upward swing, so the plant isn't getting a lot of nutrients she needs. Lemon Cherry Cookies also had a swing. The TDS spiked to 1050 ppm and the EC to 2.0. The pH only climbed a little bit. Up to 6.1. So I added some plain pHed water to bring the concentration down and then pHed. I think I need to replace a gallon like I did with Papaya Cookies. I want the TDS down to like 800 to 850. Around there. I'm starting to feel like maybe there's just too much for her to handle. Both of them, to be honest. But I can't tell. They are growing and smelly. And this is about the right time, so we should be seeing some major swelling over the next couple of weeks. The smell is still pretty planty, but it's just the beginning. When the trichomes start to get cloudy and the leaves begin to turn, they will both have the full flavor profile ready for the sniffing. The environment is a bit off today for lights out. It's hanging out at 69° but the humidity is higher than I'd like at 49%. I know it's not bad at all, but I want perfection with my AI system. The CO2 is now really starting to crank up. I'm hoping I'll get a good amount in the coming few days. I'd like to increase the light intensity a bit. But I can't until I figure out how to clear up the nutrient challenge. 11/24/2025 SMH more plain water in Lemon Cherry Cookies. But the pH dropped this time. So that's good, but the mix is back up to 1050 ppm. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not seeing any signs of stress. Nothing new anyway. Maybe I need to drop it to like 700 or 750. But it's too late to screw around. If the problem persists tomorrow, I'll drain another gallon and replace it with a very mild dose. And then top off with plain pHed water. Annoying thing, when I move my plants around to pH the water, they get stuck on things. Well, so far I've had 3 branches supercrop themselves on wires, the other plant and when I put the bucket in the tent. Point is the space is small. I bet I could grow a huge plant in this tent, but then it's just one strain. I need a bigger tent. And with the bigger tent, it'll still be tights, but not so much where I can't make space. I'd be tight because I'd be running photos and keeping them in veg til they reach every wall. Wall to wall tops. Then flower. Let them stretch and boom a complete sea of colas. Papaya Cookies had a very low pH again, but the mix was fine. 925 ppm. Anyway, I added some nutrient water and pHed it back to 5.8. She's also getting orange hairs on top. Pretty early if you ask me. It could have been me accidentally brushing against them with my arm while I tried to get fan leaves. Who knows. The environment is back to normal for lights out and this morning. It did get kinda hot when I closed to tent back up after working with the water. Like 78°. But I have CO2, so it should be fine. The increase in light seems to be fine. I'm not seeing any signs of stress or anything. The CO2 is honestly inconsistent. And that's because the fan runs too high and pulls it all out before it can hit the plants. It bounces between 750 and 1025. So I'm not sure how useful it is. I'll leave it, but still I need a different setup to make it work right. Also, my inline fan seems to be stalling while it's on full blast. After reading a few articles, the 4" fan works but not as well as it needs to and basically sits at 100% power. So I'll be getting a 6" fan and filter sometime soon. It's obvious, but the 6" fan will do much better at pulling air in. It just does a better job. Not to mention, the 6" filter is super long, so I might be running just that in the tent and the fan on the outside. That's all for now.