Hello and welcome to my second grow journal. I've learned a lot from my first grow and am so excited to put my newfound knowledge to the test. My goals for this grow include updating the grow journal once a week, have better management of my runoff EC and humidity within the tent, and to be more gentle and patient with the plants as they progress.
This grow will begin under Kind LED's XL600 light, but will be replaced by the end of August with Migro's new 240 watt 4 bar LED. I began the germination process on 8/10 at 9PM and allowed the seeds to soak in filtered water for 18 hours before they were moved to a wet papertowel, where they have been sitting ever since. 4 of the 6 seeds seem to have cracked open, but I'm still eagerly awaiting the rest to open so that they can be transferred to rapid rooter.
I plan to top the ladies down to their third nodes after growing them to their sixth and perhaps once more, before using the atlas plant trainer for late veg and early flower training. As jinxproof only sells regular seeds, I will be using farmer freedman's sex testing to determine their genetics early in the grow. I plan to discard all males and only allow 2 females to continue on through flower and into harvest.
UPDATE: I likely shocked my seeds due to rapid temperature changes coming from my seedling matt. Luckily I am getting some replacement seeds, but I’ll have to wait two weeks. In an effort to stay on track with the challenge, today I germinated 4 feminized blue dream photoperiods by Garden of Green. I my same goals and training methods still apply for this grow. I will look to retry on jinxproof for the NYGC!
Less than 48 hours after getting the seeds wet, all four are ready for transplant. This time I removed the seedling matt and simply left the wet paper towel in a plastic bag with a small space heater maintaining 80-83 degrees F, which seemed to work perfectly. This really goes to show how important it is to control every aspect of your grow as effectively as possible, especially in the seedling stage when they are so fragile. I will now be dropping the seeds into a rapid rooter soaked in filtered water and left in a seedling dome inside of my tent until they are ready to be transplanted into a seedling bag.
Three of the four seeds have sprouted and opened their cotyledons, growing more and more every time I peek in the tent.
I had to throw on some extra coco to the top of the rapid rooters due to the large precut hole, But it doesn’t seem to have been a big deal. I’m keeping them in a seedling dome and trying to maintain a humidity if 80%, but that’s difficult to do while also keeping the heat below 90.
All in all I’m happy with how things are (re) starting. Next update will be with my new migro array which is arriving today, very excited to see what it will do!
Jinxproof also has incredible customer service and is sending me another pack of seeds despite my mistakes, I’ll be saving them for the NYGC. Great breeder and great person, give him some love.
Three of the four original seeds were transplanted into their seedling pots today. As I don't have any perlite until Monday, I simply buffered enough coco to fill the seedling pot and will plant to add perlite when I transplant into 1 gallon pots in the coming weeks. I plan to provide the following information for every journal update.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 250
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 250
Daily fertigation events: 2
Inflow pH: 6.2
Temperature: 83F
Humidity: 68.4
Light heighth/strength: 8", 20% (about 30watts)
I also am excited to show off my new MIGRO Aray IIII bar LED pulling 225 watts with a usable PPF of 2.42 umols/w. The PAR map looks intense and I'm so excited to see what kind of buds and growth this thing produces. My last run was completed under a Kind XL600 and my harveset yielded only 6.2 oz with 288watts. I'm hoping to vastly increase the density and overall yield on this run. Looking forward to it!
Nutrients: Calimagic, GH flora trio, diamond nectar (humic acid), H2O2. Ratios consistent with seedling recipe as recommended by Dr. Coco's nutrient schedule found on this site.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 300
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 300
Daily fertigation events: 2 (~6:30AM and 10PM)
Inflow pH: 6.2-6-4
Temperature: 83F
Humidity: 70-75
Light heighth/strength: 8", 20% (about 30watts)
Brief update on the seedlings, they are looking healthy and happy! I might be noticing the slightest indications of the classic calcium kink in the middle seedling, but it's nothing I'm too concerned about right now. I will apply a foliar application of calmag this weekend if the symptoms worsen.
Tomorrow I will be buffering my coco/perlite mix for the remainder of the grow and planning to up-pot all three seedlings into their one gallon containers this Sunday, after I return home. From there I will select the two strongest plants and move them to their final three gallon pots, which is a downsize from the five gallons I ran last time. I'll be planning on fertigating 5x daily as the grow progresses.
I have devised a small automatic fertigation system that I will set up tomorrow as well for the seedlings as I am gone for the weekend, which I'll post pictures of once it's in place. If it works well, I will plan to utilize this same system to fertigate my solo cup plant, which I will be popping next week and planning to top once before sending it into flower with the other plants.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 410
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 350
Daily fertigation events: 2 (~6:30AM and 10PM)
Inflow pH: 6.2-6-4
Temperature: 83F
Humidity: 70-75
Light heighth/strength: 6", 20% (about 30watts)
The three seedlings have reached their third nodes and have been up-potted into one gallong pots with freshly buffered coco coir with 70/30 perlite. The coco was prefertigated with nutrient solution using the "early veg" column of Dr. Coco's feed schedule. The plants also received another fertigation once they were placed in their pots. This being my first time transplanting, it was mostly a success save for one plants rootball, which started to fall apart as I transplanted it, however it wasn't too bad and I'm hoping they will all recover just fine.
I will continue fertigating twice a day over the next week as they push to their sixth nodes and are ready for their final transplant into three gallon pots, after which I will switch to my automatic watering system and fertigate 5x per day. All in all the plants are healthy and growing well. The nodes are stacking on nice and tight and all the new veg looks pretty healthy.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 510
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 450
Daily fertigation events: 2 (~6:30AM and 10PM)
Inflow pH: 6.2-6-4
Temperature: 82F
Humidity: 70-75
Light heighth/strength: 6", 50% (about 120 watts)
Plant growth is looking very healthy and I'm pleased how they are progressing. The subtle signs of calcium deficiency that I noticed on the first serated leaves early on has not been showing on any of the new growth. One plant (pictured) needed a little support as it seemed to be drooping over, so I tied a piece of training wire around the pot, anchored by an alligator clip, and around the stem. I'll be monitoring this one carefully over the next few days, but as I only plan to take two of these plants into their final pots and into flower, this may be a good indication that she is not one of the stronger phenos in the group and not an ideal candidate for the final up-potting.
Today also marks the beginning of my solo cup challenge. I scuffed three seeds of bubba kush, freebies that I received from seedsman, and dropped them into filtered water for 4 hours. All three seeds sank and were transferred to a wet paper towel inside of a plastic baggie and now into my tent covered by a towel to maintain darkness and ideal temps. Looking forward to seeing if I can pull off this small grow!
Bubba Kush seeds went into a wet paper towel for 18 hours. All three cracked but only one produced a strong tap root so I chose that as the one to move onto the solo cup. I increased the radio of coco to perlite, not really sure by how much as I just eyeballed how much I added. I did this in an effort to increase the drainage in the cup as I plan to fertigate no less than 6 times a day once it has an established root system.
Blue dream are pushing their fifth nodes and really picking up some momentum. I’m sure I’ll be up-potting to their final three gallon pots here in the next couple of days and will be getting ready to finally start training. My atlas plant trainer should hopefully arrive by the end of the month so I’ll be able to use it to train in hopefully the last week or two of veg plus through the stretch. If not I’ll have to consider using stakes again which I’d prefer not to. I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 510
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 400
Daily fertigation events: 2 (~6:30AM and 10PM)
Inflow pH: 6.2-6-4
Temperature: 79-83F
Humidity: 70-75
Light heighth/strength: 6", 60%
The plants reached their sixth node and all three received a topping high on their third node. Plants are healthy and happy, not noticing any deficiency issues. I will give the plants a few days to gain momentum after this most recent topping before I decide to up-pot to their final three gallon containers sometime this week.
My original plan was to flower two plants and utilize an atlas plant trainer that I ordered back in early July, but I just received an update that the APTs will not be arriving for another two months most likely. My new plan will be to flower three all three of the plants that I currently have so that the canopy will fill out more quickly, rather than training two plants out wider. I will then plan on using a trellis net, possibly two levels and use that for training and support. This will be my first trellis grow so I'm looking forward to the challenge.
The solo cup bubba kush is doing well so far. I am not going to provide as much detailed data on this fun challenge as I will for blue dream as BD is the primary focus of this journal. Bubba kush has been receiving the same feed as I'm giving to blue dream (mid veg) diluted down to about 200 ppm and fertigated once or twice per day at this point. Once the plant reaches at least 3-4 nodes and shows an increased demand for water and nutrients, I will be setting up my small automatic fertigation system to keep the coco wet and fresh.
2 of the 3 original plants have been moved into their final 3 gallon homes and equipped with their automatic fertigation system. Last update I said that I was going to keep three plants due to my atlas plant trainer not arriving on time, however the new drain pain set up I have is too cumbersome to fit 3 side by side with a small runoff bucket, so I decide to pick the two strongest plants and up pot them. I made sure to prefertigate with 600ppm on the late veg column of the recipe at 5.9 pH. A few hours later and they are looking resilient to the transplant and will hopefully resume their upward growth before too long.
bubba kush solo cup challenge is continuing on surprisingly after I accidentally dropped my tiny humidifier on it. Bent the stalk right over but with some support it stood right back up and is back on its own. I’m hopeful that it will continue on just fine, hopefully with out too much stunting.
Now I sit back and watch the growth begin. I will top at least once more and then set up a trellis for a SCROG.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 630
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 600
Daily fertigation events: 3 (~6:30AM/12:30PM/8:30PMPM)
Inflow pH: 5.9-6.4
Temperature: 80-83F
Humidity: 70-75F
Light heighth/strength: 6"/100%
Plants are coming along nicely! I am truly amazed at how tightly these nodes are stacking! I had to remove two fan leaves from each plant just to decongest the middle canopy because of how much moisture was accumulating between the leaves. Couple of stains on on of the leaves, but I'm almost positive that's from accidentally dripping some feed on them while I was hand watering.
I've increased their fertigations to three times a day and will keep it at this frequency over the next couple weeks as they continue through veg, and will move up to 5x a day as I move into the stretch. My makeshift hydro halo for the solo cup challenge works pretty well! I will fertigate that 3x a day to begin and will increase it as the plant grows, probably up to as many as 10 times a day - we'll see how it goes.
The Migro Aray is working great. The lights are running cool, even at 100%, and the nodes are stacking so tightly. The plants received their second topping today at the third node of each branch from the previous topping. I think I'm going to try and top another two times for a total of 16 colas and then set up my trellis net before sending these girls into flower. I'm an entire week ahead of my previous grow and I'm still considering pushing for an extra week and flipping around October 8th.
I woke up last night to get a drink of water and notice my light was still on at 12:30AM. After a brief investigation, I found that my amazon plug was not communicating with the routine I had set on the phone application, meaning my lights have been on 24 hours a day since germination! Just goes to show that you can never get complacent and need to verify every little part of your grow, no matter how trivial. The ladies are now on a true 18/6 light schedule, I’m curious to see how the plants respond and if this had any significant effect on their growth rate.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 650
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 640
Daily fertigation events: 4 (~6:30AM/12:30PM/8:30PM/11:15PM) - 1 or 2 lengthy hand fertigations per week.
Inflow pH: 5.9-6.4
Temperature: 80-83F
Humidity: 60-70rH
Light heighth/strength: 6"/100%
Gave the ladies another topping today for a total of three so far. I am going to top a fourth time probably next weekend and then begin LST. These plants continue to stack really tightly creating a dense canopy and makes bending the branches over very difficult, so topping seems to be a good choice for training, at least during this stage.
I was away for the weekend and upon my return there were some hyperpigmentation changes to a number of fan leaves of both plants, more on one than the other. Because I was gone, the rH was low over the weekend at around 45-50rH, but that environment only lasted for two days. Other than that, rH was been consistently above 60 and temperature has been ranging between 79-83. I have carefully checked the plants for evidence of pests but have found none that I can observe with my eyes. I would love some expert opinions as to what it could be and how I should approach the situation.
Inflow PPM (500 scale): 620
Outflow PPM (500 scale): 600
Daily fertigation events: 4, 25 seconds (~6:30AM/12:30PM/8:30PM/11:15PM) - 1 or 2 lengthy hand fertigations per week.
Inflow pH: 6.0-6.3
Temperature: 80-83F
Humidity: 60-70rH
Light heighth/strength: 6"/100%
The vegetation on these girls was getting absolutely overkill. Pretty much all of the leaves were smashed up against each other making it really difficult to train the plant. I gave her a slight defoliation just to improve airflow and decongest the canopy. I also made sure to top what other stalks needed it and evened out the canopy. With just under two weeks of veg I will definitely be topping one more time.
I also topped the solo cup plant and am hoping to get in one more before the flip to flower. She is a very beautiful and healthy dark green. Excited to see how she continues. My make shift hydro halo is working out great so far and is following the same fertigation mix and schedule.
