First grow. Plants are a 16 days old except for plant #4 who is 12 days old. Due to poor record keeping I'm not sure which plants are which in terms of strain . So we're going to leave them on 24/0 for awhile and see what happens. All plants were transplanted into 3 gallon (11 liter) smart pots filled with Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil 3 days ago and moved from under t5's to a 600 Watt MH about 24 inches (60 CM) above the canopy. Temps stay between 76 and 78 F (24 to 26C) and the humidity i've recently gotten to be about 44%, before I was struggling to keep it above 30% I haven't given them any nutes yet. Plant #2 first leaves are turning yellow. I gave all the plants there first true water yesterday and measured the water run off. Runoff was closer to 7PH than I'd like so I am going to keep watering as they need it in an attempt to bring the soil PH down slowly. I am open to all comments and constructive criticism so feel free to let me know if you fine folks see anything amiss.
Day 17 (13 for the smallest plant) Gave all plants a water with RO water some MagiCAL, Root 66, and Orca. Had some good run off. One of the plants runoff PH was lower than I'd like 5.8, but I hope to get that closer to dialed in with more waterings. Going to hold back from watering for a while and give them time to dry out. Tried to lower my light a bit but had a hard time keeping my exhaust ducting straight. Not sure how other people are doing it, but with a large air cooled hood, carbon filter, and ducting I am running out of space at the top of my tent. tent is 3' X 3' X 6'.
Day 19. Let the girls dry out over the weekend. Gave them another water this time with 1/4 strength nutrients from the technaflora line. I did make the switch over to RO water and have been adding magnesium, calcium, and iron to the water. I attempted some light LST on plant # 1 but did have to remove 2 fan leaves. One of them was a one finger and the other was a 3 finger. Both were pretty much in shade from the top growth. I think I'm only going to try LST on one plant to see how it goes, also I think it's one of the autos so next time I'm planning on growing photos so I can take more time. Plant # 4 is still the smallest, but she had a bit of a growth spurt so I haven't given up on her yet!
Day 22 Watered Plants again today with half does of calmag. Plants immediately got droopy which makes me think I watered too much. Smart pots are doing their job however and the soil is still pretty airy and drying quickly. Plant 1's LST is going great. I did remove another large fan leaf that was blocking 2 of the branches that are going up. Plant 2 is going gangbusters and is putting out another set of leaves more or less daily now. Plant 3 is putting out leaves slightly less often than plant 2, but it's leaves are much bigger. Plant 4 is still by far the smallest, but growth is accelerating.
Day 25 All plants have female preflowers. Had to defoliate 2 leaves each from plants 2 and 3. Leaves were 3 finger leaves at the bottom of the plant in complete shade. Plants are still pretty far from the light, 29 inches. Plants are showing some minor tacoing and I can't determine if it's heat stress or wind burn. Temps stay fairly constant at between 77 to 80 F. Moved the fans a bit to attempt to change wind exposure.
Day 28 Gave plants feeding 2 days ago with full strength calmag and half strength nutrients. Plants have started preflower with pistils. I think they might have gone just straight to flower, vertical growth has slowed down but they are getting nice and wide. Pistil growth has been super fast. All of the internet research I have found on preflower has been on photos and these are autos so I'm not sure how to tell the difference between pre and post flower. Everything online says when you flip to 12/12 but I'm not planning on flipping until I know which ones for sure are auto's so I know the reminder are the free Gorilla Glue seeds. All seeds have shown female flowers and I have not found any hermies so at least everything will bud regardless of strain.
Day 32 Switched over to HPS. Had to move watts down to 450, tops of plants are getting somewhat light stressed and heat stressed. I've improved this set up as much as I think I can in terms of ventilation. It's just super hot where I live like 11 months out of the year. I live alone so I am going to leave the tent open occasionally. Also I am starting the plants on an 18/6 light schedule during the hottest part of the day top try and keep the heat down. Tops are starting to open up and get get fat.
Your plants are looking great, Garnack! Love the fact that you forgot which ones are which cuz I did the exact same thing with my six indoor plants. Two are GSC and four are OG Kush but I am not certain who's who. Got an idea, but still not 100% sure - lol
With the hard work we do selecting grow light, making the perfect environment, going over nutrient schedules, and more you'd think we could put pen to paper and remember which one of these ladies is which. Did a quick once over of your set up and it looks really nice!
Day 37 Had some Phosphorus deficiency on plants 1 and 2. Guess they went harder into flower sooner than I thought. Gave all plants a flush and gave them bloom nutes and a bloom booster. They perked right up the day after. PH levels have been fairly stable. I think plants 1 and 2 are going to be ready to harvest first. Still got awhile to go, but I am getting pretty excited. Next time I might go for 3 plants 4 gets pretty tight in my 3' by 3' tent.
Thanks, Garnack I'm pretty stoked to get these babies into flower and now it's just a couple of days away. Time flies. When you first start germming the seed and think, wow, I gotta wait a whole 4 weeks until I can start flowering??? Well, 4 weeks flies by, then 5, then 6 and you're so busy trying to keep the little fukers from dying that before you know it, you're not totally ready. Got my AN nutes coming today, the tent heater tomorrow and the silica on Monday. Busy right now McGyvering some of my old tomato plant cages to act as supports for the three manifolders and gotta waterproof the tent again cuz the rain (that never happens in So Cal) is coming back on it's way starting tomorrow....
I look at it the same way that when parents that are expecting choose not to discover if their having a boy or girl. WTF, just keep 'em healthy and let it ride. Besides, the dispensary I bought them from wasn't the most organized so everything regarding genetics in my grow is, more or less, completely random...
Day 40 plants are doing well. Sill some phosphorus issues but feeding day is in two days so they'll get more then. Other than that I'd like to see some tricomes start to form.
Nice looking grow man youre doing good for youre first time so far! It sucks when you forget to label your strains like that but like he said you get so excited planting them to give them life youre more focused on the plant themselves than what their actual strain is lol jve been there. Subbed what day are you into flower? They all look about the same as far as flowering maybe the auto is the smallest one plant #4? Autos usually grow slower compared to normal photoperiod plants and then shoot off with growth at the 2-3 week point to grow as much as possible so they can beigin flowering. If i had a guess id say plant #4 is your diesel auto
Thanks for the compliment sir! The plants are at about day 22 in flower. At this point I am 99% sure that all of them are the Auto Diesel as they all started flowering without me doing anything to the light schedule, and they were on 24/0 until very recently and they are still only on 18/6. That said I am planning on going to photo's for my next grow as I want to try out some topping and LST.
Day 46 Plants 1 and 2 have very small amounts of trichomes. Might do a flush soon or start flushing for the end of flowering. These autos should only go about 10 weeks so next week I should flush as that will be week 8.
Day 51 Finally think I got the phosphorus deficiency under control. Flushed the girls and gave them a good strong feed. I heard that auto's we're not super hungry, but my girls want their feedings at like 1200PPM. Plants 1 and 2 have pretty good trichomes on them. Plant 4 which was my worst plant has come back with a vengeance and is now the second largest plant. I also poped 3 Nirvana ak-48 seeds yesterday to go into the veg tent once these girls are harvested.