Northen Lights (AF) Grow Diary 2019-2020

[madams9]

I am not using Hydroguard. I have noticed the algae as well and elected not to deal with it anticipating that the plants would grow up to shade the clay and prevent the algae from becoming an issue. Upon further reflection, it looks like these plants won't get that big, particularly Thing 2 which seems to be stunted, and they aren't going to get as big as they will grow before the algae has a chance to take hold.

I'm not pouring through the media, but I have kept the water level fairly high. With agitation, this keeps the media damp enough to give the algae a chance. I may have to look into this and invest in a bottle of Hydroguard, but for now I think things are on the road to recovery. I don't see any remediation for the stunted growth of Thing 2, but it might just be that the plant is small. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing now and get this grow over. In the next month or so, I anticipate purchase of a second light. Once I get more light in the tent, I'll start a couple of the seeds from Southern Oregon Seeds. Lots of crap to deal with in the meantime.

I appreciate the attention Tersky .

[Tersky]

Once the roots are developed enough to hang in the water there is no need to keep the hydroton wet. I leave space between the water level and the bucket to keep the medium from growing algae. When i have problems with algae i use h2o2 to kill it off. I'll get a spray bottle with 3% h2o2 and spray the top of the hydroton enough to wet the top. If you want to saturate the entire net pot i recommend diluting the h2o2 so as to not damage the roots. About 2 tsp per gal is what i use. Algae only grows where there is light and water so as long as the top of the medium gets no water you should not have any more issues with algae.

[alltatup]

These will keep the algae at bay until the plants totally cover the hydroton with leaves. I got them on ebay from bayhydro707

[Tersky]

I had forgotten about those alltatup! Good call!

[madams9]

Looks easy to fabricate since I only need 2. May have to put that on the list.

[madams9]

How much are those? I can't find them on the website. What are they called?

[alltatup]

https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn=bayhydro707&LH_PrefLoc=&_from=R40&_trksid=p2499338.m570.l1312.R1.TR0.TRC0.A0.H0.TRS4&_nkw=rock+wool+covers&_sacat=0

rock wool covers

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Im really cheap


I took the top from another pail, cut it in half, cut a notch in both, and wrapped in foil

[alltatup]

Thrifty; inventive; resourceful; visionary; lurkish. Not cheap!!!! ;-}

[madams9]

This is actually brilliant - I believe I can implement that with a paper plate and some foil. I may have to declare that a winner.

[madams9]

And then there was trouble....

I finally got around to trimming the affected leaves off thing 1 and I found something that looks troublesome. I noticed that the plant put on a lot of growth early on, as one might expect, but it wasn't standing upright. I lashed it to a support and went on to deal with the nutritional issues I was seeing. When I cleared the leaves I saw this:



It looks as if the stalk is supported above the plug by the root, or something. I have lashed the stalk to a bamboo skewer and hopefully this won't be some kind of showstopper. Other than this issue the plant looks pretty good here at 6 weeks.



And a hastily taken action shot.

[madams9]

Not much to report actually. I'm still fighting low PH but the plant has recovered nicely. I've fed it and dosed it with a little more CalMag. ECC looks good. Environment in the tent seems good. Plant seem pretty happy, so I'm pretty happy. Buds are showing up all over the stalk. Here is an action shot.

[madams9]

What actually happened there was the roots pushed the stalk out of the rooter plug. I supported the stalk on a bamboo skewer and the section of root grew itself into something as robust as the stalk. It's fine, but that's the second time I've had that kind of thing happen. Not sure what to do about it, but I'm watching it in the future.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

You have seen that twice?

Different seeds or same strain?

[madams9]

Different, but both autoflowers. I think it has more to do with the rooter plugs and the way I'm using them than anything else. It seems that plants that take hold and grow quickly have the ability to somehow allow the taproot to just push the whole structure up and out of the plug. It's possible that I'm just not getting the seeds deeply into the plug. I'll have to bear all this in mind for my next grow.

[madams9]

Here we are on the cusp of week 10. it's been a hectic few weeks and I haven't had the time I would like to tend to this stuff. Fortunately, there isn't that much to be done since I've basically just let this plant do what it wants to do without a lot of intervention on my part. The plant seems healthy, though the leaves look pretty bad - brown spots and burnt edges (is this just the way Northern Lights looks?). And there was the issue of the tap root pushing the stem out of the rooter plug which is also documented above. I've just been watching water levels and PH and some feeding as documented above. I'm planning to feed some more, possibly tomorrow. Because I had the space and light, I planted one of the Red Cheese seeds gifted me by Southern Oregon Seeds. I'm curious to see what happens with that.

In the meantime, here are some glamor shots and an action photo.




















So it continues.

[madams9]

alltatup I have not considered it. I also notice this in the link provided:

Flushing sick plants is NOT for…

Hydroponic or DWC grow setups – if you have a nutrient or pH problem, just change the reservoir so it has exactly what you want

I may move it to fresh reservoir but, the leaves at the bottom of the plant (newer) look pretty good. The plant seems to be doing okay and I'm reluctant to mess with it too much.

[alltatup]

madams9 I grow hydro too, and here's what I do: I add pH'd water toward the end of each week now that the plants are growing faster, so that's basically fresh water they're in for 36-48 hours before nute change.

After I switch to flower, I keep a very close eye on the leaves and growth patterns, and if they need a flush, I give it to them. I keep adding fresh water each week 2 days before nute change. Like a mini flush.

But a lot of plants get into flowering--this happened to me fairly regularly on my early grows--and they start to overdose on nutes, causing nute lockout. In order to avoid what used to happen, I do what I do now, and I haven't had symptoms of problems on leaves for a while.

[madams9]

Okay, that sounds pretty simple. I'll prep a bucket and move the plant when I get a chance this evening. I'll see how it goes.

[madams9]

Week 12
I ditched the soup in the original res and placed the plant is a fresh, PH controlled res for about 4 days. That res is now looking good in terms of nutes (~810 PPM) and PH (~6.15). The plant doesn't look any worse and I snipped some of the larger, browner leaves. It seems healthy and is getting heavy. I may have to add another support to help it stay upright. I snipped a couple of samples from colas and 'scoped them. It looks like we are on schedule for a mid-to-late January harvest on this one.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

[alltatup]

Looking good! It's always hard to tell from someone's pics what the trichomes are really doing, but one indicator I always look for through my jeweler's loupe is triches bending over from the weight of the head. Yours still look pretty vertical from what I can see. If they're already turning milky, I don't know if I'd wait a whole nother two weeks to harvest, but you may like a lot more CBN and amber than I do. ;-}

[madams9]

alltatup Thanks for the input. This plant is just about 11 weeks old. My plan was to wait until about week 12 to take it down. That would be next week. I'll have to take a good hard look at harvesting in the next week or so. I don't see any amber trichomes yet and I would generally wait until I've got some amber in there. At least that has been the plan up to now.

[alltatup]

I look forward to seeing the harvest!! ;-}

[SoOrbudgal]

I was gonna say I see milky pretty much all through the bud shot.

[madams9]

SoOrbudgal there is some milky stuff happening, but I don't see any amber. See above comment to alltatup. I'm watching closely and the time is certainly drawing near.

[SoOrbudgal]

You've had a hard run on this one but next one I bet you'll have way less issues. Good luck madams9 I got 2 same as you showing milky no amber yet, patience is our friendly neighbor

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Friendly?

I always found him to be loud and boisterous, trying to pressure me into cutting early, maybe I am confusing him with his roommate?

[alltatup]

Yes, patience is a bitch...

[SoOrbudgal]

LurkingInTheGrass yes that little voice I've been hearing lately when I glance into my tent, smell the lovely scents look at the frosted rock hard golf balls and want to use my Poulin 16" on it, limb it hang it cure it OMG hurry up ( I sure as heck hope it's all that good )

[madams9]

And here we are at week 13. It looks to me as if this plant will be coming down this weekend. The buds are visibly darker and taking on an amber hue. They are tight and kind of purple. Here are some pics and the customary action shot. Note that I have moved to a different webcam solution and am trying a monochrome rendering of the screenshot. It's overexposed, but adequate for my needs.

Let me know what you think.


Roll of paper towels for scale.











Our sample subject:

[SoOrbudgal]

Looks like you will be harvesting soon. That's one fat cola.

[madams9]

So the deed is done. I chopped it Saturday and hung it to dry. What I noticed is that the yield is kind of light and it dried really fast. I've already got it in jars. It hasn't been sampled yet, but it looks okay. I'll update the diary when I know more. In the meantime, I'm prepped for the next round - 2 more Northern Lights and 2 Red Cheese. I've successfully germinated the Red Cheese and I'm waiting on the Northern Lights but I have some confidence. And here are some pics.

[SoOrbudgal]

Time for another round gets better and better

[BR2K]

Wow - Thank you for your well-documented grow!

[madams9]

You are most welcome.

By way of update, I smoked a tiny, sticky wad of it last night. Ten minutes later I had melted into my couch. I'm pretty happy with it.