Grow Journal - Second Indoor Grow: 600W HPS/MH, strain TBD...

[ellz]

It's been about 10 days since my last update so here's what you missed:

- Saturday, July 11th: Drained reservoir and refilled with 10 gallons of week 8 formula pH'ed to 6.06
- Wednesday, July 15th: Topped off the reservoir with 5 gallons of water with Hydroguard pH'ed to 6.10
- Saturday, July 18th: Drained reservoir and refiled with 10 gallons of week 9 formula pH'ed to 5.95

I also trimmed off a bit of lower leaves, small colas and dead growth.

My light is almost at it's max height. Plants are in their final flowering phase.

I'm also thinking of repeating nutrient week 9 on my next drain/refill because I am estimating that the plants are presently in the "mid-bloom" phase and week 9 on my schedule is the last week of that phase. Next are week 10 (late bloom), week 11 (ripen) and week 12 (flush). Since there is no way I'm close to late bloom, I will repeat week 9 until I am at that point.

Until next time, happy growing!

[ellz]

Here's what you've missed since the last update:

My plants currently appear to be suffering from heat stress because growth has slowed dramatically and the smaller leaves are clawing. To me, I think the daytime highs have really taken a toll. The best I can hope for during extremely hot days is keeping my room under 90ºF during peak temps with the light on. Once the Sun has set and outside temps finally drop, I am able to keep my room temps around 80ºF and if I'm lucky I can get as low as 75ºF if the outside temp is low. I really need a portable air conditioner in my garage but I can't spare the amps because of how the how was wired when it was built. Hopefully by next summer I can have that corrected. It won't be an issue from fall through spring. On Thursday I topped off reservoir with pHed (6.11pH) and HydroGuard water. Reservoir was nearly back to 10 gallons after top-off.

I plan on going back to nutrient week number 7 (I'm currently on week 9's formula) because the plant's growth has slowed dramatically and I feel the phase would just now be considered the beginning of "Mid bloom" which starts at week 7 on the GH calendar. Hopefully that will help the girls bulk up a bit.

Until next time, happy growing!

[ellz]

Another MAJOR update: I'm changing my light schedule based on the weather. The new light schedule will be: ON from 10pm to 10am, OFF from 10am to 10pm.

[SoOrbudgal]

Great work @eliz i need to flip mine soon also and it's just gotten real warm here. I've not ever run my LEDs during the summer heat this will be a first with a photo tent and closing her up for lights out. I have to keep the bottom tent vents rolled open the room is closed off and no light will get to them.

[ellz]

Thanks SoOrbudgal!

[ellz]

A few things you've missed...

On July 26, 2020 I flushed the reservoir and refilled it with week 7's formula (pH was around 6.10) as I feel the girls are still in the early phase of "mid bloom" and I'm hoping it will help fill them out. The heat was so bad that I swapped my light's ON time to 10pm until 10am (approx.) to help keep the room temps down. I was getting upwards of 90ºF before the change and now I'm topping out under 85ºF now. I also made some adjustments to my garage that will allow the swamp cooler to run longer without increasing the humidity as high as before. Still seeing the clawing leaves on smaller growth but it is what it is so we're growing it to the end.

I've attached a pic from each plant below. You'll notice the OG Kush is frosting up fairly well even with the clawing. Then there is the odd "stalk" that morphed into a bud cluster sight on the Peyote Cookies plant. I really don't know how that happened but it did and it's cool so enjoy! Until next time, happy growing!

OG Kush:


Peyote Cookies:

[SoOrbudgal]

That is a very odd stalk ellz very interesting morph? They are looking really dark green? I'm still training one photo in the tent and getting her a tad bigger before 12/12 switch but yes i will be needing to run my lights nearly same times as you. Very warm evenings here don't look forward to closing up the tent at all and we may have to have heat/cooling pump run.

[ellz]

Bad news...
While editing together today's time lapse video, I noticed my light randomly kicked on for about a minute part of the way through my dark hours. I have absolutely no clue why it would do that since it's on a timer and set to be off. It's a mechanical timer so maybe a tab is not seated properly.

I checked the timer and one of the tabs wasn't all the way up (it was just barely protruding) so I pressed it in place.

The light came on for less than a minute about 2 hours after it went off so basically my girls got 10 hours of dark in a row, not 12.

[ellz]

The top of my weird stalk on the Peyote Cookies plant is really interesting...

[SoOrbudgal]

Polypoid multihead ?

[ellz]

SoOrbudgal It's like it got to a certain height and said, "Okay, time to grow wide now!"

[SoOrbudgal]

I've had wide paintbrush looking top center colas it's very neat to see i hope you get one also.

[ellz]

Quick update from this week:
On Wednesday, I topped of my reservoir off with 5 gallons of water (which is about how much it had gone through since my flush Saturday) with HydroGuard pHed to 5.85 since I'm sure my pH in the reservoir is high after a few days of feeding. I also had to tie some of the stalks to anchor points because they were sagging but after a couple of days being supported in good light, they are doing better. I'm on week 7's nutrient schedule again (swapped back from week 9's my last feeding to help build up the buds some more) so I am planning on swapping to week 8's formula when I do my flush on Saturday and I may repeat it depending on where my girls are at that time. Until next time, happy growing!

[ellz]

Today is nutrient flush day and I will be refilling it with week 8's formula (it's basically a copy of week 7) and will continue with week 8 until the buds are better formed. Once they are, I will be continuing with the regular schedule starting at week 9. I am guessing I have about another 4-5 weeks of growing before they will be close to ready for harvest. Just a guess. We'll see soon! I'm hoping they will be dried and cured by my birthday in October. That seems like it's possible still. As for the pH this time, I went with 5.97 in one 5 gallon jug and 6.12 in the other. This should even out to around 6.05 pH once it's in the reservoir. I may try to lower it some after a day or so but I'm not sure. I'd like to have it around 5.75 part of the time so that some of the elements on the lower side of the scale can be better absorbed.

Until next time, happy growing!

[ellz]

As far as that weird stalk, there are now two of them on the Peyote Cookies plant!

[SoOrbudgal]

Looking good eliz i like the " fat head" those are going to be beautiful colas

[ellz]

Today I topped off the reservoir with 5 gallons of water with HydroGuard pH'ed to 5.88

The girls are in their final days now. Hoping to see them fill in over the next week or so. I plan on repeating week 8's nutrient formula on my next flush this Saturday. I will probably set the pH a bit lower than normal and see how the plants respond. I'm thinking somewhere around 5.6 pH.

Until next time, happy growing!

[ellz]

So here's what you missed since my last update...

One of my colas on the OG Kush plant broke so I cut it off and let it dry.

I did my nutrient change on Monday evening. Went with week 9's formula with a pH of around 5.86.

There are a number of wildfires burning near my location and the air quality is very bad. There is smoke everywhere and ash raining down.

Daytime highs will be over 100ºF every day with humidity levels in the teens and no chance of rain.

Until next time, happy growing.

[ellz]

An update I didn't want to make...

We have a major wildfire 10 miles away. The entire area is completely innundated with ash and smoke. Not sure how this will affect the plants but I'm doing my best to reduce incoming air. The only issue is the high temperature for the next several days is forecast to be over 100ºF! Humidity is in the teens or lower so I'm running my humidifier full power while the light is on and supplementing with my swamp cooler for short periods of time. Hoping I can at least harvest before 2020 kills us all (not really but damn 2020)!!

[ellz]

Here's what you missed since the last update:

On Friday of last week, I topped off the reservoir with HydroGuarded water pH'ed to 5.72.

Yesterday I did my reservoir change and repeated week 9 since I think the buds still need to go a bit more. I set the pH at 5.95 for the refill.

The fire is still there but it doesn't appear to be a threat to us any longer, YAY!

Until next time, happy growing!

[SoOrbudgal]

Lucky you @eliz i have some friends in Healdsburg last fire they evacuated for safety not sure how this year is going but damn that area has had it. I'm reading about the outdoor there and it's getting messy.

[ellz]

Here's the latest on my two plants:

On Monday I did a nutrient change and have now switched to week 10's formula at 5.8ph. The Peyote Cookies plant is nearing the end of it's flowering phase and the buds are growing quite large! The pistils are all still white but that will likely change in the next week or so. The OG Kush plants are are still filling in and would be around their mid-flower phase. Not too concerned with them since it was a last minute addition and came out of a batch I bought from the local dispensary so it was free. I'm basing my feeding schedule on the Peyote Cookies plant at this point. Only a 12 day difference so it should be fine. I've attached a few photos below of the buds as they were when I did the change. You can see how much further along the Peyote Cookies plant is next to the OG Kush. Both plants are super sticky and smell incredible. The weird flat-top stalk is about an inch and a half wide and doing a "paintbrush" thing. Until next time, happy growing!