Day 50 for flowering - Excuse the long post but it's been a while.
It's been a bit of a hairy ride for the last couple of weeks. Some stresses on the plants stress me out, but I'm calmer this grow than I was for my last.
Room temps and humidity have been great. Temps 78 day, 68 night -- Humidity 39% day, 50% night. A little high on the night humidity but VPD chart shows I'm swinging through the optimal zone - a little too dry and a little too humid for flowering. Not worried about rot at all though since they get a good dry period as well.
pH has been a bit of a bugger. All plants are running in the 5.0 - 5.3 range except the 2 skunks which are at 4.8, and 4.5. I've switched to pH water and nutes at 8.0 and past experience from last grow says this will take a while to get those numbers moving. (I know 5.0 - 5.3 is good for coco. I'm just trying to maintain that at this point. The skunks were at 5.5 only a handful of weeks ago...)
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Lighting... I've been hitting them too hard. I'm seeing amber trichs showing up on the most exposed leaves but new growth shows lower counts so turning down the lights seems to be helping.
I turned off th e HPS over the AK 47 since it won't seem to green up. I had been turning down the veg intensity on the 300 w Vipar over it but I don't think that was enough. So off goes the HPS. But seeing browing trichs on other plants has convinced me to pull the shade cloth (which was definitely helping a lot for the center) and cut out the veg on the 600 w and go bloom only.
I've been reading the micromoles with a Hydrofarm Quatum PAR meter and readings for most areas of the room were in the 650 - 725 range. From my understanding that should be fine. The light intensity looks fine to my eye as well. But perhaps the meter is reading too low. There is no way to calibrate it since it 'self calibrates' so I can't really speak to it save for observing my plants. I'm going to be aiming for 600 for the center of the room but didn't get a reading before the lights cut out on me.
​ I'm curious to see how the corners will be reading. It does seem that areas that have been lower on the intensity scale are looking healthier, albeit with smaller buds.
I've been running mid bloom schedule up until yesterday and have switched to late bloom schedule. Looking at the trichs, I maybe could have switched over a week ago but I'm too inexperienced to know for sure. After my 5 day nute drought, giving them a full nute watering give them some real pep in growth! But now I think I've been going to heavy -- of course -- and tip burn is fairly heavy.
So I'm going to be ramping that back going forward. I've also been going without water or nutes for 2 to 2.5 days, mainly because I've been really busy. They have been drying out quite a bit in between and seem to be o.k. with it. I'm not comfortable with it and I'm in a better place to monitor the soil water content better. I'm wondering if that is helping drive down my runoff pH but I don't think so. Last grow the pH just dropped out when they started flowering and I'm in the same position now.
As for the plants -- the buds are definitely bigger and denser than my last grow so that's really good. But because I browned some trichs from the light (pretty confident based on height and location in room) it's a little tricky to get a real sense of how they are progressing. I'm seeing a real blend of clear and 'mostly' milky with a scattering of amber on most of them. The AK 47 showing the fewest ambers, the Lithium showing a scattering and the Herer showing plenty in the middle of the room. Expected... Buds on the perimeter show very few ambers and I think they represent the progress best. I sample from a sugar leaf about 2/3 down on a bud since they are a bit older and give a better sense of overall progress I think.
I'm not letting those ambers get me jittery since I think I've harvested too early in the past,. I think I have 3 weeks to go but things could change quickly. I'm aiming to seem ambers about 25-30% of total trichs for harvest. Guidance on this is more than welcome!
The Mg deficiency in the Herer continues to spread despite the pH coming down in the low 5 range and always adding cal/mag to every watering. *shrug* I'm at a bit of a loss to explain it except it is really only showing in the center of the room and I believe the light stress is bringing it out. I'll see how it goes after turning down the lights.
Also of note, the front skunk shows very strong purple-ing of the stems. Most of the plants show some purple in the petioles but this one has purple veining down the stems all the way to stump.
Reading, it could be a sign of P deficiency but it could also be phenotypic. I worry about it though since the pH for for the skunks are so low. Not much I can do except keep trying to get the pH up. This skunk also has been having lower leaves yellowing much more quickly than the other plants. Most haven't been shedding leaves at all -- just a couple in the last week. So that also seems to say something is amiss with this plant.
On a curious side, the branch that got 'super cropped by accident' has one of or maybe the largest bud for the skunks.
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Room placement and height might be playing a role here but damn if it doesn't look like it's pulling ahead. I'll be exploring super cropping next go around for sure.
I've labeled all the photos to help you sort though them. I left some of them at full res since you can see the trichs pretty clearly.
