Oh the fuck if I know. I’ll look for you next time I’m in there, I need to know more about lighting
2 Likes
Good morning, OG’ers!
Hope y’all have been hanging in there this week and doing your best at whatever you’ve got goin. All the best to your gardens and the people you keep closest, just the same.
Been a full week here in the Dodger Den, so we’ll get to it.
We germinated a week ago, and saw great results, with all seven cracking within 24 hours soaking, and six out of seven showing tap roots by 48 hours. Some had already grown several centimeters in that time, with the largest at about half an inch, to mix metric and imperial.
At 48 Hours soaking, we soaked Root Riot cubes in purified water, and @JustTieflingThings went to work with surgery, her far steadier hand dropping each and covering with a plug of peat. Back under the dome, we gave them a little while longer in the dark, waiting to see signs above ground before throwing on the T5. Again, this only took about 20 hours or so, before we were greeted one after another with what quickly became 6 healthy looking sprouts. While the last struggled, seeming to have lost track of up, or lack the strength to move the plug, the others shed their helmets, which clung a bit to four of them (one worse than others, which we eventually helped off, but left some cotyledon damage.)
After about a day and a half under the T5 two of the seedlings seemed to have their cotyledon curl “closed,” where they have remained. It seems like they are trying to grow first leaves to match their sisters, the seed-leaves are blocking them.
Four of the six, on the other hand, are starting to push second leaves as of day 6.Barring any extreme circumstance, these will be the four we transplant to the RDWC. At least one of these, on inspection today showed about a centimeter of tap root hanging from the bottom of the cube. We have prepared the system, pH balancing tap water to 5.8, which we’ll transplant them into during my work week, then feed them according to the GH Trio Medium Schedule to kick off my week/end.
We have set the light at 20%, delivering a DLI of ~11.5-12, from 56" above the top of the buckets over a light schedule of 18/6. The long schedule will be nice, giving me plenty of time with the girls before and after work if the need should arise.
The weather has been damned strange around the big river valley, and that gives some cause for concern, but we’ve yet to need to blast any fans or bring in the big space heater. This may change in veg, depending on ambient heat from the equipment. All equipment is running smooth in tests, though we have swapped out the band-aid digital timer we ran half of last grow, as it seemed to not want to accept a new program.
We put on an old analog timer for now, and will be testing the digital again with something else to see if we can’t save it.
BAREBONES STATS
-
7 Days from Seed -
4 out of 6 sprouted seedlings are strong contenders, if a bit leggy for being under the weak light of the T5. At least one shows a bit of tap root hanging out of the bottom of the cube when inspected. -
T5 over the dome, putting it at now about 3" from their seedling canopies. -
Tap water has been pH balanced in the res to 5.8 target. PPM is at ~300. -
Average 81.6 * F, 85.7% RH, and .53 kPa VPD under the dome. We began opening the vents after sprouting was evident and the light was on.
In other garden related news, Jessicat the Girl the Mail Cat dragged in a generous letter from @Hashpants just yesterday, bearing two amazing looking pants-pucks, with Feminized DP X WW and Lemme OG X WCT. Both sound incredible, and based on his work, should prove to be, once given a run. Thanks again for a chance to see and experience such stunner genetics, friend.
All in, it’s a great start to our fourth run, and should be a hell of a lot of fun, a great learning experience, or both! 
Thanks for stopping in as we start off on it, and as always, especially so for any kind words, conversation, or otherwise. Hope all the best for you and yours this week. Make it one to remember.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
14 Likes
Quick mid-week post! ACI replacement gear all dropped in today, making for a tired mail cat. But! Included was this, which I wasn’t even aware was a thing. So that’s rad.
Hope y’all having equally good days, this was definitely nice to catch in the middle of the work week grind.
Also got a couple of the gen 2 oscillating fan replacements. Should be up and swapped out by Sunday or so.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
12 Likes
Looking to be the start of another beautiful run 
Question on putting the seeds into the cubes.
Are they fully engulfed by the cubes then break their shells as they emerge?
Or are the shells already in removed by natural growth or steady fingertips?
I’ve just always wondered. I see some germ for so long. Almost getting their 1st set
I always seem to struggle, but help em a bit with my fingertips if needed
3 Likes
They usually fall off in the course of opening up, but for stubborn ones, we’ve found that a bit of water directly on the cotyledon is enough to help it slide off. Granted we’re pretty shy about bothering them much that young, we’re getting better about it. They’re resilient. Hahaha
Your next run sounds killer, too, @LzBoy ! Looking forward to seeing that Oozie, for sure. Best luck to ya.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
7 Likes
Hey there, OG!
Another week on the record books, and I’m feelin’ pretty good about it. The garden is just starting to take off, so come on out of that heat-wave, and enjoy some decarbed tea, set a while and stick around. These girls are ready to GO.
As mentioned in the sneak-peak earlier this week, we caught some new gear, with second generation AC Infinity replacements for two S6 Circulation fans and a T3 Humidifier. We are running the new huey based on an individual external probe, rather than having a whole separate Controller 69 for it alone. The Second Generation features on-board VPD based automation, which is a huge improvement to the first gen already- that feature was only accessible before when paired with a controller, and that pairing was evidently problem-ridden to begin with. The new T3 is running beautifully, especially for being a bit of a surprise. Unlike our first return/replacement with ACI, they didn’t ask for the old one back, either.
This puts us dangerously close to eventually expanding and really only needing a tent and light to do so. Dangerously close. Hahaha
Friday morning we tested the waters of using the extra time during the light-cycle after I get home to see if I’ve still got enough in me after a work-night to get some real work done. The transplants into the new Current Culture net pots was super easy, given the shape- they have a bit of a platform scooped up into the bottom, giving great stability to the cubes as we filled in the hydroton.
We allowed the girls to take their time with getting their feet wet, and gave them 24 hours in our hard tap water from there. The two seedlings that closed their cotyledons were spared from execution, to see how they progressed. After a day and a half or two, they had opened back up, but were still struggling to push their first true leaves, now cramped and shriveled themselves. They were ceremoniously dissected and destroyed. While root growth had continued, the reaction probably would have been fatal, even if we had somewhere for them to go. The one that never broke soil, on the other hand, seemed strong, but just couldn’t shake the plug and shell, and had grown spiraled around itself.
Our four final girls took well to the drastic shift in their environment, and we went ahead and fed them 24 hours later, giving the Medium GH Trio schedule, plus ArmorSi and Hydroguard. This went smoothly, and over the next couple of days, we have begun to see them respond with nearly no issues. All four are now pushing second true leaves, with multi-blades. The girl in plant site #3 gave us some slight concern at first, but as she progresses, we believe she is simply showing a different pheno expression than the others, which are all much more uniform when compared.
We have seen a little sign of slight tip-burn, but that seems to be correcting itself on the new growth.
Other than that, they’re seedlings, doing seedling sh!t with their seedling friends. One downside so far to the new lids has presented: it’s going to be harder to get our root-porn shots when those masses start to bulk up.
BAREBONES STATS
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14 Days from Seed 5 Days in RDWC plant-sites.
-
4 out of 6 sprouted seedlings were transplanted to their final plant-sites on 2/23/24, at 8 days from seed.
-
HLG 600R-Spec is 56" above plant-sites, set to 20% output, delivering a DLI of ~11.5-12. This will be increased to 15-16 DLI today, likely by lowering the fixture, rather than increasing output.
-
The plants were allowed to acclimate to the plant-sites and tap water for 24 hours before feeding GH Trio (Base only), ArmorSi, and Hydroguard. We have held the pH at 5.8, with temps ranging from 67-70 * F, and a ~<500 PPM or <1 EC
-
Average 74 * F, 53.9% RH, and 1.06 kPa VPD
In other news, I finally got around to finishing my cleaned-up avatar. Relearning a new graphic editor is fun. Sometimes. Hahaha Lacking a scanner, my hand-drawn letters had to go through a lot of clean-up, but I’m pretty stoked on it. Here it is all blown up:
Also, for any NERDS that check in here, go on and stop by the thread we started in the Lounge earlier: Dungeons and Dab-rigs: Table Top RPG, Board Games, and more
Dropping this update early, as I’ve got the first proper health check up I’ll have gone to in more than half a decade, so fingers crossed on that front that nothing is falling apart just yet. Whatever you’re facing today, I hope you grab hold of it and shake it down like it owes you money. Thanks as always for dropping in and checking up, and for any encouragement, comments, constructive feedback, or just saying hi! We’ll catch you next week, same Bat-thread, same Bat-time.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
15 Likes
for your health check! The grow looks great!
3 Likes
Appreciate it, @Gadarien . Better to know than not, for sure.
Hope you and yours are well! Thanks for dropping by.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
4 Likes
Excited to see your new tent and light haul 
I love reading your posts, graphic and plants look great. Good luck at the doc!
5 Likes
Here’s to health, and wealth to those who needs that.
2 Likes
It’s Wednesday, y’all!
Been a full week and “week/end” for us around here, but we managed through it far better than fine. I know I’d be lost without @JustTieflingThings holding it down- that’s for sure. I don’t fare well with a lot, and damned if she doesn’t take care of me and see to it I make it through each day. Hope y’all are so lucky to have anything like that in your life, whatever form they may take.
On to the grow show! The seedlings are still mostly… you know. Seedlings. But! They have started to really gear up for take off. This part still hasn’t lost it’s luster for us. 
The garden ran a little smoother than things outside of it this week, with all the equipment behaving. We re-upped some supplies, installed an easy-switch water line split at the tap we use to fill from (shared with our washer,) solved the problem of hand-coiling the hose after feeds, and picked up one of those hose attachment filters. It doesn’t seem to have a big effect on PPM, though we haven’t tested the tap water side-by-side yet. Anything seems better than nothing, though, and they come recommended by more than a few OG’ers, so we’re giving it a shot.
The babies have all established themselves in their plant sites, and, after a few days growing more down and out than up, have begun to take off. They have been given names, and #M! , #RD , and #BS all seem to be of similar expression, so far, based on over all structure and leaf morphology. These three are all slightly taller than their odd-sister, and are throwing broader leaves with slight blade overlap. #π is our special girl, and so far has remained shorter with much narrower leaf blades. All of them have full three-bladed fan leaves.
There was a bit of a struggle with temps and RH, with the ambient swings we’re facing this pre-Spring in the Big River Valley. Temps outside have had shifts from 
82 * F to 22 * F 
in a matter of 16 hours, and humidity has likewise shifted from the 30%'s into the upper 50%'s and 60%'s. I was expecting a hard winter, and we got one week of it, followed by some truly wild numbers for months. It’s been interesting, but damn if we haven’t felt those changes in the joints and bones, eh? After some tinkering with the equipment, we’ve been able to ride it out and deliver some consistant numbers, if slightly out of what we’d call perfectly nominal.
Feeding was a bit different with the new lids, as we don’t have the space to drop in our usual pump. I figured we could use a spare pump and extra bit of hose to transfer, but for whatever misunderstanding of the equipment I have, it only pushed air for a bit, and we don’t want that. So we figured to figure that out later, and think on some other solutions without disturbing the plant sites. For this week, we used the small shop-vac to run buckets out. Tedious, but we got it done. Otherwise the feed went well, and the solution has been fairly stable with only a .3+/- drift to our 5.8 pH target (except for the filtered tap water, which was at 50 * F, ~>300PPM, 8.1 pH or so.)
In the same work-period, we lowered the light to 40" above the plant-sites and bumped the out put by 5%. Photone gives us a 14.5-16.1 DLI at the little canopies. This is per their Auto Schedule. I’ve heard Photone isn’t the best, especially on Samsung devices. The Uni-T line of multimeters was brought to my attention for being a dead cheap light intensity tool. I think we’d be looking at a UT383BT in that case. Anyone got experience with 'em? Sure would be nice to get an accurate read on light. 
All the same, we have noticed some slight drooping after those changes, though they already seem to be rebounding well. We’ve seen this at this point in our previous grows, but aren’t sure how to alleviate it, or if it’s just a matter of them acclimating further.
As of just a few hours ago, we did also notice some yellowing of the cotyledons of #RD and #M!, which seems a bit concerning…? Any insights there, y’all?
#π
#M!
#RD
#BS
BAREBONES STATS
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21 Days from Seed 14 Days in RDWC plant-sites.
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#M! #RD and #BS seedlings are all exhibiting fairly uniform growth, with #π appearing to be of a different phenotype. All are showing great signs of steady growth, tight nodes, and are all ~3.25-4.5" tall. All are pushing 3rd and 4th nodes at the meristems, and budding branches. Some drooping has occurred after feeding and increase of light exposure.
-
HLG 600R-Spec is 40" above plant sites at 25% output. According to Photone we are delivering a ~200-250 PAR at the plant sites, and just over 300 at distance, center tent. 14-16 DLI
-
We added a KDF/Carbon hose filter to the mix, to feel better about possible contaminates. No noticeable difference in PPM. We have increased the feed and added CaliMagic and Floralicious per the schedule. We have held the pH at ~5.8, with temps ranging from 67-70 * F (after warming from an initial 50 *,) and a ~<750 PPM or <1.5 EC
-
Average 73.6 * F, 53.75% RH, and 1.05 kPa VPD Leaf surfaces were taken at an average of *-3 F relative to ambient tent conditions.
Besides the new equipment, 
Jessi the Girl the Mail-Cat 
was busy early in the week since the last post, bringing well-wishes, great seed, and some awesome stickers. We added (TK X GF) X BBD and (CBB X SG) X BBD from Ryknows Selections and Rotten Pineapple F4 (WVP X SSC) to our little arsenal, and we’re damn thankful for the chance to grow such fine genetics! Thank you again, 
@Rhai88 and @Rena93 , and @Cartwright for sharing such killer looking work so generously. 
And of course, thank YOU 
faithful readers, for following along, and all the encouragement and feedback. Especially for your well-wishes about the check-up. Everything went better than expected, particularly in the areas of most concern, like my heart. 
I’ve gotta set a neurology appointment 
about the migraines, though, and wound up with a wicked abscess in a broken molar that had me luck 
into an emergency extraction. Even still, apparently the rest of my teeth are better than I expected to hear! It’s the small victories, as @JustTieflingThings is prone to needing to remind me. I’m through the worst of it and only lost a day of work.
Likewise, whatever is thrown your way with the toss of the dice this week, I hope you weather it well, learn something along the way, and come out better for it by next time.
We’ll catch y’all then.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
16 Likes
Glad to send them. Good luck with your seedlings 
4 Likes
Life is good when you have a good woman around!
Just do it and thank me later. Price point is excellent. Results are so close to an apogee it’s scary. Worked great with my S21+ haven’t had any issues.
Probably just a little bit of transition shock with the changes shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I actually have 3 plants of many right now there are having coty issues which is strange but not overly concerning since the newer growth looks fine. I wouldn’t stress that unless you see other issues arise. Us salts dudes can correct issues pretty quick.
You’re welcome! 
Keep up the kick ass work brother! you too @JustTieflingThings!
6 Likes
Nice going CD and JTT!
I can attest to the uniT as well, for 50 bux and their app. Gave me piece of mind for my first 2 grows.
The WMBK grow I did not use it. As I’ve found I really want to read the plant myself and adjust accordingly.
But they were not autos.
With autos I definitely use DLI, that’s where the meter helped bigtime.
Photos can handle more light sooner from what I’ve noticed. I’ve thrown out DLI with photos.
Good luck growchacho
3 Likes
Thanks for the vote of confidence and the solid tip about autos, @LzBoy . Was thinking that more precise lighting would be pretty important this year.
I’m sure I’ll be grabbing one with you, Rhai, and Shane from Migro all endorsing it.
Much better way of looking at it. Glad to know nothing looks too wonky. Things were looking like smooth sailing when I checked in before work tonight.
Ain’t that the truth.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
7 Likes
Hey, y’all.
Here’s hoping you all had a fine start to the week over the course of a Dodger-Den “week/end.” It was great to be home and off work, and we had plenty to keep us busy in and out of the garden, so this week’s entry may be a bit truncated. That’s alright, though- I’ll still find something to ramble about, to be sure.
Grab a chair and some coffee, a joint and an eye full. They grow up so damn fast. 
One thing is for sure: The genetics here are pow’rful. These girls seem a bit finicky with us at times, but they also seem to be powering through those small symptoms with nothing but grace. The worst of these symptoms are present only in the lowest true leaves. Almost all cotyledons have shriveled. The only spread toward the middle of a leaf as far as these symptoms goes is in #RD, higher at the third or fourth node.
Could this be a Calcium toxicity presenting through inability to uptake other nutrients?
As we don’t plan on topping these, being our first attempt at autos and all, we will be (hopefully) employing some solid LST through this grow. The week saw an abundance of happy growth, and they seem ready for it, to avoid losing the window in which they’ll be most pliable, but after feed, we have seen a bit more drooping stress, and figure we’ll decide later in the morning today if they’ll be up for the initial bending-over that will start that process.
In the meanwhile, due to a change in our draining procedure, #π has received some training compared to her sisters, through net-pot rotation.
The lighting has not been changed this week, as the little plants seem content so far to grow into the current settings, slowly increasing in that sense. If we have a successful pre-training session, we may increase the DLI toward the end of this feed cycle. Growth this week has the canopies receiving closer to 333 PPFD or 20-23 DLI at 18 hours.
#π
#M!
#RD
#BS
BAREBONES STATS
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28 Days from Seed 21 Days in RDWC plant-sites.
-
All the babies are really taking off now, with a near-doubling of general bio-mass to the bare-eye and a ruler. All have roots dangling nearly the height of the buckets. All are developing 5-7 bladed leaves. All, unfortunately, still exhibit some yellowing in the margins and burning on the tips of some early leaves. We hope to bend them all over the course of this week to prepare them for later, further LST.
-
HLG 600R-Spec is 40" above plant sites (Now roughly 36" from the canopies) at 25% output. According to Photone we are delivering a ~200-250 PAR at the plant sites, and just over 300, at distance, center tent. 14-16 DLI No change this week, pending training
-
Per the schedule. We have held the pH at ~5.8, with temps ranging from 67-69 * F (after warming from an initial 50 *,) and a ~910 PPM or ~1.8 EC
-
Average 73.6 * F, 52% RH, and 1.07 kPa VPD Leaf surfaces were taken at an average of *-3 F relative to ambient tent conditions.
This week, to our great pride, Jessicat the Girl the Mail-cat dragged in a stuffed envelope from a fellow MO grower’s excellent preservation run. Thank you again , @cdues21 for the abundance of awesome looking seed, and the chance to grow some remarkable, and historic plants. Show me Solidarity!
That’ll do it for this week, but thanks again for dropping in, any help you may have about those leaves, and any encouragement you can offer. Here’s hope for all the best for you and yours, your projects, and the things you value most. It’s only 8 seconds’ ride at a time.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
13 Likes
Very cool. I love growing in clay pebbles. I’m going to say bring the PPM down to around 700 and try running a ph of 6 for a week to see if the leaves look better. Temps and VPD look good to me
4 Likes
Looking good CD.
Take what I say with a grain of salt.
What about running the temps and humidity higher?
Shouldn’t you be at 0.4kpa to 0.8ish?
Room temp around 80 humidity around 70, leaf temp around 78ish.
Ive always heard with LED’s as well, high temps aren’t as bad, compared to running cmh’s and other light specs 🤷
Do you use VPD Chart
2 Likes
@LzBoy - Could be contributing to the bit of roughness. For sure higher temps under LED is a good plan. Balancing that with RDWC and no chiller. Gotta mind that root zone temp, too. Spring in the big river valley has been keeping the VPD a bit lower than we had been trying to maintain, either way. Haha. Got charts and the ACI gear to keep VPD straight, just getting a feel for what early and late veg mean for autos. Better to focus on the individuals I guess, eh? Hahaha.
@Chara - we were wondering about lowering the feed in general, just the same. May cut CalMag out and factor for even fewer gallons than we put in, see where that puts us. We’ve stopped chasing pH as hard as we were last week. Don’t wanna be in that position. That alone has made a difference, for sure
Thanks for the advice!
Back to work…
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
5 Likes
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Hope y’all are doing well on this fine first day after Spring Equinox! All the best to you outdoor growers. I love watching y’all prepare to get at the season and soak up that sun. Things are going well enough in here- we’re still hanging on to these first autos and really impressed by the differences between them and our photo grows. Let’s get to it.
The week had us minding the solution and symptoms from last week closely, but largely with our hands off. Minding advice from @Chara and @LzBoy , we allowed the pH to drift into the 6-6.2 range, and the VPD to drop towards 0.89-0.99 and saw a marked difference in the girls fairly quickly. Hesitant to change too many variables, too quickly and wind up over-correcting, we allowed the girls to continue through the week at these parameters.
Here is the sad leaf from last week’s spotlight, nearly a week later. No new growth is showing any such symptoms.
Further, we decided to switch to a Light Feed schedule. While our previous schedule called for a Week 4 PPM of 1000 (2 EC), we have reduced this, and have a post-feed PPM settled at closer to 875 or 1.8 EC.
We have still not begun training, and there may not be time to today. We will be doing what we can to bend some branches this week, as long as the girls look tolerant. Also planning some light defol, especially of the affected leaves. Question: All you auto-masters! What is your usual cut-off for training? Are we a bit too late without risking a major stunting? Thanks in advance!
The new lids make it a bit harder to get good root-porn, but while draining and feeding, we have seen decent root-balls forming.
We have also begun to see some impressive little pistils at the bud-sites. Some are longer than a half inch or so.
BAREBONES STATS
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35 Days from Seed 28 Days in RDWC plant-sites.
-
While we haven’t seen anymore spread to the leaf issues we saw developing last week, there does continue to be some drooping until a few days after a feed. We have still not begun training properly, but hope to do at least some light LST.
-
HLG 600R-Spec is 36" above plant sites at 25% output. According to Photone we are delivering a ~350-375 PAR at the plant sites, 20-23 DLI
-
We have changed to a LIGHT Feed Schedule per General Hydroponics standards, and cut out CaliMagic as area water analysis reports suggest we may not need it. We have held the pH at ~6.0, with temps ranging from 65-68 * F (after warming from an initial 54 *,) and a ~875 PPM or ~1.7 EC
-
Average 72.4 * F, 55.95% RH, and 0.91 kPa VPD Leaf surfaces were taken at an average of *-3 F relative to ambient tent conditions.
In other garden related news, we saw the fastest turn around of some beans in the mail that we’ve caught yet, with only a few days passing between @pharmerfil tossing up these Jimmy Jacks X Chem Candy seeds and our mailbox bursting into flames.
Thanks again, bro.
And thank YOU for reading, following along, stopping in with a few ind words, or chiming in with some advice. I hope every one of you has a great week and manages to cross off a few goals for the season.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
14 Likes