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.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
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
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
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
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
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 VPDIn 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:
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
for your health check! The grow looks great!
Appreciate it, @Gadarien . Better to know than not, for sure.
Hope you and yours are well! Thanks for dropping by.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
Excited to see your new tent and light haul 
I love reading your posts, graphic and plants look great. Good luck at the doc!
Here’s to health, and wealth to those who needs that.
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
21 Days from Seed 14 Days in RDWC plant-sites. #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
Glad to send them. Good luck with your seedlings 
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!
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
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
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. 
Could this be a Calcium toxicity presenting through inability to uptake other nutrients?
#π
#M!
#RD
#BS
BAREBONES STATS
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
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
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
@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
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
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
Good mornin, folks!
Here’s hoping y’all are tending happy gardens and otherwise well off. Been a hell of a start to spring with overnights around these parts dipping into the 30’s in Freedom Units, then skipping through rainy days in the mid-fifties. All the same, I’m excited as hell about the garden this week, so thank god it’s inside and come on - check it out!
When we started the week, we continued to see some recovery in the plants, overall. However, the marked drooping persisted, and the girls seemed unhappy with something still. After talking over a number of variables, we noted that the root zone temperature’s gradual warming seemed to coincide with the increase in vigor and turgidity we wanted to see out of our girls.
With some tinkering to the set-ups, we brought the ceiling of our daily root zone temp higher and higher, and the girls looked better and better for it. We began to see a much quicker decrease in PPM, as these girls really tucked in for a feast and got to eating.
In the next few days, we got to see (again!) just how resilient these plants can be, as they rebounded and then exploded in new growth. As we were worried about further stressing them while diagnosing the chilled-feed issue, we did not train them this week. However, despite our not having topped them, it seems that the light penetration afforded them by the drooping has done some heavy lifting in that department. Though it’s a bit hard to get in pictures at this point, there is a nice, even canopy between the plants, and each has many nearly-level tops. We plan on some pruning early this week, clearing the first node or two on each plant as it seems necessary.
Besides all showing nice, even growth rates, with #π being only a little shorter than her sisters still, all are dense with lateral branching. I can see how these girls could take over a tent quickly, and imagine they can hold a decent amount of weight.
Again, with stem and foliage rubbing, #π is our outlier, being much sweeter in tone with some fruitiness already, while all the others have much sharper, gassier smells from the same.
Our feed this week followed the new usual of Light level General Hydroponics with a reduced dose of ArmorSi, a regular dose of Hydroguard, still no additional CalMag and the addition this week, as we enter flowering, of KoolBloom. With a thorough draining, our pre-feed PPM was around 200, and we settled just over 815 ppm or 1.6 EC after feeding.
Having settled on root chill being an issue for us, we decided to pre-emptively pour 5 Gal very hot damn water into our res first, followed with ~30 Gal from the tap, and lastly, 5 Gal very hot damn water. This landed our solution at over 68 * F to start, and we have seen little to no negative reaction from the girls post-feed.
Like I kept telling @JustTieflingThings : I feel like we f#@%!ng leveled up.
#M!
#π
#RD
#BS
BAREBONES STATS
42 Days from Seed 35 Days in RDWC plant-sites. All plants are extremely happy, and exploding into preflower. While some very slight tip burn remains, all remaining mature fan leaves have restored to a lush, even tone, and are massive. Some leaf twisting (at the petiole, not blades) presented in #RD. Lots of lateral branching and very even growth from all four. We have lightly defoliated, and intend to prune several lower branches early this week. HLG 600R-Spec is 34" above canopy at 40% output. According to Photone we are delivering a PAR reading of ~450-530 PPFD at the canopies, 28-30 DLI LIGHT Feed Schedule per General Hydroponics standards, no additional CaliMagic as area water analysis reports suggest we may not need it. We have held the pH at ~6.0, with temps ranging from 68.5-71 * F ( keeping the water warm with a seperate 10 Gallons at high temp,) and a ~815 PPM or ~1.6 EC Average 73 * F, 59.4% RH, and 0.84 kPa VPD Leaf surfaces were taken at an average of *-3 F relative to ambient tent conditions.That just about wraps us for this week, but as always, I’d like to thank every damn one of you for checking in, saying hello or dropping some advice or encouragement, and for following along while we figure this whole autoflower thing out. I hope each of you completely demolishes some goal or thing that’s been stumping you this week! Special thanks again to @Going2fast and @blowdout2269 for providing such great genetics.
Now go on and get to doin’ whatever you do best, y’all.
Stay up
Coffin_Dodger
You know I listened to “with Odin on our side” as I read that post and most of this one. Then in perfect timing I get ff1!! Brother not only are you killing it in this grow your music selections are impeccable!!
