Hello fellow growers! I started my first grow a few weeks ago. I wish I kept journal from beginning but better late than never right?
My plants are 14 days into 12/12 light stage. I don’t know what to do next🤔 Any advice is welcome😁
I am flat broke atm so Im lacking some equipment like EC meter and fans etc. Anyway here is my setup:
120x120x200 tent
600w hps (dimmable 250/400/600)
Carb filter
Ducting fan 940m3/h (this is overkill and noisy )
GHE Rainforest2 hydro 65Liter res
GHE flora series nutes
I also have another 600whps, 250w esl, 135w led just in case I need more light. So far I think 600w hps is enough
I put 5 seeds in glas of water. Only 3 of them germinated. I put them 3 in rockwool and eventually in tent. Everything went smooth. 1 was and is still lagging behind in growth. I feed 1:1:1 ratio in veg.
Last week of veg and first week after flip I feed
10ml - 15ml - 5ml /10liter
Now is day14 of flower and I have started giving 10ml/20ml (micro/bloom) Buds have started to form.
Plants are very bushy. I have been defoliating like crazy every 2 days and they ladies just keep making more leafs I read somewhere that I shouldnt take too many leafs at a time but taking them every day cant be good either, right?
29C and 62%RH in tent when lights on.
Today some light/wind burn show up directly under lamp😱 I raise it from 26cm to 36cm. Maybe is still too close we will see🙂
"Are you a leaf yanker " topic : )
29c is the highest I would let the temp get too , if it gets any higher I would dim the light as envioment is more important than the higher wattage ( plant growth will begin to slow )
Keep an eye out for leaf tip burn etc as plants shall be drinking a lot more due to the higher temp to cool down , thus uptakeing more than usual nutes , if so , dilute the feed slightly to compensate
Plants are lookin good
: )
As Ifish says you might want to lower the temps if you can. So don’t add anyore light.
Keep checking the light distance from the plants tops, you could tie a piece of cord to the light at the correct height so you have a visual reference.
@ifish You are spot on! I found some burned leaf tips. Very little burn so I wasn’t sure if I should adjust. I diluded to 7.5ml/15ml anyway. The girls sure are drinking a lot. Around 25 liters in 2 days I will get the EC meter next week. No more guessing game
The fan was blowing to plant tops in a downward angle which probably boosted the burn under lamp. Now it’s blowing slightly up from canopy level.
I tucked the tallest branches directly under lamp to get more even canopy
Now here is why I dont like this GHE rainforest system: The sprinkler will not spray roots once water level drops below ~60% of reservoir This means I have to refill at least every other day. I will have to leave town for mon-thu next week because of work… my plants might be in trouble Would probably be a good idea to dim the light to make the girls less thirsty
Thanks to everyone for reading my diary and helping me out!
Don’t be shy about defoliating. You won’t even slow them down unless you strip it totally bare and even then they recover within a few days. With those temperatures plants will be respiring quite a bit; airflow is paramount to avoid problems.
I have noticed extra leaf mass doesn’t translate into more bud mass.
I’m back from my work trip. The girls stretched a lot while I was gone. Maybe 10-20cm. Rez was almost empty so they drank almost 50 liters in 4 days. I didn’t find any problems. I was very nervous during my trip Now I will stay home for the rest od the grow so everything should be fine.
Not the best time of year to be flowering when you want lower RH especially the last few weeks when the buds form colas and get much more dense.
I’m not a fan of defoliating but you could remove a lot of leaves from under the canopy without any harm to get better air flow. I’m seeing a lot of heat stress in the leaves with the turned up edges so you might want to lower the nute amount even more to half the original to prevent toxic salts buildup. What kind of water are you using? Minerals in tap water add to the salts load so I only use RO water myself.
What happens when there is heat stress is the plants draw up more water and open their stoma wide to create more evaporation in an attempt to cool down. The edges of the leaves turn up to increase that evaporation and it the main sign of early stress. As they pull up more water they also draw up more nutes than they can process so the salts get stored in the leaves. This eventually leads to toxic salts buildup, TSB, and the leaves start to cook from the high salt levels. Normal signs of nute burn are browning tips and edges but with TSB the leaves cook all over and go thick and stiff eventually turning all yellow/brown and crunchy. That can progress right into the bud leaves in later flowering.
It mostly starts in the lower fan leaves but when the lights are causing the the upper leaves to overheat then it shows up there first. Low RH contributes to that and has been a problem for me for 20 f’n years up here in the north where it’s really dry most of the year.
You should be able to contact your water supplier and get a free copy of their water analysis sent by email. Just knowing the ppm isn’t good enough really. Sometimes there are fairly high levels of minerals like sodium or iron that can mess with the plants not to mention high alkalinity.
I got the water analysis. The table is huge i dont know what to make of it. I need to study this stuff a bit. Some numbers:
Alkalinity 0.14 mmol/l
Na 1.92 mg/l
Fe 600 ug/l
I diluded the solution. We’ll see if the stress goes away. Lamp was just 30cm away from the tops after stretch. I raised it to 42cm. Temp dropped to 28C which should be low enough.
Day 31 in bloom. Not much interesting going on. Advice has been spot on. I can’t find any problems. The shortest plant has been stretching probably because ive been raising the lamp. Her lower buds are far apart compared to her sisters. I lost my even canopy. I hope it doesn’t affect yields too much.
I just stick to basics. Removing dead leaves and checking ph
and they ladies just keep making more leafs 
I will get the EC meter next week. No more guessing game 
RH was at 67% when light went on. Now its at 51. I start to worry…
This means I have to refill at least every other day. I will have to leave town for mon-thu next week because of work… my plants might be in trouble 
Would probably be a good idea to dim the light to make the girls less thirsty 
