everybody seems to be putting pictures on here this is one of my favorites i live on a lake here in TEXAS and fish every day 
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I’m gonna need to hire you for my next growroom build… pair you up with Reiko and I’ll man the bar and grill.
Seriously, outstanding work on dialing in your environment!
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Day 8:
Now that temps are getting into the low 80s outside, the tent is responding a lot better. The AC I use really plunges the humidity, being able to turn the AC off will help stabilize things even more.
Roots have started touching the nutrient pool, I expect growth to start picking up.
Now, I am going to apply copious dosses of this:
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You do good work Mr. Wiz! Love the DIY mods and slick automation.
I noticed that the VPD value in your photo, 0.63 kPa, is spot on for your baby plants. I tend to obsess on VPD and it’s nice to see that you have it dialed in.
The humidity here in New England is dropping as Fall approaches and I’ll need to break out the humidifier sometime soon. My plants seem to love the warm steam during the winter.
Best wishes on a great grow!
-Grouchy
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Yeah, the VPD concept made perfect sense to me the first time I saw it. VPD is my driver, I might adjust temp or humidity (usually humidity) to achieve it, but I do focus on it as my main variable.
And now… DLI has taken a more prominent place in my priority hierarchy. As you suggested, the DLI was too high to begin with and the 1st 2 sets of leaves got burnt tips. Lowered it down to 15 and am now following the chart closely. Raising about 1 DLI per day.
Still real curious about long/short days within the same DLI spec. From an energy perspective I suspect you are right, it is probably close to a wash. However what about from a growth perspective? Could longer, but somewhat dimmer days give more growth than shorter brighter days. Could the brighter days lead to less stretch? DLI leaves a considerable range of variability, and surely that variability can be harnessed to some advantage. This begs for a controlled study.
Environmental controls: Tweaking this in closer has been an exercise in physics. The AC allowed me to run in this heat otherwise the yellow circles would have been off the charts. But, that AC is a double edge sword, the instant it cuts on it drops the humidity through the bottom, and a lot faster than the temp drops. Add 2 different humidifiers to offset the AC humidity drop. Add a dehumidifier that also adds heat. Trying balance it all has been fun.
Finally today I think I nailed my sweet spot for dial settings, as seen to the right of the red line.
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This is super outrageous. Very cool, brother. I’m starting to realize that we have very different growing styles. Keep up the good work.
I’m sure you’ve already said, but what is that program you’re running to chart all of your inputs?
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Growing weed is akin to spirituality.
There are many paths to the top of the mountain…
The view from the top is still pretty awesome regardless!
@Indicana_Jones I do not know your grow style, but I can certainly validate that it works well as your results speak for themselves. -----> Respect!
In fact I am curious about a few things, like your trim job. Wondering how you accomplish it.
My style is largely a result of my profession. I spent most of my career in the Industrial Instrumentation & Controls sector as an I&C Engineer. We used a variety of instruments and controls to calibrate, monitor, and control pH, flow, level, temp, humidity, dew point, speed, pressure, force, O2, vibration, color, and other physical attributes. This discipline heavily relies on hard data.
I take this approach to my grows. I look at all the variables that I can identify, and then break those variables down into individual control loops, which I then tune to get the best result. I rely on hard data and charts to guide me as to what setpoints to target. I read copiously in multiple sciences and industries (& here on OG) and take what I can from each one. Borrowing heavily from data and processes that have been validated beyond the anecdotal.
I started out with cheaper Inkbird controllers and common household appliances.
I see myself eventually converting the on/off Inkbird control loops to PID controlled analogue endpoints. Inkbirds are crude control at best. PID controls can be configured/tuned to be much much more precise.
What follows is what I am currently using in terms of standards and resources.
For control I use wifi enabled Inkbirds to control the following:
- Heater
- A/C
- Humidifiers
- DeHumidifier
- Rez evaporative cooling
- Rez aquarium heater
Additionally I use:
- An AC Infinity controller and duct fan used mostly for overtemp situations.
- pH, ppm, are monitored with a Bluelabs Guardian. No wifi
- The Photone app on my cellphone to measure ppfd and DLI
@Indicana_Jones I wasnt sure if you were asking about the temp/humid charts or the Functional Diagram in the 1st post…
For the Functional Diagram I use a program called SmartDraw: https://www.smartdraw.com/
To “monitor” I use a handful of wifi “SensorPush” sensors. https://www.sensorpush.com/
These are highly accurate, much more so than the Inkbirds. They allow for solid datalogging and charting. I use them to monitor the Tent and my curing process.
Below are the resources I adopted after sorting through many variations of them. If you have a better resource please bring it to my attention.
VPD
DLI
pH
I let it drift between 5.5 and 6.2
PPM
Troubleshooting
When in doubt:
Edited to add:
I have only been back at this for a year. I dont claim anything I am doing is any better than anything someone else is doing, I am simply finding my way, the best way I know how…
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As a Fellow SyE in a different industry, I find your data fascinating… I have something similar to what you have but just does temp/humidity w/ alarms… Time to up my game.
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These are the Data-points I check at least daily, if not more…
Looks the pH needs to come down a little. Also going to bump up the ppm to 500. The nutes will probably lower the pH enough without having to adjust further.
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For trimming I pulled all large fan leaves before drying. Once dry I cut the plant into single branches and do a pretty tight hand trim on all of the remaining leaves that were buried too tight to pluck. As each bud is trimmed it gets snipped from the stem and into a bucket. I think it took about 8 hours to hand trim a pound. I don’t think I physically touch the buds at all unless they need to be bent away from the main stem while trimming. Any little scraps of leaves left dry out and crumble away during the curing process.
We talked a little bit about how my grow went but I really do treat these plants like shit. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes on accident. I like to think of my style as nature and your style as nurture.
I’m pretty sure I spit on one of my underperformers right before I chopped it down, just to set precedence for the other plants watching.
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Day 14:
The 1st 2 sets of leaves got sun-burnt. I figure that cost me about a 5 days worth of growth out of the AUTO life cycle. They are just starting to thrive now.
Not mine, just something I stumbled on that made me smile…
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Day 18:
DLI: 23
Sump: 72f (next week I will get this down to 67f and maintain it there)
PPM: 550
pH: 5.9
Stability is dramatically better after tweaking the controls a bit. See after the blue bar.
Running the AC is a challenge. I cant wait until I can remove it from the process. This week is getting back into the 90s, maybe next week I can shut it down.
Trimmed sun-burnt leaves off.
3 of the 4 plants are now thriving, the roots of all seedlings have reached into the nute pool. The 4th is becoming a runt. Will get pics tonight.
Pretty much in LITFA mode except for minor LST tweaks with tomato wire trying to keep the spread between the 2 plants in each bucket. 1st time trying 2 plants per vessel, probably need to change vessel size/shape next grow if I decide to keep doing this.
Other than that, I am just trying to keep things in the sweet spot:
78f
78% rH
VPD 0.73kPa
DLI 23
PPM 550
pH 5.9
Sump T driving towards 67f
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Day 18:
I know many here will advise against starting the lettuce seedlings in the Tent. However, the wife wants a head start on the next crop. Hard to say no when she tolerates my hobby otherwise.
A man has got to do what a man has to do…
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Is this data exportable via .csv etc?
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Sorry, I may have misunderstood. If you were specifically referring to the above metrics, then no, not datalogged.
DLI is measured by my phone, no logs.
The water parameters are measured by a Bluelab Guardian. There is an option to make it wifi, and record data on a smartcard, but I chose not to pay the premium. I figure unless I have automatic dosing then there is not enough benefit to having realtime data, seeing it when I check the sump is good enough.
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Day 22:
Heat spell finally broke, the tent sure is easier to control now. Got 1 more hot spell about a week out then I can remove the AC from this setup. The AC did allow me to run in September though, which I couldnt have done indoors otherwise.
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These are Auto Regs so I have to allow that one or more are males, therefor I am not going to invest in a lot of time/effort in LST, as I might have to cull it anyway.
What are opinions on topping the 2 taller ones? To even out the canopy a bit would be the goal.
This will be the 1st time in over 40 years that I need to sex a plant, I have been doing all Fems since I started back up. A little nervous I might miss something important. About how long before the first signs usually show?
Does topping a plant change that timetable any?
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Go ahead and top…
Typically you should start seeing preflowers about 30 days in or so… strain dependant.
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vast majority of the time males will show sex first so keep that in mind. you gotta let them go for a real long time to actually produce pollen also.
total newb over here but just did my first run with autoregs and gave a mating pair a tent. it was a really special feeling to see those first seeds…like wow we got a DYNASTY now hahaha! there was a lotttttt of pollen tho, the girl is basically all seeds very little actual smokable bud. if I do it in the future I’ll keep them segregated, gather pollen, and simply “paint” a small section with a brush.
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