Hello all, this grow journal will be starting from Week 2 Flower. Been meaning to post this from the beginning but I haven’t gotten around to it until now.
My motivation for experimenting and attempting this is because… I’m lazy and new at this. Or rather, I didn’t want to spend so much time fretting or worrying about getting things right. The main goal is to develop a cost-effective, hands-free method as reasonably possible.
Grow Details
The method is essentially a kratky style grow but with air stones. The buckets go unsupervised until the water level reaches about 1/5.
Strain is Terpgasm by Solfire Gardens
Medium in the pot is 50/50 coco coir and rice hulls. I used kitchen towel paper to prevent it from leaking into the reservoir too much. Buckets are 20L.
Nutrient used is Masterblend 5-11-26, this is similar to Jack’s 321. However I’ve tweaked this recipe based on scientific studies using hydrobuddy. Nutrient Recipe
Silica and beneficial bacteria are added before mixing the nutrients in the bucket.
For the most part, I haven’t really tried controlling the environment/vpd. I live in a tropical climate area and electricity would become expensive for me to maintain an ideal environment. On average the growing conditions is 28C and 70% RH.
2x4 Tent with MarsHydro SP3000 LED (300W)
EC is measured with a cheap china EC meter and pH strips. Tap water is about EC@0.2
Notable Findings So Far (up to week 1 flower)
For the first reservoir, I fill it up to the brim just before the pot with EC@1.4 and somwhere between 5~6pH. Reservoir lasted about a month and I left it alone. No deficiencies or toxicity issues have been found at this stage. Once the water level has gone down to 1/5, instead of draining it, I decided to refill it with EC@1.6
2nd Reservoir has been depleted in about 2 weeks. Plant has shown signs of leaf tips yellowing (possibly light stress) but other than that is quite healthy. However, I decided to measure the EC as I was curious and it measured EC@3.6. Quite surprising so I decided to keep draining the rez before refilling from now on.
3rd reservoir fill I put in the same as last time (EC@1.6, 5.8pH?). This has lasted about 1.5 weeks. Plant is still healthy, I’ve been mainlining and pruning it for a while now. Drained water measured at EC@1.7 with 6pH
With the 4th reservoir fill I’ve switched to 12/12 light schedule. Plant doubled in height in a week’s time. Did not do any lollipopping because I forgot. RH was at the high 80s because it was raining. No signs of stress so far. Drained water measured EC@2.8
Today I refilled the reservoir for both buckets. My original plan was to adjust the EC input based on what the run-off EC but since the plants show no signs of issues whatsoever, I decided to put in the full dose and dump EC@1.8
This week I’ve tried pushing how far I can go without refilling the bucket, so far water levels can go down to 1/10 before I see any signs of them being thirsty. The taller plant has started drinking almost twice as fast as the other.
I’ve noticed there are early signs of light stress so I’ve raised the light as far as it can go, hopefully this should be enough without dimming the lights. I’ll wait and see this week if the symptoms progresses further. Other than that, plants seem completely fine.
Plants are developing nicely. I’ve done some light defoliation, most of the tops are thankfully somewhat even so I only took some leaves here and there.
Buds are getting bigger. So far its been pretty smooth sailing, it takes me about half an hour to refill a bucket and from there I don’t really do anything else. Now its just a waiting game.
Branches have started bending over from the weight of the buds, need to find a way how to straighten them up.
One concern I do have is that my humidity has averaged 70% thoughout this entire grow. Trying to control it would be expensive so I’m hoping the two fans will be enough. Fingers crossed.
For the first time in a while I decided to check the EC of the drained water (1.5L~) which measured 10, the highest reading yet. It makes me wonder how the plants are handling that high of an EC. I’m going to keep to the same feeding regimen of EC@1.8 to see how far I can go until the plant starts showing signs of sickness.
Update: It occurred to me that the salts might be accumulating despite me draining the buckets before each refill so I measured the current EC (from a bucket I just refilled an hour ago) sampling the water from the bottom. It measured EC@3~ which confirmed my suspicions. I’ll let it ride till next week and attempt to flush more of the nutrients out before I refill.
With something as high as EC@3 from the last refill I was completely expecting to run into problems but thankfully the plants are relatively healthy. The upper leaves are droopy however so EC@3 seems to be the upper limit.
This time around I flushed the buckets with just plain tap water twice. The first drain measured EC@0.5 while the second was EC@0.275 which is pretty close to what my tap water’s EC so two flushes is good enough in my opinion.
For the most part the buds are developing nicely and next week I’ll start posting trichome pics. This will be the first time I’ve reached this stage so I’m pretty excited.
Why not cut a bit and sample it?
I’m never a fan of quick drying, but to sample, and scope them better, gives you more information in your choice.
When to cut, is always a time for second guessing ourselves.
I scope them, I like to see a few reddies in my loupe’s eyepiece, before I cull myself, but that is just me. Maybe cut some in stages and label them.
Your grow looks very well done to me. Great work. I loved using Master Blend, well and Jacks also.
Myself, I also prefer my fans to blow over the tops or even a bit above that, like they do in green houses. You get great air flow, without transpiring the to much moisture from the leaf. Just my $.02
webe
