No, I haven’t. I’ve only decided it’s too expensive for me still. It does sound like a fair bit of new learning, monitoring, tweaking and adjusting of parameters and devices too. I’m still trying to decide between irrigation monitoring/controlling and just rdwc.
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Yeah, I understand. At this point, I can’t say Growlink has made things “easier”, and it’s too early to say if it’s made things “better”. But it does absolutely require frequent monitoring and adjusting, at least my first grow has. It’s definitely been a hands-on process so far.
I guess one benefit is I can now do all of that from the boat or the golf course or wherever…
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Day 66 total, day 35 of 12/12.
Not much to report. Stretch is done and water intake overnight has slowed dramatically. I’m guessing this is typical but not sure. It makes it much easier to manage the dry backs, and the Growlink system is much happier and I haven’t really adjusted anything this week. Feeding 1.6 EC, substrate EC ranges from about 2.5 up to 5.5 in early morning.
I had to take off about 3 full bags of foliage to open things up. Way too leafy and tight node spacing, so fingers crossed. Here’s a pic without the HPS on and a pic of one of the Sour Strawberry starting to frost up.
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Is this just from sitting all night with no water? What is the range later in the day?
Doesn’t look like the plants care. Maybe it just swings so high bc of the small 4” block.
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Yeah, it’s basically a function of the dryback %. In the middle of the day when the system is actively fertigating the substrate EC will drop down closer to my feed input EC. But there’s also the fact that the feed EC vs substrate EC calculations are not apples to apples as they measure slightly different things. So I don’t really know what a 5.x substrate EC means other than it’s not frying the plants.
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It almost seems like something one would need to know know, these parameters (of the media), once you’re able to see them. Doesn’t it? Now, I don’t wanna grow without having this data, hahaha. This is happening to some degree in everyone’s media, regardless of what it’s made of, and has a strong influence on the outcome, no? Wild. I think it explains some issues I’ve seen in (media dries back too far, ec gets too high, regardless what the feed ec is, etc.).
Some people don’t understand the need, it’s obvious when you see it.
Looks like it’s turning into sugar coated sour candy very well.
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Yeah, as you know, It’s the basis of crop steering theory. Managing dry backs is just a way of managing substrate EC, and when they talk of “stacking” EC in the substrate, it’s really just a function of watering frequencies and dry backs.
These probes measure “pore water EC”. You can’t dunk them in your bucket a get a ec reading of your water. So it’s different, but it’s clearly related.
Another interesting thing - the Sour Strawberry plants, for instance. They’ve all been fed 100% exactly the same thing since birth, same watering frequency and schedules. But each of them have settled into their own particular EC range. So different plants taking up different things at different rates - leads to different pore water EC readings in the substrate, even though they are all fed the same (and it’s not just probe variances, I’ve confirmed with 3 probes).
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Hey @Tripl3fastaction,
The grow continues to look great, and your instrumentation data is revealing some intel that is useful regardless of the growing method used.
If you feel like sharing any pics or info on your Frankie grow, or just see how others are doing with these seeds, I am welcoming other Frankie S1 growers to add to the knowledge in this dedicated thread:
Frankie’s Daughters: Unpacking a Frozen Genome - #125 by Smoklahoma
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Day 73 total, D42 flower.
Here’s another angle on the tent. Not much to report, they are bulking up. Water uptake remains moderate and it’s fairly easy to get through the nights without issue, Growlink is doing its thing.
I did wake up a couple days ago to find the entire Growlink site offline, which meant I couldn’t see anything that was happening. It was only down for a couple hours, but it was long enough to ram home the fact that this is a proprietary system and if Growlink ceases to exist, so does my irrigation system. But I’m gonna trust that they will outlive me.
So here we are today, with the beauty of a community reservoir very apparent. The Sour Strawberry’s are screaming “no more N”, Frankenstein is holding her own, Bogbubble could maybe take some more. But it is what it is …
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Hey man. Looking good.
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great work man looking good!!! 
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D78 total, D47 flower.
Not much to report, dropped EC down to about 1.2. Still fertigating according to “vegetative” guidelines, I need to switch back to generative soon but not sure how much longer I have. The SSK’s will be done first. Looks like BB will be last.
Fan leaves are fading, I’m just gonna ride them out. I feed til chop, but I’m not going to try to correct any deficiencies at this point. They’ve all been over fed a bit but nothing got crispy so I just kept going …
Mid-level Sour Strawberry buds.
BogBubble - bulking pretty good, leaves have always drooped on this plant
Frankenstein- only plant in the tent to have any training (was topped once for height). Hasn’t complained about much, she has the least frost in the tent at this point but we’ve got a ways to go yet.
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Those strawberry buds look nice.
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It’s a pretty plant, leafy AF though. I hope it’s worth the trim frustration.
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Yep, give her a couple of weeks and be happy. Those buds should be almost dripping with chems when you hit the “Harvest” button! Time to pump up the final stretch bloom nutes if you’ve got em. Plenty of water.
I think you’re gonna have a Happy Harvest!
-Grouchy 
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great work!!!
some nice colours you got there ! i like the sour strawberry 
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D53F
Starting to show some wear across the board, but doing okay. I had some fan leaf necrosis so cleaned up that. EC 1.0, 77f day 66f night. 55%rh. Running a 400w hps solo. I’m trying to hurry them along, but I’ve always found that to be an exercise in futility. Anyways, I’m looking for them to “dust up” some more, maybe 2 weeks …
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I’ve seen the same kind of vigor with those beans man! Great work!
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The 2 BB’s in the tent are front left and back left. They both have a sorta baseball bat main bud structure, very thick. I really don’t know how they should look, they are untrained and in a 4” cube. They are stable and have absorbed my BS, which is a testament to the genetics.
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That’s exactly how the indica Dom’s should look. Main branch should be a log with heavy tops on the side branching. They’re looking good! @Tripl3fastaction
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