briefbriefs
Well-Known Member
Hello everyone! I'm excited to join this community of growers and learn more about this ever-changing skill of growing. First, thank you all so much already for the help you've given me and the guidance you've shared. I really appreciate it, and it's been rare to see this level of expertise and patience with newbies like myself.
Here we go with my first grow!
To start things off, here are the stats of my setup:
Strain: Zamaldelica Express / Sativa / F4 Autoflower (but i call her Greta)
Stage: Week 2, Day 12, Seedling/Establishment
Medium: 3 GAL Fox Farms Happy Frog (top 1/3rd) & Fox Farms Ocean Forest (bottom 2/3rds)
Tent: 2ft x 2.5 ft x 6ft (with a 1.5 ft extension being installed soon)
Light: HLG 225 @ 18K lux (top) / 20K lux (bottom)
RH: 70%-80%
Temp: 70F-75F
Leaf Surface Temp: 70F-88F
Air Circulation: 2 AC Infinity Muffin Fans (20-69 CFM) running at all times, and one Cloudline S4 Inline Duct fan (205 CFM) at 15min on/ 60 min off
Water pH: 5.3 (due to FF soils being buffered, thanks to @Emilya post)
Ferts: Will be using General Hydroponics FloraNova line, or Mega Crop (but they're currently sold out, and i'm not sure their nutes will be delivered in time). I also have CalMag on standby, in case Greta starts to show deficiencies.
Training: Am currently doing mild LST, will be doing quad-lining and mild defoliation later in her life.
(I already started a journal on another website, but much prefer this community, so this first post will be copy/pasting my journal from 12 days ago until now)
WEEK 1
Day 1: Greta is finally born! I germinated her in a paper towel, inside of a sealed Tupperware and kept warm on top of my wifi router. 16 hours later, she showed her taproot and I dropped her into soil! Unfortunately, this is my first grow, so my first mistake was planting her too deep in the soil and she had a hell of a time trying to get out, which led to a crooked stem.
Day 2: Her stem is looking better and she looks like a happy girl. I moved my lights from the 24 inches they were at, to 36 inches because of the PPFD values of my LED. I was worried about scorching her. I watered around her thoroughly and will leave her be until the soil is dry and she needs to be fed.
Day 3: Greta is looking a bit small for her age, compared to other grower's pictures, so i'm hoping i didnt stunt her growth with the whole stem debacle. But either way, i am so so so happy with her. The most difficult part of this being my first grow has been trying to dial in my environment, but i think i've finally come as close as i can do it -- im following an LED VPD chart. The light i have doesnt emit too much heat, so in order to keep my temps up, while also running my exhaust fan, i installed a ceramic heat emitter into my tent and am blasting my humidifier at all times. Keeping the tent at a steady average of 75F and 68% RH. I have an order for an Inkbird Thermostat/Humidity meter coming in a few weeks so hopefully at that point, i'll be able to dial in my values even more efficiently.
Day 4: Heard from HLG Customer Service and they recommended my light be hung at 24" for veg and as low as 18" for flower. So I moved my light from 36" down to 30" from the plant. I'll keep an eye and see how she likes it.
Day 5: She seems to be tolerating the new light height well. A new set of leaves is starting to come in! Also, after talking with an experienced grower, I decided that my tent is small enough to not need to be running an exhaust constantly. My tent only needs about 25 CFM in order to have an air exchange every 60 seconds, so in order to have far more control over my humidity and temp, what i'll be doing until Greta grows up a bit is to run my two muffin fans (each output 20cfm at the lowest setting and 69cfm at the highest) to move the air around, and just leave my passive intake flap at the bottom open. Temps and RH have been holding steadily at 75F and 65% respectively for a few hours now. I am elated that i've finally dialed in my tent settings (for now).
Day 6: Temps and RH are finally holding steady and Greta is looking so happy! I overwatered on Day 2, but the soil is starting to dry, so i'll probably water a few oz of pH'ed water either tonight or tomorrow AM.
Day 7: Closing the end of her first week of life as a very happy plant. Her leaves are starting to taco just a LITTLE bit so I watered her just a little and will keep an eye on her leaves to make sure she’s not getting too much heat.
WEEK 2
Day 8: I rotated Gretas pot so she’ll be a little closer to the humidifier in her early days. I also dig up her bent stem a bit, and in just a few hours she went from crooked to pretty much straight. I raised her light from 24 to 37” because I was seeing some heat stress as well as I noticed that she was staying a little squat — and Zamaldelica is a naturally stretchy plant so I figured she needed a little more space. She is looking happy and healthy though! Very pleased with her progress. Once she’s at 4 nodes, I’ll top her and then give her a little rest before starting LSTing.
Day 9: She's starting to pick up speed with her growth! Very impressed and excited! Though i wish there were more inter-nodal space, which will make training easier. Regardless, she's looking gorgeous. Watered 10oz of pH'ed water in the morning. Her new growth is showing even more signs of heat stress than the older leaves, so that tells me that the light is still too close -- so i moved it up to 43" above the canopy. However, that is absolutely the upper limit of my tent, so I just ordered a 2FT extension for my (5'8") tent and that will ideally be enough space as she grows, especially during the stretch. Worst case scenario, i can dim the lights a bit.
Day 10: moved my muffin fan so now it’s blowing a gentle breeze over her. This will help stimulate a strong stalk. She’s looking happy and healthy! Watered 12oz of 6.5pH water.
Day 11: I finally decided to start some easy LST'ing. Im attempting to bring the top of Greta towards the center of the pot before Quadlining her once she reaches 5 nodes. I planted her off-center as part of an earlier plan to grow her horizontally, but i decided to abandon that plan. She's taking to the training well and her leaves are already facing the light again. No water today. Phew tons of changes in the tent today!!! First, I finally got my infrared thermometer and it confirmed my suspicion that I was frying the absolute shit out of my plant...the surface temp of my leaves was in the high 80s! Even though I had kept my tent at a steady 75, my leaves were way hotter than that. No wonder they looked stressed. Just goes to show how important leaf surface temperature really is and how different it can be from environmental temperature. So...after some advice from another grower ( @Emilya ftw) , I dimmed my lights to about 16K lux and lowered the actual height of the lights to about 36” from the canopy so the plant would remain a little warm. I will keep monitoring to see if it made a difference.
Day 12: Lots of changes again today, lots of tweaking the settings. First, i'm keeping a much closer eye on the lux levels my plants are at (which reminds me, i need to dim the lights a little more. they are currently too high @ 18-20k) as well as the leaf surface temperature. I also realized that Greta seems to like when she gets a rush of fresh air in, so i set my inline fan to run for 15 minutes every 60 minutes. My tent is small, so im currently not worried about not getting enough air exchange -- the math checks out just using my muffin fans and passive intake flaps. Once she starts to flower -- then i'll keep the inline fan going constantly (with the carbon filter) as a way to control smells. Her leaves are still curling in a little, so i'm worried, but i'll turn the light down a little to 15k-16k lux and then tomorrow morning i'll give her a deep watering. (Last saturation was Day 2. Last light watering was Day 8).
If anyone has any thoughts in regards to my leaves curling -- please share! I want to learn all i can. In order to keep weeks together, I will continue to update this post until Day 14, and then i'll start a new post.
Here we go with my first grow!
To start things off, here are the stats of my setup:
Strain: Zamaldelica Express / Sativa / F4 Autoflower (but i call her Greta)
Stage: Week 2, Day 12, Seedling/Establishment
Medium: 3 GAL Fox Farms Happy Frog (top 1/3rd) & Fox Farms Ocean Forest (bottom 2/3rds)
Tent: 2ft x 2.5 ft x 6ft (with a 1.5 ft extension being installed soon)
Light: HLG 225 @ 18K lux (top) / 20K lux (bottom)
RH: 70%-80%
Temp: 70F-75F
Leaf Surface Temp: 70F-88F
Air Circulation: 2 AC Infinity Muffin Fans (20-69 CFM) running at all times, and one Cloudline S4 Inline Duct fan (205 CFM) at 15min on/ 60 min off
Water pH: 5.3 (due to FF soils being buffered, thanks to @Emilya post)
Ferts: Will be using General Hydroponics FloraNova line, or Mega Crop (but they're currently sold out, and i'm not sure their nutes will be delivered in time). I also have CalMag on standby, in case Greta starts to show deficiencies.
Training: Am currently doing mild LST, will be doing quad-lining and mild defoliation later in her life.
(I already started a journal on another website, but much prefer this community, so this first post will be copy/pasting my journal from 12 days ago until now)
WEEK 1
Day 1: Greta is finally born! I germinated her in a paper towel, inside of a sealed Tupperware and kept warm on top of my wifi router. 16 hours later, she showed her taproot and I dropped her into soil! Unfortunately, this is my first grow, so my first mistake was planting her too deep in the soil and she had a hell of a time trying to get out, which led to a crooked stem.
Day 2: Her stem is looking better and she looks like a happy girl. I moved my lights from the 24 inches they were at, to 36 inches because of the PPFD values of my LED. I was worried about scorching her. I watered around her thoroughly and will leave her be until the soil is dry and she needs to be fed.
Day 3: Greta is looking a bit small for her age, compared to other grower's pictures, so i'm hoping i didnt stunt her growth with the whole stem debacle. But either way, i am so so so happy with her. The most difficult part of this being my first grow has been trying to dial in my environment, but i think i've finally come as close as i can do it -- im following an LED VPD chart. The light i have doesnt emit too much heat, so in order to keep my temps up, while also running my exhaust fan, i installed a ceramic heat emitter into my tent and am blasting my humidifier at all times. Keeping the tent at a steady average of 75F and 68% RH. I have an order for an Inkbird Thermostat/Humidity meter coming in a few weeks so hopefully at that point, i'll be able to dial in my values even more efficiently.
Day 4: Heard from HLG Customer Service and they recommended my light be hung at 24" for veg and as low as 18" for flower. So I moved my light from 36" down to 30" from the plant. I'll keep an eye and see how she likes it.
Day 5: She seems to be tolerating the new light height well. A new set of leaves is starting to come in! Also, after talking with an experienced grower, I decided that my tent is small enough to not need to be running an exhaust constantly. My tent only needs about 25 CFM in order to have an air exchange every 60 seconds, so in order to have far more control over my humidity and temp, what i'll be doing until Greta grows up a bit is to run my two muffin fans (each output 20cfm at the lowest setting and 69cfm at the highest) to move the air around, and just leave my passive intake flap at the bottom open. Temps and RH have been holding steadily at 75F and 65% respectively for a few hours now. I am elated that i've finally dialed in my tent settings (for now).
Day 6: Temps and RH are finally holding steady and Greta is looking so happy! I overwatered on Day 2, but the soil is starting to dry, so i'll probably water a few oz of pH'ed water either tonight or tomorrow AM.
Day 7: Closing the end of her first week of life as a very happy plant. Her leaves are starting to taco just a LITTLE bit so I watered her just a little and will keep an eye on her leaves to make sure she’s not getting too much heat.
WEEK 2
Day 8: I rotated Gretas pot so she’ll be a little closer to the humidifier in her early days. I also dig up her bent stem a bit, and in just a few hours she went from crooked to pretty much straight. I raised her light from 24 to 37” because I was seeing some heat stress as well as I noticed that she was staying a little squat — and Zamaldelica is a naturally stretchy plant so I figured she needed a little more space. She is looking happy and healthy though! Very pleased with her progress. Once she’s at 4 nodes, I’ll top her and then give her a little rest before starting LSTing.
Day 9: She's starting to pick up speed with her growth! Very impressed and excited! Though i wish there were more inter-nodal space, which will make training easier. Regardless, she's looking gorgeous. Watered 10oz of pH'ed water in the morning. Her new growth is showing even more signs of heat stress than the older leaves, so that tells me that the light is still too close -- so i moved it up to 43" above the canopy. However, that is absolutely the upper limit of my tent, so I just ordered a 2FT extension for my (5'8") tent and that will ideally be enough space as she grows, especially during the stretch. Worst case scenario, i can dim the lights a bit.
Day 10: moved my muffin fan so now it’s blowing a gentle breeze over her. This will help stimulate a strong stalk. She’s looking happy and healthy! Watered 12oz of 6.5pH water.
Day 11: I finally decided to start some easy LST'ing. Im attempting to bring the top of Greta towards the center of the pot before Quadlining her once she reaches 5 nodes. I planted her off-center as part of an earlier plan to grow her horizontally, but i decided to abandon that plan. She's taking to the training well and her leaves are already facing the light again. No water today. Phew tons of changes in the tent today!!! First, I finally got my infrared thermometer and it confirmed my suspicion that I was frying the absolute shit out of my plant...the surface temp of my leaves was in the high 80s! Even though I had kept my tent at a steady 75, my leaves were way hotter than that. No wonder they looked stressed. Just goes to show how important leaf surface temperature really is and how different it can be from environmental temperature. So...after some advice from another grower ( @Emilya ftw) , I dimmed my lights to about 16K lux and lowered the actual height of the lights to about 36” from the canopy so the plant would remain a little warm. I will keep monitoring to see if it made a difference.
Day 12: Lots of changes again today, lots of tweaking the settings. First, i'm keeping a much closer eye on the lux levels my plants are at (which reminds me, i need to dim the lights a little more. they are currently too high @ 18-20k) as well as the leaf surface temperature. I also realized that Greta seems to like when she gets a rush of fresh air in, so i set my inline fan to run for 15 minutes every 60 minutes. My tent is small, so im currently not worried about not getting enough air exchange -- the math checks out just using my muffin fans and passive intake flaps. Once she starts to flower -- then i'll keep the inline fan going constantly (with the carbon filter) as a way to control smells. Her leaves are still curling in a little, so i'm worried, but i'll turn the light down a little to 15k-16k lux and then tomorrow morning i'll give her a deep watering. (Last saturation was Day 2. Last light watering was Day 8).
If anyone has any thoughts in regards to my leaves curling -- please share! I want to learn all i can. In order to keep weeks together, I will continue to update this post until Day 14, and then i'll start a new post.
Welcome home!
