Day 34 since the start of germination and it has been a difficult week for my plants. On Tuesday, Day 28, after going 8 days without any water or nutrients, I gave each plant one quart of G/M (Growology/Molasses) as it appeared to me that they were in need of some water/nutrients. Starting the next day, the plants started to droop and not look very happy. I decided to leave them be for a while to see if they would recover any but after 2 days things were not looking any better in fact they were looking worse. So on Friday, Day 31, I turned on the sidelighting and started ventilating the tent due to the increased heat from the additional lighting. I noticed that the new growth on the top node, as well as the side shoots, were recovering nicely and it was only the established fan leaves that were still exhibiting signs of stress. So on Saturday, Day 32, I decided to remove the fan leaves on the bottom 2 nodes for two reasons, to remove the slowly dying vegetation from the plants and to get more air and light to the side shoots, which I will be LSTing soon anyways. Seeing that on Sunday, Day 33, that the plants suffered no ill effects from this pruning, I removed the fan leaves on nodes 3 and 4 leaving just the top node's fan leaves on for now.
Wednesday - Day 29 - group shot of both plants -
Wednesday - Day 29 - close-up shots of both plants left to right -
Thursday - Day 30 - close-up shots of both plants (left to right) -
Friday - Day 31 - close-up shots of both plants (left to right) -
Saturday - Day 32 - close-up shots of both plants (left to right) before defoliation of the fan leaves on bottom 2 nodes -
Saturday - Day 32 - close-up shots of both plants (left to right) after defoliation of the fan leaves on bottom 2 nodes -
Sunday - Day 33 - close-up shots of both plants (left to right) after defoliation of the fan leaves on nodes 3 and 4 -
Although I do believe that I overwatered and thus over nuted my plants, I would have thought that 8 days would have been enough time for the soil to dry out enough to water/feed them again, especially since it was only one quart per plant. I think that due to my lack of experience growing in 5 gallon pots, I more than likely underestimated how much water remained in the soil, not having a 5-gallon dry pot to compare weights isn't helping either. It has been 6 days since my last water/feed and I will wait until I see signs of distress before I water/feed again. I certainly do not want to make that mistake again, it definitely slowed the progress of my grow but should give me more time to LST as my plants recover from this mistake.