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- #181
syenite
Well-Known Member
I'm like Edward Scissorhands but with a bamboo skewer
Fools Rush In: Newbie's Adventures In Suboptimal Conditions
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Careful - some root pruning is okay once a plant is established, but you don’t really want to cause too much injury for a young plant to deal with, like infection.
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- #183
syenite
Well-Known Member
Hahahahha ok I poked a few holes but hopefully didn't go too far. The main thing I aimed for was breaking up the peat pellet a bit. I only heard one crunch.
You’re a plant sadist! 
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- #185
syenite
Well-Known Member
Alright y'all, small mid-week update!
Here's the family waking up this morning:
The mutant actually seemed to perk up after my exploratory drilling exercise (aka "violence") through its root zone LOL! Still doesn't look great, but it's been off since it sprouted. I'll continue to keep an eye on it, and especially for roots showing above soil.
The other two seem to be growing very rapidly. Their third nodes have developed and their fourth ones are incoming.
Should I be worried about how close their nodes are stacking? There is barely any internode spacing at the moment.
(Ignore the ruler in the pictures, the parallax is awful from that perspective!)
They are both just under 6 cm (2.36 inches) tall.
As I mentioned earlier, I want to be able to make use of the vertical space in the box. Am I worried about nothing? Given enough veg time (after whatever training I do), will they be able to eventually take up more vertical space?
Or should I even consider dimming the lights so they stretch just a little bit?
Here's the family waking up this morning:
The mutant actually seemed to perk up after my exploratory drilling exercise (aka "violence") through its root zone LOL! Still doesn't look great, but it's been off since it sprouted. I'll continue to keep an eye on it, and especially for roots showing above soil.
The other two seem to be growing very rapidly. Their third nodes have developed and their fourth ones are incoming.
Should I be worried about how close their nodes are stacking? There is barely any internode spacing at the moment.
(Ignore the ruler in the pictures, the parallax is awful from that perspective!)
They are both just under 6 cm (2.36 inches) tall.
As I mentioned earlier, I want to be able to make use of the vertical space in the box. Am I worried about nothing? Given enough veg time (after whatever training I do), will they be able to eventually take up more vertical space?
Or should I even consider dimming the lights so they stretch just a little bit?
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- #186
syenite
Well-Known Member
A related question: does/can the spacing between older nodes increase later on?
Interesting questions, Sy. I saw your post over at Eden about it too, so I’ll be curious what better gardeners than me think.
If light intensity is too great it can certainly keep them short, but it also increases the pressure on transpiration. How fast are your pots emptying and how is your VPD?
It may be an advantage that you haven’t used much vertical space yet and whatever stunted them may have been serendipitous. You might want to snapshot your conditions now so you can reproduce this next time.
Remind me, are you planning to top and train? You’ll see lateral growth start to hoon within a week if you do.
As an experiment - at the next feed (when you’d expect a few day’s growth anyway) try dimming the lights a bit (20%?) and see if the next node space is different, ie. greater. Especially if you plan to cut that off anyway.
As the plant matures the node spacing increases proportionally to the size of the growing plant, but (whoops, might need an out - depending on genetics) this won’t change significantly now.
I’m suspicious of whatever is happening with your ‘mutant ‘ plant. Maybe whatever has happened is quite sort-of ‘mechanical’ in a physical sense; maybe the pots were packed too darn tight with wet soil?
If light intensity is too great it can certainly keep them short, but it also increases the pressure on transpiration. How fast are your pots emptying and how is your VPD?
It may be an advantage that you haven’t used much vertical space yet and whatever stunted them may have been serendipitous. You might want to snapshot your conditions now so you can reproduce this next time.
Remind me, are you planning to top and train? You’ll see lateral growth start to hoon within a week if you do.
As an experiment - at the next feed (when you’d expect a few day’s growth anyway) try dimming the lights a bit (20%?) and see if the next node space is different, ie. greater. Especially if you plan to cut that off anyway.
As the plant matures the node spacing increases proportionally to the size of the growing plant, but (whoops, might need an out - depending on genetics) this won’t change significantly now.
I’m suspicious of whatever is happening with your ‘mutant ‘ plant. Maybe whatever has happened is quite sort-of ‘mechanical’ in a physical sense; maybe the pots were packed too darn tight with wet soil?
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- #188
syenite
Well-Known Member
Interesting questions, Sy. I saw your post over at Eden about it too, so I’ll be curious what better gardeners than me think.
If light intensity is too great it can certainly keep them short, but it also increases the pressure on transpiration. How fast are your pots emptying and how is your VPD?
It may be an advantage that you haven’t used much vertical space yet and whatever stunted them may have been serendipitous. You might want to snapshot your conditions now so you can reproduce this next time.
Remind me, are you planning to top and train? You’ll see lateral growth start to hoon within a week if you do.
As an experiment - at the next feed (when you’d expect a few day’s growth anyway) try dimming the lights a bit (20%?) and see if the next node space is different, ie. greater. Especially if you plan to cut that off anyway.
As the plant matures the node spacing increases proportionally to the size of the growing plant, but (whoops, might need an out - depending on genetics) this won’t change significantly now.
I’m suspicious of whatever is happening with your ‘mutant ‘ plant. Maybe whatever has happened is quite sort-of ‘mechanical’ in a physical sense; maybe the pots were packed too darn tight with wet soil?
You're an angel, DD! Thanks for this. Yes, everything is being archived so I won't lose the information.
So I actually plan to do a variation on the quadline to take advantage of the side-lighting.
Instead of leaving two adjacent nodes, e.g. 3 and 4, I am going to leave 2 and 4, or 3 and 5, or 4 and 6 (depending on how tall I let them get before topping). Doing this would allow me to focus on a single axis in parallel to the side lights.
I think I will follow your suggestion to dim the lights to see the impact on the following node/s.
I agree with your hypothesis regarding the mutant. I'm still blaming the peat pellet! And perhaps I didn't saturate properly when I transplanted, so the peat pellet never "merged" with the new soil. It seems to be doing a bit better after my drilling/breaking up the pellet. I wonder if there's anything else I can do?
As for VPD, I haven’t thought about or measured this yet! Will do some research. My RH sits around 50% and temperature around 25 celsius.
Currently the big 2 are taking about a week to drain. I expect this to pick up quickly as they adapt to the box conditions. This is their fourth full day in the box. The slowness is an artifact of their previous environmental conditions I believe!
Not a bad place to be
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- #190
syenite
Well-Known Member
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- #191
syenite
Well-Known Member
After a few days' thinking, investigation and gathering feedback, I've come to a couple of conclusions.
Nerd alert: The section that follows is boring and technical so feel free to skip
Multiple points of (cross-)reference told me that my setup was on the more intense end of things for plants that size.
20000 - 25000 lux: Seedlings only need up to 7k lux, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 15 and 50k. I also happened to be reading @Amy Gardner 's journal and thought to have a look at her seedlings at the third node stage like mine. They had wider internode spacing and Amy mentioned that they were getting around 10-12k lux.
460 - 575 PPFD: Seedlings only need between 200 and 400 PPFD, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 400 to 600 PPFD.
1.4 - 1.48 VPD: According to the chart @FelipeBlu shared, my environment's VPD is in the "high transpiration range", which is ideally for "mid-late flower".
Conclusion: There's nothing "wrong" with my current setup, but it's definitely at the upper limits of what plants at this stage can handle. They are happy and I could continue like this if I wanted to.
As for the internode spacing, I no longer think of it as an issue. It'll be perfect for a quadline. "Orange", the biggest one, I've decided, will be quadlined. Orange is just putting out its 4th node right now, so I can top very soon.
Black, the second largest, will get the variation of the quadline I described earlier. Which I have affectionately been thinking of as a "powerline". I realise that even with very tight nodes I could always let it grow out a bit and leave 2 and 6, or even 3 and 7 etc. if I really wanted to ensure that vertical gap.
While I'm happy with how everything is going, I can't let the opportunity to gather more information slip. I said this on Amy's thread, but I realise this grow is more about dialling in the setup and understanding its parameters than it is about outcomes.
So I'm following @DonkeyDick 's advice and have turned the lights down by approximately 20%. The plants are now getting about 15-17k lux instead of 20-25k.
I think the timing is perfect, as the bigger ones are on their 4th node, and I can always fall back to quadlining both if necessary. Black was also just fed and watered this morning, while Orange was fed and watered the other day, so both can enter this wet-dry cycle under the milder lighting conditions.
I will leave the lights at these settings until their 5th or 6th node appears, so I can see if there are any changes to the internode spacing.
Sorry the journal has been a bit dry and technical since the lights arrived. I'm not someone who can relax easily when there's still so much to learn!
Sorry also to the outdoor growers here (@Stunger, @FelipeBlu et al). I imagine things will be more interesting for y'all when the training begins!
Nerd alert: The section that follows is boring and technical so feel free to skip
Multiple points of (cross-)reference told me that my setup was on the more intense end of things for plants that size.
20000 - 25000 lux: Seedlings only need up to 7k lux, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 15 and 50k. I also happened to be reading @Amy Gardner 's journal and thought to have a look at her seedlings at the third node stage like mine. They had wider internode spacing and Amy mentioned that they were getting around 10-12k lux.
460 - 575 PPFD: Seedlings only need between 200 and 400 PPFD, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 400 to 600 PPFD.
1.4 - 1.48 VPD: According to the chart @FelipeBlu shared, my environment's VPD is in the "high transpiration range", which is ideally for "mid-late flower".
Conclusion: There's nothing "wrong" with my current setup, but it's definitely at the upper limits of what plants at this stage can handle. They are happy and I could continue like this if I wanted to.
As for the internode spacing, I no longer think of it as an issue. It'll be perfect for a quadline. "Orange", the biggest one, I've decided, will be quadlined. Orange is just putting out its 4th node right now, so I can top very soon.
Black, the second largest, will get the variation of the quadline I described earlier. Which I have affectionately been thinking of as a "powerline". I realise that even with very tight nodes I could always let it grow out a bit and leave 2 and 6, or even 3 and 7 etc. if I really wanted to ensure that vertical gap.
While I'm happy with how everything is going, I can't let the opportunity to gather more information slip. I said this on Amy's thread, but I realise this grow is more about dialling in the setup and understanding its parameters than it is about outcomes.
So I'm following @DonkeyDick 's advice and have turned the lights down by approximately 20%. The plants are now getting about 15-17k lux instead of 20-25k.
I think the timing is perfect, as the bigger ones are on their 4th node, and I can always fall back to quadlining both if necessary. Black was also just fed and watered this morning, while Orange was fed and watered the other day, so both can enter this wet-dry cycle under the milder lighting conditions.
I will leave the lights at these settings until their 5th or 6th node appears, so I can see if there are any changes to the internode spacing.
Sorry the journal has been a bit dry and technical since the lights arrived. I'm not someone who can relax easily when there's still so much to learn!
Sorry also to the outdoor growers here (@Stunger, @FelipeBlu et al). I imagine things will be more interesting for y'all when the training begins!
Look I’m not gonna lie, I nearly nodded off through your nerd talk, but came alive again when I saw your pics!After a few days' thinking, investigation and gathering feedback, I've come to a couple of conclusions.
Nerd alert: The section that follows is boring and technical so feel free to skip
Multiple points of (cross-)reference told me that my setup was on the more intense end of things for plants that size.
20000 - 25000 lux: Seedlings only need up to 7k lux, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 15 and 50k. I also happened to be reading @Amy Gardner 's journal and thought to have a look at her seedlings at the third node stage like mine. They had wider internode spacing and Amy mentioned that they were getting around 10-12k lux.
460 - 575 PPFD: Seedlings only need between 200 and 400 PPFD, while vegging plants are happy in the range between 400 to 600 PPFD.
1.4 - 1.48 VPD: According to the chart @FelipeBlu shared, my environment's VPD is in the "high transpiration range", which is ideally for "mid-late flower".
Conclusion: There's nothing "wrong" with my current setup, but it's definitely at the upper limits of what plants at this stage can handle. They are happy and I could continue like this if I wanted to.
As for the internode spacing, I no longer think of it as an issue. It'll be perfect for a quadline. "Orange", the biggest one, I've decided, will be quadlined. Orange is just putting out its 4th node right now, so I can top very soon.
Black, the second largest, will get the variation of the quadline I described earlier. Which I have affectionately been thinking of as a "powerline". I realise that even with very tight nodes I could always let it grow out a bit and leave 2 and 6, or even 3 and 7 etc. if I really wanted to ensure that vertical gap.
While I'm happy with how everything is going, I can't let the opportunity to gather more information slip. I said this on Amy's thread, but I realise this grow is more about dialling in the setup and understanding its parameters than it is about outcomes.
So I'm following @DonkeyDick 's advice and have turned the lights down by approximately 20%. The plants are now getting about 15-17k lux instead of 20-25k.
I think the timing is perfect, as the bigger ones are on their 4th node, and I can always fall back to quadlining both if necessary. Black was also just fed and watered this morning, while Orange was fed and watered the other day, so both can enter the next wet-dry cycle under the milder lighting conditions.
I will leave the lights at these settings until their 5th or 6th node appears, so I can see if there are any changes to the internode spacing.
Sorry the journal has been a bit dry and technical since the lights arrived. I'm not someone who can relax easily when there's still so much to learn!
Sorry also to the outdoor growers here (@Stunger, @FelipeBlu et al). I imagine things will be more interesting for y'all when the training begins!
I think they look really good!
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- #193
syenite
Well-Known Member
Look I’m not gonna lie, I nearly nodded off through your nerd talk, but came alive again when I saw your pics!
I think they look really good!
I thought an eminent Scientist like yourself would appreciate all this Science.........
Thank you!! How is flowering going?
Look even scientists need to take a break sometimesI thought an eminent Scientist like yourself would appreciate all this Science.........
Thank you!! How is flowering going?
I have no idea. There’s no white hairs. I’m so annoyed I didn’t take more notice of my outdoor plants. I only started really looking at them when buds formed. I’m in a constant state of “they’re herming” fear, searching their branches daily.
I’m a grower period.
Your plans sound good. I understand about weather and the need to grow inside. I’ve done it. Just prefer outdoors.
Your plans sound good. I understand about weather and the need to grow inside. I’ve done it. Just prefer outdoors.
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- #196
syenite
Well-Known Member
Look even scientists need to take a break sometimes
I have no idea. There’s no white hairs. I’m so annoyed I didn’t take more notice of my outdoor plants. I only started really looking at them when buds formed. I’m in a constant state of “they’re herming” fear, searching their branches daily.
Ah. I can understand the anxiety. Patience!! You've been doing a great job. And you have many great pairs of eyes to help you!
Amen.
Also, who wouldn't prefer outdoors if they could grow plants like yours? Your plants look like fecking buildings. Each one is a stadium that could fit 50000 people.
Thanks syenite! 
Maybe 50,000 silverfish! There’s a bunch around all of a sudden.
I think they are living under the tub.
Maybe 50,000 silverfish! There’s a bunch around all of a sudden.
I think they are living under the tub.
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- #198
syenite
Well-Known Member
Thanks syenite!
Maybe 50,000 silverfish! There’s a bunch around all of a sudden.
I think they are living under the tub.
Damn... I didn't even know silverfish were a pest for cannabis plants. Last time I thought of silverfish was when they were feasting on old VHS and cassette tape ribbons when I was a kid!
Me neither. They might be sneaking in the hole and messing with the roots. Need to research and observe.
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- #200
syenite
Well-Known Member
OK just did a bit of reading and I can't have been right about silverfish and tapes! I must have been thinking of something else. Definitely seen silverfish in old books.
Apparently silverfish aren't known to damage plants directly unless your plants have starchy bits. Hopefully they are springtails instead...