Fools Rush In: Newbie's Adventures In Suboptimal Conditions

[syenite]

The seedling is looking perfect

Cheers DD! Hope lil GZ has a good journey upwards too

Nice looking baby!

Thus validating the theory about keeping the canopy flat .

Well, I have to hack the plant, because a flat horizontal canopy is the opposite of what I want!

I want to know what the underlying mechanism is. It seems that the plant prioritises which growth to resource based purely on vertical position, rather than by light exposure or proximity to light. The top growth is getting roughly the same amount of light as the bottom growth.

Yes indeed, altho it is kind of flat from the side lighting perspective!

Yeah, seems it's hard to override the plant's notion of "up"!

Still, this should be moot if I have one primary node acting as the base, and its secondary growth constituting all the main branches. We'll see the next time I grow in this box!

 

[InTheShed]

I want to know what the underlying mechanism is. It seems that the plant prioritises which growth to resource based purely on vertical position, rather than by light exposure or proximity to light. The top growth is getting roughly the same amount of light as the bottom growth.

The plant knows where the top is regardless of lighting. Remember, LST is not about opening the plant up to equal light, it's about making the plant think there is no apical stem and sending growth hormones to the rest of the branches in attempt to create a new one.

 

[syenite]

The plant knows where the top is regardless of lighting. Remember, LST is not about opening the plant up to equal light, it's about making the plant think there is no apical stem and sending growth hormones to the rest of the branches in attempt to create a new one.

Thanks Shed! This is great intel and learning. I guess the only way I could've done this, looking back, is tried to keep those top two branches low/supercropped/bent for long enough that the other branches could catch up to them vertically. I was actually very close to doing so, but let them go at the last moment. Doh!

That being said, there is an advantage to the growth occurring like this. The plant will be somewhat "terraced" and thus more of it will be exposed directly to the front lights. This might actually counteract some of the overcrowding happening near the top/central column, where there are 4 branches clustered together.

 

[Bionic Chronic NZ]

Congrats my man. Looking like everything’s bang on track.

 

[JimJonesJr]

Big mama and the baby look great. That pic makes her look larger than what I pictured in my head.

 

[Growdad420]

I'm in. Very interesting so far!

 

[syenite]

Congrats my man. Looking like everything’s bang on track.

Big mama and the baby look great. That pic makes her look larger than what I pictured in my head.

Haha she's pretty small! 39cm / 1.2 "1 and a bit" feet.

I'm in. Very interesting so far!

Welcome aboard, Growdad420! Nice to have you here

 

[InTheShed]

1.2 feet

For those of us that measure in tenths of a foot!

 

[syenite]

Baby Bubba Kush, day 12 above ground

Oops - she's curled up a bit this morning. I did fertigate last night.

Will watch for signs of overwatering/burn over the next couple of days.

For those of us that measure in tenths of a foot!

It would help if the Imperial system made any sense at all

 

[DonkeyDick]

For those of us that measure in tenths of a foot!

So how high can you count by taking off your shoes?

 

[syenite]

1.2 "1 and a bit" feet.

Thanks MOTM @InTheShed !!!!!!

 

[InTheShed]

If you take it out of the plastic pot and wrap the roots in cheesecloth it will dry out faster.

 

[JimJonesJr]

Haha she's pretty small! 39cm / 1.2 "1 and a bit" feet.

Welcome aboard, Growdad420! Nice to have you here

Well, that pic was deceiving. It sure looked bigger. Dynamite comes in small packages...Grow baby grow!

 

[syenite]

Well, that pic was deceiving. It sure looked bigger. Dynamite comes in small packages...Grow baby grow!

It's those little houses at the base! They can really throw you off!

 

[syenite]

Desert, day 13 of 12-12

Budsites have developed rapidly! Sorry for the night photos - I rarely have time in the morning before her lights go out - under the orange kitchen light. She's a darker green that this.

She looks really happy overall. I am a little worried about the RH in the dark period though. Our dehumidifier seems a little.. ineffective. It's pretty damn old. I spent a couple of hours looking into getting a new one today.

She's only an inch or two away from the top lights now. Leaf temps are 26/27C (78/79F) at that topmost budsite. Tomorrow I will rearrange the lights.

I'm also playing around with a new carbon filter build, which I will document once I've settled it. She's not too smelly yet.

Baby Bubba Kush, day 14 above ground

After overwatering her the other day, she's dried out significantly. Still got a bit of a droop going, but I've been monitoring the weight and water loss closely. Again, apologies for the suboptimal lighting!

Oh yeah.. I did do something possibly ill-advised. The day after I saturated the little pot, and found her all droopy, I made a couple of environmental changes to speed up the drying. I got a propagation heatmat under her, lowered the RH, and turned the heat up a bit. She was under 40% RH and 27C (~79F) for about 6 or so hours. In that time, I was checking her every 30 minutes or so, especially the soil temps. I also increased her light hours to 21 from 18 for the past 2 days. Basically, I wanted to see if I could manipulate the transpiration gradient to help rectify the situation.

I was waiting to see if her condition worsened/escalated before using @InTheShed's suggestion of removing her from the pot and wrapping the mix with cheesecloth. I would also have considered transplanting/up-potting into a slightly larger container and dry mix.

I think she's out of the woods now!

 

[syenite]

OK, decided not to wait for tomorrow to rearrange the top lights.

So here's the full stadium light show! Before and after.

I'm really pleased with how easy it was to do this. And it was supremely satisfying because this is how I designed and intended it from the beginning. Glad to see that labour pay off eventually!

Curious to see how much more she'll stretch.

 

[DonkeyDick]

She has shot up quite a bit hasn’t she?
I like the way your Adaptabox™ is so adaptable. Well done, mate.

 

[Trala]

She looks so pretty Sy

 

[Carcass]

She's looking good, Sy!

And it was supremely satisfying because this is how I designed and intended it from the beginning.

Don't ya love it when a plan works out!

Oh yeah.. I did do something possibly ill-advised.

Don't freak out if you overwater a seedling, getting rid of that excess water is pretty easy- You'll need another pot the same size as the one the seedling is in- line that pot with a double layer of paper towels, then stuff the seedling pot in there- it should be a tight fit...
Give it a half an hour or so in there- the paper towels will be soaking wet when you pull the pot out- then you do it again, continuing until the paper towels stay dry.
The paper towels will wick all that excess water out of the seedling pot- when they stop wicking out the water, the pot is dry enough...

 

[MrSauga]

Hi Sye!
Everything looks great. Good luck with the RH. I ended up getting a 70 pint unit with an auto drain which made it handy. Works well for my size room.