It really is quite something how well cannabis grows when you stop doing a foliar spray of H2O2 with your humidifier.
Yeh, go back and read that again.
Mr. Tightass "Show me the Data" dicked up royally with the H2O2 and, I'm pretty certain it damaged the plant. I started adding just a couple of drop to Hugh to cut back on algae. A couple of drops became a little squeeze of the bottle. About a week and a half ago, I caught myself - WTF? You yeh, jumped all over my dick on that.
At the same time,
@No Pain was gently guiding me to buy a new air pump. I got that in the res and it does rock. Really, actually rock the plants. I was looking at the plant via the web cam and noticed the it was swaying a bit. I thought it was the fan speed being a bit high.
Nope! "Double, double toil and trouble; the pump hums and caldron bubbles."*
When I popped the top of the res, I looked like the bubbles has set up either a current or a standing wave and the entire wreath being moved around. I dropped the output level from the pump and, between the new pump and me no longer poisoning via cold mist, growth is now what I was expecting to see.
The foliage closest to Hugh is markedly immature compared to the rest of the plant so I strongly suspect I caused that. And it also makes me wonder if that's what pooched my grow from the Fall.
Enough of that.
Water's good…finally. 0.4 gallons yesterday and 0.6 today are a good sign. When I was poisoning my plant, there were days when I had to check water levels twice because the plant wasn't drinking. Boo, hiss to that and it's back on track now.
PPM is dropping steadily and pH is rising. Good stuff.
Lotsa light (what a surprise, eh!) - I checked this AM was averaging 941µmol and the buds looked great. It was either run the hamsters faster or drop the light. Since I'm at 306 now, that's > 90% so I decided to drop the light 1". That bumped my average PPFD by 50µmol. Yup, a 1"change in hang height got a 50µmol change in PPFD.
That one datum really…shines some light on the CW of "removing leaves from the canopy to let light get into the bud sites". I'm gung ho on getting light under the canopy but I'll use a light.
Fun fact - there is no usable PAR under the canopy. My buddy Shane and I did the same test about a year ago. I put the sensor for the Apogee directly under a leaf and, IIRC, 10% or somesuch hadn't been absorbed. Shane got the same number ± that I did. Not quite single digits but damned close. In theory, you could blast PAR into a leaf and get more than just stragglers and that's why I state "usable". Cannabis needs 64µmol to survive and you'll melt your plant before you'll get 64µmol coming out of the bottom of a leaf.
Shane referred to that as "penetration" and I've come to learn understand that "penetration" is does not mean penetrating a leaf rather it means just getting below the canopy. So that's actually a different discussion.
OK, back here in the tent. Light data. Two tables.
"Before" in column B and the matching, almost, reading in column D. I sampled 13 points, dropped the light, and sampled 14 which is why columns B and D have a different set of values. I sorted them both to try to match them. Not an exact match but it tells the story.
The second set of data reflects (oy!) the current values. The canopy is fairly even. The issue is that shitty Growcraft.
Here's the PPD map for my flower light:
Newer lights have a much better map but this is a three year old light so a five year old design. Note that there's good light in the center? What's in the center of a topped and LST'd plant? Riiiight - nothing.
That's the output I'm dealing with and the high PPFD values in my table are the buds on the center right. My Claus von Bulow imitation has impacted the left side of the wreath so there's not much there but the right side is doing fine and that's what's getting 1100+µmol.
They're all looking good, I gotta say. A big part of it is VPD + dropping PPM but let's hope that I don't do something else brilliant in the next 40± days and this one will be in the can.
Just read today that El Niño is collapsing so the two cool and moist to soaking wet winters that we've had will come to a close. La Niña will be picking up later in the year so my little few square mile patch of Mediterranean Warm Summer climate here SoCal will be warm and dry starting starting this summer. If I go just a few miles north, east, or south the Koppen climate type changes. Very strange but so is California.
I resurrected my PulseGrow and it's doing RH calibration as we speak. I cal'd the C69 sensor but decided I really want a second opinion. I'll drop the Pulse in the tent in the AM and the bounce the C69 off the Pulse.
Watched an interesting vid about VPD. When the topic of RH in flower came up, the opinion of the panel was that 60 is the new 50. The consensus was that there's simply no need to drop RH to 50 in flower to get good results and, as long as you've got decent air flow, 60 will do fine through all but the last couple of weeks of flower. Also discussed was the value of dropping temperature in the last few weeks. That's in the playbook for me.
If I'm able to get Hugh off the floor, it's still going to be a tight squeeze to get two mature plants in there. I'll continue to top my plants but I won't be doing a lot of LST. ATM, she's 28" across so I'd need to switch back to a more traditional shape.
*A slight modification from a scene in a play by thatShakespeare fellow