Losing My Grow Virginity

[Kyu Maengun]

-Footnotes

I also popped my last two White Widow Auto Seeds into a glass of water to soak for 24+ hours. Hopefully they both sprout tap roots without much trouble and I can put them into large pots. I want to avoid any transplanting if possible because I know I will likely be stressing the plant with hot nutes and LST as it is. The more stress inducers that I can avoid the better for the longevity of these plants!

 

[Kyu Maengun]

7.16.16

HELP!

I opened the tent tonight and I am seriously worried about Jane! Steadily the leaves of Jane's top growth have been getting skinnier and curling downward. After losing Paige and Winona in what seemed to be a really quick turn for the worst I am sending out the Bat Signal to any and all who think they know what is causing this...

Water related?
I don't think that I have been over-watering as I have been incrementally watering once a week. It is still possible the volume of water she received has been higher than possible but last Sunday I gave her such a mild amount of water that I didn't think this would be the issue.

Light/heat related?
Yesterday I purchased small wire wracks that life the plant about 4-6 inches off of the tent floor to ensure air is flowing beneath the fabric pots and we aren't getting pot rot. I did pull the light up but it is possible the light was still closer than before the rack as I don't have the vertical clearance to match the displacement of the light inch-for-inch with the height of the pot.

Fan related?
Some adjustments that I also made were moving the tower fan further from the plant and facing it less directly as I had identified this as a stresser for both Winona and Paige. Tonight I removed the restraints and readjusted them to be less strenuous on her. I also folded the excess fabric pot that sat several inches above the soil height so more air could reach the lower growth.

The only other thing I noticed was the humidity may be ranging too low. I topped off the water cup and raised the lights back up to put at least 20" between the top of the canopy and the bottom of the Mars LED.

Please tell me what you think it is! I could very well be just over-reacting but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

This looks like a very serious roots issue. Could be caused by heat, over and under watering issues, heat, etc.

Watering on a schedule never really works. You gotta do the soak / dry cycle, roots need it to be happy. What may have happened is that the weekly watering may have been too often at first leaving the roots to soak which weakened them. Watering after that may have kept a constant level of water in the roots. You may have picked up some kind of wilt fungus like fusarium which is definitely not great. High temps over the weekend may have exaggerated the issue, the leaves need to transpire and the roots couldn't do it. The high temps also lowered oxygen in the root zone. If your nutrients have been added constantly with no run off while this was going on it would make it tougher for the roots as well as it tends to pull out the water from the plant. With chem nutes or liquid organics always water to at least 10% runoff and collect that runoff and discard. Prevents salt buildup.

I would do an emergency flush. Put about ten gallons of straight water in there. Let it keep draining over a sink as you add it. If you have a ppm meter test the PPMs of the solution. Then don't water again until she is dry/almost dry. Get her back on the wet/dry cycle. With fabric pots you can tell by weight and also the wetness of the pot bottom felt underneath with your hand. Soil too wet for watering will leave the pot bottom feeling cooler and moist.

She is going to need some real TLC from here out. I will be trying to check in to see progress. I know it's tough because she is in flower so anything like this will really scrap her yield. But you are learning. Good crowds become good by learning from events like this! Keep your chin up. You have a first harvest and are doing great. Let's hope this girl can pull it off. If you would please list everything you can about what you are seeing. Temps, humidity, nutrient strength and dosage, heat, weird events, anything that may help narrow the diagnosis.

 

[Kyu Maengun]

This looks like a very serious roots issue. Could be caused by heat, over and under watering issues, heat, etc.

Watering on a schedule never really works. You gotta do the soak / dry cycle, roots need it to be happy. What may have happened is that the weekly watering may have been too often at first leaving the roots to soak which weakened them. Watering after that may have kept a constant level of water in the roots. You may have picked up some kind of wilt fungus like fusarium which is definitely not great. High temps over the weekend may have exaggerated the issue, the leaves need to transpire and the roots couldn't do it. The high temps also lowered oxygen in the root zone. If your nutrients have been added constantly with no run off while this was going on it would make it tougher for the roots as well as it tends to pull out the water from the plant. With chem nutes or liquid organics always water to at least 10% runoff and collect that runoff and discard. Prevents salt buildup.

I would do an emergency flush. Put about ten gallons of straight water in there. Let it keep draining over a sink as you add it. If you have a ppm meter test the PPMs of the solution. Then don't water again until she is dry/almost dry. Get her back on the wet/dry cycle. With fabric pots you can tell by weight and also the wetness of the pot bottom felt underneath with your hand. Soil too wet for watering will leave the pot bottom feeling cooler and moist.

She is going to need some real TLC from here out. I will be trying to check in to see progress. I know it's tough because she is in flower so anything like this will really scrap her yield. But you are learning. Good crowds become good by learning from events like this! Keep your chin up. You have a first harvest and are doing great. Let's hope this girl can pull it off. If you would please list everything you can about what you are seeing. Temps, humidity, nutrient strength and dosage, heat, weird events, anything that may help narrow the diagnosis.

I have fantastic news. It is officially Night 70 and Jane has bounced back like a rock star. Ironically I didn't catch Shiggity's advice the before now but I was on some level of parallel thinking as that same night Shiggity replied I decided that waiting to water was only worsening the symptoms and as far as I could tell the dirt was quite dry and the fabric bottom showed no signs of saturation.

I figured there was something I was missing that was less than obvious but was making the stressors exacerbated. Yes, the heat was a point of stress for sure. Yes the fan was blowing too driectly. Yes the lights were slightly close still and yes I think there was some slight buildup.

I decided to utilize one of the wire racks in my bathtub while I gave a solid soak/mini-flush. I didn't go as far as Shiggity recommended by emptying 10 gallons worth but more likely a quart and a half of plain filtered tap. A fair amount of yellowish tinted water ran off from the pot. I allowed the plant to sit in the bathtub with nothing but the LED bulbs of the bathroom and the room temp air to accompany it for about 5 hours. I returned to check no her and could see some slight improvement in her wilt which indicated to me that she was likely thirsty.

As I was inspecting her I decided to loosen some of the ties just so slightly but at this point I realized I had left one tie from weeks before that was meant to give the split stem some support until the stem became more of a wood rather than a flexible green. I realized the coated wire that I had wrapped directly below where the stem split was now acting more like a tourniquet and was likely cutting off (to at least some extent) the uptake of nutrients and water to her main upper colas which seemed to be the most impacted sites. Miraculously by the following night she began to perk up towards the light and her leaves went from thin and clawing to a broader less curled form.

Here are some pictures of her from tonight. If you compare her leaves from Sunday night it is almost night and day!

I am for certain going to move away from "scheduled water" and try to be more aware of what she is trying to tell me. On a side note I picked up more soil for the White Widow Seeds I have germinating as I was totally out. I grabbed a couple of "acid loving plants" 4lb Happy Frog Soil with beneficial microbes, two bricks of organic Coco Choir, a bag of organic perlite, 2 lbs of Indonesian Bat Guano and 2 lbs of Worm Castings. I am going to mix up some soil in the next coming days as soon as these seeds *hopefully* sprout a tap root. I am planning on planting these seedlings directly into the 5gal fabric pots to avoid transfer shock. I want to try to get these two White Widows nice and large with similar topping/LST techniques to what I have seen RTK and Jaybizz do on their journal. I wanna go for doing the "pony-tail" style tie around the main branches before they lock into position. This should encourage the plant to grow up before I begin trying to spread them wide and tie them down. We will have to see how it goes but for now good night everyone.

 

[Kyu Maengun]

Also, I especially want to say THANK YOU to Noob4x4 and ShiggityFlip for sticking with me through the entirety of this (at times Painful to read) journal. Thank you for not writing me off and calling it quits. I know I have made a plethora of erros in this journal but all I can hope is to learn and improve. Thank you to everyone else who is following along and contributing positive energy. I love and appreciate you all! 420 Magazine has the best growing community online period.

 

[Noob4x4grow]

You've come a long way since the Crunk trunk, my friend.

Cheers

 

[ShiggityFlip]

You are developing the mindset of a true grower Kyu. That is a big step. Everyone will make mistakes. Everyone. You are distinguishing yourself by learning to detect and adjust! Bravo. She looks 1000% better.

 

[jayne]

Also, I especially want to say THANK YOU to Noob4x4 and ShiggityFlip for sticking with me through the entirety of this (at times Painful to read) journal. Thank you for not writing me off and calling it quits. I know I have made a plethora of erros in this journal but all I can hope is to learn and improve. Thank you to everyone else who is following along and contributing positive energy. I love and appreciate you all! 420 Magazine has the best growing community online period.

It is pretty awesome here.

 

[jayne]

Oh and congrats on your salvage job! Hoping she recovers completely.

 

[Kyu Maengun]

It is pretty awesome here.

I couldn't agree more

 

[Kyu Maengun]

Oh and congrats on your salvage job! Hoping she recovers completely.

Jayne C,

I was just peaking at your journal (I haven't had a lot of time to read it as I'm at work) but I have to say I feel the pain of misfortune and the challenges of trying to utilize a smaller cabinet/container/fridge/trunk as grow space. After ironing out all of the kinks I was able to convert the trunk to an awesome veg space. I am going to probably only use my trunk for future photo period strains that I start in smaller pots/solo cups as the square footage is quite tight.

I can see just from page 1 of your journal that you have endured quite a bit of adversity. I look forward to catching up on your journal as well!

 

[Kyu Maengun]

7.21.16 - I allowed Jane to relax and admired her bounce back. I popped 1 White Widow Auto and 3 Ace Mix feminized seeds into cups to start germination.

7.22.16 - N72 Jane got a gallon flush of FoxFarm Week 6 nutes schedule at 50% concentration.

7.23.16 All four seeds sprouted a tap root. Despite the root being short I sowed the seeds into an assortment of growing mediums: The white Widow went into a 40/40/20 mix of Coco Choir, Fox Farms Ocean Forest and Perlite. The Ace seed 1 got 50/30/20 of Ocean forest, perlite and coco choir. Ace seed 2 got 60/30/10 of Ocean Forest+Perlite+Cocochoir+. Ace seed 3 got 60/20/20 Ocean forest+scotts potting soil+perlite (I ran out of soil perlite and coco choir by this point). A small amount of Indonesian Bat Guano +Worm castings+cal mag were mixed into all of the pots as well. I didn't deliberately make seed 3 so ridiculous I just ran out of soil and got desperate. In hindsight I maybe could have let the seeds sit in paper towels a few more days and simply went and bought more soil.

I also released some of Jane's ties. She is 73 nights old.

7.25.16 Aliyah had been hanging for ten days and the humidity seemed to be right in the sweetspot so she went into jars. There wasn't a lot of hanging harvest so I originally had it spread over three pint jars. I didn't both with taking pictures or wet weights. I figure I can weigh it while it cures and get the jump on that. The hard part will be resisting smoking samples.

7.26.16 - N76 Jane

Thought I would update with some pictures to show you how the tent is going. I again have not taken pictures of the jarred flowers from Aliyah because I will wait for weighing it. I did decide to combine into two fuller pints rather than three mostly full pints. The bud is airy enough that I think I can get away with it. Also, I don't want them to dry them out too fast from burping the jars. Humidity seems to be right in the sweet spot of 65 to 70.

There is still no sign of the seedies breaking soil. The Ace Seed 3 in the bottom-right position of the picture had the seed close to the surface and I think light may have been penetrating into the cracked seed. I tried to position it in less shallow dirt and cover with dry soil but I realized the fan may have uncovered it some. I gingerly dripped droplets of water around the area is a small circle and dripped one single drop right above the seed hole to hold some of the dirt down. I will remain optimistic about these seeds but if they don't seem to be sprouting I can gently excavate them and get them into a moist warm towel and see if I can reboot the germination.

Anyhow, here are some pictures of the tent:

 

[Noob4x4grow]

Kyu, you're killing it man. It's nice to see your plants kicking butt again
Cheers

 

[Kyu Maengun]

Kyu, you're killing it man. It's nice to see your plants kicking butt again
Cheers

I'm just happy you didn't mean that in the literal sense as I have been known to "kill" a plant or two.

 

[Kyu Maengun]

7.27.16 Update

Jane was 77 nights old last night. I gave her about two quarts or plain filtered tap. She hung out on the "drying" rack in the tub. I Accidentally fell asleep watching Netflix shortly after midnight. This can probably be attributed to Aliyah's flowers having lots of power. Despite it being Bangi Haze I almost notice indica-like effects.

I woke up (late) this morning for work and remembered that Jane was still in the tub! She missed about 8 hours of light time last night. Hopefully this did/does not stress her out too much and she can keep on doing her thing.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Extra time without light is not a problem during flower. It's interruptions during the night that can cause undue stress and possibly lead to hermieism. She'll be just fine, she might have even packed on extra trichs for ya.

How's she doing now? Looking good all around Kyu

KiG cheers

 

[Noob4x4grow]

How you doing buddy? Hope all is well

 

[Kyu Maengun]

Extra time without light is not a problem during flower. It's interruptions during the night that can cause undue stress and possibly lead to hermieism. She'll be just fine, she might have even packed on extra trichs for ya.

How's she doing now? Looking good all around Kyu

KiG cheers

Thank you Snid! It is reassuring to know that didn't hurt too much.

How you doing buddy? Hope all is well

I'm well! Jane is well too! I apologize for slacking on the journal. Don't worry I haven't been neglecting my girl

On August 2, N83 I gave Jane Week 7 of the Fox Farms feeding schedule nutes at 50% concentration. She has shown some recent growth between then and now.

Yesterday morning I started to see some mild wilt and the soil seemed dry enough to give her another quart of plain, filtered tap.
Here were some photos from yesterday morning:

 

[Noob4x4grow]

Don't make the mistake I made. I would let the girls get too dry. I'm sure that led to a degradation of potency every time I did it. You have to keep them moist in flower brotha.

Cheers kyu

 

[Kyu Maengun]

Don't make the mistake I made. I would let the girls get too dry. I'm sure that led to a degradation of potency every time I did it. You have to keep them moist in flower brotha.

Cheers kyu

For sure that makes sense. My Aliyah harvest has been super potent despite drying out too quickly and not having the best of cures. Running her to 100 plus days sure helps I'm sure. She is supposed to be Bangi Haze. This 2046 Medical strain that Jane is has the potential of having around 25% THC in optimal conditions but averages more like 20% allegedly.

I will use the weight test to monitor how frequently she is watered and fed. I am just making sure I do not overwater and drown her like I did Winona and Paige.