Colorado High - Soil - CFL - Super Skunk - 2013

[David Bowman]

Thanks CA!! Happy New Year's to you as well. Good idea about those clips.

 

[David Bowman]

Day 25 since the start of germination and the pair are doing well. The environment remains stable in the low 80's with 50-60% RH during the day. They are between 2-3" inches in height, they are on their 4th node with side shoots already forming on the lower nodes. I loaded the pots with a gallon of Growology/Molasses, (G/M), half on the day of transplantation, one week ago today, and the other half 2 days later. The right plant showed a little bit of nute burn on the leaf tips of the 2nd and 3rd nodes but I was expecting that after the heavy feeds. New growth is healthy with no signs of stress. I wanted to determine the limits of these plants early on to see what I'm dealing with here prior to LST.

Group shot of the pair -

Close-up shot on the left plant -

Close-up shot of the right plant -

They haven't been feed or watered since Monday and I'm letting them go for as long as possible to force the tap roots further down into the nutrient rich moist soil below to further assist in their establishment.

 

[Christine Green]

Looking awesome ColoradoHigh!!!

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks Pinky!

 

[Christine Green]

How much snow do you have so far?
I've got 6 inches so far.

 

[David Bowman]

Maybe half that, we might top out at 6 inches by the end of the weekend.

 

[CA215]

If I top I usually do it at the 4th or 5th node as this is the norm for others it seems.

Have you watered the girls yet? Little bit of nute burn but not bad. If the manure compost mix has been sitting for awhile like you said it could be cool, although ffof can be hot sometimes as well depending on the strain and maturity of the plant. I am not accustomed to the sponsor goodies , I like how they have steps for all their feedings, definitely just follow that along to the T. If they are sponsors here I am sure their products work killer

From my understanding if you have a soil that sits out and goes through cold hot temp swings you could be letting some beneficial bacteria die off, I tend to try to stay away from older additives as I really don't have any info on shelf life of the stuff we use.. not saying that the compost isn't useable.

You could get a Rubbermaid bin, throw the compost into it, water it down with some ro. maybe some liquid kelp and molasses plus some great white, that will bring that compost back up to par after a couple weeks of sitting Bring it inside to avoid the temp swings, this is what I have been doing with my ss and it seems to be keeping it decently warm.. ( I really feel like a jackass being in CA and not having to keep my heater on).

How are you liking the growology mix? I have seen a few people using it so far but haven't read any remarks ?

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods CH!

 

[David Bowman]

That's the reason I used the old Steer Manure Blend, to counteract the hotness of the FFOF and bring it down a bit for the seedlings and so far it appears to be working. Ideally, D&S Growology works best with plain un-nuted soil but I already had bought FFOF so I decided to cut it down for the D&S Growology system. I really like the system so far as it is extremely straightforward in its approach. You add Step 1 to the soil, Step 2 is for vegetation, Step 3 is for flowering. Step 2 & 3 are used at each and every watering and are added at a rate of 1 Tbsp/gallon, that's it. It appears that they've formulated a system where the plant gets what it needs based on the amount of water it requires, the more water the more nutes. There is no schedule, nor concentration changes, nor additives, etc. It also appears to match the plants requirements/rate of growth very well as I did not have to water or feed for 8 days after the first massive water/feed. When the plants are thristy they are also hungry and vice versa. Four weeks in and the plants are well ahead of my first grow and showing no signs or any stress/stunting/etc. Granted it is early in the grow, but so far I very pleased with this system and how easy it is to use and how well it appears to work.

 

[Growology]

Hi, ColoradoHigh - I just wanted to say thanks for doing a grow journal here on 420mag with our Growology nutrient line. We will eagerly follow your progress, and thanks again! Sincerely appreciate it.

 

[David Bowman]

Thank you Growology and to

It is my pleasure to be using your products to improve the growing process and results. I hope to show how easy and beneficial it is to use your Growology system for growing cannabis.

 

[David Bowman]

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.

 

[b.real]

they'll be ok. I only see nutrient stress, no watering or heat stress. let them dry out and only do water, MAYBE a drop of molasses next time

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks b.real! I'm trying to follow the spirit of D&S Growology which is feed every watering, so overwatering is overfeeding in this case. I'm going to wait until these babies are quite dry and then water/feed and see what happens. If it burns again then I might consider your suggestion. I'm not that concerned about stunting that much since I need all the time I can get to LST these babies and increase their yeild. The only down side that I can see is if the stress causes them to become male as they are non-feminized seeds.

 

[b.real]

why would you feed again when some of them have severe nitrogen clawing?

 

[David Bowman]

From what I understand, clawing can occur from overwatering or N abundance. Since the color of the leaves appear normal, no dark green at all, I thought that the clawing was due to overwatering not N abundance.

 

[b.real]

no chance. I bet if you touch your leaves they will be hard and they will stay clawed like that. a watering issue will cause the entire plant to become very soft and droopy. this is a different scenario.

 

[David Bowman]

The top fan leaves that I left on the plants are soft and supple and the claws are going away as well. During my last grow when I added too much N at the beginning of flowering, the leaves turned dark green, clawed and hard and stayed that way until harvest. In this case, both plants became droopy and soft right after the last water/feed. That is why I feel overwatering is more the cause than over nuting. Don't get me wrong, I know that I burned these babies, but that's because I was too aggressive with watering/feeding, given the relatively small root bundle they have compared to the size of the pot. I need to learn to water the plant, not the pot!

 

[Kusharella]

This is an interesting development, I'm eager to see how it works itself out. Without knowing how hot the soil is, I would probably pare back on the nutes first. These girls are still young. I tend to like to let them eat up a majority of what's in the soil before I supplement. I use a mix of FFOF and perlite 50/50 with Indonesian Bat Guano (1 TBSP per gallon)

I realize you're trying to adhere to the nutrient program. Tough call. I don't think I've ever had success following the doses recommended on the label. It's always been a balance of responding to how the plants behave. How much wiggle room do you have before you feel you're not following the regime ?

 

[David Bowman]

Like I said, if the next water/feed causes any problems, then I'm backing off of the D&S for a bit. I still have a tendency to overwater early on in vegging, I did last grow as well. I'm not entirely sure yet that this isn't the root cause of these issues right now. If I wait until the plants begin to wilt, then I know they need water and I will see how the water/feed affects them. If they thrive, then I know it was due to overwatering. If not, then I know I have too hot of an environment and will adjust accordingly.

 

[b.real]

smh