First Indoor Grow, WW & NL Autos

[TalentedTen]

July 8: I've seen some minor scattered nutrient burn on newer “baby” leaves on Tessa but its just so minimal I'm not going to bother to post a pic. You might see it in later pictures.

July 9: Watered both plants today, 1 gallon each. Wendy: PH 6.2 in, scant pH out 6.5. Tessa: pH in 6.3, pH out 6.7.

July 10: Added CO2 to the tent and as a result, I'm letting the temperature increase a bit. Both plants seem to love it. I'd like to add a CO2 meter to the tent, but haven't been able to find an accurate one for a reasonable price yet – still looking. <The added CO2 was provided by Green Mat CO2 Generator Mats. The company claims each mat will provide “additional” CO2 for a 200-400 square foot grow room. Since I have a 54 square foot grow tent, and as most grow companies “embellish”, I 'm using a total of two CO2 mats in my tent. Both plants never looked better than they do with this added CO2, whatever ppm it actually adds. Gonna use Exhale CO2 providers on my next grow.>

Wendy

Tessa

July 11: Week 5 Day 35. Seeing a big growth spurt in both plants. Both were a little “droopy” yesterday afternoon when I added the CO2 mats. Today, they look like centerfolds in a weed magazine, so having done nothing aside from adding the CO2 mats, I'm guessing it was the CO2 that “perked 'em up”. Watered both today... and speaking of watering, I'm not going to post additional pH in/out mentions as it just seems to be unnecessary considering my soil and previous runoff checks. All water- in will be between pH 6.2 and pH 6.4. Every other watering I'll allow just enough runoff to test.

July 12: I have to raise the grow light at least once daily to maintain 15” above their canopies but I might even reconsider that height. I've had Tessa grow to within 14” of the LED grow light and not burn.

July 13: Both plants growing well. Watered Tessa and Wendy. Total of one gallon in, for each, in divided doses.

Wendy

Tessa

Both

July 14: Plugging along. Noticed some nutrient burn on a few other leaves. Still chalking that that up to the roots finally hitting the Kind Soil. Very minimal but next time out, I might mix some FF Ocean Forest into the Kind Soil, as it seems pretty hot. I've seen other “soil only, no added nutrients” using Kind Soil cause a minimal nute burn.

Wendy

Tessa

Both

Burn

 

[nobodyhere]

so your using the regular CO2 mats, and have two in there at a time, removing the old one every week?

I've thought about doing this...but did not know if the cost of the product was worth it....so this is great to watch for me.

 

[TalentedTen]

so your using the regular CO2 mats, and have two in there at a time, removing the old one every week?

Exactly. I'm definitely going to use CO2 in every grow but next time I'm going to try the Exhale CO2 generator. I gotta find a accurate CO2 meter. Thinking about the one below.

Hydrofarm APCEM2 Autopilot Desktop CO2 Monitor & Data Logger

Exhale - Homegrown CO2 for Your Indoor Plants

 

[Pennywise]

Better off rolling with canisters, the bags are more expensive in the long run.

 

[TalentedTen]

Better off rolling with canisters, the bags are more expensive in the long run.

Good point. I'm already looking into this. Turns out there are plenty of places to get a tank refilled pretty close to my house.

 

[BudScratcher]

Looking good buddie

 

[nobodyhere]

I so want to try CO2, but I have a couple salt aquariums, and too much CO2 jacks up the pH pretty quick. When I have people over even in differnt parts of the house, the pH drops on the tanks pretty hard. I dunno what 1300ppm would do without proper venting. I might just try a bag first so I can toss.

But I do have a few empty K cylinders sitting around.

 

[TalentedTen]

I so want to try CO2, but I have a couple salt aquariums, and too much CO2 jacks up the pH pretty quick.

Hang a CO2 mat over your plants in your tent, zip it up and wait 24 hours. When you check your plants the following day, you'll see they love CO2. Added CO2 will be a part of every indoor grow I do.

 

[TalentedTen]

July 15: Wendy and Tessa are in the final “stretch” of growth. Both have less than 2 weeks of growth before they mostly stop growing in height, and use their energy toward bud development.

July 16: I'll likely be adding FFOF to the base layer of Kind Soil in my next grow. I doubt it will be much though, just a few Solo cups worth. Everything else is going well. Nice to see the daily growth.

Both

July 17: I pulled everything out of the tent, did a general cleaning. Kind of a PIA but it just seemed reasonable to take some time for a little “house cleaning” at the midpoint.

Tessa

July 18: Week 6. Bit past the halfway mark. To recap...

LED light: 20 hours on, 4 hours off.
Temperature: 76-80 degrees.
Humidity: 45%
CO2 in use.

Wendy is doing well but bud size is about a week behind Tessa's.

July 19: Watered. PH in 6.7. Wendy received 1.5 gallons and Tessa one gallon.

July 20: Seeing some more leaf issues on both plants. Actually I'm seeing three things.

1. Some of the leaf tips look burned and are dried / crispy. That's got to be something other than Kind Soil nute burn.
2. Some of the large leaves are beginning to turn a bit lighter (slight yellowing) than the other healthy leaves.
3. Some of the leaves at the bottom of the plant nearest the soil are turning yellow and falling off. A nitrogen deficiency for sure but not sure how this happened with a Kind Soil base.

Below are a few pictures of what I'm seeing. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Kinda at a loss figuring this out.

If I can't get a handle on what is causing these problems, I could heavily flush both plants with Sledgehammer with Boomerang, wash out all the nutrients in the soil and convert this to a nutrient added grow. Hoping I don't have to go this route but I've got Fox Farms Big Bloom, Grow Big and Tiger Bloom on hand if needed.

Not sure what this is at this point.

This leaf will look like the above two pictures by tomorrow.

Slight yellowing of fan leaves. Hard to tell in picture - looks a little worse in person.

Yellowing.

 

[Pennywise]

I'm almost sure the brown crispy is from light/heat stress, the healthy leaves are cupped like taco. The yellow leaves are for sure nitrogen deficiency, if you suspect ph you could lower ph a bit.

 

[Kingblizz]

I started same day.......watching

 

[Pennywise]

Let's see how they respond.

 

[TalentedTen]

I'm almost sure the brown crispy is from light/heat stress, the healthy leaves are cupped like taco. The yellow leaves are for sure nitrogen deficiency, if you suspect ph you could lower ph a bit.

DONE! Elevated LED up to 18" from highest leaves. Had to use zip ties in place of the OEM hangers to increase the distance. While I don't suspect pH, I have gotten "lax" on this, so I'll certainly be checking more closely. Please continue to keep an eye on my grow. I really appreciate the input! Thanks Pennywise.

 

[Pennywise]

No worries, I'm usually around somewhere.

 

[TalentedTen]

I started same day.......watching

Glad to have you watching Kingblizz. Chime in with any advice. It's appreciated.

 

[TalentedTen]

July 21: Seeing additional progression of the yellowing of main leaves and even more nitrogen deficient leaves falling off nearest the soil.

LED is at 19 inches. Viparspectra recommends 16-22 inches so I split the difference.

The Kind Soil I'm using as the base is pretty hot, but I'm seeing these deficiencies (nitrogen for sure and likely potassium) and they have to be treated. I just can't figure out why I'm seeing them.

I decided to use Wendy as a testbed and gave her half the recommenced dose of FF Tiger Bloom and FF Big Bloom for a 6 week old plant in a gallon of water. PH in was 6.1 and pH out was 6.6. I tested the runoff TDS PPM, unfortunately for the first time, and came up with 27, 200 PPM TDS... so with the runoff being so concentrated, its very likely causing lockouts resulting in the deficiencies I'm seeing. I'm going to flush her like crazy the day after tomorrow until her runoff is ~750 PPM TDS.

In the interim, IF the deficiencies I'm seeing are due to lockout, I won't see any improvement in her condition and I'll know that's the problem. If the deficiencies aren't due to lockout, but due to a depletion of nutes in the Kind Soil, I should see some slight improvement even using half dose of Tiger Bloom and Big Bloom.

<Later>

And the situation gets even more FUBAR.

Watered Tessa, 1 gallon, no nutrients. Water in pH 6.2. Water out pH 4.0. That is a massive pH swing. Tested three times, recalibrated and tested twice again – water out pH 4.1. Runoff TDS PPM was 20, 200 PPM TDS. With a runoff pH of 4.1, Tessa will certainly look worse tomorrow.

At this point, as best I figure, a HUGE flush is required, resume this grow as a regular “added nutrient” grow, cross my fingers and hope for the best.

This concept of a "no added nutrients, just add water" grow didn't work for me, but seems to have worked for some however. Seems this grower just "ignored" nutrient issues that can be seen in this Kind Soil / Auto-Flower video and still finished fine. Go figure.

Time Lapse Grow, 3 minutes 14 seconds.

 

[nobodyhere]

Mmmm, dunno about kind soil, but 4 out....wtf

 

[TalentedTen]

Things are looking better.

 

[TalentedTen]

Plugging along.

 

[TalentedTen]

July 22: Well... while I hate to admit this... my issues are due to “operator error”. I missed a page on the Kind Soil website and have been over-watering when I allowed runoff so my problems are really of my own making. I also used liquid pH Up and pH Down. From their website: “ You cannot use liquid pH up and down products, you must use citric acid crystals or potassium bicarbonate. Earth Juice Naturals makes a very good PH up and down that we recommend. If you have to PH adjust just get the water to 7.0 or at the lowest 6.8 when adjusting.”

What difference that makes, I don't know but they are pretty adamant about it <and NO, Kind Soil does not own the company they refer to. I checked>.

They also stated most Kind Soil growers water once every 5-7 days. At this point, by day 3, my plants are thirsty and my smart pots are pretty dry so on my next grow I'll use the Root Trapper smart pots they recommend. I can't explain why the runoff pH of 4 on Tessa but it was based on a very, very small amount of runoff so maybe that played a part... and Kind-Soil never recommends watering that provides a runoff.

July 23: Both plants are looking pretty good at this point. I removed dead leaves to make it easier to see any new problems. Thankfully I'm not seeing any.

July 24: So far so good. No new problems, for a change, but like I said, the problems I've experienced were of my own making. Just gotta hope I didn't wash out too many nutrients with the over-watering I was doing. Tessa and Wendy seem to be back on track. Northern Lights Wendy continues at least a week, maybe 10 days, behind White Widow Tessa. Adding a little more close-in CFL “lumen juice” for lateral buds. IF I see any significant deficiencies, I'll add a fractional dose of Cal-Mag, FF Tiger Bloom and Big Bloom. My “What Did I Do Wrong” journal has doubled in size.

July 25: Week 7 (Day 49). Back from the brink. Tessa and Wendy are doing well. Watered yesterday, one gallon each, no runoff, pH in 6.5 on both. Less than 30 days from harvest if all goes right. I gave a one third dose of nutrients to Wendy. None to Tessa. From Week 8 on, unless I see something horribly wrong, I won't make any further soil adjustments on Northern Light Wendy. Plants won't get too much bigger, but the buds will fatten up significantly, or so I'm told.

Wendy (left) Tessa (right) Photographed with a flash to highlight bud growth. About a month to go.