Keffka's Stonington Soil, Bag Seed, 2022 Setup Indoor Grow

[Smilemeds]

Thank you for the thanks Welcome to my first journal. Hopefully it gets better from here

Better! Oh boy! Right on! Peace kind soul.

 

[Gandalfthewhite]

Looking good growmie

 

[Keffka]

They both took their hair cuts so well, exploding all over and praying perfectly. Will be flipping to flower on Wednesday.

 

[Keffka]

I am going to flip to flower on Wednesday. This initial plant has taken me far longer than I originally intended and it’s still in a somewhat smaller pot for it’s age. It sprouted July 16th I believe so at about 70 days veg it’s still in a 3 gallon smart pot (it’ll be 4 weeks in the pot this week). I stunted it along the way and had deficiency issues, however, information wise, the experience was invaluable and gave me the confidence to be able to relax in regard to problems with the plant.

She has been ready for flower for a while, having started throwing out pistils a month ago, alternating nodes, and now, even some of the pistils have started turning color, telling me she’s definitely mature. I was going to clone it but decided I had enough on my hands and will practice cloning another time.

I spent the majority of the time she’s been vegging, germinating other cannabis plants and experimenting with their seedling phase. I tried quite a few different methods of germination and was able to attain a 90% success rate for seeds that were one year old and stored haphazardly. I was able to attain an 80% success rate taking sprouts through seedling to veg, so I am now confident in my ability to get a plant into veg from seed or seedling.

I have learned a huge variety of different pieces of knowledge I never could’ve known I needed to know or anticipated lol. I have made a lot of notes about things I’d like to do different moving forward. I have become more rigorous in my measurements and controls, which I feel will become quite critical soon, so I need to tighten that skill up much, much more. My intent is to eventually acquire an intimate and deep knowledge of cannabis cultivation, as well as work on my writing style to make it more engrossing and relatable, while still being informative. It would be nice to be able to use my writing to help more veterans connect with cannabis rather than the pills they throw at us.

This will require me to establish a fairly disciplined program to attain it, which shouldn’t be an issue. I have structured my life to be able to do something exactly like this and so perhaps this will give me that sense of purpose again. The ideas aren’t completely formed yet but they’re there in my mind bouncing around, on their way to becoming full fledged thoughts lol.

 

[Keffka]

Looking good growmie

I missed this post somehow, thanks G.. I’m trying, but also trying not to try too hard and kill her with love yknow lol.

 

[Keffka]

A few quick images from today.. she’s looking stronger by the day, pretty soon she’ll be independent and won’t need anyones help. Her leaves haven’t prayed like they are since she was outside, so I’m pretty happy. Wish I would’ve thrown her in a 5 gallon though before flower but I had to deal with the deficiencies first which set back all my time frames.. I’m not willing to wait another 2 weeks for her to settle into a 5er, just gonna let her rip and learn my lessons.

Tomorrow is the day.. she should be ready to water tomorrow or the day after. Either way she’ll be getting the first of three 5-13-0 fish bone meal applications.. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do for potassium yet, I don’t trust that this soil has enough to see me through.. the feeding schedule claims it should be enough but I have doubts.. I’ll most likely use the current OG plant food to get my K fix

 

[Keffka]

Here is an image of the general DLI requirements I’m operating on.. This is my first flip to flower on my own so I am going to be watching my plant like a hawk ensuring it’s still getting enough light.

It’s unhelpful that my buddy was mainly a coco grower who operated off lux measurements of 60k in veg and 85k in flower lol.. he’s constantly forgetting I don’t have everything dialed in well enough to push the upper limits.

 

[Keffka]

I have increased my light to 75% (it will likely take a considerable amount of trial and error to ever need 100%) and lowered the plant by 3.75 inches. The plant was originally taking 30ish DLI before the flip, it is now taking 23ish DLI over 12 hours and 33 DLI over 18 hours. Should be low and slow enough to ease the plant into the higher intensity. I am expecting quite a stretch to happen and am keeping a close eye on the leaves. I have 2 smaller plants I have not been focused on much aside from a few training techniques. I want to see what happens to them when I half heartedly rush a plant through veg. I’ll post pictures in a little bit

 

[Keffka]

Todays images.. My phone won’t allow me to rename images before I upload them. I think when I start my next grow I will transfer my data to my PC, properly label and tag everything so it is easier to search and find. Also, as can be seen, I have a massive amount of room that is not being utilized. I could fit at least 3 similar sized plants and have room to breathe. Next grow I am going to have to figure out a way to fill it much more efficiently.

 

[Keffka]

The plants handled the light change extremely well today.. no signs of stress or discontent. I will move the female closer to the center by a few inches tomorrow, if she still looks good after her 12 hour slumber. Once I see her flowers I will name her.

She will be ready to drink tomorrow which is perfect. I will be top dressing with 2 tbsp fish bone meal (5-13-0) and 2 cups of lobster compost. I’ve prepper her gallon of water with BTi, calmag, and will have it at 70 F. That should help her settle into flower. I will top dress with the same Fish Bone Meal and lobster compost in week 3 and 5 as well. I am going to be watching for signs of potassium deficiency, and will use the OG plant food to handle that.

I wanna look into adding black strap molasses to my watering but I’d like to take care of these gnats first. There’s a store nearby that carries SNS products, I just need to go the literal extra mile out of my way to check it out. Here’s hoping I remember while I’m out tomorrow lol

 

[StoneOtter]

She's looking beautiful Keffka!

 

[Gee64]

Keffka hey many sorry I' m late to the party. It looks like your plants are doing much better now. I am a full on organic grower using LED lights and I have felt all your pains. The worst pain of all is chasing your tail as its very frustrating, the sweetest pain of all is chasing your tail because every lap round and round teaches you a new thing to make the synergy better, but yet somehow you know you will have to do another lap. The stupid part is that its fun as hell. The greatest part is all the fantastic people who are more than happy to lend a hand. Does that sound about right?

 

[Gee64]

You are more or less only missing 1 part of the equation but it comes with a catch. When you incorporate it into your grow it will change the way you do other things, things that have saved you in the past, and that will make you uncomfortable. What you are missing is the application of VPD and the knowledge of a plant at its most basic essence. The 2 go hand in hand. I am not trying to sound arrogant or all knowing here. I have felt your pain and couldn't stop chasing my tail until someone showed it to me. Now my weed grows on autopilot so well I am depressed because I don't spend much time with my plants at all. I am a slow typer so I will immediately start an explanation but its a bit long winded so please be patient. Its alot to type but once it makes sense, and its an easy concept if someone shows it to you, you will grow ALL plants perfectly, as long as they fall under the classification of vegetable, which cannabis does, and VPD is an indoor thing. There are a few other basics as well but this sets the stage for all the other players to shine, and when there is a problem you will be able to recognize and fix it immediately.

 

[Gee64]

The very essence of a plant. What is a plant? well I am glad you asked. A plant is a solar powered water pump that has the unique ability to grow. As it pumps water it pulls in food from the ground, in the water(please dont jump in with the fungus argument yet, yes fungus feeds Ms Plant too) and that food laden water moves up the plant into the leaves where the solar power causes a bio-chemical reaction called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into carbon and dioxide. Dioxide is oxygen. O2. It seperates the carbon and holds it and releases the oxygen. It uses the carbon to make sugar and the sugar is not only the plants food, if the plant can PS ( photosynthesize) an excess of food it will push it back down the roots and bribe underground critters and fungi to bring the plants whatever nutrient it wants in exchange for the sugar. A plant that can PS an excess of sugar to use for trade to create itself a balanced diet is referred to as a healthy plant. Remember that. Healthy plant. Its of key impotance. Its all you need. So, when the water and food get pumped up the plant, how does it actually get pulled up the plant? Water is heavy. Its the PS. When the chemical reaction occurs the oxygen(O2) that gets seperated from the carbon( organics translates into "of carbon based") gets pushed out of the under side of the leaves through pores called stomata. Stomata open in the day and close at night. At night there is no PS as the solar power has been turned off. If the stomata remained open air would rush in and all liquid in the plant would drain out the roots and the plant would die. So when PS forces the 02 and excess water out the stomata new water with new food gets sucked in at the root. Making sense so far? Pretty simple mechanism really. So far so good? even though we havent even talked about plant issues yet? So if you have a healthy plant all you really need to do is make the pump run faster and it all speeds up and the plant grows faster,becomes more healthier, turns a larger sugar profit to buy even more needed nutrients to PS more to run even faster to PS more sugar to buy more nutrients ..... that is the kind of tail chasing you want. A bulletproof business model. VPD is what gives you that. If vpd is correct for the environment you have been dealt the pump will run faster and VPD will adjust to a really wide range of environments. All you need to do is have nutrient rich soil so there is ACTUALLY food to supply to the plant, water to carry it, and light for solar power. Please dont start thinking things like " well PH has a big part too Mister, or Hey pal your cal/mag ratios are vital" yet. We are setting the stage here. Once its set you can tinker with it any way you want, and its fun as hell to tinker, but you don't want to chase your tail. Its distracting and discouraging.
So... how do you make the pump safely run faster? Its a juggling act, and that is good because you can speed up or slow down the juggling to get the exact same results from numerous different environments. There are 3 parts to it. Each parts value is exactly equal. By changing any 1 of the 3 parts you can adjust the other 2 parts to create harmony. 1 part is ambient room temperature. The 2nd part is leaf temperature, and the 3rd part is Relative Humidity(RH). lets say your room temp is 76f. Your RH is 60. Chances are your plants leaf temp is 74f. That is because a healthy plant in a decent environment will try by design to run 2 degrees lower than room temp. The 2 degree difference is perfect for great PS to drive the water and oxygen out the stomata. so if your plant is 76/74/60% then your VPD value is 1.03. That is perfect if you are in mid to late veg. As your plant enters flower it starts to require more food to grow big juicy buds so now you understand that logic dictates you must speed up the pump to get more food. If you speed up the pump but don't add more solar power to create more PS then the leaves fill up with undigested food. We call it nute burn. Making more sense now? starting to i bet. So how does it really work. Well if you take 76/74/60 and change it to 76/75/60 your VPD value jumps to 1.13. For flower you want 1.35-1.45 all day long and a healthy plant will cycle itself down to about 1.2 and up to about 1.55 all on its own without you changing anything just as when you are out for a walk on a sunny morning in your shorts and its beautiful, but a cloud crosses the sun and it gets cold so you walk faster and your metabolism warms you up because of the exercise of walking faster. 1.5 is redline. Don't go above it. Alot of your issues have been from over revving.
So... controlling room temp is easy. Controlling humidity is easy-ish. But how the hell do you control leaf temp? its easy too. The closer to the light the more the plant exercises and the warmer its body gets. You need to learn how to control VPD with heat,light height,and RH. You also need an infrared thermometer and download any vpd calculator from the app store that you wish. I use one called VPD Calculator. If you get this right in 3 days you will see a difference. In 10 days you will literally be blown away. The best part is good food and good VPD give you a healthy plant rich in sugar. Bugs dont have a pancreas so they cant digest sugar. It turns to alcohol inside them and they die. Proper VPD with a balanced diet equals no pests ever. I know you got questions so let em rip. I was helped and now Karma says I have to pay it back. We can talk cal/mag, microbes, fungi, nutes,organics all you like and I will gladly share what I know but it all only works with good VPD. Anyone who grows wicked weed without using VPD HAS good vpd without realizing it.
All of your tail-chasing issues through your entire grow are VPD related and as nice as your plants look now they are all still sick and not ready for flower. VPD will either fix them all or tell you matter of factly what few if any problems remain.

 

[Gee64]

What is your room temp, humidity, and get the infrared thermometer today and tell me the leaf temp. Then I will coach you along until the principle settles into your knowledge base. Then your golden my friend. But I warn you of this...when you get it right you will hardly ever need to help your plants so you will need another hobby for all that spare time.

 

[Keffka]

The very essence of a plant. What is a plant? well I am glad you asked. A plant is a solar powered water pump that has the unique ability to grow. As it pumps water it pulls in food from the ground, in the water(please dont jump in with the fungus argument yet, yes fungus feeds Ms Plant too) and that food laden water moves up the plant into the leaves where the solar power causes a bio-chemical reaction called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into carbon and dioxide. Dioxide is oxygen. O2. It seperates the carbon and holds it and releases the oxygen. It uses the carbon to make sugar and the sugar is not only the plants food, if the plant can PS ( photosynthesize) an excess of food it will push it back down the roots and bribe underground critters and fungi to bring the plants whatever nutrient it wants in exchange for the sugar. A plant that can PS an excess of sugar to use for trade to create itself a balanced diet is referred to as a healthy plant. Remember that. Healthy plant. Its of key impotance. Its all you need. So, when the water and food get pumped up the plant, how does it actually get pulled up the plant? Water is heavy. Its the PS. When the chemical reaction occurs the oxygen(O2) that gets seperated from the carbon( organics translates into "of carbon based") gets pushed out of the under side of the leaves through pores called stomata. Stomata open in the day and close at night. At night there is no PS as the solar power has been turned off. If the stomata remained open air would rush in and all liquid in the plant would drain out the roots and the plant would die. So when PS forces the 02 and excess water out the stomata new water with new food gets sucked in at the root. Making sense so far? Pretty simple mechanism really. So far so good? even though we havent even talked about plant issues yet? So if you have a healthy plant all you really need to do is make the pump run faster and it all speeds up and the plant grows faster,becomes more healthier, turns a larger sugar profit to buy even more needed nutrients to PS more to run even faster to PS more sugar to buy more nutrients ..... that is the kind of tail chasing you want. A bulletproof business model. VPD is what gives you that. If vpd is correct for the environment you have been dealt the pump will run faster and VPD will adjust to a really wide range of environments. All you need to do is have nutrient rich soil so there is ACTUALLY food to supply to the plant, water to carry it, and light for solar power. Please dont start thinking things like " well PH has a big part too Mister, or Hey pal your cal/mag ratios are vital" yet. We are setting the stage here. Once its set you can tinker with it any way you want, and its fun as hell to tinker, but you don't want to chase your tail. Its distracting and discouraging.
So... how do you make the pump safely run faster? Its a juggling act, and that is good because you can speed up or slow down the juggling to get the exact same results from numerous different environments. There are 3 parts to it. Each parts value is exactly equal. By changing any 1 of the 3 parts you can adjust the other 2 parts to create harmony. 1 part is ambient room temperature. The 2nd part is leaf temperature, and the 3rd part is Relative Humidity(RH). lets say your room temp is 76f. Your RH is 60. Chances are your plants leaf temp is 74f. That is because a healthy plant in a decent environment will try by design to run 2 degrees lower than room temp. The 2 degree difference is perfect for great PS to drive the water and oxygen out the stomata. so if your plant is 76/74/60% then your VPD value is 1.03. That is perfect if you are in mid to late veg. As your plant enters flower it starts to require more food to grow big juicy buds so now you understand that logic dictates you must speed up the pump to get more food. If you speed up the pump but don't add more solar power to create more PS then the leaves fill up with undigested food. We call it nute burn. Making more sense now? starting to i bet. So how does it really work. Well if you take 76/74/60 and change it to 76/75/60 your VPD value jumps to 1.13. For flower you want 1.35-1.45 all day long and a healthy plant will cycle itself down to about 1.2 and up to about 1.55 all on its own without you changing anything just as when you are out for a walk on a sunny morning in your shorts and its beautiful, but a cloud crosses the sun and it gets cold so you walk faster and your metabolism warms you up because of the exercise of walking faster. 1.5 is redline. Don't go above it. Alot of your issues have been from over revving.
So... controlling room temp is easy. Controlling humidity is easy-ish. But how the hell do you control leaf temp? its easy too. The closer to the light the more the plant exercises and the warmer its body gets. You need to learn how to control VPD with heat,light height,and RH. You also need an infrared thermometer and download any vpd calculator from the app store that you wish. I use one called VPD Calculator. If you get this right in 3 days you will see a difference. In 10 days you will literally be blown away. The best part is good food and good VPD give you a healthy plant rich in sugar. Bugs dont have a pancreas so they cant digest sugar. It turns to alcohol inside them and they die. Proper VPD with a balanced diet equals no pests ever. I know you got questions so let em rip. I was helped and now Karma says I have to pay it back. We can talk cal/mag, microbes, fungi, nutes,organics all you like and I will gladly share what I know but it all only works with good VPD. Anyone who grows wicked weed without using VPD HAS good vpd without realizing it.
All of your tail-chasing issues through your entire grow are VPD related and as nice as your plants look now they are all still sick and not ready for flower. VPD will either fix them all or tell you matter of factly what few if any problems remain.

Before I jump into addressing and questioning id like to welcome you to my journal! I really appreciate you taking your time to pass your knowledge forward. To me, that’s what the cultivation of this plant is all about, helping each other live more harmonious lives. I will post a separate reply in a few when I get a chance to sit down

 

[Gee64]

The proof is always in the pudding. We have all heard that 76 degrees is pretty optimal. We have all heard that 45%rh in deep flower is good. So if you lower or raise the light until your leaf temp hits 74 your vpd value become 1.49. .01 below the redline at the most voracios part of the grow cycle. Synergy.

 

[Gee64]

if your soil is balanced the only other variable is pot size. Do you have enough food in the pot to feed the monster. I have tried them all. You can do it in 6gal smart pots but thats advanced level stuff. Go 10gals if using smart pots, they are going to become pigs, and use the extra time while they are rooting in to let vpd take hold. Give it 2 weeks. You will be blown away. Next grow will be completely different. Also never flower from seed in under 56 days they arent old enough to be properly fertile. It will work but not as good as it should.

 

[Keffka]

The very essence of a plant. What is a plant? well I am glad you asked. A plant is a solar powered water pump that has the unique ability to grow. As it pumps water it pulls in food from the ground, in the water(please dont jump in with the fungus argument yet, yes fungus feeds Ms Plant too) and that food laden water moves up the plant into the leaves where the solar power causes a bio-chemical reaction called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into carbon and dioxide. Dioxide is oxygen. O2. It seperates the carbon and holds it and releases the oxygen. It uses the carbon to make sugar and the sugar is not only the plants food, if the plant can PS ( photosynthesize) an excess of food it will push it back down the roots and bribe underground critters and fungi to bring the plants whatever nutrient it wants in exchange for the sugar. A plant that can PS an excess of sugar to use for trade to create itself a balanced diet is referred to as a healthy plant. Remember that. Healthy plant. Its of key impotance. Its all you need. So, when the water and food get pumped up the plant, how does it actually get pulled up the plant? Water is heavy. Its the PS. When the chemical reaction occurs the oxygen(O2) that gets seperated from the carbon( organics translates into "of carbon based") gets pushed out of the under side of the leaves through pores called stomata. Stomata open in the day and close at night. At night there is no PS as the solar power has been turned off. If the stomata remained open air would rush in and all liquid in the plant would drain out the roots and the plant would die. So when PS forces the 02 and excess water out the stomata new water with new food gets sucked in at the root. Making sense so far? Pretty simple mechanism really. So far so good? even though we havent even talked about plant issues yet? So if you have a healthy plant all you really need to do is make the pump run faster and it all speeds up and the plant grows faster,becomes more healthier, turns a larger sugar profit to buy even more needed nutrients to PS more to run even faster to PS more sugar to buy more nutrients ..... that is the kind of tail chasing you want. A bulletproof business model. VPD is what gives you that. If vpd is correct for the environment you have been dealt the pump will run faster and VPD will adjust to a really wide range of environments. All you need to do is have nutrient rich soil so there is ACTUALLY food to supply to the plant, water to carry it, and light for solar power. Please dont start thinking things like " well PH has a big part too Mister, or Hey pal your cal/mag ratios are vital" yet. We are setting the stage here. Once its set you can tinker with it any way you want, and its fun as hell to tinker, but you don't want to chase your tail. Its distracting and discouraging.
So... how do you make the pump safely run faster? Its a juggling act, and that is good because you can speed up or slow down the juggling to get the exact same results from numerous different environments. There are 3 parts to it. Each parts value is exactly equal. By changing any 1 of the 3 parts you can adjust the other 2 parts to create harmony. 1 part is ambient room temperature. The 2nd part is leaf temperature, and the 3rd part is Relative Humidity(RH). lets say your room temp is 76f. Your RH is 60. Chances are your plants leaf temp is 74f. That is because a healthy plant in a decent environment will try by design to run 2 degrees lower than room temp. The 2 degree difference is perfect for great PS to drive the water and oxygen out the stomata. so if your plant is 76/74/60% then your VPD value is 1.03. That is perfect if you are in mid to late veg. As your plant enters flower it starts to require more food to grow big juicy buds so now you understand that logic dictates you must speed up the pump to get more food. If you speed up the pump but don't add more solar power to create more PS then the leaves fill up with undigested food. We call it nute burn. Making more sense now? starting to i bet. So how does it really work. Well if you take 76/74/60 and change it to 76/75/60 your VPD value jumps to 1.13. For flower you want 1.35-1.45 all day long and a healthy plant will cycle itself down to about 1.2 and up to about 1.55 all on its own without you changing anything just as when you are out for a walk on a sunny morning in your shorts and its beautiful, but a cloud crosses the sun and it gets cold so you walk faster and your metabolism warms you up because of the exercise of walking faster. 1.5 is redline. Don't go above it. Alot of your issues have been from over revving.
So... controlling room temp is easy. Controlling humidity is easy-ish. But how the hell do you control leaf temp? its easy too. The closer to the light the more the plant exercises and the warmer its body gets. You need to learn how to control VPD with heat,light height,and RH. You also need an infrared thermometer and download any vpd calculator from the app store that you wish. I use one called VPD Calculator. If you get this right in 3 days you will see a difference. In 10 days you will literally be blown away. The best part is good food and good VPD give you a healthy plant rich in sugar. Bugs dont have a pancreas so they cant digest sugar. It turns to alcohol inside them and they die. Proper VPD with a balanced diet equals no pests ever. I know you got questions so let em rip. I was helped and now Karma says I have to pay it back. We can talk cal/mag, microbes, fungi, nutes,organics all you like and I will gladly share what I know but it all only works with good VPD. Anyone who grows wicked weed without using VPD HAS good vpd without realizing it.
All of your tail-chasing issues through your entire grow are VPD related and as nice as your plants look now they are all still sick and not ready for flower. VPD will either fix them all or tell you matter of factly what few if any problems remain.

Ok so I get the impression you missed a page or may not have seen everything I’ve written (I write a lot), or maybe I haven’t mentioned it, thinking I already have (I do this constantly to my wife lol) I am tracking VPD.. my thermometer tracks the VPD of my room and charts it for me. I do not have a leaf temp thermometer yet, but have been operating with a +\- range of 2-3 degrees each way to ensure I’m staying near my acceptable range. I’ll be going to buy one in the morning so I can stop guessing.
My room averages around 78 and my RH averages around 65, I don’t pay much attention to the actual numbers themselves as much as I do the VPD number itself.. I try to keep my veg plants at .9-1.2 depending on how far along they are in veg.. obviously this shifts for different stages.

One thing you mentioned that I think you missed is “all you need to do is have nutrient rich soil” also “proper VPD with a balanced diet”. My main issue I believe is/was rooted in my soil (hah Puns). My plant was a seedling in seedling starter soil. I then uppotted to 1 gallon seedling starter soil. During this time the plant was an outdoors plant, being brought in at night, and receiving sporadic light throughout the day, it was being given only water, nothing else. When I uppotted from the 1 gallon to the 3 gallon I put it in the main growing blend and moved it inside under the LED and continued to give it only water. It was at that point things started getting choppy.

The soil was marketed as a water only soil. It claimed there were enough nutrients to run from seed to harvest with only water when you use a 15 gallon pot. The claim was 120 days worth of nutes for a 15 gallon pot. I took that to mean the soil would have all the nutrients in it at smaller pot sizes but it would run out faster. I messed up my math by not realizing that 1 gallon of the soil was seedling starter, and 2 gallons were the potting mix, so there would be even less nutrients in it than I had counted for.

So not only was I not giving the plant enough nutrients to begin with, it went from getting sporadic sunlight throughout the day to sitting under full blast LED for 18 hours without any sort of introduction to the room, I just put it in there and let it rip.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful or argumentative at all, it annoys me when people ask for help then argue with the help they’re given lol. I just am not sold on the idea that VPD was causing the issues I was having. If you disagree I’d love to hear your reasoning, your posts were informative regardless and actually helped me paint a mental image of a plant feeding so I am extremely pleased with that.

 

[StoneOtter]

The very essence of a plant. What is a plant? well I am glad you asked. A plant is a solar powered water pump that has the unique ability to grow. As it pumps water it pulls in food from the ground, in the water(please dont jump in with the fungus argument yet, yes fungus feeds Ms Plant too) and that food laden water moves up the plant into the leaves where the solar power causes a bio-chemical reaction called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into carbon and dioxide. Dioxide is oxygen. O2. It seperates the carbon and holds it and releases the oxygen. It uses the carbon to make sugar and the sugar is not only the plants food, if the plant can PS ( photosynthesize) an excess of food it will push it back down the roots and bribe underground critters and fungi to bring the plants whatever nutrient it wants in exchange for the sugar. A plant that can PS an excess of sugar to use for trade to create itself a balanced diet is referred to as a healthy plant. Remember that. Healthy plant. Its of key impotance. Its all you need. So, when the water and food get pumped up the plant, how does it actually get pulled up the plant? Water is heavy. Its the PS. When the chemical reaction occurs the oxygen(O2) that gets seperated from the carbon( organics translates into "of carbon based") gets pushed out of the under side of the leaves through pores called stomata. Stomata open in the day and close at night. At night there is no PS as the solar power has been turned off. If the stomata remained open air would rush in and all liquid in the plant would drain out the roots and the plant would die. So when PS forces the 02 and excess water out the stomata new water with new food gets sucked in at the root. Making sense so far? Pretty simple mechanism really. So far so good? even though we havent even talked about plant issues yet? So if you have a healthy plant all you really need to do is make the pump run faster and it all speeds up and the plant grows faster,becomes more healthier, turns a larger sugar profit to buy even more needed nutrients to PS more to run even faster to PS more sugar to buy more nutrients ..... that is the kind of tail chasing you want. A bulletproof business model. VPD is what gives you that. If vpd is correct for the environment you have been dealt the pump will run faster and VPD will adjust to a really wide range of environments. All you need to do is have nutrient rich soil so there is ACTUALLY food to supply to the plant, water to carry it, and light for solar power. Please dont start thinking things like " well PH has a big part too Mister, or Hey pal your cal/mag ratios are vital" yet. We are setting the stage here. Once its set you can tinker with it any way you want, and its fun as hell to tinker, but you don't want to chase your tail. Its distracting and discouraging.
So... how do you make the pump safely run faster? Its a juggling act, and that is good because you can speed up or slow down the juggling to get the exact same results from numerous different environments. There are 3 parts to it. Each parts value is exactly equal. By changing any 1 of the 3 parts you can adjust the other 2 parts to create harmony. 1 part is ambient room temperature. The 2nd part is leaf temperature, and the 3rd part is Relative Humidity(RH). lets say your room temp is 76f. Your RH is 60. Chances are your plants leaf temp is 74f. That is because a healthy plant in a decent environment will try by design to run 2 degrees lower than room temp. The 2 degree difference is perfect for great PS to drive the water and oxygen out the stomata. so if your plant is 76/74/60% then your VPD value is 1.03. That is perfect if you are in mid to late veg. As your plant enters flower it starts to require more food to grow big juicy buds so now you understand that logic dictates you must speed up the pump to get more food. If you speed up the pump but don't add more solar power to create more PS then the leaves fill up with undigested food. We call it nute burn. Making more sense now? starting to i bet. So how does it really work. Well if you take 76/74/60 and change it to 76/75/60 your VPD value jumps to 1.13. For flower you want 1.35-1.45 all day long and a healthy plant will cycle itself down to about 1.2 and up to about 1.55 all on its own without you changing anything just as when you are out for a walk on a sunny morning in your shorts and its beautiful, but a cloud crosses the sun and it gets cold so you walk faster and your metabolism warms you up because of the exercise of walking faster. 1.5 is redline. Don't go above it. Alot of your issues have been from over revving.
So... controlling room temp is easy. Controlling humidity is easy-ish. But how the hell do you control leaf temp? its easy too. The closer to the light the more the plant exercises and the warmer its body gets. You need to learn how to control VPD with heat,light height,and RH. You also need an infrared thermometer and download any vpd calculator from the app store that you wish. I use one called VPD Calculator. If you get this right in 3 days you will see a difference. In 10 days you will literally be blown away. The best part is good food and good VPD give you a healthy plant rich in sugar. Bugs dont have a pancreas so they cant digest sugar. It turns to alcohol inside them and they die. Proper VPD with a balanced diet equals no pests ever. I know you got questions so let em rip. I was helped and now Karma says I have to pay it back. We can talk cal/mag, microbes, fungi, nutes,organics all you like and I will gladly share what I know but it all only works with good VPD. Anyone who grows wicked weed without using VPD HAS good vpd without realizing it.
All of your tail-chasing issues through your entire grow are VPD related and as nice as your plants look now they are all still sick and not ready for flower. VPD will either fix them all or tell you matter of factly what few if any problems remain.

Well explained Gee! This is bookmarked for others!