Luchetti420: Potted Soil, Northern Light Auto, 2020

[luchetti420]

What strain is it? Northern Light Auto
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? According to the seed bank it should be Sativa 0% Indica 80% Ruderalis 20%
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Mid-to-late Flowering stage
If in Flower stage... For how long? 8 weeks
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
If indoor...Dimensions (L x W x D) of grow space? 60x60x140
Soil or Hydro? Soil
If soil... what is in your mix? Plagron Growmix
If soil... What size pot? 3 Liter
Size of light? HID 250W
Is it aircooled? No
Temp of Room/cab? 23/24C° day, 18/19C° night
RH of Room/cab? 45%
PH of media or res? 6.2Ph
Any Pests ? Thrips once flowering started. Cured with some sticky yellow paper, it seems that there are no more of them
How often are you watering? By the time of writing the water assumptions has lowered a lot. Typically 1.5 L every 2-3 days (I use a soil probe to determine when the soil tend to be dry. I also "weight" the pot to "feel" if it's dry or not
Type and strength of ferts used? Advanced Nutrients - GROW(1-0-4), MICRO (2-0-0), BLOOM (1-3-4)

Dear all,
Before writing anything relevant please, apologize me for my unproper grammar but i'm not an english native speaker.

So, welcome and thanks for subscribing to my journal. I'm a noob newbie grower (very very noob one) and this is my second attempt of growing our beloved plant.

My first try was a Pineapple Kush feminized and for the second try, as stated above, i tried a Northern Light Auto.
The NL is in the mid-to-end flowering stage and, boy, that was a long and hard journey to follow... I don't know how many problem my sweet baby faced, how much she soffered and, most of all, my laziness and ignorance to proper face and handle all the problems. I'm here to understand how to be a better grower and, if possible, to reduce as much as possible all theese problems and, eventually, have a discrete harvest.

I lately recognized a nitrogen deficiency during the 4th week of flowering (recognized by the typical claw leaves) and I had also a thrips infestation that should be under control now but, to be honest, i'm not able to say that is 100% true.

Anyway 2 days ago the tips of the leaves manifested the typical nutrient burn black tip, and I found out that my drain water ppm was over 2000 (a little bit high, right?) and Ph, like, 7/7.2.

I flushed the medium, lowering ph to 6 and ppm to 1000.

I'm not so confident that it will be a good harvest. Actually I hope to harvest something that is, at least, enjoyable but my feelings about it is that the plant is definetly compromised.

I'll attach some photos, I hope you guys could help me understand if the plant is impossible to recover or if there's a chance to harvest something....

If I missed some information please comment, i'll be glad to provide what you ask

Thanks a lot in advance

The plant losts a lot of fan leaves during the last 2 weeks. All yellowed and falled down.

Buds, to me, seems still not ready but the plants seems to be at the end of her days. I'm not an expert though

Main cola seems to be undeveloped compared by all the side buds

From top-down view you can clearly see all the tips burnt. I think it's nutes toxicity due to overfed

Burnt tips

 

[013]

Hey Luchetti,

Welcome to 420.... Nope, she looks fine. An auto flower is born with an implied toe tag of death, it’s called senescence. The plant will rob nutrients from fan leaves as needed near the end, but it doesn’t have to fade if properly fed. Depends on strain, phenotype, grower skill etc. Runoff ph or runoff ppm tells you nothing of any value; fine sediments, nutes and chemical salts come out in the wash so it’s an inflated number anyway.

She looks hungry, and I’m guessing she has at least 2 or 3 weeks to grow before being ready. The time listed on the seed packet is the breeders estimate, your girl is still pushing out fresh pistils in the pics, so she’s not ready yet. Also those cheap 3 way soil probes are best used to roast 2 hotdogs at a time, pitch it and move on.

More folks will stop in soon.

 

[luchetti420]

Hi 013,
Thanks for your response.

I have a couple of questions, I'll wrote them here but, if I should edit my post and add them there pleas let me know.

1) I thought that the 3 in 1 probe were not worth the buy so I took a ph meter and ec meter from adwa; do you think that are worthless too?

2) you said that my NL seems hungry so I should feed her, right? Just to be sure: the ph should be between 5.8 and 6.2 and ppm should be under 600, am I right? I found a chart online which basically states that values should be around 1/3 of the feminized values, is it correct?

3) this is for sure a dumb question, anyway... My NL does not smell, at all. At least not like weed. It has a nitrogen smell like the one you smell when opening a tennis ball container... Does this indicates something or it's just me being frighten of anything?

Thanks for your time, really appreciate the effort

 

[013]

Hey Luchetti,

There are tons of great tools and meters that I’ve never seen or used. I just happen to know those 2 prong 3 way jobs like in your pic are useless. Every newbie bought one of those cheapies - myself included. Don’t know about the new ones but they should be good.

I don’t do ph or ppms, I’m not saying you should follow my lead, go with the best info you have available. I would feed her a slightly less than regular dose. There are craploads of charts and graphs on the web, I don’t grow autos myself but many here seem to feed autos a little bit weaker dose. You can always add more later in next watering session but it’s a pain in the ass to try to undo a too hot mixture.

If you follow ph or ppms then check and adjust your inputs but forget about checking runoff values. If you adjust inputs to get different output then you will hit the ditch quickly. Also 3 liter pots are small for soil grows, it’s all good for now but maybe consider larger for future grows.

Don’t worry about smell, you are becoming nose blind to her presence. Wash your hands and then rub on her lower stem - now Hoover (translated - vacuum cleaner) on the scent of your hand. See she’s pretty pungent - am I right?

 

[luchetti420]

Oh yes, there's a probe in the picture! Actually that is only for ph but it'my old probe (it never measured the same value twice, even on the ph 4.0 solution so I bought a new one few weeks ago).

I tend to stick to conventions too easily and, you know, charts are like cooking receipts for me: I usually follow them exactly as they say ignoring what my plants try to communicate to me. I'm sure I'll do better harvest after harvest, I just need to pay more attention to what my plant is trying to say not what I read it should be

I will fed her lowering doses, keeping 4 eyes to how she react and then acting accordingly.

BTW my nose got stoned right after smelling from my finger, you are right and it's damn good

Thanks for your feedback, it means a lot for me

 

[013]

Excellent job, keep after it... glad you got the scent of what she’s been working on!

 

[luchetti420]

Hey all,
A week has passed since I posted my journal and it's time to provide you some updated photo.

My impressions are still the same: I don't see her growing anymore (especially the main cola) but I would like to hear what you guys thinks about.

Thanks all

 

[013]

Wow that looks really good!!! True, they don’t keep growing vertically but the buds will continue to pack on density. She’s getting close but the fresh pistils indicate she is still growing. Once the majority of her pistils turn dark and shrink then you need to be ready to scope her trichs to see whats up. You are in the early side of the harvest window but please see what others have to say!

damn that’s a tall girl, you could wait a week to 10 days and see where she’s at then you could take that top main cola when it’s ready and leave the rest to fatten up for another week or two. I use that partial harvest strategy on tall multilayered plants.

im gonna ask @NuttyProfessor to jump in - ready to harvest or not?

 

[luchetti420]

Hey, thanks for your answer, I really appreciate. Glad to hear that she's going well!

 

[013]

Oh she is doing very well, that’s a gorgeous plant!!!

 

[luchetti420]

Hey there!
Another week, another update.
What do you guys think? @013 since you're the only who actively partecipate to the discussion I'm askying mostly to you but it's intended that anyone who wants to share his/her knowledge is highly raccomended to do it
Anyway, as I was stating, do you think it's ready to be harvested? I'm mainly referencing to the partial harvest that you mentioned a week ago. Or should I wait another few days?

Many thanks for your interest!
Luca

 

[013]

Wow she sure is beautiful! That big cola is almost blue in color

Based on those pics I would say let her grow on, the fresh pistils are the main reason for my reluctance. Plus early harvest bud is known for a 10 minute speedy buzz and then a headache. No she’s not growing taller at all but yes her buds are plumping every day. They never grow as fast or as fat as I would like but I’m a newbie also - takes time to build those skills.

When the majority of the pistils turn dark and shrink up then you are getting close!

hey also just FYI, I’ve got notifications turned off since my email was getting overloaded every time someone replied to a thread.... so if you need me shoot a pm + if I don’t answer in a timely manner then go drop a question on the faq page - please don’t let me slow you down!

 

[013]

How is that gorgeous girl coming along now?