LED Growers Forum

Day 80

Well into week 12 the tent is in full bloom, with Critical Jack almost at completion down in the bottom front left side, with the Auto Ultimates towering overhead.


At around 70cm tall, CJ is looking lovely.....


.... with a nice array of colas, all sparkling away.....








.... I have started the flushing process for CJ, no feed for 24 hours, then a good drenching of EC0 rainwater tomorrow and onwards for 10-14 days.

I gave the Auto Ultimates a good trimming down under over the week, the net is a full 1 metre above the top of the Coco.....
If you look carefully you can see the knuckles formed after the supercropping that I did on AU1 back in early Bloom.....

Here's the supercropped mainstem knuckle close up......


AU1 is full of bud with a busy canopy... here's what's going on above the netting....


Her many colas are glittering away with trichomes.....


... and she also has a good amount of action on her left side because of the angled LEDs for CJ....


AU2 meanwhile, is taking up the back half of the tent, and again, a forest of bud in her canopy.


She is 4-5 days ahead of AU1, with slightly more substantial buds, full of trichomes.


The AU's have been on PK 13/14 this week at EC 1.0, and this week I will start them on Top Shooter which is PK 20/9. This should really fatten them up!

Cheers for looking in, and wish them luck for the final push!

Monitor the run off Ec, from start of flush tee. And during grow, check run off ph and Ec, can tell you alot about whats going on in the medium, at that time etc.....

i dont use any kind of salt deaminator, or chemical nute breaker. I just do a longer flush window ie upto 14 days is fine. I just use RO, due to zero salts (Alkaline) the RO post aeration dose not need loads of PH down (Phos)......... which prevents late foxtailing.

I check Ec of run off to see how they are progressing through the flush. So the plant uses up any nute reserve in medium, when she senses the nute is depleted, she will start shifting mobile nutes upto flowers, in a last ditch attempt to get pollinated etc.

you can see now, why i now use 7ltr vessels, as 4 no 7ltrs under a 189, will give greater weight that one in 20ltr. And only go up to 90cm negating height issues. In addition light is better used on 4no slim leaved sativas, 7ltrs as they are more spread out under light.

having said that, i got a mental DF in 7ltrs and its just hit 90cm, at day 15 flower !! but the other DF's are 70-80cm so will finish just right height. The DF has a stretch greater than most strains though !!

But the auto durban's are 80cm full rounded, just right size........ as are the power plants. One of them (PP) got the leggy gene to though at 90cm !! and thats on 1-1.5ltrs water every 3 days, current Ec 0.4-0.5 nute only....... hope alls well bro Autoberry....

Cheers AB.... good advice.

In previous grows, I always checked run off EC during the grow.... but I found I was nudging the EC up to 1.6-1.8 levels, and always burning the leaves..... this time I went by physical appearance of the plants.... reading the plants like you 1st taught me.... and this time I found the ECs were in the 1.0 - 1.2 range.... making me realise I must have been too close o the edge in previous grows, and causing lock outs.

I'm happier this grow, the plants have been noticeably healthier all the way...... except the heat stress thing

May be there's an issue with the Canna Pro plus Coco, it's pre buffered and they say you mustn't go below EC 0.7-0.8 or else you wash out the buffers.

I've noticed in previous flushes with EC 0 rainwater, the EC of the run off goes off the scale sometimes..... is this the buffers being washed out, and if so, surely this must affect the run off. If the buffers get washed out, then perhaps I should pH the flush water?
I remember you using lemon juice in the flush water.... that and some pH up to correct the acidity would be a way of upping the EC of the flushing agent???

Cheers again mate.

I thought I'd put up some pic of the trichomes on Critical Jack.....
....there's mainly milky's but a few ambers if you look around.

You should allways ph flushing water down to 6.6.......... irrelevant of the pro plus cocco tee..........

To check the cocco if you got a couple ltrs you did not use, do a flush with ph 6.5 untill you get run off then Ec the run off............. to see what is in it salts wise, you know how to get the correct run of ph by adding or subtracting the two read outs etc....... the modal or median ph of soil from the two ph,es you get. flush 6.5 run off 6.9 half the difference etc and add it to flush ph etc......

carbinic acid, is usually slightly acidic tee........ so you might need to ph up the rain water post aeraton and gassing up etc......... gotta go out now but will get back later Autoberry

sweet teetee bro. can smell it man.
well done another good grow.

Cheers Bro, never as good as yours though!

day 87 update

Another week gone.... deep into week 13 and the Auto Ultimates are blooming away, filling out nicely. Critical Jack is at day 7 of flush and is ready to chop in a few days.

Here's Critical Jack....






As I have been using Drip Clean throughout the grow, the medium had very little residual nute build up, after the initial 30L flush, the EC of the run off was 0.1, and has been for the entire week. The leaves are turning colour as the residual nutes in the plant get gobbled up.

The Auto Ultimate's are at full height, and they are both bulking out. They are on Top Shooter at 1ml/L and a total feed EC of 1.1, and will be for the next (and final) 2 weeks before they get flushed..... although I might drop it down to EC 1.0 as I'm seeing a little tip burn on AU1.
On both, the buds are plentiful, big and covered in trichomes. I'm glad I got that netting on a few weeks back, they are all leaning over from the sheer weight of bud.

Here's AU1....






and here's AU2.....






I could have put up so many other shots, but there's just too many buds to show!

Next update will be of the Critical Jack harvest..... she's coming down on Weds.
Hope you are all having good karma on your grows!

Alrgt tee........ hope alls well man......... a few thoughts on collective evidence !! hope you dont mind bro...

Ec 1.1 = tip burn........
What is that feed back telling you tee ?

The high Ec with 19/21 Pk TShoot........ you already are showing foxtailing with the 13/14pk tee......... Ultimates/Euforia are sensitive to Pk to early, CJ isant, and has no foxtailing developing.

The high N, in flower you set out in the nute sheet. is accelerating the FT....... advice would be to drop the N % in the flower feed, 2-3 weeks into flower post 12/12.

As then (1st 2-3wks) of 12/12 the N is needed for bud frame construction, or somatic growth. Then the requirement drops dramatically.

So my advice would be not to go forward with the 19/21Pk tee, (FT Showing Now) and lower N, Now and post 2-3wks from 12/12, quote, with this strain. others can handle it like TD SR PP and others.......... this is one of the reasons why.

Alot of growers only grow one strain. it takes a couple of runs to get to know the strains nute foiyables, environmental, and nutrient variances. When pushing hard with Ec's.

This is why i run lower Ec's, seems to solve all these issues in one go, from my experiences. That leads to a cleaner flower. When it comes to flushing. And averts any high salt build up in medium, and top root expiration matrix.

You mentioned a few of your run off Ec have been off the scale. 4.85 or greater ?. The buffers (Alkaline Salts) in the cocco pro, would not deliver an Ec that high, so there is evidence of UN-used salt build up in the medium tee. = Ec too high for that strain.

The root matrix at the top of the root ball, also exudes excess salt build up. or expels salts from special rootlets that ex-spell unwanted salts taken up at capillary action.

Then we wash these discharged salt complex back down, into the active matrix, by top watering. and the process builds to a grinding halt with the next thing following these symptoms. "Ph swing" "UP" !! UP due to more alkaline salts than acidic salts building up in the medium sink. past day 40-50 of putting high Ec in. And a low % being "Consumed"

6-10 days later signage appears, leading to a flush, which then alters PH rapidly. fast PH changes are not good news for the matrix biology, or bennie bacteria and flora forna symbiosis. And slows somatic growth to a snails pace, as the plant tries to adjust 10 days ??

So you can see, how low Ec's, avert these areas of bio instability, that lead to more permanent issues, in the last 4-5wks of flower tee.

granted, untill you see the results, on lower Ec's, it will lower your confidence and satisfaction levels when you read the Ec pen and it says 0.3, your whole body will tell you "That Aint Enough Juice" WRONG.

The Ec of soil around a very old Standard Rose, is less than 0.15. The balance between wild plant requirements, and that of artificial nute inputs is a fine one.

Even at the Ec 4-5-6th wk of flower (Me) 0.55, still gives me a run off Ec of above 1.5. Due to top washed un used salts....... granted these are nute sensitive high sativas, but the same principle apply to indicas, but with a different twist.

Anyhow tee, you get the overall combined prospect, that we have no idea, how much nute the plant actually needs and uses strain dependent. What is clear to me, is that when i was feeding 1.2's........ that was at least, 40% to high, let alone the nute and time and flush effort wasted to recover Ph and lower salt in the medium "I Put In There" !!...........

On my new lower Ec's, the plant has responded to the easing of the choking off on high salt input. Allowing more 02 in and co2 out......... nuff said !! i will be lowering my Ec even further next run... (Basement Ec) i am heading for the reverse of over feeding.

Ps; wasted nute is wasted dow + time + bio-damage + water + yield losses, a plant can only bounce back so far....after a negative event. In different degrees be it Ph or nute.

The trick is, move away from that event, caused by the "Husbandry" even if it make you feel inadequate as a grower, the first time you do it..(Run Low Ec)... a natural response when you have been pumping iron Ec above 0.9 (0.9 My Current MAX / Total Ec)... ie running Ec's of around 1.2-1.6. These you can more than half !!

Ironically "It Take Minerals" to attempt it !!! Autoberry

Cheers AB, as you know I was running lower ECs, but even then, in this case, to high still, and I think a lot of that comes from the heat stress issues.... AU1 was worse hit, and the height issues mean that she is still taking on more water than nute, slightly more..... which is why she's showing burn while AU2 is not.

If they were shorter, and thus further away from the lights, I think they would handle the current EC very well.

Anyway, more urgently, I saw this yesterday afternoon.....



.... so I cropped CJ last night, probably lost around a quarter.... the rest is lovely and sticky fragrant bud...... brown paper bagged and hanging.

I celebrated by smoking a selection of bubblehash that I heat pressed and cured......