32 Days Since the First Seeds Germinated
This will be a lengthy update.
It has taken me way too long to figure out the flood cycle on this table, using this configuration. All along the answers were probably in the journal for my last grow. I just made some assumptions based on how I had changed the configuration (net pots hanging off a lid instead of cloth pots sitting on the tray) and those assumptions were not based on any fact or science… well it didn’t work out.
After taking healthy looking seedlings and putting them into the table in four separate instances, all of them have started to look like crap once they get on the table. I believe that they were being dramatically underfed. As a result, I have increased the flood cycle so now I am running 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off EVERY HOUR during lights on. Here were the plants a few days ago before I started increasing the flood cycles:
And here they are this morning, after two days with increased feeding intervals:
A close up:
All of the plants are developing nice root systems, even though they look like crap up top:
PPMs in my system are currently at 760ish, and PH has been steady in the 5.8x range. Humidity with lights on is hovering around 50% and 65% with lights off. Temps are ranging from 68F with lights off to 84F with lights on.
My plan is to flip the lights to 12/12 this week and start sexing the seedlings. The hope is to get a male and two females to put in the veg tent for parenting privileges. I might keep two males, depending on the phenotypes being displayed. Right now I have three or four plants that look very much like their dad (Alien Fruit Cake), a bunch that look a lot like mom (Cindy 99), and a few that look like both parents. I also have three weirdo plants that sprouted, either two single bladed leaves or a single two-blade leaf off the main stem, and then stopped growing off the main stem and pushed the first node branches up… basically they self-topped:
So once I have plants in the veg tent and see how many females are left on the table, I have two possible directions:
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Try and fill the flower tent with the remaining females - i.e. reveg them and grow them big enough to train them and use the whole space
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Fill the tray with clones from the moms - which means a staggered harvest/grow.
I’m likely to go with the latter option… if I can figure out the timing and figure out how to train and grow the plants properly to use my space and get good yields out of it, then I can maybe just roll into perpetually keeping the flower tent running.
I intend to use the outdoor season to grow out a bunch more of these seeds and do some pheno hunting that way as well.
I’m due for a res change this weekend as well. I’ll be upping the PPMs a tad bit going to full Lucas plus calmag and silica. Assuming no issues with that bump, I’ll add-in Liquid Koolbloom. Initial thought is to get PPMs around 1000 once I flip the lights and work my way up from there.
Last go around I ended reducing flood cycles a lot during the flower period, with no ill affects on the plants. It seems like when they get big, healthy root systems they don’t require the same flooding frequency as when they are smaller - but this is only my second attempt using this system, so that’s just one man’s very inexperienced judgement thus far.
Side note: increasing the flood frequency boosted RH in the tent by around 5-7% with lights on.