So many updates so little time. No pictures today, I'll get em tomorrow. Some random thoughts to reflect.
I'm really bummed out that the seed mat fried the Nirvana sprouts. When I bought replacement seeds from Greenthumb instead, I also grabbed the mat replacement to ensure of no troubles from the hydro store. Temps kept at 88(f), paper towels moist but not soaking wet, no light, ph 5.6 water, etc..... 6 days later there's only about 1/4 of the 22 seeds I germinated that even have any signs of a taproot. Talked to the Doc himself, and says I'm doing everything right (of course
) and that if they dont pop in 24-36 hours using my method there's something wrong. So, I put the other seeds from him (11 or so?) in new towels to see what happens too. Also another 15 Nirvana seeds as well to give me some mommy picking freedom.
Granted the Nirvana problem was a hardware malfunction, but I'm sad at the Dr Greenthumb seed germination speed or lack thereof so far. Today is day 8 for them. I know guides say some seeds can take 12 days to show a taproot but that's retarded and not real world I dont think. If the other seeds dont crack from Greenthumb, I'll assume the problem was him, as the setup is confirmed good by him and its twice attempted. Especially so if the Nirvanas crack and his dont. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Doc says he's shipped over 8000 orders of each seed type I purchased, and never hears of issues.
....problem is today is day 22 of flowering, and I really wanted to have new stuff on lights C & D at day 30 that way the harvests were spaced a month apart.
That aint happening now.
So, today we (lovers manual labor helper gotta love em) hung lights C & D and instead of putting new plants on a new system ready to flower, I just took the plants from A & B and spaced them out to A & B & C & D.
Now lights A & C are Topped, and B & D are untopped. It'll make a ton more sense with the pictures tomorrow.
Still need to get the Wye from Home Depot/Lowes to split the ventilation, the two new lights are just in the reflectors being force cooled by a floor fan. (Surprisinly efficient I might add -- it does just as well as the Vortex!). There's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much light on the plants now, which I like. You can see concrete floors around because there's only 18 plants for 4 lights. I've never oversaturated a garden with this much light, usually its a flat green canopy. Now there's reflections everywhere. It should nug up the plants pretty solid and eliminate any popcorn -- I hope!
Once the first harvest is done from these now-four-lights, then I'll probably keep a 4-light then 2-light harvest schedule (E & F lights for 6kW total).
There's one Northern Lights plant that is really bothering me. Its looked like its been overwatered for weeks -- even though no other plant in the garden shows any symptoms of that. I'm only watering 2x a day now as it is. It was also a lagger when showing good nugs, its way behind other strains. Might just not be a good mix for this strain with the others and others responding better. ppm is only 1200-ish so I cant see it being a nutrient issue and the huge claws on all of the leaves sure indicate overwatering.
Since this was also my first time taking clones, even though I have about 15 or so in 1 gallon pots of Hydroton on a mini-ebb-flow system I built from scratch (pictures coming tomorrow of course!) I'm not putting *any* faith in them until they are solidly vegging along. Any additional plants I have from seeds or clones I will make mommies out of the best and flower the worse at first.
I'm still really happy with the topped plants canopy. Every topped plant is looking better than their untopped partners of the same strain. Except one -- One thing I learned tonight was to never try and move the branches of a 4-top plant much, the stem split right down the center of it about 2 inches long from the top. Easy repair with duct tape oddly enough, and I'll now have to keep fiddling with that to ensure the stem can still increase in diameter and not be choked off by the tape. It isnt as bad as it sounds, but that nub where you 'pinch" the stem off will certainly be more fragile than an untopped plant. Might be a consideration for more careful pot relocations too.
That's about it for tonight. Parents visiting tomorrow for 5 days. Yikes. Sleep time.
