Mainely Genetics Micro Pheno Hunt

just getting started!

They are coming along nicely. I have been noticing the dreaded fungus gnats. Yes, it's summer in the south and they can't be avoided especially with a wet media like coco. I plan to treat with both nemotodes tomorrow and try to stop this before they get big enough to go into the final home. There is a LOT more than goes with this grow. I just need to spend the time to figure out how it all works. Ah...I just thought I lost the post, but now I'm figuring the app out! I'll update the main About with the correct text, so anyone who is interested in this experiment can get the info.

I'm up to 2 fertigations a day. Today is day 1. They are already looking hungry so I'm going up to .87 from .77 on the nutrients. My pH I'm going to raise a bit ( from 6.0 to 6.2) for calcium uptake because I'm seeing a twist on more than one leaf. I'll also get a CalMag foilar spray ready in case it persists. I recently change my nutrients "recipe" and Ibe went up on the CalMag supplement by 50%. So the pH trick and increase may be enough. I'll be watching.

I treated with granular nemotodes spread across the perlite on the coco. I was going to add a BTI dunk but it's just too soon for all that. I thought about it though. Hopefully the few Ive seen haven't done too much damage in laying eggs.

Well.. I wasnt going to post again untill transplant or immediately after but I made a dumb ass mistake early in the first days and I had to fix it last night. I also needed to document it. I'm sure it was a bit stressful to them, but worst case scenario they will be going into a new environment in just a few days. Until then I'll just watch them and continue as usual.
What I neglected to do was
I didn't allow for any runoff the first 2 days and only a little the 3rd day, and then I picked up with 10 to 20% run off by the 4th, but it was too late. I must have temporarily lost my damn mind because I know better than that. On a whim last night I decided to just check the run off and it was right at 3.0!! Yeh. I knew immediately what I did wrong. Trying to take on too much at once. Well... I flushed them back down to just about 1.0 with nutrient solution. It took longer than I wanted but I had to do it slow and I didn't want to strip the coco of the CalMag. I think it came out ok, the pH is trending high but that is not unusual after a flush. They look good. Hopefully I want drop the damn ball again and make another dumb ass mistake. I misted them with Calimagic. The pH being highayne that was a good thing. I'll see what they lookime after work and hopefully they are still getting the color back.

They all calmed right down. pH is in range for all plants and the EC is just under 1.0. One little plant had spiked to 1.4 because I didnt hit her as hard the nigjt before and had to re flush her to get it back down. This time I was forced to use a touch of Flora Kleen. Salts wouldn't budge. The FK lossened em right up. Then I used nutes to get it to about 943., pH was 5.9. The difference 6 hours late was noticable right away. Still looks a bit "hungry" but we'll get there. I still have to 86 one of these.

These little guys are really coming along well. I think I finally have them @ the right EC. I have noticed that when the lights come on, they look a little pale, but after the second fertigation, they are nice and green again. I love coco. It's a bit more forgiving than dwc, but much faster to show results than living soil (of course) you can dial in exactly what your plants need. With soil, organics, by the time you see an issue, it's difficult to eradicate because of how the nutrients are processed. It can takes weeks, so you really need to know your plants needs ahead of time and get out in front of any issues. Foilar feeding can help this but you can't do it in flower. It's a double edged sword. The same is true for negative situations. It can happen just as fast. Still. There is something to be said about a good living soil, and the use of ferments, and light salt drenches to boost flower production. This is known as synganics and it can rival hydroponics if you have your shit together. As far as any issues with these females. I do still see minor Ca issues. Nothing bad, just some twists in the leaves that's indicative of an early Calcium deficiency. I usually have it fixed by the transplant and it usually always shows a little bit I'm the seedling stage.

This is all due to my previous mistake when I neglected to implement enough or any runoff for the first 3 days. That was bad enough but I panicked just a tad and flushed them too hard. So what that managed to do was release all the Calcium and Magnesium that was previously buffered in. Now every time I feed all the CalMag is going into the coco and then plants are left holding the bag! I transplant in 2 days but I have treated them all with a full strength dose of CaliMagic. These plants are in the Foilar stance where I treat them and then let them absorb the nutes without too much light that could possibly burn them. On the next scheduled fertigation I am going to attempt an in-plant rebuffering. They are up to 1.0, 1.2 EC in the rootzone so I think they'll be ok. When the lights come on I'll replace the regular nutrients they'd normally get with calmag water and try to not have too much runoff. Then I'll resume normal feeding @ the next event. That should do it. I thought about doing it before, but that's as far as it got. Now I need to do it because I see it's definitely the culprit.

The transplant was yesterday actually. They were ready. Ok.. the coco I bought was supposed to be "triple washed low EC and buffered." I tested it just to be safe and it was right at 3.0. Wtf?! 3.0?!? Man that's crazy!! So It took me 24 hours to get that shit right. At least I hope it is. I gotta tell ya, I'm a bit worried. They have some issues with clawing leaves but not the N claw. The leaves are kind of tacoed, but not really tacoing from heat. I think it's because I flushed the ever loving.... Well it was too much. So it must have stripped the exchange sites of calcium and Mg. I figured that out a week ago, but let it ride. So here we are. And there they are. The system works great. Gotta do some work on the drain to waste that isn't drain to waste .. yet. I still have them on early veg equal portion base nutes and 3mg per gal calmag. EC inflow is 1.1 . Just waiting to see if they perk up.

They will... But you guys know it always feels when it's just not right yet, don't you? Kinda leaves you a bit down all day. Anyway, the run off is really low. It wavearges about 0.4 EC. So that means the run off is pulling out my salts a bit, too, soon. So I'm going to cut a minute off the drip time each event and see if I can gradually raise the EC. I'll let you know if it works!

Day 17

Three days in the new home and I'm still withholding runoff in an attempt to gradually raise the rootzone EC to where it needs to be. I force a bit through at the 6am event so I can check. Right now for 5 of these beauties that's about a difference of 0.6! Holy shit. We'll get there. One of them was up to 0.8 . Not sure what the hell that's all about.. but I'm watching to see what happens. So... Let's see what tomorrow holds.

I'm still hanging on to the one that I didn't bring over. I may still keep her yet.