Delps 8 Hydro RDWC Gelato Autoflower 2021

[Delps8]

Frankly, the leaves in the photo below hardly look like excessive nutrients. To me, it looks like the early stages of K def. I would bump the dose.

Bloom has the highest concentration of K and the current level is 5 ml/gallon. Do I increase Bloom and, if so, what's the appropriate level?

Is there a need to increase P and/or decrease N since the plants are so much larger and are much further into flower?

 

[FelipeBlu]

To save me going back, can you remind me what exactly you are dosing right now?

 

[Delps8]

Bloom has the highest concentration of K and the current level is 5 ml/gallon. Do I increase Bloom and, if so, what's the appropriate level?

Is there a need to increase P and/or decrease N since the plants are so much larger and are much further into flower?

Yes, below. My apologies for not having provided that.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Sorry - these are ml/L or ml/gal?

It looks like pretty good levels - you could probably bump up the bloom a bit since it has the most K.

 

[Delps8]

ml/Gallon

So 7 ml/gallon instead of 5 ml/gallon or even higher?

 

[FelipeBlu]

7ml/gal would be a good move

 

[Delps8]

Wow, it's been three weeks since an update!

There has been a lot of work to get nutes straightened out and very little of it has been my doing. @FelipeBlu has been very kind and very patient to share his expertise with me and has dealt with the nute issue that was plaguing the grow.

After FB gave me his valuable advice about nutes, I started to dig around a bit and found a lot of good info about mixing your own. I don't see the value in that for me but the learning aspect of that part of growing cannabis is intriguing and I have decided to move away from bottled nutes and go to Jacks. More on that below.

Another big issue I've had to deal with is Jeff, whom I've labeled an "invasive plant". Jeff grew so much that I had to cull Winnie, the plant that was in the center. Jeff simply grew over her and, when I removed her from the tent, she was only getting 143 µmols. Some of Jeff's stalks are almost 60" above the top of the res with many of the stalks growing up past the light. On the other side of the res, Mary is roughly 12" tall. Two vastly different growth patterns even though the plants have been LST'd and super cropped.

It was in a losing battle to try to light both plants with one light, so I had to either cull Mary and let Jeff spread out all over the tent, or I could have added a light for Mary and used the X3 to light Jeff. I didn't want to toss out a few months of growth for the sake of $100± for a light so I ended up with a ViparSpectra XS-1500.

The best solution was a single bar light with a dimmer to fill the 2' x 2' space. ChilLED is on backorder, as usual. The Mars SP 150 lacks a dimmer and looks more like a veg light than a smaller version of the SP 3000 so I ended up with a ViparSpectra XS-1500. Like the Mars SP 150, the XS-1500 has a lot of blue in it but it's not as red-starved as the Mars. I ordered it last Sunday, Amazon delivered it the next day, and I had it up and running within a few minutes. At 14" x 11", it's a perfect fit for the space and it weighs only a couple of pounds.

With the new light running to keep Mary happy, I raised the X3 and was able to drop the wattage. When I was trying to light Mary and Jeff with one light, I was running the X3 at 300 watts and some parts of Jeff were > 1200 µmols while Mary was at 350± µmols. After installing the XS-1500, I dropped the wattage on the X3 to 245 and still get great light on Jeff.

Thanks to the additional light, I've been able to get about 900 µmols on both Mary and Jeff, though some parts of Jeff are 1000 or a bit more. I am not concerned about PPFD values that high. I continue with my efforts to get my head around how cannabis reacts to light and my take away is that, lacking doing something like dropping a monster light just a few inches above a canopy, cannabis will absorb pretty much anything you hit it with. The approach that I'm taking is to get 900 µmols on all parts of the plant and there's no issue if some areas are in the 1200 or 1300 range.

Now that we're here at day 80, the tent is getting a rich, sweet smell, Mary has both clear and amber trichs (very few amber), and the trichs on Jeff are just starting to show . As you can imagine, I'm really glad to see that things are finally heading into the home stretch.

And what pops up its head now that nutes are under control and light levels are great? You guessed it - temperature! Winter is nigh here in SoCal and daytime highs are dropping into the 60's, with some overnight lows in the high 40's. When I swapped out the Mars SP 3000 for the X3, I swapped out a 1 bar light for a 3 bar light so I don't have space in the tent for my little oil heater. As a stop gap, I moved the power supply for the X3 into the tent (it's hanging above the XS-1500) and the tent is now 75, up from 66 when the lights went on this AM. I might have to resort to taking the car for a drive to get heat back in the tent. And, as I'm coming to accept, the only long term solution for some of these issues is to either not try to grow in either the "cold" of winter (@Rexer laughs) nor in the heat of summer or I need to switch to a 4' x 4' tent and which will give me room for an AC unit, a dehumidifier, and a heater.

The biggest change is that this will be the last res with Botanicare Kind nutes. I tried to reorder "Bloom" and I've learned that, thanks to my betters here in the People's Republic of California, it can no longer be sold in California. That's a pisser because, until a few weeks ago, I had no reason to not try to keep using Kind nutes. After getting help from @FelipBlu, I roamed around the internet for a bit (it's OK, I'm over 21) and found that nute recommendations vary tremendously.

After a few months of trying to find the best way to do almost anything having to do with cannabis, I'm seeing that there are experts all over the web who have an answer and, in many cases, those answers are quite different. Are these people bullshitting readers/viewers? Perhaps but, to my way of thinking, it's not that they're bullshitting but that, one, cannabis will grow well under a wide variety of conditions and, second, the vast majority of what we read about cannabis is full of confirmation bias.

Seeing that Botanicare's Kind is end of life here in the PRC, I decided to switch to Jack's and am going to be using their two-bag "321" program. The new nutes will be here this week so now I need to make the switch from adding liquid nutes using beakers and syringes and get used to mixing nutes using a gram scale and a paddle.

Seeing that I'll be switching nutes in a few days, I didn't swap the res this weekend. For the last res change, I upped the TDS to EC 1.6 and Mary got some nute burn. Dropping the res to 1.5 cleared that up. Repeating the pattern that I've seen for the past few weeks, after swapping the res, pH drops about 0.1 unit every 90 minutes for 5 days and then it evens out. pH was 6.1 at lights out last night and didn't drop at all overnight.

Water uptake is significant. I added 4 gallons of water + nutes today and left the res at an EC of 1.5 and a pH of 5.8.

Light levels are high. After reading yet another excellent research paper ("High light intensities can be used to grow healthy and robust cannabis plants during 2 the vegetative stage of indoor production"), my opinion about lighting is to increase light levels so plants they receive a PPDF of at least 900 µmols as early as possible inter lifecycle. I don't want to delve into CO2, which would allow me to push that level even higher, and, on the low end, the cost difference between 600 µmols and 900 µmols is offset by the increased yield, even at 23¢ per kilowatt.

Light levels are "high" - "how high are they?", you ask. Jeff's readings at canopy level on the X3 - 930, 825, 1055, 1100, 860, 995, 700, 1121, 800 which is an average of 931 and a STDEV of about 150. Mary's PPFD readings - 859, 831, 700, 1130, 1300, 1000, 575, 610, 681, 1160 which is an average of 885 and a STDEV of 252 - not quite as good as Jeff's getting but still excellent and much, much better than the goat rope that I had before I added the XS 1500.

The plants have a heavy, sweet scent to them and, perhaps thanks to the blue heavy spectrum of the SP 3000, there look to be a lot of nugs stacking up on each other. Mary is a five days older than Jeff and her buds are significantly more mature. I'm guessing Mary will be ready in early January while Jeff won't be taken down mid-January at the very earliest.

Two plants, two lights.

One of Jeff's buds

A topped and super cropped auto flower. Tallest stems > 5' above the res.

One of Mary's nugs.

And another

 

[Rexer]

Looks beautiful @Delps8 !

I think you made a good choice. Jack's has been on my short list for a while now to try. Heard nothing but great stuff on it

 

[Delps8]

Looks beautiful @Delps8 !

I think you made a good choice. Jack's has been on my short list for a while now to try. Heard nothing but great stuff on it

Good to hear but it looks like you’re doing just fine with GH - that was my second choice, in fact.

 

[Rexer]

Good to hear but it looks like you’re doing just fine with GH - that was my second choice, in fact.

Thanks! That's the only reason I keep going back to it. Jack's is cheaper in the long run, your buying just the salts. Whereas mine is watered down, quite literally
Have you been to Farside's journal? I believe (if I remember correctly), he was using Jack's for a bit prior to doing his own. Skybound would be another good user's journal to look at as I think he too was using Jack's for a bit.

 

[Delps8]

Thanks! That's the only reason I keep going back to it. Jack's is cheaper in the long run, your buying just the salts. Whereas mine is watered down, quite literally

“watered down” - no question! I don’t like to buy products that are just water + something but I sure did pay the $$ for a jug of water and a few ounces of chemicals. No mas!

Have you been to Farside's journal? I believe (if I remember correctly), he was using Jack's for a bit prior to doing his own. Skybound would be another good user's journal to look at as I think he too was using Jack's for a bit.

FelipBlu recommended Farside’s journal and I’ve read a few dozen pages. I decided to start at the beginning last night, in fact. I intend to continue.
I’ll check out Skybound, as well.

 

[Delps8]

@Rexer and @FelipeBlu — good reading on both Farside and Skybound. I'm tempted to snag a copy of HydroBuddy even though it's overkill for what I'm going but I'm interested in the app just to see the app itself, that's the programmer side of me, and it will provide a lot of insight so I'll get some as a cannabis grower.

I do need to go back and capture the PPM values that they're shooting for. One of the articles from that link that Rexer sent me ("Optimization of N, P, K for soilless production of Cannabis sativa in the flowering stage using response surface analysis") has the following text as the first paragraph of the Discussion section of the paper:

"The goal of this study was to determine the optimal concentration of N, P, and K in the nutrient solution for the flowering stage of soilless cannabis production using RSM. The optimal concentrations of nutrient solution N and P was predicted to be approximately 194 mg L-1 N, 59 mg L-1 P, respectively. Based on analysis of the response surface model, it was found N and P were the most important factors in predicting inflorescence yield. Inflorescence yield decreased markedly outside of the range of 160-240 mg L-1 N, and 40-80 mg L-1 P. These findings suggest that drug-type cannabis responds well to nitrogen and phosphorus during the flowering stage. Inflorescence yield did not respond to nutrient solution K concentration within the tested range [60 to 340 PPM, in increments of 60 PPM], indicating the K currently supplied (300-400 mg L-1) by some commercial cultivators are likely too high." (emphasis mine)

Their magic numbers were N at 194 PPM, P at 59 PPM, and anything in the range of 60 - 340 PPM for K. Pretty straightforward to me but I'm going to read the document again to make sure I have a good understanding.

The switch to Jacks has hit a bit of a slowdown thanks to FedEx. It was a "weather delay" first and now they don't even have an estimated delivery date so I'm thinking "the package is no longer in our possession". Fortunately, I was able to order it from Walmart and it should be here in about a week. Weird pricing - 1kg for $20, 25 pounds for $45.

Water consumption has been > a gallon a day. I added in both nutes and RO and the fresh nutes started the cycle of pH dropping again. The EC was 1.54 and it started rising so next time I added water, I changed EC to 1.4. pH dropped very slowly (no more 01. units every 90 minutes!) and EC did not rise.

The main issue that I'm facing now is dropping temperatures. I've got the driver for the X3 in the tent so that helps a little but it's a long roe to hoe - over the next 10 days, the lows are no higher than 50° and the highs will be from the high 50's to the low 60's. Fortunately, there are only a few more weeks before this grow is done so, between parking the car in the garage and running the oil heater overnight, I might be able to keep temps in the 70's during the day.

The long term solution is to get a dedicated grow space. Until I manage to get out of the PRC, the closest that I'll come to that is to move from the 2' x 4 to a 4' x 4' tent and, as much as I don't like the tradeoffs, that option is looking more and more attractive.

 

[Delps8]

Well, isn't this interesting.

 

[FelipeBlu]

It is indeed - I am still going through it - thanks!

The optimal concentrations of nutrient solution N and P was predicted to be approximately 194 mg L-1 N, 59 mg L-1 P, respectively. Based on analysis of the response surface model, it was found N and P were the most important factors in predicting inflorescence yield. Inflorescence yield decreased markedly outside of the range of 160-240 mg L-1 N, and 40-80 mg L-1 P. These findings suggest that drug-type cannabis responds well to nitrogen and phosphorus during the flowering stage. Inflorescence yield did not respond to nutrient solution K concentration within the tested range [60 to 340 PPM, in increments of 60 PPM], indicating the K currently supplied (300-400 mg L-1) by some commercial cultivators are likely too high."

And from this, I like 160-40-240

1kg for $20, 25 pounds for $45.

IKR! You have to really know you want it to commit to 25 lbs. I bought 10 kgs of Megacrop in 2018 - just ran out.

The EC was 1.54 and it started rising so next time I added water, I changed EC to 1.4.

When you say you changed the EC to 1.4, does that mean that it ended up there just from adding water?

 

[Delps8]

Just ran into this yesterday. I’ll be getting one as soon as they’re available.

 

[FelipeBlu]

That guy is very excited about it

 

[Delps8]

It is indeed - I am still going through it - thanks!

Lots of interesting papers at the link. Thanks to @Rexer for passing that along. There's also a paper that discusses the impact of different types of "plant shaping". Good stuff.

And from this, I like 160-40-240

Lighter on the N and much lighter on the P?

IKR! You have to really know you want it to commit to 25 lbs. I bought 10 kgs of Megacrop in 2018 - just ran out.

Yeah, I that's a lot of fertilizer. You got > 3 years, eh? Money well spent!

When you say you changed the EC to 1.4, does that mean that it ended up there just from adding water?

No, I added a combination of nutes and RO. No immediate issues but still went through 4-5 days of pH Up before it stabilized.
Speaking of which, I did a res swap today - I had only enough Bloom for 75% of the required dosage so my P and K are low - and the res was 740 and 5.8. In 5 hours, it's now 740 and 5.6.
Big deal now is temperature. Weather forecast is bleak. I'm managing to get the daytime temps > 70° but I certainly won't mind it when Jeff is ready to harvest.

 

[Delps8]

That guy is very excited about it

Yeh, he's very upbeat about the products that he reviews. He's churned out a lot of material.

 

[Delps8]

Day 90 above ground.

Plummeting pH continues but it's only for the first few days for each new res. This most recent res was 25% light on Bloom because I ran out of Bloom so the res is at 4 ml/gallon of Bloom instead of 5 ml/gallon. That leaves me a little low on K and P but there's no indication of any negative effects. Seeing that it's common for soil growers to intentionally starve their plants of nutes, I'm thinking that being a little light in P and K won't be a BFD.

What is a BFD is that, per the pix, Mary's getting really close to harvest time. The pix that look like they were taken through a keyhole were taken by holding the lens of a loupe against the body of my iPhone. Not great quality but enough to get the job done. The trichs are mainly clear and some cloudy but very few amber. Another week, perhaps.

The picture with the lighter is just for perspective.

The colas are from Mary and she's only about a foot tall. LST got everything laid down low and flat so harvesting will be a piece of cake. I'm not expecting that the yield will be very high but I'm expecting to have decently dense nugs and very little larf. Big change from last time.

That's a pretty big "trunk" for an auto, I'd suspect, and I'm going to end up with stalks/stems (what's the right word?) on Jeff that will be in the 5' range. Jeff is about a week younger than Mary. I expect that Mary will be ready to chop in the next week so maybe Jeff will be early January?

The big bag of Jack's 15-0-0 finally arrived so I'll be using their 321 mix for the next res. I'll do that over the weekend. But it will be a 3-2-0 mix, actually, per me starting to get a handle on nute mixes thanks to @FelipeBlu. It seems that there's enough nutes in Jack's Part A and Part B that there's no particular need for the "1" (Epsom salts).

Our hobby or profession, for some, is fueled by our experiences and the accumulation of knowledge. This grow has been the antithesis of my previous grow and it really has been "getting stronger through combat". I hope my next grow is boring.

Outdoor temps are low and will get lower over the next few weeks but, based on what I'm seeing from the AcuRite and Pulse sensors, the garage just does not fall below 68° so I hope I can keep everything jake by running the little oil heater for a few hours during lights out.

Wow, I"m getting ready to harvest soon. It's been 90 days since germination. Not an easy grow.

I hope everyone is doing well. Don't stay up too late and eat your vegetables. Send me a a letter or a postcard. I miss you. ;-)

 

[FelipeBlu]

Definitely happy plants! Look at those long pistils!