Grow Diaries Type1Grower | 3rd Grow | Strawberry Cheesecake Auto by Seedsman

Really not stoked on this grow anymore... doing my best to continue opening up the canopy and keeping it level. Unfortunately as a result the plant just keeps ending up bent further off the pot which defeats the whole point of why i opted for this form of LST. Space was a #1 concern with 2 plants this time around so I'm bummed that my LST choices have seemed to complicate things vs make it more manageable... but I digress. At this point I dont even care and am just doing whatever to these things to see what happens now lol. 

I always find after the stress of things not going right has gone, the silver lining is that you can do whatever & try some different things because you pretty much wrote them off!

I second what @macky says. Although you may not be happy with how they are sitting in the pot they look like they are happy and as Macky says you should still get a decent harvest from them. 

In my limited experience I’ve had grows that look weird that I’m not happy with but I’ve got a decent harvest from them and learnt a few lessons along the way. 

Keep at it bro and (try to) enjoy the ride!

31 Days / Week 4

Tried out filling the bases half way the last time and only using 1 wick instead of 2... I only periodically lightly mist the top of the soil with my pump sprayer to keep the surface from drying out too much (normally I like a mulch cover but the way Ive trained these ones made that more of a pain, so Ive opted to just keep a close eye on it instead... would do rice hulls again but Im now trying to avoid those as a input as much as I love them for a mulch layer) ... anyhow, Ive noticed for a little while what appeared to likely be the result of over watering and/or pH issues... it seems I can never avoid those two problems... but overall its not looking too bad... not supposed to feed until a week from now, so they should be good on nutrition... one on the right does appear to be a little hungry though... as a result what I may opt to do right now is just foliar some Complex Humate a couple days of the week and see if that helps a tad. I do think the appearance is mostly the result of watering issues again though - my best guess anyways. Sensors are showing Im technically in the sweet spot though and not overwatered so who knows.

Morning Mag Foliar

... and WHOOPS! Found this this morning, didnt even know I broke it yesterday lmao. Must have been mandhandling my plant too much when i was bending open the canopy. Good times.

Hey everyone, hope you all had a great 420, I sadly missed the LIVE since I was out and about ...

Here's an update on the grow ...

Day 34 / Week 4

Things are coming along I guess, but I def wish I had the foresight of how this LST method would encroach on the space later. I think 2 plants in a 2x2, if trained differently is absolutely doable... and I think I can still make this work, but not without some caveats. Its apparent that using the self watering bases is slowly becoming an issue as well since I am starting to feel the need to trellis this grow in order to get the canopy Im after. I will no longer be able to maintenance the bases as a result every couple weeks since they do need to be cleaned periodically... So now Im debating just top watering possibly, Im not quite sure yet. One thing of note too - is that this particular cultivar does not particularly seem to appreciate the volume of water that the bases allot each plant... at least the front one anyway. That one in front is always unhappy and I think its due to too much water is in the soil - and this is with 1 wick, not 2. The one in the back could care less it seems ironically even though they both have the same amount of moisture according to the Ecowitts. 

🤦🏻‍♂️ I think this cultivar is just super picky with how it seems to like to be watered but it’s almost making using these bases impossible. Cleaned and filled them back up, a day later my plants are droopy as fuck, and what’s more confusing is my ecowitt is on the low side which just fucks with my head since I’m 99.9% sure these are overwatered from the bases some how. The pot feels heavy, and if I scratch the top soil it’s pretty wet feeling underneath still. Can’t seem to find a balance with these yet. Not good timing either as they’ve begun to throw pistils.

Note: I did technically reintroduce both wicks this time around which I figured was safe to do since I was beginning to see roots poke out the bottom, indicating that they were more established and searching for the water. But all I can infer is two wicks def seems to assure that the pot becomes overwatered... I dunno, maybe sticking with 1 would have been fine. AC Infinity stipulates that only the bottom 1/3 of the bag becomes saturated from the bases so the Ecowitt reading in the low 20's makes sense to a degree, however Ive noticed that while the very top of my soil will appear dry, if I dig down a little its very clearly wet so maybe its my substrate? This continues to stump me and make me second guess that they are overwatered vs underwatered... What I do know is the pots are notably heavier and they seem to keep struggling with water uptake so to me it’s overwatered and at this rate may have root rot sadly ... hopefully not though.

Day 41 / Week 5:

Plants are still in recovery and at this rate have suffered in size and speed of growth since they've already entered flower... basically the worst timing to allow them to have issues... since the watering base fiasco Ive removed them and returned the risers back to the tent and have been top feeding.... not even sure if I will reintroduce them in this grow since they are just not healthy still or drinking like they should. Both plants have experienced lockout to a degree. The sick one is now the smaller of the two while the runt continues to push on and outgrow its predecessor. Both do not look tip top. Found that leaf temp is off now too, maybe caused by water stress... not really sure, but even with two fans running leaf temp is now higher than it should be which means they're not transpiring correctly. Thinking of acquiring one more clip fan to point at my driver since Ive not grown in the warmer months until now and it seems that it may be useful... 

I guess Ive neglected this diary for a bit.... 

Day 47 / Week 2 or 3 of Flower

Since removing the bases and continuing to top water/feed instead I assessed that the plants were hungry and started to feed humates at every watering in small quantities vs every other week as the chart has you do and they began to look a little better. While they've improved, Ive still not quite got things back to normal though, but they do look much better. Still getting leaves going full yellow and dying off at the bottom of the canopy which seems like a previous N issue. Ive been giving the Complex for about a week, and will prove move into the K humate next since this is a 70/80 day strain. Kinda tricky getting used to this feeding program, especially after a watering mishap. I believe theyd have gotten much bigger during the bolt if they didnt incur watering issues. 

Observed streaking on the sicker plant as shown below indicating its hungry, since then Ive begun to remedy that. Ive also learned that the sicker plant seems very testy with water vs the other. Annoying how phenos can behave so different, but a good learning experience.

While this grow was supposed to be lazy and quick, I opted to run a tea yesterday due to health of the plant. I also added a pinch of Green Aminos from GreenGro that I had a sample of. 

This tea consisted of the following:
1 gallon filtered water
1 cup worm castings
2 tbs alfalfa meal
2 tbs insect frass
1 tbs azomite
1/3 tsp fulvic acid
1 tbs molasses 

*I should also note, that I previously decided to add a top dress of the following as well to each 3 gallon pot, and decided to add rice hulls as a mulch cover for this grow to help the pots not dry out so quickly:
1.5 tbs malted barley 
1.5 tbs insect frass
1.5 tbs kelp meal
1.5 tbs alfalfa meal
1/4 cup EWC

This is how its lookin' today:

Still experiencing a mobile deficiency... cant quite figure out what is off still yet. 

Not gonna lie, these humates are a little tough to get the timing down with when it comes to feeding, especially with a hungry strain. The plants always respond immediately when you give the humates, however I feel the feeding schedule is not applicable across the board for all grows. I was assured they should work with a simple base such as the one Im using, however Ive had to move away from the recommended minimal feedings on the website and do bi-weekly - to - daily feedings as needed, and along the way have incurred some deficiencies as you can see here, which appears to be a K def. 

Gave K Humates today along with AgSil16 and CalSil... hopefully itll catch up before it gets any worse.. Plants are doing ok, but def not happy. TBH, I prefer growing the way I was growing before even though I see lots of promise with the Bokashi line. 

Day 52 

Still battling what appears to be K def. Plucking off new dead yellow leaves from the bottom canopy at least 1x a day. Sucks, cuz Im actually beginning to appreciate my LST work now that they filled in afterward. 

I would def advise anyone else looking to try their hand at the Bokashi Earthworks stuff to make sure your using this line in an 'amended soil', not a simple base such as mine. Im sure it will be dependent on the cultivar as well, but its clear that you cannot simply feed 1x every other week and successfully keep your plants happy with that little of nutrition. Im growing in a simple peat/pumice/ewc base so its pretty inert. A bit disappointing if Im being honest, but oh well now I know I guess... this grow is hanging on by a thread though sadly. 

Gave K humates on Tuesday, so Im attempting to feed humates and microbe+ 1x/week instead of every other week, and yesterday I gave some GreenGro Green Aminos.