Jimmeh's back of a fagpacket 1st grow (Dinafem Autos)

[botanics]

They are getting nuked mate, back off on the feeds especially the P and K  

[Jimmeh]

Haha literally just after I posted the update I was looking around and came across this quote on the topic of rust caused by nute lockout/leaf rust;

 

Quote

 

In almost every situation I have experienced. Going big will only complicate things.

Most people see a problem and then start adding nutrients which complicates the problem. 

Flush with water. Get things back to neutral and then start adding nutes.

 

Different site, but the same sentiment, right?

Ok, so do you suggest perhaps a week of just plain water and then come back with apx half of what I've been doing?

Edited August 5, 2019 by Jimmeh

[botanics]

Not plain water unless you intend to flush, weak solution is better and this is the key to success with fertiliser...weak feeds but often  

 

Never go by manufacturers say so as they are in the business of selling nutes...When you don't know a nute line then go in a quarter at first and see how your plants do, this will teach you to get used to the nutrients you are using as you have to adapt to each plants needs differently.  Never forget seaweed either, that stuff is magic for helping them maintain health and vigour.

[Jimmeh]

Thanks @botanics, I think I know where I can get some seaweed at short notice!

 

Ok then, the plan as it stands is tomorrow's watering will be about a half mil of both grow & bloom per litre, and carry that on for the rest of the week.

 

Reassess next update (Sunday), and at that point consider going up to 1ml depending on how they respond... Sounds like a plan? 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Jimmeh

[Top Shotta]

Lookin good man I will follow this as we have a similar setup! Must be so exciting to have your girl producing THC and she getting all sticky !!

[Jimmeh]

SLIGHTLY HARD AND LOVING IT

 

Day-61; 11/08/19

Fairly quick update today - sorry for the crap photos, was in a bit of a rush.

 

ENVIRO;

 

Humidity is coming down slowly from the past couple of week's highs, only by a few percent though.

Still got the fan literally 3-4 inches away from the plants, blowing right through the stems and through the flowers to avoid any mould issues.

Probably causing all sorts of wind-burn but hopefully worth it!

 

Temps are on-point for flower, might be a little higher but no worries from me.

I noticed the electric blanket has come on a few times, indicating soil temps have dropped below 21 degrees - this is even in the daytime so it goes to show that it takes some pretty extreme heat to warm up my outhouse to the temps we like!

 

BLUE AMNESIA AUTO;

 

 

Girl's looking a bit tired by now, but she's still doing the work. 

As we discussed last time, this week she had a good thorough watering of very weak Grow/Bloom solution - only 0.5ml of each per litre, and I put about 4 litres through the pot to runoff, to try & dissolve out any stored nutes in the soil and replace them with my weaker solution.

I don't know if it's my imagination, but I don't think I see any progression of her symptoms this weekend.

I'm going to repeat the process for her next watering but also add a tiny dash of liquid seaweed, and reevaluate at that point.

 

-------------[RANT MODE]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to talk about water now - Ok, so for this whole diary I've been pissing & moaning about the fact that ST water don't have a decent report on my water make-up.

Well, this week I finally got it. Hurray! Only, not...

 

It doesn't actually give any figures for Ca or Mg, it lists everything else under the sun (including e-coli, arsenic, and other poisons I didn't even know existed) but not Ca or Mg.

It only says "slightly hard". What does that mean!? I wake up slightly hard! It's not a detailed grower's water report! 

So not only is it tricky to determine the overall hardness, I don't know the ratio between the two either.

 

Anyway, I spoke to a prominent member/sponsor on here as he lives in the next postcode area over to me and we share he same supply, and he says that he has always had trouble with our water supply being very changeable ("fucked" was his exact word) - and that it can change form week to week. He's gone to a living soil system it's so bad apparently.

This both cheered me up, and didn't.

It cheered me up because despite the look of the plants, I know that I haven't been massively overdosing them with nutes - If anything, I started nutes too late (about day 40), and even then went up in such small increments that they looked famished by the time any defs appeared.

 

However, there's clearly some lockout happening, or some other similar effect like that as @botanics rightly pointed out in the post above.

And this is the reason that I'm so interested in the water - because there's clearly a problem - I'm 99% sure that I haven't over-fed (at least, not if we go by the amount of liquid nutes per litre of water) - and there's a rogue factor at play that I don't know about (the water).

 

I have invested in some espom salts - I'm not going to add any yet, as truth be told, these leaves are looking so sorry for themselves that I doubt we'd see if they were having any effect, good or bad.

But I'm keeping them on hand for my next grow, just in case.

I'm awfully tempted to shell out the £30 for a water analysis from Grower's Ark but if our supply is as variable as I've been told it is, this might or might not be worth it.

----------------[END RANT]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Anyway, on with the show...

 

 

Looks like we've had a new wave of white pistil growth this week, probably looking at about a month to go, would you agree?

The defs in the leaves are clear here.

It does go to show the excellent strong genetics though that she's powering on to full flower despite the obvious handicap she's suffering from. Score 1 for Dinafem. 

 

DINAMED CDB;

 

 

Looking back over old posts, this girl was tiny - I really did miss her shooting up in size, I just didn't notice it happening!

Leaf curling indicates a bit of over-watering - I did the same thorough weak-solution flush for her as I did for the Amnesia, so in fairness she might well feel a bit over-watered this week as she never did drink as much as her sister.

I'll let her dry out thoroughly before I repeat the weak-solution on her.

 

 

 

Still several more weeks to go here too I reckon - Plenty of new white pistil growth happening.
As ever peace & love bros & broesses! 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Jimmeh

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 11/08/2019 at 0:30 PM, Jimmeh said:

only says "slightly hard". What does that mean!? I wake up slightly hard!

 

Well I have missed the UK420 community sense of humour

 

It looks very much like a lock out issue buddy, also leaf rust which I've always attributed to high humidity environments and excessive calcium 

 

You've done the right thing by dropping feed down mate. Let's see how they do over the coming day's 

 

@botanics Thanks so much for the input and advice brother. Greatly appreciated my friend 

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

Edited August 12, 2019 by Dinafem-Mark

[Jimmeh]

2 hours ago, Dinafem-Mark said:

 

 

@botanics Thanks so much for the input and advice brother. Greatly appreciated my friend 

 

 

Glad to see you back @Dinafem-Mark, hope your your enjoyed your holiday & time away from the madness! 

Yeah @botanics has been spot-on, and he needs some serious thanks.

 

Advice right on the money - I'll wait for the next update before I begin spamming photos, but I think there's a noticeable difference;

So  for week 8 she just had the super-weak 0.5/0.5 Grow/Bloom Solution.

With this humid weather that was only applied once all week as she was kept moist - 4ltrs going through the pot, gave me plenty of run-off, almost like a flush (which is why I was referring to it as a flush).

 

Tonight at the start of week 9, when I checked them she was dry so I repeated the process, this time I only put 3ltrs through the pot - still plenty of runoff, and still the same 0.5/0.5 solution, only this time with a dash of liquid seaweed.

I don't think the lockout-effected leaves will recover their glossy look, but below them, into the second layer of foliage, there's loads of healthy, glossy racing green leaves still drinking in that light.

 

I won't remove the damaged leaves as they're still a good source of reserve energy, but it was good to see healthy growth below that layer of damage, you know what I mean?

 

Tomorrow when she's ready I'll do it all over again with the Dinamed CBD.

I suspect she's just hungry but I won't risk causing another lockout by overdoing the feed so I'd prefer to risk slight underfeed than overfeed.

 

Thanks again Botanics, top advice mate - I really do appreciate it 

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Jimmeh

[Kipper420]

Looking good mate

great read.......

[Kipper420]

double post

Edited August 12, 2019 by Kipper420

[Kipper420]

Triple, ffs, It's late I'm shitfaced.

Other than that I have no excuses.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Kipper420

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 12/08/2019 at 11:08 PM, Jimmeh said:

Yeah @botanics has been spot-on, and he needs some serious thanks.

 

I've known @botanics for a good few years now and he's a real testament of the UK420 community 

 

Very knowledgeable and always happy to offer advice and assistance 

 

A true gent

 

On 12/08/2019 at 11:08 PM, Jimmeh said:

I'd prefer to risk slight underfeed than overfeed.

 

Good call mate, you can always add more your can't take it away

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Dinafem-Mark

[Jimmeh]

FEELING FLUSH

 

Oi-oi ladies & gents! Sorry for the lateness of this weekly update, we're almost done now and I don't want to take my foot off so close to the end but my life was a little rammed last weekend.

This past week my thoughts have very much turned to my next grow, which will be an autumn outhouse grow, but for now let's see how these first lasses are doing. 

Despite the current date, all these photos are from last Sunday, the 17th.

 

Day-61; 17/08/19

Coming very, very close to the end now chaps.

My £3.99 30x loupe is in the post & should arrive today (today as in the 24th), I'm expecting at least one harvest imminently.

These girls are advertised as 75-80 days for the Amnesia and 70 days for the Dinamed CBD and just by looking, it seems Dina are pretty damn spot on with that estimate.

Obviously the trich test will confirm how long to go, but I think we're almost there now.

 

 

ENVIRO;

I'm sorry I didn't get photos of the Therm here, but the weekly temp low was 18.5 and upper 23.

RH was hovering around 57% to 62%.

This is due imo to the colder spell we had last week - the leccy blanket had to put in multiple shifts to keep the soil above 20 last week despite the very mild, t-shirt weather outside.

Good to see RH coming down albeit only a little bit at last as I'm now seriously considering my drying options.

 

 

BLUE AMNESIA AUTO;

 

Ok, so remember last time?

I have been feeding both plants a very weak (0.5ml p/litre) solution of Grow & Bloom for about 3 weeks now.

I've been calling it a weak-solution flush, but it was never intended as a flush per-se, it was to combat what looks clearly like a nute lockout situation.

 

From the plants' PoV though, they're not mind-readers, all they know is food is thin on the ground and so they respond as if it were a flush (which I guess is what we intended, right?)

 

 

So, we see the classic flush-yellowing on the lower flowers first, and I suspect we'll see that yellowing travel up the plant toward the top over the next update.

If we were just entering flowering, this would worry me, but so close to the finish line, we're about at the time i would flush anyway so it has worked out ok.

 

They'll get another feed just to tide them over and to fuel the final few days bud fattening process before a flush-proper; This time about 1 to 1.5ml p/litre of Grow/Bloom this week, and then I think we'll move on to pure water flush for the final week or so.

Normally jumping about with the strength of feed like this would be a massive no-no I'm aware, but in this situation the weak solution flush has basically done it's job just in time for the plants to be almost finished so it is more a matter of timing for my personal requirements rather than the plants' - if they still had a month to go, I would slowly ramp up the feed back to normal levels.

 

Speaking of buds fattening...

 

 

First few waves of pistils have become nice & shrivelled/browned-off, and there's even a new wave popping through!

Feels great to put my hand around this cola & not be able to close it (feels manly - aw yeah, you know what I mean.. ).

 

 

Several side colas popping up in a ring around the main structure.

Note on this pic the odd white pistil still visible.

Since this will be my first harvest, I'm unsure whether I should wait until *all* the pistils have browned off, or if you sometimes still have white pistils during the optimal harvest window.

This is why I need my loupe so badly.

 

The sugar leaves on this plant aren't amazing - some of them suffered from the same lockout issue the larger leaves did so I will aim for a fairly tight trim of the buds when the time comes - still, this entire grow was mainly a proof of concept so I ain't beating myself up over one mistake, so long as I learn from it for next time - yeah boy! 

 

Speaking of leaves, I took a few close-up of the effected leaves for some inspection/analysis...

 

 

Now obviously, the yellowing at the outer edges is due to the weak solution flush, but focusing on the spots..

Reducing the feed has really made the actual problem stand out and easy to see - I just need a hand identifying it.

I'm seeing purple stem, which I believe is Mag deficiency (correct?).

 

What do you think I have locked-out in this situation?

Lack of Cal or Mag? Some other nute?

 

 

DINAMED CBD;

 

This plant really has been something of the unsung hero of this grow!

Started off tiny (seriously, go back to the first few plant-shots and see how little she was for weeks) - but has really put in the work in recent weeks and was pretty much overlooked by me.

 

 

She's looking a bit droopy in this pic, this isn't unexpected - she had the same weak solution flush as the Amnesia.

Not because she was showing signs of nute lockout, but simply because I didn't want to risk doing the same to her as the first plant.

She never - ever - required as much water as the Amnesia, so after each large flush-watering she did show some droop for a day or so afterward before bouncing back with a dry pot.

 

 

Nice bud shots - it is hard to photograph but as I've said before she is basically one big cola running up the middle from like soil to tip, it's an indoor party with this girl.

 

 

Due to that weak-sol flush she is showing classic flush-yellowing just like the Amnesia - Same logic applies imho.

We're so close to the finish line with her - albeit she's not as close as the Amnesia - that I'm going to give her one or maybe two normal strength feeds and then on to the flush.

Obviously, when I get the loupe on her if the trich-test tells me something totally different then I'll change this plan, but assuming not, then that's the rough outline of my next moves.

 

I've actually treated the Dinamed a little unfairly - due to my nute error with the Amnesia, I put her on food rations as well when strictly speaking I knew she didn't really need it - but like I said in the last update, this is me playing it safe as much as anything to avoid repeating my mistake - it does highlight something important though; In multi-strain grows you need to be extra on-point with your feeding schedule. It's so easy to fall into the complacent rhythm of treating all the plants the same but they obviously have very different requirements.

The fact I had lockout with one and not the other shows this, but it took me too long to really notice. Ah well, lesson learned (hopefully!)

 

Thanks again people - much love to you all! 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by Jimmeh

[botanics]

8 hours ago, Jimmeh said:

 

Now obviously, the yellowing at the outer edges is due to the weak solution flush, but focusing on the spots..

Reducing the feed has really made the actual problem stand out and easy to see - I just need a hand identifying it.

I'm seeing purple stem, which I believe is Mag deficiency (correct?).

 

What do you think I have locked-out in this situation?

Lack of Cal or Mag? Some other nute?

 

This is a Cal/Mg issue mate, looks like the ratio went awry and can cause these troubles...the necrotic spotting is a sure sign of Calcium deficiency and the Purple on the petiole signifies Mg deficiency.   The two are interrelated and if the ratio between them goes out too far it can lead to lockouts.  High levels of P and K contribute to this, I've noticed from experience   

 

@Breezus knows all too well about Cal/Mg ratio issues  

 

Also be carefull with any dying leaves, don't let them die back into the buds or it can lead to bud rot, so keep an eye on them and if they do, pull them out  

Edited August 24, 2019 by botanics

[2Fat2EatThat]

I 99% side with botanics also but just check her over thoroughly for bugs anyway, under the leaves especially closely with a camera zoom or magni glass to be sure.