It has been about three weeks since these little seedlings emerged, and they are now on their way to being some full sized cannabis plants. They just got their first pruning a few days ago, those bright green leaves are new growth that popped up from the pruning I did. Its known as "topping" where you find the third node of the plant and cut off the top of the plant. This causes more lateral growth and should help to make some short but very bushy plants.
 Camera Model | Lumix GH6 |
|---|---|
 Lens | Olympus Digital 12mm-50mm MSC ED EZ Zoom lens |
 Filter | none |
 Aperture | f/5.2 |
 Shutter Speed | 1/80 sec |
 Film Speed | 100 |
 Spectrum | Visual Light |
 Wavelength | 380 through 700 nanometers |
 Location | Central Virginia USA. |
The two tents I am working with, one is for vegging and the other is for flowering. Usually only one is used at a time, but sometimes I need to flower some bigger plants while others need more time forming leaf sets and stems. So having the option to have two growing environments is a nice luxury.
Each tent is mostly set up the same, both have two humidifiers (reptile foggers). Right now I keep the humidity at 65% RH, it will be slowly lowered all the way down into the lower 50s when flowering.
The foggers kick on and off controlled by the humidistat. The ink bird has a sensor that monitors the moisture level in the tent and will turn them on and off automatically. Fans inside the tent moves the fog around, giving it a very cool look at higher levels of humidity. If left unchecked it can fog the entire tent, which is too much and can make fungus grow. So its best to fine tune your settings and not to go much above 70% RH.
We have the two foggers going into the same hole in the tent where the fan exhaust comes out that keeps the grow lamps cool. Currently I am recirculating the warm bulb exhaust back into the tent. This helps keep the temperatures in the 80s F which vegging plants like. They can handle even more with co2 added to the environment, up into the mid 90s F.
Keeping a hygrometer in the tent to monitor its current temperature, the highs and lows. And it also monitors humidity levels as well with a min and max showing up. Good to see the temps are getting up in the high 80s.. the vegging plants love that heat. As for the humidity, sometimes one of the foggers run out of water before I notice and the humidity drops some, down to around 53% as we can see in the meter. They are not usually like this for more than an hour or so at a time, so hopefully the plants do not get stressed from that.
Each plant has a yellow fly tape trap on it, keeps the gnats and any other flies at bay.
Those traps work, a stuck bug can be seen there.. Looks like a fungus gnat to me.. They can be big problems if not kept under control. The larva will eat the roots and shock and stunt the plants. So its important to keep them down and out.
All of the new growth is "praying upwards" a good sign the plant is happy with the light intensity and would like more if possible. Using a 600w metal halide bulb I could put in a 1000w. Its ok when I flower I use my 1000w HPS and it really makes them stretch good.
The bright green leaves have not darkened to a forest green yet.
I am really glad I gave pruning these plants a try. Since I am limited in my grow height due to the tent I can control the plants height a little more by pruning it.
It has almost been a whole year of growing for me, by the time these four wrap up. I will have done 3 or 4 grows this year. Pretty amazing, indoors have that benefit. You can crank out way more plants a year than outdoor. Though the size may not be as big as an outdoor grow. You still get 3-4x more grows in a year doing it indoors.
Every day those little leaves get bigger, soon enough they will be full sized fan leaves.
Just like this one.. the iconic cannabis leaf.
We can see where I topped the plant.. that little nub is where it was cut and new growth showed up from the node below.
A better look, once topped the plant sends up new growth from the lower nodes.
We can see a little leaf showing up along with the full sized fan leaf.
These plants have a few more weeks to grow before I flower them. They are getting big but have some room to grow a few more inches before I make them bud.
The light and timer is key to changing the plant from vegetative growth to flowering. This ballast is quite versatile, I can change the wattage depending on the bulb and run both the high pressure sodium bulbs along with the metal halides.
Using a digital timer it makes it all quite easy, turns on and off on its own.
I need to do a little cleaning up.. lol
Looking in my other tent, we can see I still have the mesh up from the previous drying of my harvest.
The floor needs a good cleaning. I will give this tent a good scrubbing and adjust the nets in a few weeks when its time to move the plants. I find it easier just to leave one tent with a HPS light setup and the other with the MH so I can easily move and make them flower.
The plants current heights is around 8 to 10 inches on average. I want them to get to around 15 inches and then it will be time to flower them.
As for the mushroom buckets, I had to remove them from the tent with the cannabis plants.. Large amounts of fruit flies were coming out of the buckets and I did not want them to affect my cannabis plants. So I think the mushrooms need their own tent with a filter to keep the flies and spores at bay.
I may go back to making co2 using sugar and yeast in the mean time. Until I can build out a better environment for the mushroom buckets. But they indeed work, I measured elevated co2 levels (around 1600 PPM) when I had them in bags.. normally its 1000 so that is pretty cool. But I need to do something about the pests coming from the buckets. Its okay this is all an experiment, its fun trying out new ways to grow better plants.