PCG Orange 76 - First photoperiodic grow

MrGoonai 04/03/2025 - Day 7 Short Facts: - 6cm tall - VPD between 0.7 and 0.8 (The AC Invinity Controller AI+ is doing great work, to keep that value constant!) ----------------------------------------------------- Not much to report. On day 4, I removed the humidity dome. She is growing, but maybe a bit slowly? She definitely got a little too much water. Her leaves look a bit off, but that could also be due to overwatering. I think I’m going to repot her in the next few days into the 30L fabric pot made by Rooties. Then I can start watering with the Blumats. And look at that nice name tag made of slate that I bought! I love it! 😍

MrGoonai 04/10/2025 - Day 14 Short Facts: - 11 cm tall - VPD @ 0.9 (The AC Infinity Controller AI+ is doing a great job keeping that value stable!) - Approx. 450 PPFD - Repotted into the 30L fabric pot from Rooties ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm very happy with the Orange 76. She is developing very well. I repotted her on day 14, and it was definitely time—her roots had already started circling the sides of the pot. She was moved into a 30L fabric pot from Rooties. Unfortunately, I still haven't quite figured out how to water this new soil mix properly, so I ended up overwatering it. But Orange 76 doesn’t seem to mind. She didn’t show any transplant shock and looked happy the entire time. However, I made a small mistake: I accidentally added 120g of Green House Feeding BioBloom instead of BioGrow to the soil. After realizing the error, I added 30g of Green House Feeding BioGrow on top. So hopefully there’s enough nitrogen to get her through about five weeks of veg—at least I hope so! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What was added to the soil? - 120g Green House Feeding BioBloom - 30g Green House Feeding BioGrow - 120g Organic Nutrients CalMag Alga (primarily calcium and magnesium) - 120g Biolit Fein Plus (51% silica, 5.2% CaO, 3.2% MgO, and 22 essential minerals like manganese, copper, sulfur, etc.) - 150g Humintech Perlhumus Granulate (basically leonardite—rich in humic and fulvic acids; helps build humus and is broken down slowly by microbes) - 3g Epsom salt - 10g TNC MycorrMax (contains mycorrhizae, trichoderma, and many beneficial bacteria) - 3g TNC BactorrS13 (contains beneficial bacteria) - A bit of coffee grounds

MrGoonai 04/17/2025 - Day 21 Short Facts: - 15 cm tall - VPD @ 0.9 - Approx. 450 PPFD - Started with LST on day 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The development of the Orange 76 is going really well. On day 17, it was definitely time to start LST and leaf tucking. She responded quite well, and I’ll probably be able to start training the side branches in the next few days. I haven’t really watered the pot yet. The Blumat Digital Pro shows 69 mbar, so I probably won’t need to water for a few more days. However, I’ve been lightly spraying the top layer of soil with water every day to help the clover and other cover plants grow. I’m hoping to design and 3D print my hose distributor for the Blumat system over the long weekend. Once that’s done, I’ll install the Blumats and begin the process of dialing them in. My target range is between 80 and 100 mbar.

MrGoonai 04/24/2025 - Day 28 Short Facts: - 17 cm tall - VPD @ 0.9 - Approx. 450 PPFD - Topped by accident ------------------------------------------------------------------------ She just keeps growing! Even though I’ve been bending her quite a lot, I really have to do a good amount of LST. Right now, I’m trying to guide the side branches to the right, since there’s plenty of space on that side. I’m hoping those branches will develop lots of offshoots, so I can make full use of the space I’ve got. A friend came by for a visit, and I gave him a cutting from one of the branches I couldn’t bend in the right direction. Though calling it a “cutting” isn’t entirely accurate. We both recently watched a video by a German YouTuber who tested different cutting techniques. The most successful method was simply snapping a branch off the stem. This is also something that is done for excample with tomatos with great success. While doing LST and trying to bend the main top, I accidentally snapped it off too. So now I’m trying to root it as a cutting and give it to my mom. (As you might notice, there’s now a bit more space in the tent. My friend also took the chili plants I grew for him. At the moment, I’ve got four tomato seeds germinating in small pots for another friend who just moved into their new house. They’ve got tons of space for growing plants!)

MrGoonai 04/30/2025 - Day 34 Short Facts: - 25 cm tall - VPD @ 0.9 - Approx. 550 PPFD - More LST and a little bit defoliation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This entry is a bit overdue, as I was away from home for several days. That’s why the photos aren’t exactly a week apart from the last ones. I took them early in the morning, just before I left. As you can see, she is still growing like crazy, getting bigger and producing more side branches. Everything is going well. I did a little defoliation and continued with some LST. However, she is getting quite big, so I will need to flip to flower soon. I can’t wait much longer for the Miracle Candy, as she is never going to catch up anyway.

MrGoonai 05/08/2025 - Day 42 Short Facts: - 28 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - increased by 0.1 - Approx. 550 PPFD - More LST and defoliation done ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much to report. The Orange 76 continues to grow. I have done more LST and also removed quite a few leaves, but just a few days later you can hardly tell the difference anymore. As you can see, some of the new leaves are a bit lighter green than they should be, so I added about 15 grams of Green House Feeding Bio Grow yesterday. I also finally installed the Blumat drip system. Additionally, I bought some worms that I plan to add to the fabric pots today. I hope they will improve the soil and feel at home in there.

MrGoonai 05/15/2025 - Day 49 Short Facts: - 44 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 850 PPFD - Defoliated quite heavy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much to report. The Orange 76 continues to grow vigorously. Since she has to wait a bit longer before I can flip her to flower together with her sister, the Miracle Candy, I had to defoliate her more than I would have liked, just to slow her down a little. But I’m sure she’s going to be a very big girl in the end. I’ll probably have to buy a second net to help spread her growth more horizontally. You can see the before and after pictures of the defoliation in the gallery. Right now, I’m also battling a really bad fungus gnat infestation, so I watered her with nematodes. I hope I’ll win this battle in the next few weeks, because at the moment, it’s the worst it has ever been.

MrGoonai 05/22/2025 - Day 56 Short Facts: - 57 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 850 PPFD -Switched to 12/12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Orange 76 continues to grow vigorously. She's now 57 cm tall, which is insane, and I’m a bit scared she’s going to stretch even more. But I’ve finally switched to a 12/12 light schedule to initiate the flowering phase. Her lights are now on from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. I’ve also added nutrients to the soil, using Green House Feeding BioBloom. I applied 120 g of it. Additionally, I mixed in 20 g of Organic Nutrients CalMag Alga, 20 g of Biolit Fein Plus, 2 g of Green House Feeding Enhancer, and about 3 g of TNC MycorrMax. I blended everything with some worm castings and water to make it easier to distribute in the pots. It was still a bit tricky due to all the cover crop growing on the surface. After that, I watered it in to help the nutrients become available to the plant via the mycorrhiza and beneficial bacteria. After this weekend, the tomatoes and chili plant will finally be gone, so the two cannabis plants will have the grow tent all to themselves. I’ll be using the SCROG net to spread them out evenly.

MrGoonai 05/29/2025 - Day 63 Short Facts: - 68 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD -Switched to 12/12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ She keeps getting taller, and I'm worried this might become a real problem. I really need to start using the trellis net — or maybe I should just top her? I'm not sure what the best approach is to keep her growth under control. Not that Yun didn’t warn me! 😅 I think I've spotted the first signs of flowering. And it also looks like the fungus gnats have finally lost the battle — their population is shrinking fast.

MrGoonai 06/05/2025 - Day 70 Short Facts: - 72 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD - Scrog-net used - Flowers are showing ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The growth was so good that I finally had to install the scrog net. The main branches are actually over 80 cm tall, but I had to bend them down, and the net is set at a height of 72 cm. I’ll probably need to buy a second net, because there isn’t much space left if I want to keep the light at a distance of 35 cm from the plant. If you take a closer look, you can see that she’s now fully in flower. Flipping the schedule and everything that comes with it was easier than I thought. Something stupid happened this week: I accidentally overwatered the Blumat drip irrigation system. Although it wasn’t much, I had to use my vacuum to suck up about 3 liters of runoff. I kept the liquid to water her by hand over the next few days, because I don’t want her to lose all the valuable nutrients. I’m really happy with how things are going. The only issue I had so far was that she lost a bit of her deep green color, but that was easily fixed by adding small amounts of Epsom salt.

MrGoonai 06/12/2025 - Day 77 Short Facts: - 86 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD - The fungus gnats are back ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much to say about the Orange 76, except that she is doing really well. Great plant and great strain so far. But the fungus gnats are back, stronger than ever. I tried to fight them with more nematodes and additional sticky traps, but right now they are on the winning side. So I ordered some predatory mites and I really hope they will be delivered within the next few days. Hopefully that will help, because I have never had such a severe infestation before.

MrGoonai 06/19/2025 - Day 84 Short Facts: - 86 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much to say about the Orange 76, except that she is doing really well. Great plant and great strain so far. Best smell ever! Fungus gnat population is shrinking a little bit.

MrGoonai 07/06/2025 - Day 98 Short Facts: - 86 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD - Fungus gnats still there - Thrips seen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sorry for not updating the diary over the past few weeks. I had a medical emergency in the family, which caused quite a bit of chaos. There’s not much to report — her flowers are getting bigger and bigger. The smell is really special and intense! It looks like senescence is starting. She has lost some color in her leaves and is now turning more yellow. Just to be safe, I added a small amount of Epsom salt. And of course, there are still problems: The fungus gnats are still around, although there are far fewer than before. I’d say their numbers are down by about 80% compared to the peak, so at least some progress has been made. I’m still fighting them and have ordered more predatory mites. Unfortunately, I also noticed some leaves that didn’t look good, so I took a closer look. The result: I found thrips on both plants. It doesn’t look like a full-blown infestation yet, so I hope I can get it under control. The predatory mites should help, and I’ve also ordered some green lacewing larvae to support the fight and hopefully wipe them out. This whole situation is really frustrating. I recently had to deal with thrips on one of my biggest Alocasias, and I’ve been battling a persistent aphid infestation on my largest Dieffenbachia for weeks now. I’ve never had this many issues with pests before.

MrGoonai 07/10/2025 - Day 105 Short Facts: - 86 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD - Fungus gnats and thrips are still there ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I had to remove a few dead leaves last week, and some of them definitely showed signs of thrips damage. The predatory mites arrived this week, so there should now be at least 2,000 of them in the plant's pot. I really hope they’ll take care of the fungus gnats and the young thrips in the top layer of the soil. I’d say the gnat population is already lower than it was the week before. Of course, I’m hoping that the entire population of those suckers finally goes extinct in my grow tent. The flowers are getting bigger and are looking really good. I’d also say she probably has about three weeks left until harvest. She’s definitely showing clear signs of senescence.

MrGoonai 07/17/2025 - Day 112 Short Facts: - 86 cm tall - VPD @ 1.0 - Approx. 900 PPFD - Thrips are thriving ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The flowers are getting bigger, and the trichomes are becoming more cloudy. Unfortunately, the thrips are thriving. I end up removing a few damaged leaves almost every day. Thankfully, I’m not a big fan of heavy lollipopping, so there are still plenty of leaves left. I had ordered some green lacewing larvae, but it looks like they didn’t survive the shipping. So I placed another order with a supplier that uses better packaging, and added the new batch to the plants today. I really hope they’ll do their job, because the delay gave the thrips more time to spread and do damage, there are definitely more now than before. The gnats are more under control, but I haven’t been able to wipe them out completely. The fight continues, next week I’ll apply another round of nematodes.

MrGoonai I wasn’t around for a few weeks. Family health issues and especially work kept me busy. I also didn’t really want to take more pictures, since the thrips made the plant look pretty bad in the end. The green lacewing larvae did help, but it took longer than expected, and by then the damage was already done. I harvested her on day 144. The yield wasn’t much, because of mold and the overall poor condition of the flowers. The thrips had damaged the leaves, many of which were dead. If I’m lucky, it might be around 30g 😂 To my surprise, most of the thrips on this plant were already dead. I think I only saw two or three still alive. To reuse most of the soil, I removed about 10 cm from the top and treated the rest with neem oil, just to be safe. The stem of the plant really impressed me, as did the roots. The stem was the thickest I’ve ever had, and the roots were insane. The whole pot was packed, and the main roots were sturdy. Getting the stem out of the pot was anything but easy. All in all, it was a bad grow, but not really because of mistakes on my part. The thrips and fungus gnats were the main issues, and maybe they even contributed to the bud rot, dead sugar leaves combined with bad luck probably didn’t help either. Lessons learned: - Thrips suck. If you catch them too late, you’re screwed. They’re really hard to deal with using natural methods like green lacewing larvae, and it gets expensive (I paid over €60 for them). If they show up again in mid-flower in one of my future grows, I won’t throw more money at the problem I’d just abort the grow. If they appear in veg, I’d hit them with a serious pesticide right away. - Fungus gnats are assholes. I never had such a bad infestation before. In the end, I managed to get them under control, but I suspect some shipments of nematodes and mites arrived with too few living specimens, probably because they overheated during transport. Nematodes are already part of my routine, and I’ll definitely keep using them regularly. - Earthworms are awesome. They really improve the soil. I found so many baby worms. Very cool to see. - Losing power is a serious problem. One day the power was out for over an hour due to work on the lines. The controller couldn’t reconnect to Wi-Fi fast enough, so it didn’t run the programmed settings. That meant about three days without lights, fans, or exhaust. (That might have contributed to the rot.) Sadly, I only noticed after a few days and then fixed it. - Next grow I’ll skip the cover crops and use a mulch layer instead. That should help against the gnats and might also slightly reduce humidity. - I used a too high ppfd-count, setting the light to 70% of power output is enough without the use of additional CO2