Fragaria Gorillai

Anna-J 🌸Week 1🌸 Germination went very smoothly last week and these little girls seemed eager to enter the world! 🌱SUBSTRATE: - Pro Mix Organic Vegetable & Herb Mix (40%) - Black Gold All-Purpose Potting Mix (40%) - Canna Coco Professional Plus (10%) - Nursery Land Perlite (10%) I was intending to run three 7-gallon fabric pots but i seem to have misplaced one of them, so i ended up using one of my 5-gallon pots. I like to keep my pots elevated on wire racks, mainly for air circulation. 🌱NUTRIENTS: Remo Nutrients: - Micro - Grow - VeloKelp - Bloom - Astroflower - Nature's Candy - MagNifiCal 🌱EQUIPMENT: - Unit Farm grow tent, 2ft x 4ft x 6ft - HLG Elite 360 light fixture, containing 2 x QB96 Elite LED boards. Modified to replace the bluetooth controller with a manual dimming knob - Sunblaster 48" 6400K LED strip light (for veg only) - 2 x Sunblaster 24" 2700K T5HO fluorescent strip lights (for flowering only) - AC Infinity Cloudline T6 exhaust fan - AC Infinity 6" Carbon Filter - AC Infinity Cloudray S6 Circulation Fan - Toshiba 8000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - Photone app - Dr. Meter pH Meter - HM Digital EC/TDS Meter ************************************************* Day 1: - The HLG Elite 360 light fixture is mounted approximately 36" above canopy. - LUX: 4,800 - Light schedule: 20/4 (lights on from 6pm to 2pm the following day) - The AC Infinity Cloudline T6 exhaust fan is set to turn on to it's lowest setting (10%) whenever the temperature reaches 82F or the humidity reaches 76% - Temp: 74-76F - RH: 67-70% Day 2: - I want to increase the temperature inside the tent a little bit so i've turned on the Sunblaster 48W LED strip light. It's hung just slightly lower than the HLG fixture, sitting at about 32" above the canopy. - LUX (Sunblaster only): 5,110 - LUX (HLG Elite 360 only): 3,700 - LUX (TOTAL): 8.810 - Added yellow sticky traps as a preventative measure for fungus gnats. I haven't seen any in the tent yet so it's just a precautionary measure at this point. - Temp: 74-81F - RH: 70-75% - VPD: 0.35-0.4 Day 3: - I turned on the AC Infinity circulation fan, set to 20% - Temp: 75-81F - RH: 70-75% Day 4: - Increased circulation fan speed to 30% - Temp: 74-81F - RH: 69-75% Day 5: - Increased circulation fan speed to 40% - Increased the light intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture - LUX (Sunblaster only): 5,110 - LUX (HLG Elite 360 only): 5,290 - LUX (TOTAL): 10,400 Day 6 - Temp: 74-81F - RH: 65-74% Day 7: - Watered each plant with approximately 200ml of dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.65 - Temp: 75-81F - RH: 70-75%

Anna-J 🌸Week 2🌸 This week i'll be focusing on increasing light levels and increasing the air movement in the tent to help promote strong stems. I'll be introducing some nutrients and trying my best to keep my VPD within range. To start the week, my AC Infinity exhaust fan is still set to turn on to it's lowest setting whenever the temperature reaches 82F or the relative humidity reaches 75%. Day 8: - I lowered both my "HLG Elite 360" and "Sunblaster 48W LED" light fixtures by approximately 1", increasing the overall light level. I'll be keeping a close eye on the small plants for any light stress, as this was a 3,600 LUX increase compared to last week. - LUX (Sunblaster LED alone): 5,900 - LUX (HLG Elite 360 alone): 8,100 - LUX (Total Combined): 14,000 - Circulation fan speed: 40% - Temp: 76F-82F - RH: 65-75% Day 9: - The outside temperatures have been very warm, meaning the exhaust fan is turning on more often, which has been lowering the RH in the tent. To compensate, i've added water to each of the three saucers under the pots. The evaporation seems to help bring the RH up just enough. - Temp: 77F-81F - RH: 60-66% Day 10: - Watered each plant with approximately 500ml of dechlorinated tap water mixed with 2ml per gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro" and "Grow" and 1ml per gallon of "MagNifiCal" and "VeloKelp". This resulted in a 320ppm nutrient solution that i then adjusted to pH 6.4. - For my pH adjustment, i'm using BlueSky Organics "pH Up" and "pH Down" natural adjuster. - I typically aerate my water for 24hrs before adding nutrients. - Increased circulation fan speed from 40% to 60%. This helps give the young plants just a little bit of a wobble, enough to hopefully promote strong stem growth. - Temp: 75F-81F - RH: 68-75% Day 11: - I accidentally unplugged the Sunblaster 48W LED strip light for 8-9hrs. The plants were only receiving about 8100 LUX during that time. Day 12: - Temp: 78-82F - RH: 65-72% Day 13: - Increased the light intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture by approximately 1,000 LUX. - LUX (Total Combined): 15,000 - PPFD (Total Combined): 230 Day 14: - Watered each plant with approximately 600ml of dechlorinated tap water mixed with 2ml per gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro" and "Grow" and 1ml per gallon of "MagNifiCal" and "VeloKelp". This resulted in a 345ppm nutrient solution that i then adjusted to pH 6.38. - Lowered the HLG Elite 360 light fixture so that both lights are 30" above canopy. This increased the overall LUX by about 1,000. - LUX (Total Combined): 16,100 - The temperatures in the tent have been hitting 83F-84F, despite the exhaust fan turning on whenever the temperature reaches 81F. It's been warm where i live so i turned on the portable air conditioner in the room where my tent is. When the exhaust fan turns on, it passively pulls in air from the room via a 4" duct. This has helped keep the temperature around 80F-82F during lights on. - Temp: 77F-82F - RH: 58%-72%

Anna-J 🌸Week 3!🌸 The last couple of weeks have been quite warm outside, which means quite warm inside! My light schedule of 20/4 has the lights on from 6pm to 2pm the next day. I've been trying to take advantage of the cooler night air and trying to keep the lights off during the hottest time of the day. Despite that, I've been running my portable air conditioner each day starting when the lights turn on at 6pm. When the AC is on, the tent intakes air passively from the cool room. At about 10 or 11pm i turn the AC off and switch to outdoor air intake, which lasts throughout the night, until 8 or 9am the next day, when i turn the AC back on and switch back to intaking air from the room itself. This has been helping me keep my temperatures in the tent within range, especially as i'm increasing the light intensity, causing the lights to run warmer. This week i'm also going to figure out what sort of training methods i'm going to use. I'm considering topping Plant #3 and possibly Plant #2, as they seem to be a bit taller than Plant #1. Plant #1 will likely just be getting some LST. Day 15: - Increased the light intensity of my HLG Elite 360 fixture. Last week the overall LUX levels were about 16,100. - LUX (Total): 17,100 - Temp: 79-82F - RH: 68-72% - I added water to the saucers at the bottom of tent to help bring the humidity levels up inside the tent via natural evaporation. I've found that i only needed to increase the humidity about 5-10% to be with the VPD range that i'm aiming for. I do have a humidifier that i would have used if i needed to make a more drastic increase but so far, the evaporation from the 3 saucers seems to be working well. Day 16: - Increased the light intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture. - LUX (Total): 18,500 - Temp: 78-81F - RH: 65-75% - After about 14hrs of the increased light levels, i'm seeing a little bit of leaf 'tacoing' and possible a little bit of leaf stress. I'll leave the light intensity as is for now and will continue to keep a close eye on the plants to see how they do. Day 17: - Soil feels dry up to an inch deep but the weight of the pot indicates that there's still some water in there so i'll wait another 24hrs to water - Temp: 74-81F - RH: 58-73% Day 18: - Watered each plant with just under 1L of dechlorinated tap water mixed with approximately 3.5ml per gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro" & "Grow" and around 2.5ml per gallon of "MagNifiCal" and "VeloKelp". This resulted in a nutrient solution measuring 440ppm, which was then pH adjusted to 6.3. - Lowered the HLG Elite 360 light fixture by about 1". This increased the light level by about 1,500 LUX. - The light level at the soil was 19,000 LUX and at the canopy was about 20,000 LUX. - Temp: 75-81F - RH: 68-74% Day 19: - I topped Plant #3. It was the tallest of the three and had the biggest internodal length. - 8hrs after topping Plant #3, i also topped Plant #2. - Yesterday the plants were starting to exhibit what looked like slight over-watering symptoms. I adjusted my exhaust fan settings to reduce the humidity and to slightly lower the temperature. After about 12hrs, the plants had perked up. - Plant #3 is showing a bit more red/purple in the leaf petioles. I'm not 100% sure if this indicative of magnesium or phosphorous deficiency. I'm leaning towards magnesium though and may do an epsom salt foliar feed. - Temp: 74-80F - RH: 66-71% Day 20: - Plant #3 is really looking much more "leggy" than the other 2 plants. - Temp: 74-78F - RH: 65-70% Day 21: - I went ahead and topped Plant #1 today. It's the shortest of the three plants and the internodal spacing is very tight but i decided to top it anyways, so we'll see how it goes i guess! - Watered each plant with approximately 2L of dechlorinated tap water, mixed with 2.5ml/gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Grow", "Bloom" & "MagNifiCal" and about 2ml/gallon of "VeloKelp". This resulted in a 505ppm nutrient solution that was then adjusted to pH 6.4. - Temp: 73-78F - RH: 66-70%

Anna-J 🌸Week 4!🌸 It's been a bit of a busy life for me lately, so i haven't been spending very much time in the tent but this week i'm trying to keep a close eye on my temperature and humidity levels and VPD, as well as working to increase the light intensity and starting some low-stress training. It's been very humid the last few days, which has been making it challenging to get my RH level down to where i'd like it (aiming for around 60-65% during lights on, with the temperature around 78-79F). Also, due to the larger 7-gallon pot sizes (for Plant #1 and Plant #3) and not wanting to over-saturate the pots when watering, i haven't been watering to runoff yet. I want to start checking the runoff ppm's and pH this week. I've had some problems with N toxicity and nutrient lockout in the past when using Remo Nutrients, so i get a bit nervous when i don't know how things are accumulating in the soil. Day 22: - Increased the intensity of my HLG Elite 360 fixture. - LUX (Sunblaster 48W LED): 5,600 - LUX (HLG Elite 360): 19,400 - LUX (Total Combined): 25,000 - Did some leaf tucking on Plant #2 & #3 to better expose to side branches. - Temp: 72-78F - RH: 70-75% Day 23: - Did some low-stress training on Plant #3, tying down the side branches a little bit using wire and clips. - Pre-flowering is more evident. - Temp: 74-77F - RH: 70-74% Day 24: - LST on Plant #2, tying down a couple of the side branches - Leaf tucking on Plant #1 & #2 - In order to combat the high inside and outside humidity levels, i'm running the tent a little bit warmer (80F during lights on, instead of 78F), which is helping to bring the humidity level down a tiny bit and is helping to keep a better Vapor Pressure Deficit ratio. - Temp: 74-80F - RH: 68-70% Day 25: - LST adjustments on Plant #2 & #3. - 5-gallon pot was dry and very light when lifted but the 7-gallon pots still had more moisture than i wanted so i'm waiting another day to water. I'm a bit concerned that it's likely i'll only end up watering once this week. - Temp: 75-79F - RH: 68-70% Day 26: - Watered each plant with approximately 1-gallon of dechlorinated tap water. Mixed with about 3ml per gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Bloom", "MagNifiCal", "VeloKelp" and about 1.5ml/gallon of "Grow". The pH naturally settled at 6.45. - Today i also turned off the Sunblaster 48W 6400K LED strip light. I increased the intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture, and increased the overall LUX levels at the canopy, from 25,000 to between 27,000-28,000. - Temp: 74-79F - RH: 68-72% Day 27: - No changes - Temp: 74-78F - RH: 68-72% Day 28: - Leaf tucking on all 3 plants - Temp: 72-77F - RH: 66-70%

Anna-J 🌸Week 5!🌸 This has been a busy week for me and so not a lot of photos this week. I'll try to add some more when i have time. Flowering technically started during Week 4 but this is the first official full week of flowering. I've been having some minor issues with what looks like a bit of a Nitrogen excess and i suspect that this could be causing some other issues with a bit of phosphorous deficiency? Let me know what you guys think! The problems i'm facing are reminding me of why i previously switched away from Remo Nutrients. It's not that there's a problem with the nutrients but i've had these similar struggles with some of my other grows and i just found it tricky to dial in my feeding with Remo. When i started growing again after a few years break, i really wanted to get some more of the Bio-Bizz nutrients but they're very hard to come by in Canada and when you do find them, they tend to be either already expired or very close to their expiry date. I do really want to get this whole Remo Nutrients thing figured out though so it's likely i'll keep using them for my next few grows... at least until i get too frustrated! LOL Day 29: - Increased the light intensity of my HLG Elite 360 fixture. - LUX: 29,500 - 31,000 - I defoliated all 3 plants, removing fan leaves and some of the lower branches. I also did some LST adjustments, tying down branches. - Temp: 72-78F - RH: 60-66% Day 30: - Watered each plant with approx. 1 gallon of dechlorinated tap water that was mixed with 3ml/gallon of "Micro", "Bloom", "Astroflower", "MagNifiCal" and "VeloKelp", resulting in a 683ppm nutrient solution that naturally settled at a pH of 6.21. - Temp: 71-78F - RH: 65-70% Day 31: - Increased light intensity. I'd forgotten from my last grow that it seems like my light fixture isn't outputting as high as it was before my neighbour helped swap out the obsolete and non-working bluetooth controller for a manual dimming knob. I don't know much about electronics but when i messaged him about it he said "Maybe we'll try switching out the 100K Ohm potentiometer for a 50K Ohm". I'm hoping to have him over in the next week or so to swap it out and see if makes any difference. - LUX: 34,000 - 38,000 - Plant #3 is definitely not looking as good as i'd like. A bit spindly and saggy. I think part of the problem is that i haven't been watering to runoff so i suspect there could be some nutrient buildup happening. - Temp: 74-79F - RH: 65-70% Day 32: - Increased light intensity to 100% - LUX: 36,000 - 41,000 - Temp: 70-76F Day 33: - I turned on the two 24" Sunblaster T5HO lamps on the sides of my tent. These lights have a 2700K spectrum and although not a super high output, i mainly turned them on to help bring the temperature in the tent up a little bit, which is helping combat high humidity levels. - Watered each plant with plain, dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.4. I used about 6 gallons of water in total and watered each plant until i collected around 300-400ml of runoff. - My runoff levels were: --- Plant #1: 980ppm, pH 6.72 --- Plant #2: 960ppm, pH 6.74 --- Plant #3: 530ppm, pH 6.97 - The ppm's are way higher than i want but i did find it interesting that 2 of the 3 plants were very similar, with Plant #3 being quite a bit different. I suppose this makes some sense with the way that Plant #3 has been growing. I will work to get my runoff ppm's lower and hopefully that might help all 3 plants to perk up a little bit. Day 34: - Just a bit of leaf tucking on all 3 plants - Temp: 72-78F - RH: 62-67% Day 35: - no changes - Temp: 73-79F - RH: 62-66%

Anna-J 🌸Week 6!🌸 This week, i'm planning to continue watering to run off, to try and cycle through any nutrient buildup, as my runoff ppm were very high last week! I'm hoping things get back on track but i do fear that i've slowed my girls down a bit with their recent struggles. Day 36: - The pots are still fairly heavy with moisture from the last watering. - Temp: 73-80F - RH: 62-66% Day 37: Today I had to make a choice to make. I'm leaving tomorrow for over a week and a friend will be looking after my plants for me. My plan was to do another round of defoliation at the start of week 7, or after the flowering 'stretch' was complete but since i may not be here, i had to decide whether to defoliate now, or later. I ended up choosing to do it before i leave. I defoliated all 3 plants, removing fan leaves and a few of the lower branches that obviously just weren't developing, or that were less than 50% of the overall height of the plant. I think the plants still have a bit of stretch left in them so hopefully i haven't put too much stress on them. We'll see if i end up regretting my decision! - I wanted to water today as well and even though the 5-gallon pot had dried back enough, the 7-gallon pots were still a bit too heavy with moisture so i'll wait one more day and water them before i leave for the week. - Temp: 72-80F - RH: 60-65% Day 38: - I managed to water the plants today before i leave. - I first used a total of about 12 litres (3.1 gallons) of plain, dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.4. The 7 gallon pots each got about 4.5 litres of water and the 5 gallon pot got about 3 litres. I watered slowly, over the course of about 30 minutes, waiting 5-10 minutes between each gallon of water. - I then watered using a total of another 15 litres (almost 4 gallons) of dechlorinated tap water mixed with approximately 5ml/gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Bloom", "MagNifiCal" and "Astroflower", resulting in a nutrient solution measuring 1070ppm, pH adjusted to 6.25. I again watered slowly, waiting 5-10 minutes between each gallon of water, until i started to get runoff. - My runoff ppm's were a bit skewed because of how i chose to water with plain water first, then nutrients. I think Plant #2 was more accurately indicative of the true runoff ppm's because i think Plant #2 got a bit high of a ratio of plain water versus nutrients. I think that for Plant #1 and #3, the runoff was mostly the nutrient solution, whereas Plant #2 the runoff was the plain water. - Runoff levels: --- Plant #1: 1370ppm --- Plant #2: 310ppm --- Plant #3: 1060ppm - I was also able to get my neighbour to come over and swap out the dimmer knob on my HLG Elite 360 fixture. I mentioned previously in my last grow that after getting my light out of storage, where it'd been for the past 4 years, the "Meshtek" bluetooth controller was no longer supported and the app that i previously used to control the light intensity and to schedule the light schedule no longer existed and HLG did not have any sort of work around aside from replacing the "Meshtek" controller with another proprietary controller. I wasn't interested in adopting another technology that could end up being discontinued just like the last one, so i asked my neighbour if he could swap out the controller for a manual dimming knob. He did swap it out and at first everything seemed fine but i quickly realized that the light fixture just didn't seem as bright as it used to when i had it on 100%. After talking about it with my neighbour, since i don't know anything about electronics, he said that he probably should have used a "50K Ohm linear potentiometer", instead of the 100K one. Now that the 50K knob is connected, it's clear that the other one was limiting the overall intensity. Before he made the swap, i put my light meter (phone) in the tent and recorded the light level as 33,200 LUX. After the swap, with the light meter in the same poition, i was getting 41,800 LUX! I've now dialed back the light intensity to about 80-85% and i'm getting between 42,000-50,000 LUX across the canopy. Day 39: - Plant sitter reports no major changes Day 40: - Plant sitter reports no major changes Day 41: - Plant sitter reports no major changes Day 42: - My plant sitter reported that the plants seem to be experiencing light stress. Says that the leaves were 'tacoing' and that some leaves even appeared to have 'burnt' tips. He raised the light fixture by about 2-3 inches and after about 12 hours he said the leaves had flattened out a bit and were looking better.

Anna-J 🌸Week 7!🌸 I was away from home for the start of week 7 but my plants were in good hands, being looked after by a friend. After he realized that the plants were suffering from some light stress at the end of last week, he reported that things had started looking better and week 7 seems to be starting off fairly well. The outside air temperature has been low enough where i haven't needed to use the portable air conditioner. The outside air intake has been just about perfect to maintain a good temperature inside the tent. Outside temps vary between 12C to 16C and with the AC Infinity Cloudline T6 exhaust thermostat set to turn on when the tent temperature reaches 78F or higher, or when the RH reaches 67% or higher, this has kept things in range. Day 43: - Plant sitter watered the plants with around 2 gallons of plain dechlorinated water, pH adjusted to 6.4. The 2 gallons were split between the 3 plants. He then watered with a nutrient solution consisting of 5ml/gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Bloom", "Astroflower", "VeloKelp" and around 4ml/gallon of "MagNifiCal", resulting in a 1,080ppm mixture that was then pH adjusted to 6.2. He split 4 gallons of nutrient solution amongst the 3 plants, which resulted in around 250ml of runoff from each plant. - Temp (lights on): 75-79F (averaging 77F) - Temp (lights off): 64-66F - RH (lights on): 64-65% - RH (lights off): 69-72% Day 44: - no changes Day 45: - Plant sitter did some leaf tucking on all 3 plants, to better expose the bud sites to the light. He offered to defoliate some of the fan leaves but i declined. Day 46: - no changes Day 47: - I've returned home and was happy to find that the plants seemed to be doing pretty well. - I could see some signs of the light stress that was happening last week but luckily it doesn't seem to have caused too much damage. - The smell is definitely stronger this week, although not overpowering. - Temp (lights on): 72-80F (averaging 77F) - Temp (lights off): 63-65F - RH (lights on): 64-65% - RH (lights off): 68-74% Day 48: - I removed 8-10 fan leaves from Plant #1, to better expose some of the bud sites to the light, where leaf tucking was not working very well. - 12hrs later i removed 8-10 fan leaves from Plant #3. - Temp (lights on): 75-78F (averaging 77F) - Temp (lights off): 63-65F - RH (lights on): 59-64% - RH (lights off): 65-69% Day 49: - Watered with approximately 4 gallons of dechlorinated tap water, mixed with approximately 4ml/gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Bloom", "Astroflower", "MagNifiCal" and approximately 3ml/gallon of "VeloKelp" and "Nature's Candy", resulting in a 933ppm nutrient solution that naturally settled at pH 6.2. - Temp (lights on): 76-78F (averaging 77F) - Temp (lights off): 60-65F - RH (lights on): 60-65% - RH (lights off): 66-69%

Anna-J 🌸Week 8!🌸 This week is starting off on a bit of a concerning note. I've noticed the start of what looks to be a Calcium/Magnesium deficiency in Plant #3. I'm a bit late at posting this week's update and in the past few days since the start of Week 8 the problems have spread and gotten much worse. I don't have any doubts that it's having a negative effect on the plant putting on bud weight. See below for info on my runoff tests and my plan of action for the rest of the week. My HLG Elite 360 light fixture is now running at 100%. PPFD levels vary across the canopy from about 580 to 880. Since switching to flowering i've also been using a 24W Sunblaster T5HO fluorescent fixture at each end of the tent, which has helped bring the 4 corners of the tent up to a more even light level with the rest of the canopy. Day 50: - Plant #3 is starting to show slight signs of Cal-Mag deficiency, mostly in just a few spots on the lower fan leaves. - Temp (day): 75-78F (averaging 77F) - Temp (night): 64-67 (averaging 65F) - RH (day) 56-62% - RH (night) 62-67% Day 51: - Plant #3 Cal-Mag deficiency is spreading, getting worse on the lower fan leaves and showing up in the upper fan leaves. Day 52: - Deficiency symptoms continue to get worse. I want to water with plain pH adjusted tap water to see what my runoff levels look like... but the plants are still a bit too moist from the last watering. - I feel like Plant #2 and Plant #3 aren't quite putting on bud weight the way they should. I don't see any deficiency symptoms in Plant #2 but the buds just seem like they're a bit slow to develop. Day 53: - Watered with approximately 25 litres (6.6 gallons) of dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.5 and split between all 3 plants until approximately 100-150ml of runoff had accumulated. Watering was done slowly, over the course of an hour, letting the soil saturate in between each gallon of water being applied. - I really expected the runoff levels to be really high, especially for Plant #3... i was pretty sure that i was facing a nutrient lockout problem, rather than just a plain old nutrient deficiency... but my runoff levels were definitely very reasonable: - Runoff: - Plant #1: 305ppm / pH 6.83 - Plant #2: 492ppm / pH 6.47 - Plant #3: 575ppm / pH 6.64 - I was intending to follow up the plain watering with some nutrient solution but i ran out of time. I will wait a couple of days and then will feed with a moderately strong nutrient solution, hopefully not causing any over-watering symptoms. - Let me know if you guys think i've misdiagnosed the issue. I've included photos of the problems with Plant #3. Day 54: - I defoliated approximately 8-10 leaves off the bottom section of each of the 3 plants. - Pots are still very heavy with water. Day 55: - update coming! Day 56: - update coming!