New Grower Auto Northern Lights & Dinafem Haze Auto CBD

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(EDIT: Posted in the wrong new growers forum. My apologies. If it can be moved, please move it. Otherwise, I can recreate it in the right forum.)

I am doing this late. I have almost finished both grows. I will probably post some of the pictures that I took throughout the journey. I have them to post. It was our first grow. We wanted to grow the CBD for my mom to try with her MS, and we were sent a freebie Delicious Seeds Auto NL.

The Northern Lights was chopped on 11/12/17 and is currently drying in brown paper bags (TaNg). Some nugs are bigger than a golf ball, though. I'll try to fix that.

Also, the CBD is slower than the NL, and is starting flush today. I have not seen amber trichs, but almost all of them are cloudy.

Northern Lights wet weight with a rough trim: 517 grams (some stems still on, most broken down though for brown bag method, and most fan leaves trimmed off)

Mistakes (or Lessons Learned):

For the first 5 days, we had the LED way too close to the NL. We had it about one foot over the bucket. I think we really stunted it's initial growth, and we were very surprised at the resulting yield even with that rough start. It stayed about 1.5 inches tall for 5 days, until I woke up and realized what was happening.

We also started the CBD in a cup of cotton burr (we live in the south), and it shot up the first week (5-6 inches tall?). However, after the first week we transplanted it into the coco and that really set her back. She wasn't the same after that. I don't know if I tore some roots loose doing it, or what the problem was, but she took a long time to recover.

Also, on both the CBD and NL, we had the nutes double strength for about 4-5 days the second or third week in. And we had one or two other random nute overdoses for maybe a few hours or a day. I don't think that helped matters.

And, we had one branch on the NL tear loose and die. It was trained at sharp angle (it had been trained that way for a few weeks at this point) and, apparently, one day it decided that it had put up with enough and it gave us the deuces.

Training Methods:

LST - NL & CBD
Defoliation - NL
Topping - NL

Materials:

2x4x5 Tent (carbon filter, etc)
450w Viparspectra LED
300w LED (random brand)
GH Powergrower - Hydroton medium
Airpot (3L) - Coco Coir
GH 3 Part Nutrients
Botanicare Hydroguard
Botanicare CalMag

 

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I am posting pictures in order of the grow. The Haze is in the airpot, the NL is in the bubble bucket.

These show the start of the LST on the CBD, and the topping on the NL.

 

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More pictures of the grow. Showing some LST. Trying to post in order. Images are dated (most of them).

 

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This was super scary. I didn't sleep well this night. We defoliated sprout (NL) and maybe even some on the CBD. It recovered well, though. And, this gives a pretty good shot of the LST training we had done.

Both main colas ended up being trained the same direction. We did not pull them in separate directions. As I mentioned in the first post, our LED was so close that it stunted the growth. She did not get tall. We ended up taking the drip ring off because the leaves were so low to the hydroton, they were constantly wet with nute water. Also, the she was at a height disadvantage, and she took a long while to really get kicked off with the LST, because we couldn't bend her. So, when we finally started LST the main cola, we didn't press our luck trying to pull them in opposite directions. we mainly kept them split apart as best we could.

 

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They started recovery from defoliation that same night. You will see their journey through recovery, as well as a few more snips we made throughout the next few weeks. I think we really only had one more heavy defoliation a week or two later. Then, we started leaving the outside fan leaves, those that were not blocking light to buds, and maybe some of the top fan leaves on smaller buds. We kept trimming any big fan leaves out of the middle that were blocking light.

 

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More pictures during recovery and beyond.

 

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I think this shows some of the colas getting tall (on NL). Our outside colas were definately taller than those in the middle. You may be able to notice it from here out. From somewhere around this point on, I basically set my light distance based on the colas around the outside. I was able to get them all trained over and an even height. So, we really only had the sag in the middle that the light was a little further away from. We didn't have any one big cola that was taller than the rest (we did, but he got trained and pulled even with the other big colas).

Basically just leaving the CBD to do it's thing from here on out. It was struggling and was not nearly the beast that the NL became. We may have trimmed some interior fan leaves, but for the most part it has been left alone. Maybe some pot rotation, once in a while.

 

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Continuing on. We had some ups and downs with spotting on leaves. Not sure if it was from nutrient water splashing, heat, or nute overload (like I mentioned in the first post). Nothing was really consistent. However, toward the end of the grow some of the sugar leaves started spotting and didn't come back from it. I have some pictures of it.

 

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Moving foward. Started checking trichs. Need a better microscope or loupe.

 

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Now its more or less bud pics and canopy shots. I think we kept the plants watered and big fan leaves trimmed from the middle of the NL. That was about it. We are coasting at this point. Hoping the nutrient balance works out.