kinda done everything you suggested.
my sickly plants, all but one showing promising signs of rejuvenated strong vegetative growth - despite placed in the lounge room getting just natural light of late winter (protected from outdoor elements). these plants are in either 3-gallon or 5-gallon fabric pots. these patients are starting to recover, and my thoughts are they might be placed back into the g-tent, for the next batch - short vegetative phase for maybe 3/4 weeks under the LED, then their flowering phase.
i've gone between regular plastic pots to these fabric pots - not settling for one over the other. i'm thinking of ordering some air pots, and give them a go. Pots is an ongoing 'experiment' of mine.
i bought a large (50L) bag of perlite early in the grow, which i mix with the soil mix - about 20% perhaps, not 25%. i'm happy with the consistency of the soil mix, in term of its drainage - not sure about the soil mix itself. again, i'm working on my growing skills, rather than blaming the tools, blaming more the tradesman.
not overwatering, though that's that issue above, which we addressed by adding perlite to the soil mix - i have been watering consistently/regularly, with run-off. i did have an issue of overwatering initially, 8 months ago - a change of soil mix, and adding more perlite corrected that issue.
i could have lowered the LED a little - or instead heightened the plants.
i'm happy with this
Viparspectra PAR450, it's almost ideal in terms of its power/light output for my small 2x2' tent setup. i checked the pricing recently, as i drool over new lights, and I saw that i bought my
Viparspectra at a very good price. i was never spooked by the manufacturer's claims, i just wanted to get a decent set of lights for my small g-tent, and I had to start somewhere, and I'm happy that I started with this PAR450. My plan was always to get the grow setup and operational, then upgrade later.
i didn't feed these plants at all, in this grow - so, next time, maybe light nutrient dosage during its vegetative phase. furthermore, these plants are magnesium-heavy-feeders, which I found out from this experience of this grow.
i only bought some
cal-mag about a month ago, and thus only lightly applied this additive to the plants - and the plants have responded with more green, and less purple in their leaves. BBK8D in particular was craving for this
Cal-Mag.
G2 also yellowed her leaves early in the flowering phase, which i thought was an indication of not strong or healthy enough during her vegetative growth to sustain her flowering. G3, the smallest plant, which I did wait to grow to a reasonable size (foot and half at start of flowering) shaped up well, and i'm looking forward to growing her clones.
other areas of my own grow skills, which I can improve upon - include training the plants. The G1 plant, i topped and partly manifolded into nice shape - and that shape is something I'm gonna aim for in the next grow. the other plants were more crudely shaped, so there's an area I can improve my growing skills.
another area of my growing skills that i learned from this grow - i have 2 different strains, and there is even slight variations between plants of the same strain. currently, i have 2 plants (G1 and G3) which are similar in their growth pattern, while the BBK8D is distinctively different strain in how it grows and what it demands during her grow. then G2 (which is of the same strain as G1/G3), I just struggled to get her into optimum condition, going into her flowering phase.
i'm juggling between 2 batches to put next into the tent, when i harvest the current batch there. first, to place a couple of the recovering patients into the tent - as they are established plants, rather than the small clones which require vegetative phase. i'm keen to get rid of these older/larger plants, by pushing them towards their harvests.
maybe instead, to keep the next batch in the tent uniform in terms of their genetics, more homogeneous. grow a mixture of G1 and G3 clones, leaving out BBK8D clones. and to grow the BBK8D mainly in my upcoming outdoor season, keeping these 2 strains in their separate grow areas. the patients, too, instead can be grown out over the upcoming outdoor season.
waiting to harvest this current batch in the g-tent, then make this decision of what to do with the next batch.
hopefully these lessons learned, means smoother & more efficient future operations, and better yields/quality in the end-product.
