Banana Daddy - Coco/Perlite DTW High Frequency Fertigation

Hopefully my coco grow is ok here in the hydro section. Alright, here we go. This is my 3rd grow. I took a few months off in the summer to cut down on AC costs.

I have followed the methods on CocoforCannabis since my first grow and it feels like I'm getting it pretty dialed in. My first try was chaotic, but I had some kind of rookie magic goin on and I managed to pull a pound of top shelf smoke from 3 plants in a 4x4 tent. Second grow was a sophomore slump. Grew two, one was a total dud, and I got 10 oz off of the other, but I should have veged longer...missed out on a lot of potential for more, with a ton of vertical space left in the tent.

In order to hone my skills, I decided to only grow one this time and plan to veg it to monster proportions, lol. Banana Daddy by Ethos is the strain, growing in 70/30 coco/perlite, drain to waste, practicing high frequency auto fertigation in a 4x4 tent. Samsung LED panels of various manufacturers for lighting.

I'm taking a chance with TPS Nutrients this time, switching it up from General Hydro due to cost and ease of ordering. Some of my additives I'd gotten used to using were difficult to find in quarts at a reasonable price. So far, the TPS products seem legit. They mix up cleaner and clearer than anything I've tried so far. My tank looks like pure water. They measure real strange on an EC meter though (super low) and I was told by their support team that this is due to their nutrients being made of mostly organic acids instead of salts. Their CalMag OAC almost doesn't pick up on a meter, which just feels wrong, but I'm gonna have to trust it's the real deal.

I can't deny the fact that this is one of the happiest looking seedlings I've ever had, which bodes well for the remainder of the grow with these nutes.

I'm just about 3 weeks since the seed broke the surface. Looks right on schedule to me. Will probably top her in a day or two and start working on a mainline.

Thanks for reading!

 

I'm actually pretty sure it was pics of your setup that made me decide to go with those two products. I was using homemade drip rings before and fabric pots on the first grow. Not sure how much those airpots actually impact the grow, but I do like the way they look and it's nice that they stand up straight.

 

I continue to be impressed with the TPS nutrients. Ease of use is a 10/10. I use RO water and usually get pretty wild ph swings and have to either buffer with tap or just watch it like a hawk. I did my first full tank fill up a few days ago. Starting mix was around 5.1. The next morning it was a 6.3, which is a normal swing for me. I used ph down to 5.5 two days ago and it hasn't risen over 5.8 yet. I can now mix and forget about it for days. A+

 

I have run into some minor issues, but I think I've got it sorted out. I had what looked like possible calmag deficiency but steps to mitigate the issue did nothing. I'm now pretty sure I'm giving too much feed with each event and my roots are drowning a bit, which has never happened to me in coco, but this is my first time with the Hydro Halos. I'm used to drip emitters, which had events timed in minutes, not seconds. The more I looked at the leaves, the more it looked like over-watering to me. And I really do get a TON of runoff, so it adds up.

I purchased a new timer which goes down to seconds, so I can time it to stop as soon as I see runoff or shortly after.

 

That's what I thought too. I get runoff at 40 seconds and had been doing 2 minutes, so I'm just wasting nutrients anyway. Worst it can do by reducing it is nothing, lol. Everything else is rock solid. Tent temps are 80F max and around 45% humidity. Keeping ph on a gentle swing between 5.5-6.3. My EC is lower than I'm used to with these nutrients (900 right now) so I've slowly been pushing upwards beyond what the chart calls for, watching closely for burnt tips. Runoff is good.

She doesn't look too bad, but she really stalled on me...should be way bigger at this point after a very vigorous seedling stage. I think some of it is probably me still feeling out these nutrients, but she doesn't really look hungry just wrinkly and a little twisted.

 

So I did make some changes and it sure seems like I'm on the right path. I have monitored closely and gotten my feeding events timed correctly. I also put a couple fans pointing at the pot to get some good airflow around the roots. I kept with my upped CalMag ratio in my feed and still pushing that EC up slowly. Adding to all that, I've been increasing light intensity every couple days, currently at 28k lux.

I have no clue what's doing the trick, but she has improved a lot. I know yall said she was fine anyway, but I like to get on top of issues fast and my eyes told me something was wrong.

That limp, wrinkly look to the leaves is quickly going away and growth speed seems back to normal. These pics were taken about 12 hours apart.

 

Well, I thought I had this all figured out, but I'm still getting some pretty wonky looking growth. Leaves look...schizophrenic? Like they got a perm?

What's weird though is that she's returned to her earlier vigor as far as growth rate goes. She also looks much more upright than a few days ago. Great color. I'm starting to think this might really be genetic...just seems weird because it was growing completely normal earlier on.

To cover my bases, I just added silica to my tank for the first time on this last feeding. Never used it in any of my other grows, so we'll see how that goes. I also started using Hydroguard again, which was a mainstay before I switched to TPS (which supposedly already has lots of beneficial microbes). Not sure how old it is at this point. I've had it for six months or so and who knows how long the Amazon vendor had it before me.

Anyway, I seem back on track time wise and I guess I'm just gonna stop worrying and carry on.

 

Oh yeah, she's already hittin the weight room, lol. I'm only doing the one plant this time, so no scrog, but I do use netting to help train branches. Gives lots of places to tie down to.

 

For sure. I got 10 premo ounces off a waste high plant last grow, doing a mainline. I plan to veg longer this time cause I had like 3+ feet of wasted space in the tent.

 

And I actually lost one whole branch in an unfortunate incident (one of the primary 8 you start with). Still got 10 oz and it was so short! Haha




The one on the right had issues from day one. Not sure WTF its problem was, but it got me about an O of stemmy, stinky shit that was my personal stash for a minute, haha.

 

Silica works like magic...wow! Growth from the days before it can't be made un-ugly again, but she is looking fantastic to me now. Some of the leaves almost look chewed on, but I did some pretty extensive scoping of the leaves and found nothing as far as pests go. I'm optimistic the new tops will begin looking normal again.

Mainline structure is now complete. Final topping happened today. 5 weeks, 4 days since seed broke soil.

 

Things are going pretty good. 6 weeks 6 days since seed broke the surface. It doesn't look like a ton because I'm training it to grow horizontally, which means frequent defoliation to clear up log jams and zero upward growth yet. I'm trying to fill a 4x4 with one plant, so I plan to keep 3 additional stems on each of the 8 main branches. One on each early on (shown circled) and two more at an undetermined node (will know it when I get there). I will probably allow to grow upward soon and do one super crop at my 2 extra stem locations on each main branch in hopes of evening everything out. Netting to be employed soon. Still getting some screwy looking growth here and there, but nothing crazy.



I've been doing strategic defoliation, sometimes taking one leaf from each section to keep a few mature leaves on each side, then doing the rest a few days later to avoid shock.



Older stems look great.



Still a ton of space left to fill. Might go to 10+ weeks before the flip on this experiment. We shall see.

 

She's lookin awesome. Turns out my ph pen needed to be recalibrated. My mix was running low ph the whole time. I think I probably lost a week because of it, but damn, she exploded the last 24 hours. Tree trunks for stems.