kratos015
Well-Known Member
Hey guys!
Sorry I've been slacking so much on the journal. It's been a busy and stressful month for me and on top of that my phone is a total pain in the ass for taking pictures. I live out in the boonies so my internet is crap and it makes uploading photos a real chore if they aren't downsized enough. On top of that, if I try taking photos with anything less than 50% battery life the phone just dies on me and needs to be charged.
I did unfortunately run into a few snags in the last week though, mainly issues with heat that resulted in a very valuable but rough lesson on CO2. I'm currently on day 46 of 12/12, but around day 41 or so I came in and realized I was out of propane as my generator kept attempting to turn itself on to no avail. Normal process of running out of CO2 involves me simply filling my propane tank up within 24 hours of running out and keeping things running. However seeing as I was in the middle of week 6 I decided to just shut the generator off and not bother refilling the propane tank as too much CO2 will cause ethylene to build-up and too much ethylene will actually mess with the ripening of your buds.
So for the last 3-4 days or so I'm noticing mild signs of heat stress. I raise my lights thinking that was the issue and left it at that, but that never fixed any of the taco shaped leaves, yellowing and burning. I was quite stumped for those couple of days to be quite honest, I kept asking myself "What changed? I've had these exact settings in the room for the entire cycle and nothing has changed, so why am I suddenly getting heat stress? How is it that I just walk in and suddenly start seeing symptoms of heat stress?" and then I glanced over at my CO2 controller (has a thermometer feature on it as well, very cool) to check my temps again (76-77) and I saw my CO2 reading and it hit me like a ton of fucking shit covered bricks.
"That's what changed, I'm a fucking moron!" The plants stopped getting CO2 and that's why I started to suddenly have problems with heat. For one, my temps were set at CO2 temps. So my ambient room temps were 75-78 on average and my canopy temps were 82-88 on average.. but that was when I was running 1000+ ppm of CO2. When my CO2 ran out and I didn't refill it, I never changed the temps on my damn air conditioner. Pretty much, my environment was amazing for CO2 but once the CO2 was gone for 3-4 days they just couldn't handle those temps any more.
Talk about a stupid mistake to make though. I mean, I guess in my defense I've never actually used CO2 before.. but I should have thought to change my temps at the very least :/ Definitely not a mistake I will be making again that's for damn sure. I'm also back to watering every two days again now, again because of the CO2. I bring that up because it has to do with rates of photosynthesis. The definition of photosynthesis is "a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities (energy transformation). This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water – hence the name photosynthesis"
So from what I can gather (keep in mind I'm a layman so if I'm wrong call my ass out!
) the plant converts light into energy very much like a human converts calories into energy. The plant then converts carbon dioxide and water into sugars, the sugars being what stores the energy that was converted from the light.
So why did I bring this up? Well, the plant converts CO2 and water into sugar. I went from watering every single day to watering every 2 days without CO2, the definition of photosynthesis explains why I'm watering less and why I'm having issues with heat. The sugars that store the light come from CO2 and water, at 1200ppm CO2 I was watering once a day, but now at the standard 350ppm I'm watering every two days or so. Unless I'm mistaken, that means that the plant is producing less sugars. The sugars store the energy from the light, and the sugars come from CO2+water. Less CO2+water=less sugars. Less sugars=less room to store energy. Less room to store energy = less light needed.
Furthermore, CO2 is absorbed from the plants stomata which I've often heard compared to sweat pores. When temps get too high, the plant opens up more of it's stomata/pores in order to sweat and keep itself cool. If you're supplementing CO2, you actually want your temps higher than normal for this reason. The high temps will cause more of the stomata to open up in your plant's leaves, allowing for more CO2 to be absorbed. If more CO2 is being absorbed, then more water is being absorbed as well as CO2+water = sugars to store energy. I could be wrong, but I believe this is why plants with extra CO2 are able to handle the extra heat. So long as they're given extra CO2, they'll go through just as much water as well.
So, yeah I kind of fucked up on that one. Fortunately this was only an issue for a handful of days, but it's still going to have an affect on my yields for damn sure unfortunately. On top of that, 3 out of 4 of my wall fans don't oscillate anymore. I have things set up so that I'm getting airflow on as much of the plants as I can, but there are some parts on some plants that aren't getting any airflow at all. Sure enough, the parts without airflow are the most heat stressed. Fortunately my humidity doesn't get any higher than 40% so mold and such shouldn't be an issue, but I'm going to be vigilant regardless.
The timing of all of this really fucked me up too. I'm in day 46 of 12/12 and started noticing the yellowing in day 42 or so. It threw me off because that's about the time things start yellowing naturally, I had just thought that I was getting close to harvest and left it alone. The yellowing and browning started to get worse as the days went on and although I was concerned just a tad, I still didn't think to consider heat stress until I started seeing the leaves turn taco shaped. Once I saw that I sprung into action.
As of now, ambient temps are at 70-74 and my canopy temps are at 73-77. I'm pretty bummed about such a stupid mistake, but it can always be worse! The buds still feel more dense than anything I've ever grown before and things are still looking okay. My yield is very likely going to suffer, but fortunately this didn't happen during the window of harvest and I still have at least 10 days minimum until things start to get ready.
I'll do my best to get some pictures going for you all as soon as possible and again, I apologize for slacking on this journal.
As always, thanks for stopping by!
Sorry I've been slacking so much on the journal. It's been a busy and stressful month for me and on top of that my phone is a total pain in the ass for taking pictures. I live out in the boonies so my internet is crap and it makes uploading photos a real chore if they aren't downsized enough. On top of that, if I try taking photos with anything less than 50% battery life the phone just dies on me and needs to be charged.
I did unfortunately run into a few snags in the last week though, mainly issues with heat that resulted in a very valuable but rough lesson on CO2. I'm currently on day 46 of 12/12, but around day 41 or so I came in and realized I was out of propane as my generator kept attempting to turn itself on to no avail. Normal process of running out of CO2 involves me simply filling my propane tank up within 24 hours of running out and keeping things running. However seeing as I was in the middle of week 6 I decided to just shut the generator off and not bother refilling the propane tank as too much CO2 will cause ethylene to build-up and too much ethylene will actually mess with the ripening of your buds.
So for the last 3-4 days or so I'm noticing mild signs of heat stress. I raise my lights thinking that was the issue and left it at that, but that never fixed any of the taco shaped leaves, yellowing and burning. I was quite stumped for those couple of days to be quite honest, I kept asking myself "What changed? I've had these exact settings in the room for the entire cycle and nothing has changed, so why am I suddenly getting heat stress? How is it that I just walk in and suddenly start seeing symptoms of heat stress?" and then I glanced over at my CO2 controller (has a thermometer feature on it as well, very cool) to check my temps again (76-77) and I saw my CO2 reading and it hit me like a ton of fucking shit covered bricks.
"That's what changed, I'm a fucking moron!" The plants stopped getting CO2 and that's why I started to suddenly have problems with heat. For one, my temps were set at CO2 temps. So my ambient room temps were 75-78 on average and my canopy temps were 82-88 on average.. but that was when I was running 1000+ ppm of CO2. When my CO2 ran out and I didn't refill it, I never changed the temps on my damn air conditioner. Pretty much, my environment was amazing for CO2 but once the CO2 was gone for 3-4 days they just couldn't handle those temps any more.
Talk about a stupid mistake to make though. I mean, I guess in my defense I've never actually used CO2 before.. but I should have thought to change my temps at the very least :/ Definitely not a mistake I will be making again that's for damn sure. I'm also back to watering every two days again now, again because of the CO2. I bring that up because it has to do with rates of photosynthesis. The definition of photosynthesis is "a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities (energy transformation). This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water – hence the name photosynthesis"
So from what I can gather (keep in mind I'm a layman so if I'm wrong call my ass out!
) the plant converts light into energy very much like a human converts calories into energy. The plant then converts carbon dioxide and water into sugars, the sugars being what stores the energy that was converted from the light. So why did I bring this up? Well, the plant converts CO2 and water into sugar. I went from watering every single day to watering every 2 days without CO2, the definition of photosynthesis explains why I'm watering less and why I'm having issues with heat. The sugars that store the light come from CO2 and water, at 1200ppm CO2 I was watering once a day, but now at the standard 350ppm I'm watering every two days or so. Unless I'm mistaken, that means that the plant is producing less sugars. The sugars store the energy from the light, and the sugars come from CO2+water. Less CO2+water=less sugars. Less sugars=less room to store energy. Less room to store energy = less light needed.
Furthermore, CO2 is absorbed from the plants stomata which I've often heard compared to sweat pores. When temps get too high, the plant opens up more of it's stomata/pores in order to sweat and keep itself cool. If you're supplementing CO2, you actually want your temps higher than normal for this reason. The high temps will cause more of the stomata to open up in your plant's leaves, allowing for more CO2 to be absorbed. If more CO2 is being absorbed, then more water is being absorbed as well as CO2+water = sugars to store energy. I could be wrong, but I believe this is why plants with extra CO2 are able to handle the extra heat. So long as they're given extra CO2, they'll go through just as much water as well.
So, yeah I kind of fucked up on that one. Fortunately this was only an issue for a handful of days, but it's still going to have an affect on my yields for damn sure unfortunately. On top of that, 3 out of 4 of my wall fans don't oscillate anymore. I have things set up so that I'm getting airflow on as much of the plants as I can, but there are some parts on some plants that aren't getting any airflow at all. Sure enough, the parts without airflow are the most heat stressed. Fortunately my humidity doesn't get any higher than 40% so mold and such shouldn't be an issue, but I'm going to be vigilant regardless.
The timing of all of this really fucked me up too. I'm in day 46 of 12/12 and started noticing the yellowing in day 42 or so. It threw me off because that's about the time things start yellowing naturally, I had just thought that I was getting close to harvest and left it alone. The yellowing and browning started to get worse as the days went on and although I was concerned just a tad, I still didn't think to consider heat stress until I started seeing the leaves turn taco shaped. Once I saw that I sprung into action.
As of now, ambient temps are at 70-74 and my canopy temps are at 73-77. I'm pretty bummed about such a stupid mistake, but it can always be worse! The buds still feel more dense than anything I've ever grown before and things are still looking okay. My yield is very likely going to suffer, but fortunately this didn't happen during the window of harvest and I still have at least 10 days minimum until things start to get ready.
I'll do my best to get some pictures going for you all as soon as possible and again, I apologize for slacking on this journal.
As always, thanks for stopping by!
