[repuk]

Girls look healthy and started gaining height, so flipped to 12/12 on Dec 3d -> 4th.

Have run Mandala in the past and most of their plants have incredible hybrid vigour, so don't want to have height problems.



Some plants, specially one Kalichakra is showing purple on new leaves growth (leaves are equally green when grown), guess is sort of cold temps shock?

Temps have gone down, and tent hovered from 9-17 degrees, so sourcing a tube heater to compensate as cold will only increase from now on.

Will repot confirmed girls to bigger 3.2L pots. Setting up the blumat next, feeding them twice fails short for the grow pace now.

[repuk]

Heater tube came in and so it went inside of the tent... Temperature ranges at "day" didn't change. Let's see if it raises from those 9C after 24h (night temps).

Thinking two approaches to raise temps inside the tent:

a) control tube heater/extraction using a temp controller
b) if it doesn't cut it (not enough air exchange) thinking on simply uncooling the hood and controlling only heater tube activation depending on temps.

Will possibly go with b) as I want to hit the girls with as much light and heat possible, sativas need some stimulation to resinate

Plants are thriving meaty pretty lime-lush green leaves I recall from Mandala, makes you want to take a bite!

[repuk]

Males got culled, and girls (Kalichakra #3, Krystallica #1,#2,#3, and Beyond the Brain #1 and #2) got repotted to 3.2L square pots.

All but Kalichakra (which surprisingly is the tallest of them all, but have a less crammed root system) built good and healthy root-balls:



Sorry for the picture, but there's no room at the shed to properly frame them all, pic was taken this morning (they were thirsty, transplant shock was unexistant, "Transplant thriving" would be a better term) they grow almost an inch per day.

Day 10 at flower:



Tip for taking photographs with "real" colors under HPS: also use a flash, then set color temperature to 2200K later on your photo editing software. The two latest tent photos were taken this way. You may need to steer color balance from green to magenta a tiny touch afterwards. Colors are 100% spot on.

Both Beyond the Brain (tent bottom center BB#2, BB#1 at leftmost top) girls are amongst the biggest, more vigorous and tallest ones, apart from Kalichakra (center) which is the tallest of the bunch. Hope to come across the monster BB pheno! They're about 50cm/20" tall.

Krystallica #1 and #3 are the stockiest and their leaves have the darkest green (front left and right).

Fed 60/40 rain/tap, EC to 1.2-1.4, PH 5.8.

Just fed them with PH'ed Rhizotonic + B52 at EC0.7.

I still see the occasional white fly around, but girls seem inmune to them, the neem feeds I gave them may have something to do.

[repuk]

Phew... BB #2 had stretched three inches+ in 24 hours becoming the tallest, so supercropped the next to last internode, leaving the tip (ouuuuch) bent 90 degrees.

Kalichakra has also stretched a lot, though not as impressive. Has a woodier (and purple stripped, dank-smelling) stem, supercropped it on two next to last internodes but it kept straight.

Have like 30cm/12" room free till the light hood.

Krystallicas didn't stretch too much (they're half tall), they're stouter and darker green.

Took micro-cuts from lowest branches of everyone but the Ice cool, which looks like it were on its 4th or 5th flowering week. I know, two weeks into flower... I'm confident these Mandala's have more than enough vigour to reveg and root... we'll see.

Noticed BB #2 natural grow pattern (previous to supercropping) is typical chandelier-like, throwing lots of growth on lowest shoots to "level-up" with the top.

Today was impossible to frame a photo inside (would cut the tips), will look for a wider angle lens or camera.

Next : setting up blumats.

[mushroombrew]

Hey popped in to say hello.

What are you measuring pH with?

[repuk]

Hello mushroombrew, thanks for dropping by!

I'm using a Adwa AD14 digital PH-Meter.

[repuk]

Just fed the girls, collecting the runoff and measuring it afterwards: EC1.1 and PH 6.1, so everything looks fine and dandy.

BB #2 tip didn't manage to straighten up, and now the plant tip has an U shape. Side shoots reaching for the top are really noticeable. It seems to have slowed down the stretch thankfully...

The girls seem to be eating and growing a lot, all of them have water roots already showing from the pots bottom.

Need to install blumats ASAP... using small pots with coco helps managing tent humidity, but need the blumats for pots to be kept at optimal moisture so that pot size doesn't impact plant development.

[repuk]

I took a 10-22 lens and after some processing (I'm afraid I went too far w/ sharpening) here's the promised pics.

This is day 14 in flower.

I'm willing to hear all input, and/or opinions recognizing pheno's for those who know.

A picture with similar camera angle to have a reference in growth:



From top to bottom, left to right of the picture: Bottom row: Kalichakra, BB #2, Ice Cool; mid row: Krystallica #2, BB #1; front row: Krystallica #1, Krystallica #3


Angle corrected to frame the tallest:


Ice cool is on its corner doing its thing.. Krystallicas are almost clones from each other, but one (#3) for the odd deformation and its darker green tone (righmost front corner).

Liking the growth pattern on both the Kalichakra and BB #2.

Kalichakra (leftmost bottom corner) and Beyond the Brain #2 (at its side)



The difference in height wasn't that dramatic prior to the somehow extreme supercropping, BB #2 was the tallest.

Leftmost nearer corner: Krystallyca #1.

[repuk]

Kalichakra

I like its good vertical vs horizontal distribution, well proportioned Pyramid shape growth, on the "pointy" side.

Lower shoots look for, and naturaly position itselves at shadow-free spots, saving volume while allowing for optimal aireation; optimal for indoors!.

Horizontal shot:


Cenital (angled slightly in order to "see through" the stems) shot:



(Funny effect the mix of HPS lightning vs pure fill-in flash on leaves color, the most natural)

Beyond the Brain #2

Horizontal shot


Notice the "U" shaped top that became secondary, her original height was over the Kalichakra but went a little brutal while supercropping.

What I like is how side shoots stretch to reach for the top, on a chandelier-like shape; this happened before supercropping, and hope to enhance it even more with SC.

Good node/leaf/internode distance proportions... if each side shoot becomes a "main cola" of sorts as pictures of the monster pheno depicted on Mandala BB page show, I'd found a keeper definitely... nice distribution to keep things airy-spaced-out for better and homogeneous airflow and light penetration indoors.

Cenital shot:


BB #1 Is basically a stouter BB #2 version, with maybe less than optimal leaf/internode distribution showing less vigor (so far, I keep in mind the "surprise" factor they describe on the strain page).

Colors are basically how you'd see them while inside the tent. Flash helps normalizing things but sometimes adds a darker green color than in reality; girls green (but the Ice Cool) is the same healthy, lime-like lush green I recall when first growing Mandala`s back in 2008/9.

This is day 14 of flower.

I'm following the same principle I followed when first growing in coir and manually feeding: ensure I fed at least 1/3d of the volume through the pot, i.e. I make sure I fed 1L to each 3.2L pot regardless of the runoff, my reasoning being we're not watering, but feeding them. So far working really fine as in the past. I ocassionally pour a little epsom salts when feeding 70/30 rain/tap water (every 3 to four feedings). Keep EC on 1.3, 1.5 Max once in the past when using only tap as the girls seemed to demand it.

Photos were taken prior to lights out; it may appear they have "claw leaves" but it's just need for water; at lights on leaves appear "ironed out".

I am sure having the blumats early on would speed up growth even more... but being the first time I grow in this space, and even knowing Kalichakra having been refined, I seriously still respect Mandala vigour, and didn't want to risk a crowded flower tent, so anything on my hand to "modulate" the stretch was/is more than welcomed. So... kind of measured negligence of sorts; will only set clones with blumat since day one of 12/12, on seedlings I prefer hand-feeding to get a better grasp on the strain.

However, 24 h between feedings won't cut it soon, need to set up blumats and reservoir. Wondering on how long do they keep stretching up? until week 4th?

Looking for the Crees and heatsinks to build the Cree COBs (1x 40W on each corner)... I have them somewhere...

[ChaosCatalunya]

Looking really nice Repuk, looking forward to seeing your blumats runnning