A question from a fellow grower:
I am new to growing and this is only my third plant in hydro. I had a weird issue earlier with this AK that sure looked like calcium and magnesium deficiencies during the 4th-5th week of veg even though I was using CalMag Plus (3ml/gal) in addition to basic grow nutrients. Then the brown spots on the leaves started turning dead and expanding and the roots started turning brown even though I was using a bacillus root culture. Since then the roots have recovered with lots of new growth and the new foliage growth seems fine.
What kind of ppm should I aim for with this strain during vegetation? It’s explosive growth in hydro makes me wonder if I have to really step up the strength of the nutrient mix. Does this sound correct?
I am attaching a few pictures to ask your opinion of its health and advice for this grow. Does your strain of AK-47 require higher than normal amounts of calcium and magnesium during veg? Also how would you recommend that I develop this plant? I started by topping it once and LST’ing down the two mains and secondaries. I topped several more secondaries as they grew out but this plant got really bushy… I have been removing a lot of large fan leaves because they were blocking the flower sites from receiving any light. Is this normal?
Also I know that this is a compact strain but I am wondering how much stretching I can expect during flowering. I just switched to 12/12 a few days ago.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Matt
P.S. If you notice that the two mains grew out pretty unevenly, that’s my fault. I let it go too long without fresh nutrients for a few weeks after topping and it started to crash. It slowly bounced back but one of the mains definitely got more attention than the other.