Main Cabinet Evolution

Some data from initial setup & after some adjustments, with the end-goal being good Leaf VPD, while keeping all of the parameters in ‘happy plant’ range.

After eight hours the box was running pretty cold. Around 77f to 78f air temps, & leaf temps were around 69f. RH was running around 56% RH as an average, moving between around 52% to 60%.
I can see running some quick numbers through the VPD calculator that my Leaf VPD is probably a little slow overall, & in my mind, the leaves are probably a little cold, & there is headroom in my air temps.

My PPFD is already set where I want it, & the light is set to minimum power (25%) running the ‘veg’ channel only, where I want it for now.
(I could bring in the UV/Far Red ‘bloom’ channel early to see what it does to leaf temps, but for now I’m not going to do that yet.)

In my mind, I don’t ever want the air temps to go above 86f, & I don’t want the leaf temps to go above 82f, & those are my max numbers that they might hit on a very hot day.

I have the least control over my RH & if ambient RH gets too high there is not much I can do about it, but right now ambient RH is low, so I can do some work.

First adjustments were to raise my A/C target temp from 71f to 74f.
Then I raised my exhaust fan setpoint around 5f higher than it was.
Then I lowered my RH setpoint from 56% to 51%.

Results after about 4 hours are air temps are up to 82f - 83f, RH 46% - 49%, leaf temps up to around 73f. Running some quick numbers though the VPD calculator & I can see that my Leaf VPD should be higher now. Right now I’m looking for a Leaf VPD of around .8 kPa thru 1.0 to see if the plant can take it yet. If not, I can adjust the air temp, leaf temp, &/ or RH to lower the Leaf VPD, & I can use the VPD calculator ahead of time to see what does what, & then go for what I think I can realistically do, keeping in mind not to use any ‘far out’ parameters that could lead to an unhappy plant.

Based on how I plan to train this plant, I decided to offset it to one side. I then relocated the sensors to stay close to the plant, & adjusted the light height since it was a little dimmer over to the right. It’s now getting a little more light than yesterday, around 300 to 325 PPFD at the top (it’s also a little dimmer on the right side of the plant now, so I’ll probably rotate it once a day until I start training it).

The plant didn’t seem like it was ready for the higher Leaf VPD even before I had decided to move it, so I had already adjusted humidity up in order to slow down the Leaf VPD a little. Now RH target is in the middle of the highest & lowest settings posted above, & seems to be running from 50% to 55% RH.
I only have a couple hours of data so far, because my Thermpro monitor hanging next to the plant fell to the floor last night. I re-attached it more securely & so far here is what I have:

‘Hot’ temps (taken as exhaust fan activates):
LST 73f , Airtemp 83f , RH 50%

‘Cool’ temps (taken after exhaust fan shuts off):
LST 69-70 , Air Temp 82f , RH 55%

I still need to take a look at how everything moves together using the thermpro traces & calculate my Leaf VPD ranges to see what it is doing overall, & I’ll go from there with any changes.

Once the plant starts to take off, I can take a look at trying to push the air temps & leaf temps some more, provided I have low enough RH to work with in order to maintain good Leaf VPD numbers.

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Quick update, & I’ll go over how I ran my data for Leaf VPD.

Growth is happening, roots are growing downwards & the plant is growing upwards, so I raised the light to maintain PPFD. It’s still getting a little more at the top than it was the other day when I set it, probably around 400 PPFD at the very top now, but is probably still a little under-lit overall according to the DLI chart. It’s still getting used to the new environment, so I don’t mind right now. It’s also unevenly lit, but I’ll just rotate the plant 180deg once a day.

The 'Week4" nute mix might be a slightly high PPM at the moment, but it shouldn’t be a major issue as the plant continues to grow. The leaves are un-clamping & flattening out for the most part, which is good. Add-back will probably be 25% strength when I add some for the first time soon. Water level has been slowly dropping, PPM has been holding around 420PPM =) , PH has been static at 6.2.

Here’s what I did to try & see what my Leaf VPD numbers are doing. After moving the light & letting the box heat up for a while, I took ‘hottest’ & ‘coldest’ leaf temp readings again with my IR temp gun, & the hottest reading was 73f taken right as the exhaust fan came on, the coldest was 70f taken after I let the box cycle again & waited until the exhaust fan had shut off. (A few times I’ve seen 69f coolest LST, I think that might happen if the A/C compressor is on while the exhaust fan is running. Otherwise, they’ll get down to 70f after the exhaust fan has run.)

Looking at my air temp & RH traces, I can see that the hottest leaf temps coincide with the hottest air temps, as well as the lowest RH.
Also, the coolest leaf temps coincide with the coolest air temps, & highest RH.

So I run three sets through the calculator. For the spread in RH for each, I’ll just plug in the whole numbers & record Leaf VPD for each:

Hottest: 73f LST, 83f air temp, 50-53% RH

Median: 71.5f LST, 82.5f air temp, 52-54% RH

Coolest: 70f LST, 82f air temp, 53-55% RH

‘Hottest’ Leaf VPD range: .73 thru .85 Leaf VPD
‘Median’ Leaf VPD range: .59 thru .66 Leaf VPD
‘Coolest’ Leaf VPD range: .53 thru .45 Leaf VPD

These are all within the ‘early veg’ target Leaf VPD range of .4 thru .8. (Save for the ‘hottest’ numbers calculated with the lowest RH, which came out to .85 Leaf VPD)

Looking at my air temp & RH traces, it looks like the box spends most of the time in ‘median’ range climbing to the hottest range, & the least time in the coolest range.

I also calculated a “Low Humidifier” Leaf VPD range, since the humidifier will have trouble getting to my target RH until I top it up again. Using the ‘hottest’ range of 73f LST, 83f air temp, & running from 45 to 47% RH, the calculator gives me a Leaf VPD range of .96 thru 1.04, which moves the hottest leaves into the ‘late veg’ target Leaf VPD range of .8 thru 1.2. They will probably be able to handle higher Leaf VPD targets soon, but for now, I topped off the humidifier.

Once the plant settles in a little more, I’ll see what I can do about trying to increase leaf temps while still trying to keep good Leaf VPD numbers.

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Between leaving the humidifier off a couple times back when she was still in the mini-cab, to leaving her out in the open air for a couple 12 hour stints while I was getting the main cab reset, to setting low RH in the main cab, to the lung room RH being pretty low again, to the ambient outside air being pretty dry again, the plant has been saying “Too dry” for the first few days in the cab, so I’ve been pushing the humidity back up over the week. Humidifier target is now at 59% RH. I also raised my A/C target another degree to 75f. This helped to keep the ambient lung-room R/H a little higher. I’ve also been topping off the humidifier so it expels the most mist it can. This causes the humidifier controller to slightly overshoot its target usually. Also I’m making sure that the plant isn’t getting blasted with too much air from the fans. I also made a sun-shade for my humidifier sensor.

A couple days ago it looked like the leaves were starting to fill up with water again so I topped it, & also pruned the lowest two nodes in prep for training.

Some training yesterday:

Female:

Recovery today :

The plant is lower, so PPFD is lower & is also a little different across the top of the plant, ranging from 250 to 350, just due to the light being so close & more of a spotlight. I’ll be raising it when I add more power & it will diffuse more evenly then.

The bucket still hasn’t been topped off at all yet. It’s been slowly dropping to 350ppm & 5.9 pH over the week, & water level is still dropping but more slowly since lowering Leaf VPD over the week, but water level is down to nearly to where I had been adding back during the last round, & for add-back I’ll probably go with undiluted 420ppm ‘Week4’ mix that it started out in, & then adjust the bucket pH back up to 6.2. For now it can hang out at 5.9, 5.8, & soak up some micro nutes for a couple days. Plant will be kept on “Week4” nute ratios for now until I flower, & I’ll increase only the strength until then.

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Quick update. I’m experimenting with adding the ‘bloom’ channel during veg, wanting to see if it will stretch to the screen more quickly, & I’ll go from there with adding or reducing the veg/bloom ratio.
Right now, both channels are set to 25%. (40w Veg, 15w Bloom).
PPFD increased from 350 to 420 around the top of the screen when I turned on the bloom channel. However, my meter does not see the IR or the far-red light. Leaf temps seemed to have gained a couple degrees from this, although it could be from me increasing the RH up again at around the same time. Leaf temps now seem to be running at around 74f to 75f at their hottest.
I also moved the bucket over to the left to even out the lighting a little bit. Pretty soon she will be due for a defoliation so I can see what I have to work with in terms of training to the screen. There should be five main tops per side.

The plant is eating & drinking, & the bucket was down to 300ppm with full-strength ‘week4’ add-backs, so I did a partial res-change by pulling out a gallon, & adding back a gallon of double-strength ‘week4’ nute ratio. This brought the bucket back to around 430ppm. I had already adjusted the bucket pH from 5.7 to 6.1 a couple days ago, so that is where I adjusted the add-back to, & that’s where the bucket ended up after adding back the gallon.

Air temp & RH traces from today: The humidifier moved from ‘overshoot’ to ‘less humid’ as it’s water-level fell, & plus ambient RH got dry today. Target is still set to 59%. After I topped it off, it went back up again, which is probably fine for now. Although at some point I’m going to attempt to start reducing RH again soon for better Leaf VPD numbers.

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Defoliated today, & I also raised the light up an inch:

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Started to train to the screen a couple days ago, a day later than I wanted to.

Most of the mains had started to grow through the screen further than I had wanted, & I ended up cracking two of the biggest mains wide open across the tops of the branches during training. But, I taped them up & they seem to be fine.
Humidity has been spiking in the cab from 50%'s (ambient lungroom RH) to 70%'s after the exhaust fan shuts off, & at first I thought it was due to other reasons, so I added the second oscillating fan & moved the humidifier into the far corner where there was room. But it’s due to the plant itself transpiring a lot of water. She drank a half gallon each of the last two days. That should slow down at least a little bit after the next defoliation, which should be soon, so I’m not going to worry too much about it.
Air temps are running between 83-84f, & leaf temps are running around 72-75f. PPMs are dropping to around 300ppm & pH dropping to 6.2 before daily add-back, & reaching 410ppm & pH of 6.4 after add-back. That’s fine, it can eat some macros, & it will probably start to swing lower daily soon & it can grab more micro nutes then. Or I’ll swing it down manually if it doesn’t do it on its own.
Measured DLI is around 30 to 35 across the top of the canopy, depending on where I measure. Actual DLI is a little bit higher since my meter isn’t reading the ePAR photons.

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I’m a week & a half since flipping to 12/12 & it was time to switch out the Kind X220 for the Photontek SQ300.

Last day of the Kind, & before final major training:

Photontek engaged, I still want to move the wall fans to the back wall & the door. Plus I did some training to get most of the screen filled:

Weather has been cooling down. Air temps have been cool, & leaf temps have been cooler. AC is off & humidity has been higher, so I’ve been running the ‘anti-humidity’ fan with no timer & just letting it run most of the time. This has been pulling the temps down overall, so I’ll probably switch back over to lights-on during the nights. I was thinking I would do that next time, but I’ll probably give this one a 24 hour dark period to roll it over soon.

Nutes right now are 2ml Si, 2 ml CalMag, GH light feed “Week 6” ratio at 2/3 strength, 2 ml SM90, 6 ml H2O2 per gallon. This comes out to around 720 ppm & 6.8 pH. The week6 ratio is the same as the week 5 ratio, iirc. Addback has been about 1/2 gallon a day, & I’ll switch between full-strength or 50% strength depending on the bucket ppm, which has been moving around 500 to 550ppm. PH has been moving between 6.2 after addback down to 5.8 24 hours later. I haven’t done a res change yet, but it might be due for a partial or full one soon.

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I’m about 3 & 1/2 weeks since flipping to 12/12, & disaster has struck in the form of some pollen sacs. I’m not prepared to put anything in its place right now so I’ll try to run it out & get some hash out of it unless it becomes a total disaster, & maybe do some experiments on it along the way.

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Only a few days left for this one before I can get it out of there & depollinate everything. Lots of seeds in there, so all of the trichs will be harvested as bubble hash. I would have killed it as soon as I saw it hermie but I didn’t have anything ready to go, & it was also beneficial for me to run the cab through this part of the season to gather environmental data & also run a couple experiments.

I chopped off nearly all the roots below the net pot a couple days after seeing the pollen sacs because the bucket was getting a little full, & also I wanted to see how the plant would take it. It didn’t seem to phase it.

Ten days later:


Probably would try this again next grow, but a week earlier, & I would leave another inch. I meant to chop when the water had dropped, & mistakenly did it after I had topped off the bucket.

Also, I’ve had a couple opportunities to see how my door-mounted plate heater & controller works with an actual plant in there, & it seems to be doing well so far, although it hasn’t run very much yet. Worried it’s going to bake a plant, but I’ll find out later this year when it gets colder for longer.

I also put the Kind X220 back in a couple weeks ago hoping that the UVA might help the trichomes & the terpenes do better than without it, although I wouldn’t be able to tell one way or the other.

Here it is today. The plant is finishing up the seeds & many of the leaves are yellowing, & I’ve been plucking & drying them for the bubble hash.





I had fourteen beans of this strain left in the fridge so I soaked them all because I’d like to try & get one female to make it through, & I also don’t want to deal with these beans anymore. After three days, eight have cracked & I chucked the rest. So something should be back in here in about three weeks.

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Hacksaw day for the ‘it’ :

Chopped:

Planning to dry it in place & then process it for bubble-hash.

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Thoroughly crispy, so this can be pruned & frozen tomorrow:

Here are additional leaves from it that I have already collected & dried:

The bags on the left are from my four-plant run earlier this year, now joined by the leaves from the newspaper in the bag on the right:

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Clipped & stripped the mainstems, & froze the bag.

I did three bubble bag runs. First using the bags of leaves shown in the freezer door. Second using the stripped seeded plant material. Third combining the material from the first & second runs. I dried the first & second runs on the same sheets, & also the grades started to mix together, so it looks a little weird. The higher grades are on the left & in the middle of the first two sheets, & on the right in the last pic.

Third run:

I reset the cab & selected a plant from the minicab. This is about a week overdue.

I tapped away the rocks & pruned away some tangled & longer roots.

pH6.0, ppm350:

PPFD around 315, DLI around 27. Actually a little more because my meter doesn’t report UV or far red photons.
Lid sensor reporting Air temps are reaching 82-83f & RH moving between 55-60%, although RH dropped a little from that after inadvertantly moving the controller sensor the wrong way, so I moved it back the other way & a little more to get higher RH at the sensor on the lid (& also to get the controller setpoint closer to the lid sensor readout), & RH is probably going to be 57-62% at the lid sensor for a few more days, & then I’ll probably lower the setpoint to move the RH down to target Leaf VPD numbers based on the leaf temps. Leaf Temps are measuring around 68-70f when I have measured them, but I haven’t caught them right after an air exchange yet, only after it has heated up for a while.
Oscillating fans are running 45 seconds on, 3 minutes 30 seconds off. The air temp exhaust fan is not tripping very often & the anti-humidity exhaust fan is not tripping at all, & I’m OK with that for now.
The air temp exhaust fan will probably start to cycle more often after I turn the light up to 75% power later on down the road. Although it will most likely be colder out by then & putting more downward pressure on the box temperature-wise, so we will see.

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The plant could have used more RH & maybe a little less PPM at transplant, but I kept marching the RH up into ‘Infirmary Mode’ & it is starting to come around, greening up & growing roots. Some of the leaves got a little flat, but hopefully they will continue to plump back up. RH is moving between 64% & 70%, air temps between 80f & 84f. Air temps are a little weird right now because it’s getting cold enough at night to start dropping the box temp, but then it got warm enough today for the air temp exhaust fan to kick on. The temp dip in the middle of the chart is me opening the door for a few seconds. Leaf temps got a little warmer today, up to 74f when I checked this evening. My Leaf VPD should be running near the low end (High RH - Infirmary Mode), like .000 or maybe in the negative, up thru maybe .3 sometimes . I haven’t sat down & run the numbers, right now mainly just trying to run up the RH to keep the Leaf VPD down for a few days, without creating condensation in the box. There was a little at the bottom of the door today, so I lowered the RH target on the controller by 1% to 67%.

Light is still at the same height & intensity as before, PPM is running at around 370, pH has been hanging around 6.0 - 6.1, & I knocked it down to 5.9 today.

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Tomorrow & the plant will be entering into Week 5 of veg. I’ll continue to run “Week 4” nute ratios through at least the first week of flowering & maybe through the second as well, & I’ll adjust PPM as needed. Running at 330 PPM now. PH is 5.8 - 5.9. The roots are growing & the plant is drinking more, & I’ve been reducing my RH target down 1% each day to start bringing up the Leaf VPD.

Plant rotated 180deg:

I lowered the light by one link & put a Thermpro below screen level near the top of the plant, & also re-adjusted the exhaust fan temp sensor to be near the top. I also pruned the three-finger leaves & below.

PPFD is a little uneven measured at different spots around the top (which is why for now I’ll spin the plant 180deg once a day), but at the max measurement of 425 PPFD measuring around the top, it will give me a max DLI of around 37 there (not e-par measurement).

Ambient temps overall have been dropping a little every day. Here’s today’s readout, & a weekly readout. The jumps up in temp are usually from the house heat going on. Leaf temps have been running around 10f lower than air temps, whenever I have checked them.

The choppy RH between Monday & Tuesday was from the warmer day when the exhaust fan was cycling every few minutes.

Still watching for female pre-flowers (“fem” seeds, but I still look to confirm as soon as possible), & still deciding if I’ll top it & bend it over & train it like I’ve done the last couple grows above, or if I’ll just let it grow into the screen & then train it across like I’ve done in the past. I might just go with the latter to try & stress the plant a little less, since the last one hermed on me for some reason.

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Training will be bending for a day & releasing for a day until the main top can start to be tucked under the screen. This should jump-start the sides a little bit as the main grows up. If I top it, it won’t be until later.

Today it was warm enough to where the box was exhausting regularly, & I’m still reducing Target RH by 1% a day.
Leaf VPD was probably running around .25 to .40 for the day, maybe a little higher right after an air-exchange.
This Thermpro read-out is from the sensor hanging from the screen.

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Female:

Unhooked the top last night & let it move back up:

Hooked the top down again tonight & then brought up the side-shoots. A small split developed across the back of the bend, but it should heal over & be fine. My fault as I should have extended the length of the ‘hook’ wire before re-hooking the top. Soon I should be able to leave it unhooked for good & I’ll start training the top across the bottom of the screen. :

Ambient temps dropped again & the box lost some air temp along the way. RH in the box also crept up a little throughout the day, although RH target is still being reduced 1% daily. The target is sitting at 60% now. Leaf temps are still running around 10f lower than air temps. Leaf VPD should be running around .2 to .4 for the day, although I would have to run some numbers through the calculator to double-check.

I removed one gallon of solution (270 PPM, 5.7 - 5.8 pH), & replaced it with a fresh gallon.
Bucket is running at around 330 PPM, & around 6.1 - 6.2 pH.

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The plant is transpiring enough to raise RH naturally on its own,
so I unhooked the humidifier & set the “humidify” setpoint to 55%, & the “dehumidify” offset down from 15f to 8f away from the humidify setpoint, effectively switching the exhaust strategy from “Air temp priority” to “RH priority” in an effort to get the RH to spend more time in the 55-60% range rather than the 60-65% range. Unfortunately at the expense of air & leaf temps, since the dehumidify exhaust fan triggers sooner & more often than the air temp exhaust fan does. Leaf VPD should increase, but I’m not sure if the leaves will be warm enough to benefit as much as they could if they were warmer. Worst-case if I want closer control & less “inverse of what I want” in terms of Leaf VPD & leaf temps as the box regulates, then I can probably do a dehumidifier in the box. I’ll see how the box tracks after a few days, & if the plant can handle it. It’s also due for a full res change & nute PPM increase tomorrow, so it’s probably going to look electrified for a while. Plus it’s going to get a lot colder out soon, so I’ll see how it continues to do through that. I’ve grown in this space through winters before with my HIDs, & it would take about half my usual yield compared to warmer times. But I didn’t have a heater or the insulation, nor did I track much of any data then, & I think that will be a big help. Come to think of it, the only thing I did have was my temp gun & all I did was try to keep the leaves under 84f. I checked air temps in the empty box coming out of last winter & it got down to like 39f in there at the end of last winter.

Doing some scrog training:

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Starting Week 7 of veg.

Ambient temps kept getting colder last week & driving down the temps in the box, so I turned up the light from 50% to 75% power on both channels, adjusted height to maintain DLI, & the air temps have been able to get up to around 80f. Hottest Leaf temps are still running around 10f lower than air temps.

The last couple days have been a bit warmer, & the box got up to 84f & the air temp exhaust fan kicked on a few times (where the RH spikes down to 45% in the daily chart). Otherwise, the anti-humidity fan has been keeping things in check.

Still dialing the RH controller in, but I’ve been able to control it pretty well. The anti-RH fan will pull down RH fast enough to barely affect the air temp, & provided the ambient conditions inside & outside of the box aren’t too cold, air temps have been rising to at least around 78f even as the antiRH fan does its job. Also, I’ve been defoliating, which helps slow down the RH. Tomorrow & for the next few days the ambient temps should be back to colder again, so we will see how the box stabilizes. If I have trouble with low temps again, I can still turn the light up to 100% & re-adjust the height to maintain DLI (now at around 48 in the center to 38 around the sides, & a little less in the far corners of the screen).

Upgraded my light trap/ air filter by stretching it & adding a third light baffle. This will add some restriction to the airflow through the cab, but I tried to oversize the new spaces to minimize any new restrictions, & so far, ‘fan-on’ times when venting seem to be about the same as before. Hard to tell from that because I’ve also been adjusting the RH controller & haven’t seen the air temp fan run that much lately. I meant to test the exhaust flow with a homemade swing gauge before & after modding the trap, but forgot.


Pruned a few shoots from under the screen, & have been defoliating a lot over the past few days. The plant has been eating & drinking a lot. Now it is drinking about 24+ FlOz of water a day. I’ve been adding double-strength addback & a couple times took out a 1/2 gallon or 3/4 gallon of res water to replace with 2x strength, in order to maintain a max PPM of 450 over the past week or ten days. Still running ‘Week4’ nute ratios. It got a full res change about a week ago. pH has been good so far, & running around 6.1 - 6.3 for the past few days, & if it’s 6.5 or 5.7 by the next day, no problems, it should see that anyway. Usually it will move a little one way or the other depending on what it eats. Once it starts moving a lot per day against pH adjustment, I know it’s time for a res change.

The plant is a little off-center in the screen, but not a major problem. Would be better if it were a couple inches to the left. Still training & should probably start thinking about flipping to flower soon. I generally like 8 weeks of veg before flipping, but I might flip a little sooner for this one.

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Went to 12/12 a couple days ago.

The screen isn’t totally filled & I probably won’t train out to the open corners, in order to try & keep things more even across the top. This is mostly due to the plant not having been topped, & also set a little too far to the right. Next time I’ll probably go back to the single LST clip & topping once & training out six or eight legs like I did before.

The plant had been getting over a couple bumps in the road last week due to me tinkering with things, followed up by very cold & dry ambient environmental conditions. I did a root pruning almost two weeks ago, which would have worked out more smoothly if I had run up the humidity & dropped the PPM. Instead, I had removed the humidifier & raised the PPM. Plus the cab was running in ‘air temp priority mode’, resulting in higher air temps & then spikes of very low RH when the air temp fan would dump. The plant clamped a little & slowed down after a day or two. A couple days later & I put the humidifier back in, & the cab’s been running in ‘humidity priority mode’. Shortly after, I did a defoliation. It’s due for another one again, & I can start pruning off some lower stuff.

Here are the roots right after pruning.


It stalled out for a few days but I think I can improve that, & it has been accellerating for the past week. Here are the roots now.

I was able to work on stabilizing the box towards mostly decent conditions through the cold-ass weather last week. I brought the heater on line, & it’s too early to tell if it won’t cause any issues, but tentatively I’m OK with it so far. It does have a lingering odor from the factory of sweet diarrhea, so hopefully that will go away or at least not get into the plant.

Thermpro chart with some lights-on, lights-off, lights-on data from yesterday. The heater was bumping the temps up when needed, & the humidity exhaust fan was controlling air exchanges. If the air gets hot enough, the air temp exhaust fan will engage. The sensors seem to run a little differently depending if lights are on or off. I have everything shaded, but they still pick up some heat-soak.
Next week will be warmer, so the cab will probably end up running in “air-temp priority mode” during lights-on, & “humidity priority mode” during lights off. Then when it gets colder, it will probably mostly run in “humidity priority mode”.

:sparkler: Happy New Year :fireworks:

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