First Hydro Grow

[sneakers]

Originally Posted by TimeHigh

Plants themselves seem to be pretty healthy. GL

It's just 1 plant. I have another one just like it about 1 week behind this one in another bucket. Hopefully at least 1 of the 2 will be a female that I can use for clones.

[sneakers]

Day 23

Now starts the 4th week of vegging. According to what I have read, this should be the final week of veg but chances are it wont be put into flowering next week. I took a cutting a couple of days ago and waiting for it to root. I want to put this clone into flower first and see what sex it is. Hopefully another 2 weeks and I will know. This will give a little time for the plant to grow some more. I have also read that the plant will about double in size during flowering. Even if it doubles, it still wont be real big.

The plant has been LSTed and it appears to be doing what it is supposed to. It was so thick and so many fan leaves in the way. This morning it got a trim. I trimmed several fan leaves to get light down into many tops coming up.

I think that I increased nute strength way too slow. Right now it is only at about 500 PPM. If memory is correct, max should be about 900. If this plant is getting close to the end of the veg cycle then nutes should be closer to the max to give it some time at maximum vegetation before flowering begins.

So far the clone (my first) is holding its own. It hasn't wilted or yellowed. I have turned the pot so the light hits from a different angle and it appears the top may be moving a little to track the light.

The broken stem has completely healed now. The stem has a knot or a bulge in it where the break was at. The stem is at least 1/2" thick at the base.

I may have spoken too quick. I just went to take pics and the clone is yellowing (and browning) and some leaves look kinda droopy. Maybe this is normal. I think it takes 3-5 days for roots to start to appear and about a week for them to grow enough to transplant. It has been 2 days.

Here are updated pics.

all of the new tops seem to already be responding to the heavy trim given this morning. None of these were hardly showing before trimming. There are several more now able to get light and grow better.



It was hard to see any of this underneath before. This pic is deceiving. It doesn't show the full depth and the LST keeping it short makes it appear like a much smaller plant.


This was taken from an angle that shows how the LST has altered its vertical stem growth. There appears to be many more potential tops underneath everything.


And here is the clone. The fan leaves all seem to be in the exact same position as they were when first put into this container. They just dont look as healthy as they did. The top leaves appear to have opened some.


I guess it is coming along ok.

[sneakers]

Day 25

The number of tops beneath the canopy are unbelievable. I have cut off many fan leaves that were keeping light from reaching underneath. Today I trimmed off 1 big leaf and there were 4 tops underneath. In a matter of hours there is noticable growth to those small tops. After trimming it sometimes appears there is a big hole or vacant spot in the plant and by overnight, it is gone.

I made some hash out of some of the fan leaves I cut off and it was surprisingly good. I did also roll a joint from some of those fan leaves and it wasn't good at all. It tasted ok but so do cigarettes.

A few days ago I started to barely notice a smell. Now that smell is starting to get kinda strong. It is a good MJ smell. No skunk or pine smell to it.

As the tops start growing, I am LSTing them too. There is a lot of secondary growth coming from the tops now. The clone looks about the same, no roots showing on the outside of the pellet. It has been about 3 days now. Hopefully it can be planted in the next couple of days.

How long should I wait after planting to put it into 12/12 light to sex it?

How long will it take to show the sex after putting into 12/12?

Nutes are at about 600 PPM now. Plant seems to be liking the stronger nutes. I will keep increasing strength each time I add water. Next time I will increase strength a little faster.

All in all I feel like it is going pretty good, especially considering it is my first grow. I have learned a lot and I know my next grow will be even better.

Updated pics.

This is the view from the top. I just trimmed a bunch of leaves off this morning.


This shows one of the tops LST. The branch going to the left is secondary growth. The actual top of the plant is growing to the right.


One more view from a different angle.


Hopefully I will be able to sex the clone in the next couple of weeks. That will be enough time for this plant to grow quite a bit more before going into flower however if the sex turns out to be female, I might just take a few more cuttings from this plant.

[sneakers]

Day 30

I changed the reservoir 2 days ago. Nute strength is now over 900 PPM. The cutting has taken roots and I have another (bigger) cutting rooting right now. In about a week I will put the first cutting into 12/12 2700 K light to see what sex it is. If this plant turns out to be female I think I might take several cuttings from her to flower using a SOG method of growing.

I had a problem at first when planting the clone in the hydroton. The first time it wilted so I put it back into the covered container and it perked back up. Yesterday I planted it in the hydroton again and again it wilted. I placed a glass container upside down over the plant and that seemed to revive it. This morning I removed the glass container and the plant didn't wilt. This is a very small cutting. I may need to let it grow for a week or 2 before putting into flower.

Here are some updated pictures





It is really starting to grow. According to what I have read, tomorrow it should be put into flower. At the rate it is growing now, by the time the clone is sexed this plant will be plenty big to put into flowering if that is what I decide to do rather than taking clones from it.

I have continued the LST. The stem never reached more than an inch or 2 from the top of the bucket and circles around about 1/2 of the bucket so far. Most of the tops are now even with the top of the canopy so they are getting light. Trimming fan leaves helped by allowing light to reach the lower areas.

I now have 4 cfls on this plant. Each one is a 100 watt equivalent (1600 lumens) of 6500 k light. That is a total of 6400 lumens and 400 watt equivalent.

Maybe I will trim it today and make a little hash.

[sneakers]

Day 36 (2 days into flowering)

I placed the plant into 12/12 a couple of days ago. I think I am seeing what appears to be some hairs forming on a couple of the nodes. There have been 2 hairs on each side of the stem at each node for a long time and I don't think those are female flowers. What I am seeing now might look a little different. I am making a run to Walmart today to get some more 2700 K CFLs and will look for a magnifying glass also.

I have kept up the LST on this plant pretty good. Everytime it grew a couple of inches or so I would tie the top down. While it never did get very tall, it is amazing at the number of tops now. It looks like they are all racing to see who will be the tallest and be the main cola. It almost appears as a canopy of only tops.

I have been trimming quite a few fan leaves from the plant. It wasn't until I started trimming off these leaves to enable light to reach the lower growth that the canopy of tops started to form. As these leaves get big, they too have to be trimmed. It seems that there is always another layer of top growth under the existing canopy. I have tried to leave several of the largest lower fan leaves for the plant to use for photosynthesis. I'm not sure just how many should be left for optimum value but it seems to be working good how it is.

I now have the nutes at about 900 PPM. It seems to love it. There is 1 leaf that appears to have some burn on the tips of the leaf. I'm not real sure what caused this but everything seems to be ok now.

Although the smell gets quite strong at times, the odor only seems to come in stages. It will smell strong for awhile then it seems to go away. It reminds me of a bush my grandmother used to have that would put off a smell like bananas just a couple of times a day.

Here are some new pics.







Are there any particular precautions I should take as it adjusts to the flowering cycle?

[brokencage]

Looks great bro.+ Rep for healthy Goodness.

[sneakers]

Originally Posted by brokencage

Looks great bro.+ Rep for healthy Goodness.

thanks

[sneakers]

Here is a picture of the lighting I am using for this plant. One group of these 4 X 27 watt (100 watt equivalent) CFLs seems to work real good on a single plant that has LST. WHen I enlarge my grow next time around, 2 of these sets of lights would service 3 plants instead of just 2 by placing a plant between the 2 full sections. This would seem to work well with SOG also.



This picture was taken with my cheap camera instead of my expensice one and the pics actually look better. That small amount of leaf burn sure shows up better. I still have no idea what caused it but it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.

This is also the first pic after switching out all of my lights from 6500 K to 2700 K for flowering. That could make the picture look different also.

[sneakers]

INto the 6th day of flowering and still no sign of sex. I'm sure I don't know exactly what I am looking for but I have looked at pics and think I know. The main thing for now is I haven't seen a ball on a stick.

There have always been 2 little green points under each leaf stem where it joins to the node and beside where sideshoots come from. What are these called?

From what I am thinking, any pistils or pollen sacks will form around the base of those or close to it. Is that correct?

I did see something that looks like a white ball with a point on it coming out of a stem. It kinda looks like a pimple. I was wondering if maybe that is a male flower. It didn't seem close to a stem or node or anything and was on the fatter lower part of the main stem.

Hopefully in a couple of days I will know for sure.

How long does it take for a male flowwer to release it's pollen?

I do have a backup plant too and if this one turns out to be male, I dont want it to pollinate the other if it happens to be female.

I am using a magnifying glass and still can't tell for sure what that is.

I feel I am at the end of not knowing the sex, I hope so anyway.

[Rabiez]

Hi Sneakers!

Good job.

Originally Posted by sneakers

INto the 6th day of flowering and still no sign of sex.

Early days. Don't worry.

There have always been 2 little green points under each leaf stem where it joins to the node and beside where sideshoots come from. What are these called?

Stipules.

From what I am thinking, any pistils or pollen sacks will form around the base of those or close to it. Is that correct?

Eeeerrrm. Kinda, but no. You're vaguely in the right sort of area though.

Preflowers will show at the base of new branches (where they meet the stem).

I did see something that looks like a white ball with a point on it coming out of a stem. It kinda looks like a pimple. I was wondering if maybe that is a male flower. It didn't seem close to a stem or node or anything and was on the fatter lower part of the main stem.

That's just the trunk barking up. No worries.

Hopefully in a couple of days I will know for sure.

Fingers crossed eh?

How long does it take for a male flowwer to release it's pollen?

Weeks from first preflowers. Don't panic.

Lovely job on the LST by the way.

[linedrivr]

Nice grow sneakers. It looks real healthy!

Hopefully you'll be saying 'it's a girl'.....

[sneakers]

Thanks Rabiez and linedrvr.

I too hope I will soon be saying it's a girl, better yet will be to say THEY are girls.

This other plant is about a week behind this first one, same seed but a late sprout. I mentioned this in another thread but might as well mention it here too.

I have heard people say all kinds of things about determining male and female plants and characteristics of each. One characteristic I have heard mentioned is that male flowers appear sooner than females so the females can be polinated right away. I have noticed there are usually some seeds that sprout real fast and others (from the same stuff) seem to take 3-5 days or so longer. I have wondered if perhaps either males or females sprout faster than the other sex. When I germinated these seeds, the plant I have used in this journal was the best looking sprout of the bunch, sprouted fastest, biggest etc. so it was selected. The other was one of the few that sprouted a few days later. When I decided to try this grow I realized I needed at least 2 plants in case one was a male so I used the late sprout as my backup and can also test this theory about late sprouts.

I also took a cutting from the plant used for this journal, mainly for practice. Surprisingly the cutting looks fine and is growing. Just a couple of days after the roots had appeared on the outside of the jiffy pellet and I planted it into the hydroton, it went into the flower lighting with the other 2. This will be my test or practice to see how well the SOG method works when placing a barely rooted cutting into flower and basically focus all attention on the 1 cola.

So, I may have either 0, 1, 2 or 3 females. Regardless of the outcome, I have gained a lot of experience from this grow. I'm watching the mail each day for my hashberry seeds to arrive.

[sneakers]

I decided to try posting a picture of the top of my plant without reducing it's size.



This shows up a lot more stuff. After looking at this pic I found a couple of more leaves that needed to be trimmed to open a place for another top. I found out that the burn on the leaf tips is from getting too close to the CFLs. I am finished with the LST and now just letting it grow and hoping it's a girl.

[sneakers]

Here is the update pics reduced for comparison to earlier pictures.






It is about 4 or 5 inches taller than the last pics. It appears to have a nice even canopy where all of the tops can share the light equally and for now, no side lighting is needed. I have more CFLs and clamplights to use if needed.

When a leaf is trimmed to expose a smaller top underneath, it is surprising how fast the newer, smaller one grows and catches up with the others.

Here is my other plant.. The very front had 2 extremely tall shoots that were tied down yesterday for 2 reasons. To help keep the light even across the entire canopy and to open up a place for 3 new shoots that were just starting. They are over 2 times as big today and I see 2 others starting. When I first tied down those 2 taller tops, it looked like a big hole in the canopy. It usually only takes a couple of days before the hole is filled back in.



This one isn't nearly as bushy as the other. I have a feeling this one is a female and the other one is a male. We will soon see.

Here is my one and only clone. My first try.



Not too bad for the first try.

On the very left is the end of a balloon. I use it on my CO2 generator. Holes are punched in the very end with a straight pin so the CO2 can leak out. The balloon still stands straight up while doing this and when it stops generating CO2, the balloon falls over. I need to add sugar.

Hopefully out of all of this I will get a little bit of bud.

[Rabiez]

Originally Posted by sneakers

On the very left is the end of a balloon. I use it on my CO2 generator. Holes are punched in the very end with a straight pin so the CO2 can leak out. The balloon still stands straight up while doing this and when it stops generating CO2, the balloon falls over. I need to add sugar.

Genius!

Needs to be above or over the plants, but nevertheless...

...it brightens up the cab a treat!