Hero's Grow Quest Summer 2006

[arseface]

Okay, well if you want my opinion as a whole, I think you're trying a bit too hard to do everything possible. The best rule you can follow on a first grow is to keep it simple. Now, breathe a deep breath and relax because you've got everything you need for a great grow and the plants are certainly not beyond repair. Some of them are looking nice and bushy, and the seelings are coming up nicely.

Now, getting more specific:

Don't fret about not getting the MH conversion bulb. I've always veg'd under HPS and they come out fine.

The plants - I'm not convinced that heat had anything to do with it. Yes, excessive heat (or the bulbs being too close) could cause burn and problems like this, but I think it's probably more chemical than physical burn. I think you probably hit the plants with too much stuff too early on (especially the epsom salts). Like I said, they're quite sensitive when they're young. Once they get a bit older they're much hardier.

What I would do it flush the plants with plenty of water. Forget about adding any special additives to the soil for this grow, and just feed them a nice conservative amount of one good fertiliser until they're back on their feet.

With the lights - 2' is probably okay for the bigger plants, with a 400W. I have my 600Ws about 2'6" away when they're about that big. As long as the air temperature is reasonable they should be okay...

With the space situation - prioritise the bigger plants, the seedlings don't need that much light yet. The little uns are never going to catch the bigger ones up, and the bigger ones will soon swamp the grow space anyway, even if you only get 2 females say. When they do finally fill all the space (which they;re far from doing yet) you might want to think about which of the little ones you're going to put outside. Remember, less plants doesn't neccesarily mean less weed...

I think you'll still have a good grow, just relax and let the plants grow on their own. Just give them time and let nature do it's cause without too much help.

[TheFxckingHero]

Thanks for the pep talk, arse. You're a nice guy. lol I've calmed down a bit now. :] It just stresses me out when there's problems after putting forth so much effort into this. I have them at two feet away now... I have already flushed them, so now all I can do is wait and take care of them only when they need it I suppose. Before I had them about 17 inches away from the bulb, and I did the hand test under the light and I didn't feel any discomfort on my hand at the level of the plants, but maybe my hands are not as sensitive as the leaves... I don't know.

I am positive I over-fertilized some a bit, but I suppose the lights may have been a problem too... considering an 8 node plant was only at 5 or 6 inches, where I've seen others with the same amount of nodes on plants over a foot tall.... oh well. What was your stance on early sexing them, arse? I know that you don't do it with your grows, but you don't have space limitations either. You think I should sex them so I can toss the males and free up space or just wait and keep on pressing on until they show sex on their own?

[tetrahydrocanna]

i agree with arse...the burn looked light lights at first but when you explaned wattage and distance of lights its cleare its not..the claw leaf thats showing is too much N..so do what arse has already sead..sit back and relax...

[TheFxckingHero]

Hey, guys. Good news... all the plants are showing healthy green new growth. I think backing the light off them a bit is actually helping out a lot. They definitely had been over fertilized... but the light probably was too close before as well, as I could see some plants that were not affected by nute burn below started having some burning on the top leaves.. which must mean they were starting to get a little too close to the light... but now the light is about 22-24 inches above the tops of the plants, and they seem to like that much better. oh, and the "leaf claw" is going away on that one plant... the curling leaves are straightening back out. also noticed that the branches on a few of them are really starting to take off... I'll take some pics in a few days of some hopefully healthy, recovering plants.

[arseface]

Good news And like I said, as they get bigger they will get stronger and won't react so quickly to small environmental changes.

As for sexing... I don't know. Putting plants into flower and then back into veg never sounded like a great idea to me (filling a plant with hormones temporarily is bound to stress it), and would certainly add to the grow time. Personally I'd say just grow them all until you flower and see, but that's all I know so I'm biased. You can let them overlap each other no problems, just try to let the little branches up through the canopy by pushing the big fan leaves under them - this will maximise growth in the areas that are going to end up holding the buds anyway. They'll still fill out all the available space in flowering even if they're restricted a bit in veg.

[SmknVTEC]

Hey Hero.

So far you have been getting great information from the others except the part about causing a hermie by going to 12/12 back to 18/6. While it does waste a little bit of time and energy and MIGHT slightly stress the plant, it will NOT cause hermies.

In fact, check this out. I have two cloning mothers about six months old. One is Durga Mata the other some bag seed indica. When the two were young I had to keep them in the dark for 4-5 days straight because we had company. They got super stretched out. They are currently about 6 months old and during that time they have gone from CFL's to the HPS and back and forth. I also sometimes have to put them under 12/12 for a few days back to 24/7 to 18/6 switching back and forth. Guess what, neither of them has gone hermie and they both provide great clones time after time.

Anyway, I think your plants are a bit young to put into 12/12 at this point and since they are still struggling from the burn out, all the more reason to wait a while. Hey, how did they get fert burned anyway?

Edit: Never mind. They got burned because you fed too early.

[TheFxckingHero]

Nah, they weren't too young... they needed some nitrogen. I just gave them a bit too much. Some were more sensitive than others apparently. Also think that the light was a little too close as well. 5 of the plants are around 35 days old and the other bigger one is about 10 days behind... many of them are on the 8th or 9th node, which is the amount of nodes other people have been able to sex their plants... I think they would show sex under 12/12 just fine. I don't want to flower them, but finding out the sex to clear out males would be nice. Anyways, I think I have decided on doing the paper bag method to sex the plants.. covering a branch to put that single branch on 12/12. I'll probably start doing that in a couple of days or maybe a week or two.

Then, at that time I'll also decide exactly what I want to do with the seedlings, and after finding out how many females I've got out of the 6 will repot them into their final homes... I've got some pretty large pots around, but I've been thinking about filling up a 30 gallon rubbermaid and putting a cardboard divider in the middle and having two plants in there with 15 gallons of space for each of them. I haven't decided yet, but I definitely want to get them plenty of room for the roots.

[arseface]

Originally Posted by SmknVTEC

Hey Hero.

So far you have been getting great information from the others except the part about causing a hermie by going to 12/12 back to 18/6. While it does waste a little bit of time and energy and MIGHT slightly stress the plant, it will NOT cause hermies.

I never said they would cause a hermie, just that it would likely increase stress on the plants

But anyway... high stress in plants is liable to cause a higher proportion of hermies, and since the plants have been through enough already with the nute burn I'd advise taking the low-stress route if possible.

[TheFxckingHero]

Don't worry about it guys. I've decided to do the light tight bag over a branch method for sexing, so the stress will be minimal if any.

Anyways, I've got some new pictures! I was bored, so I decided I would take 2 of the healthiest looking plants out into natural color lighting for some pictures. These are looking pretty good I think.

Sorry about the order of the pics. I had to make the side view pictures sideways to fit the dimension limitations this forum has, so I had to upload those again and it threw off the order.

Plant 1
Picture 1: This plant is nice to look at... very symmetrical. It is a little bit short because it fell over out of the pot and was uprooted early in its life and its growth got stunted for a few days, but it looks very healthy to me, and getting very bushy. Oh, that chunk of leaf missing at the top isn't due to any pests or burn problems. I just accidentally tore it off one day when it got trapped between two seedling cups.

Picture 3: Here's a side view, showing all the branching and soon to be thick bush.

Plant 2
Picture 2: Top view of the second plant... you can see some very slight burning on the edges of a few leaves, but it's still in good shape. This one was on the outskirts of the lighting for a while, so it is slightly more stretched than the others, but the node spacing is still much more compact than outdoor plants of this age.

Picture 4: Side view showing its height and also pretty bushy like the other plant.


I'll take some more pictures of the rest of the plants in probably 5-7 days when they're more pleasing to the eye as they develop enough new growth to cover up the over-fertilized lower halves.

What do you guys think of these two plants? Everything lookin' okay?

[SmknVTEC]

Originally Posted by arseface

I never said they would cause a hermie, just that it would likely increase stress on the plants

No arseface, you never said the hermie thing, flex said it. Hero if you are talking about putting those tiny seedlings into flower, it won't work. Of all the plants I see in your pictures maybe two of them are ready. The majority of the others look to be cotyledons and can't be sexed yet. Here are the criteria for sexing (1) at least 12 inches tall or (2) alternating node spacing (which usually happens at 12 inches +). When they reach that point, the bag method will work great.

[TheFxckingHero]

Ahh, guys, I just took the oldest plant (the one that got over-fertilized the worst) out of the grow room and looked closely at it, and it has developed preflowers between the stem of branches and the main stem of the plant... right there next to the stipules. It's very small though and it's quite hard for me to tell the difference. I've looked at pictures of preflowers online and know what they look like. This doesn't look like a ball on a stick to me, it looks like the female preflowers but I can't see the two small pistils coming out of it yet, although they may not have developed yet enough to easily see. I grabbed that microscope I got from radioshack and so far I haven't been able to locate and focus in on the tiny preflowers with the microscope because 60x magnification makes it quite hard to find a specific place on the plant, but while trying to look at the preflower I put the microscope up to some of the newer leaves for the first time and I can actually see trichome glands all the way across the leaves.

it looks so amazing through the microscope. I wish that I could somehow take a picture for you guys. anyone who already has one of these I'm sure knows what i'm talking about. I suggest that EVERYONE go get one of these illuminated microscopes. they are only $10 and it is incredible looking at the plant so close up. I got completely distracted just looking in awe at everything with it that I didn't even mind that I couldn't find the preflower through the microscope. it really is awesome.

I'm having quite a hard time focusing in on a preflower with this thing though. a 5x magnifying glass or 25x jeweler set of lenses would probably be a lot easier to use for this purpose. my hands are too shaky... I'll have to see if any of my friends have a regular magnifying glass to check out the preflower. I'll post back as soon I know for sure, but I just have a strong feeling this plant is a female.... p.s. sorry Smkn about the last post. I was in an irritable mood and acted like a dick.

[TheFxckingHero]

well I'll take some new pics soon... I'm getting kinda frustrated with things. something I noticed is that new seedlings I start always have small leaves... with most other people's plants I see the first few sets of leaves on the seedlings just keep getting bigger, where mine just stay small and then the plant moves its energy to putting out the next set and the lower leaves yellow and don't grow any larger... seems like for some reason I just have really shitty growing environment in there for them... aggrivating.... maybe my bulb is crap. I don't know.

anyways... i transplanted all of the seedlings out of cups and into pots... I only had room to keep 7 in there with the 6 larger ones.... the other 5 went outside somewhere and one got eaten by an animal or something and the others are not doing so well because i haven't been out there to water them... i'm not really all that concerned with them as they were the slowest 5 of 12 and I may just let them die off out there. I kept the better looking 7 seedlings inside to try to speed up their growing under the light while I still have the room before transplanting the larger plants to bigger containers. however, I just checked one of the larger plants and the roots are outgrowing those pots... so I guess I'll have to transplant the 6 bigger ones into atleast 3 gallon pots soon, and move the seedlings outside with the other 4 still out there... I just want to know which plants are males and be done with them and get everything sorted out, because this is all beginning to stress me out

the only plant that is not bag seed (the PPP) has outgrown all the others in height now... but it also is in the largest pot. also, it doesn't really branch out much at all, where the others are starting to branch a lot... sure grew a lot faster though... maybe my bag seed just has hardly any vigor.. bad genetics, perhaps.. I don't know though...

[GreasyHippy]

Soft white is a more redder orange, go with the cool white ones, they will get ya what your lookin for. good luck with the grow.

[TheFxckingHero]

soft white in this case is the name of the brand of lightbulbs.. I don't think it is related to the color spectrum. anyways, I'm not using those CFLs for anything right now... will use them later for rooting clones if I end up taking any clones..

thanks for the good luck wishes :] ... plants look a lot different now... still a ways to go though.. pics soon

[s12fever]

plants look fucking luscious bro