Hello! I'm excited to be sharing my first ever grow. Since growing for personal use is about to be legal in Oregon i've decided to get a head start on the learning curve of cannabis cultivation. I've got my sister's OMMP grow card registered and I'm ready to kick this thing off! Goal: 2 OZ every 4 Months Equipment: -Marshydro 300 Watt LED Panel -2.5'x1.5'x3' Grow Tent -4 Inch Blower fan + Carbon Filter + Speed Controller 2 - 3 Gallon Smart Pots 4 - 2 Gallon Smart Pots Seedling Heat Mat Rapid Rooters Kit + Dome Dyna-gro Bloom + Dyna-gro Veg Nutrients FFOF Soil + Perlite PH Kit Homemade SCROG screen with 1.5" holes Bag Seed Method: -The goal will be to have two plants in this space. I will be keeping them small using LST, Topping, and SCROG. -Veg for roughly 3-5 weeks or until 75% of the screen is filled -Continue with scrog for 2 weeks after start of flowering -This first grow will be using 11 bag seeds, hoping to get 4 strong plants to germinate -After this first grow I will be moving to Fem Paradise Seeds Wappa for small grows -Start Veg Nutrients @ 1/4 strength after 3rd week, likely only giving a few doses before swapping to bloom (I know FFOF is hot to start with) -May attempt to use clone method to determine sex I'm actually a couple weeks into the process already so I have a couple posts to get caught up on what has happened so far. Stay tuned for Photos and more updates. =)
I started with 11 bag seeds, hoping for 4 strong plants. A lot of the seeds were very young so hoping for 4 plants may be a bit of a stretch. I placed the seeds in a cup of water for 4 hours and then straight into the rapid rooter tray. I broke off a peice of each rapid rooter and made a little plug for the seeds so that light wouldn't get down into them. I put the dome lid on and set up the heating matt for 30min on, 30 minutes off. This seemed to be about perfect in terms of temperature for the little guys. I left a 200 watt (replacement) CFL on 24/7 for the new seedlings at about 4 inches. Roughly 4 days later I had 2 strong seedlings and 1 little guy. 1 week later I removed the rest of the seeds and transplanted the girls into their final homes. We have Charlie, Alex, and the runt Pat. Decided to give them boys/girls names since we aren't sure who is who yet! =P More to follow
The seedlings got transplanted into a mix of 2 parts FFOF and 1 Part perlite. Charlie and Alex went straight into the big pots and I put the runt into the 2 gallon pot for the time being. Once I have them sexed I may need to move some around, especially if Pat starts to catch up. For the first couple days I had the LED light all the way at the top of my tent with a 20/4 light schedule. Once they started developing a few real leaves I moved the light down 4 inches so that they are roughly 18 inches away from the top of the plants. I've been able to keep the tent a steady 72-78 Degrees and about 50% RH. No nutrients yet as the FFOF should be providing everything they need. So far I've only had to water twice ensure that the soil was nice and dry before letting them soak it all up.
Guys/Gals, I need to apologize for my terrible photos. I actually generally pride myself on my photography but these are not a reflection of what you can expect in this grow log, I was in a rush to get out the door this morning but wanted you all to at least have something to oogle over. This is the runt, Pat. Currently I would say she is the size of a quarter. The leaves look much rougher in the photo than they do in real life, although there is a little bit of curling going on. I'm going to give a couple days to see what she ends up doing.
And this is Charlie! Two of her original leaves kind of started doing a weird curl but the new leaves look great so I'm not worried. She is currently about 3 inches across. You can't see it in the photo but she has a nice purple stem. Curious to see what kind of plant she is.
So my closet is a bit weird because it has a divider/organizer in it so getting the tent to fit with the vent hoses was terrible. Also because I wanted the charcoal filter to be inside the tent, and because I wanted to maximize space I had to push the vent hose out the back of the tent to ensure that the filter was situated the correct way in the tent. This meant it was a very, very tight squeeze to get the tent to fit into the closet. It literally fits perfect. On top of the tent I put down a couple pieces of plywood and just set the fan/muffler on top of it. Sorry for the potato quality again: Here is the fan with the muffler installed. I was actually surprised how much it reduced the noise. You can also see the mounting bracket that I left on after I took it down from the wall. I thought the wall mount would be great except it vibrates really hard into the connected bedroom and sounded like an AC unit running. That's why it's just sitting on top of the tent right now. Here you can see the LED light and the filter installed to the right of it. I have the filter pushed all the way up into the corner and secured it with the straps they included with the tent. 4 inch tubing BARELY fits out the back hole, I actually had to thread it in to get it to fit. Because of the limited space I'm considering building a plywood piece for the top of the tent that I could cut a hole out of the tent and actually rest the LED light on top. It would easily give me 3-4 more inches of growing room. I know it might be hard to visualize but if I go for it i'll be sure to post how I did it. Honestly I wish they would have just made a tent that was much taller in the same base size. This is going to be a challenge for sure!
I found an older photo before I installed the muffler and took the fan off the wall, this one is actually acceptable! P.S. I have the vents on the back and side open for the time being, that is why there is so much light bleed.
im on my first grow also with 300w led. do you notice your plant growing slow under that kind of light. I think mine might be growing slow or maybe im just being impatient
I think mine are starting a little slow too. Buuutt I think it's because I started from seed instead of clones though. I'm on about 14 days and they are really starting to grow strong now. I'll post an update tonight with good pictures so you can see my progress. =)
Update 2-2-15 Day 19 from Seed Hello! Things are looking great for my 2 strong plants right now. Both Alex and Charlie are flourishing and getting much larger by the day. Poor little pat though is looking really rough. I'm guessing she has some nutrient burn happening from the FFOF soil. Her growth is still stunted and she just doesn't look healthy. Thoughts on her? What should I try? Or should I just dump the plant?
Charlie is the biggest of the bunch, but has some weird leaf twisting that I'm not sure about. Seems to be happening to the older growth. Has anyone seen anything like this before?
I just found what looks like the beginning of a calcium deficiency on Charlie. Apparently this is a fairly common problem with LED lights. I'm going to run to the hydro store and run it by them but I think I'm going to start a Cal/mag fertilizer with the next watering. Edit: So just went to the hydro store and the clerk there confirmed my diag. Since I just watered yesterday I decided to foliar feed some Cal/Mag to them.
U gotta move your light closer to make them grow faster and decrease the stretch and make tighter nodes trust me from seeds ur first 2 leaves need to be touching the soil