SMALL UPDATE 1ST JUNE: My Papaya seems to be coming along nicely. She is now 28 days old from germing, and is 6 inches tall now. Her foliage is really kicking in. I topped her at the 5th node tonight after getting back from work. I have noticed one or two fungus gnats flying around in the pc case, looking to get a foothold. I am purposely holding off as long as possible between waterings in order to let the surface of the coco medium Paya is in dry out and discourage the bloody fungus gnats. The other day I watched a youtube video of this gardener who uses little squares of yellow construction paper smeared with Vaseline on one side. He sits these on top of the soil in his pots. He reckons this works very well at catching the bloody fungus gnats, as apparently they are attracted to the bright yellow color. I think I'm going to give this method a try, before they start laying eggs in the coco. I don't think this method will do much to the larvae once the eggs hatch, but at least it will eliminate the adults. I prefer not using any kind of chemical pesticides since I am trying to be as organic as possible. Does anyone know how effective neem is for fungus gnats?
I use a couple of products to prevent the gnat eggs from growing. And if that doesn't work then I throw these on top of the soil. You can also use neem oil concentrate spray on your soil. If you decide neem oil is for you, then make sure you don't spray any on the leaves. I recommend doing it at night as if you do accidentally get it on the leaves it won't burn the plant since the lights are out. Neem oil concentrate is not harmful to the plant however it can burn the plant when lights are on if sprayed directly on the leaves. Honestly tho, gnats are a bitch, but I've never had them alter how my plants grew. In the greenhouse we talked about it and discussed that it only causes a nuisance for gardeners but really doesn't harm your plants. Lots of people claim they do. My knowledge on this ? Well the owner of the greenhouse has 5 certifications and three degrees. He is also a top nursery owner in the country of the USA. Take my word, he knows his shit! Best of luck to Ya brother! Girl is looking good tho!!
Had one of the light rails in the pc fall again, this time right on top of Paya! Fortunately, she was unharmed, save for leaning over a bit and having a couple of burnt leaves due to direct contact with the LED. I've upgraded to a higher grade epoxy glue to keep the magnets on the light rail from detaching. Let's see how it goes! I'm thinking to switch Paya into her flowering light schedule soon, maybe in a couple more days! As of today, she is 35 days old from seed, and is about 17 cms tall (approx 7"). She was topped 2 days ago, as can be seen in these photos:
How are your led strips mounted to the pc case? With magnets only? You can buy stronger ones on ebay very cheap. I also used them in my pc light fixture, it can hold a wooden plank with 4 CFLs Or is it the magnets breaking from your fixture? Then you can also try to use magnets with a bigger mounting surface like this:
Kofi your girl is looking good. Is she a nirvana strain? Glad she didn't get to hurt during the accident, hopefully the new epoxy works better.
Hey Weedle, thanks for those suggestions man. Yeah, it's the magnet itself that kept detaching from the light rail. I've switched over to a better quality glue as of last week, and so far, so good! Hey Seedlingstarter! Thanks for dropping by. You are more than welcome here. Yes, this girl is Nivana's Papaya strain. I picked this strain mainly because of it's low odor characteristic, but also because it's supposed to be a good medicinal strain. I plan on making up some cannabis oil (Rick Simpson oil), depending on what my final yield is. I'm a bit limited at the moment since I can only do a PC grow due to limited space and the need for absolute stealth. Otherwise, I would be growing at least 4 or 6 plants in a tent setup. That time will come, but for now, PC it is! You mentioned you recently did a harvest. What did you grow and what was your final yield?
Here's a couple of recent pix of my girl Paya She's been topped now 3 times. First, the main stem was topped, then the 2 resulting colas were again topped when they were developed enough. I've also done some light defoliation - going real easy on this since this is the first time I've tried this technique. I'll give it a week or so to see how she responds, and if she responds well, I'll do some more strategic de-leafing in preparation for the ScrOG screen. I know defoliation is highly controversial, but I've seen enough before and after photos of plants that have been defoliated that I am willing to give it a try. P.S.: Sorry about the orientation of the photos - Grass City's photo editor often flips my pix on their side for some reason and I don't know how to fix this problem
yea man i know what you mean by wanting to do some bigger grows. Stay safe and stealthy with this you can still enjoy the fun. I love nirvana been growing their strains since i started growing about 6 years now. although i will say some say the low odor strains can still pack the phunk. I yeilded a lil more than 3 zips. I grew purple kush and northern light both autos. pk gave about 1.5 while i got close to 2 with the nl flowered with a 250w hps. The bulb was probably old and they didn't receive any teas or nutes. I didnt have time to make teas for them being busy. So all they got what is what the soil provided for them. This time around i only have my 92w box unless i build a pc for my diy 50w led light thats never been used lol.
Hi kofi how are you and your plants? I'm very curious to see how your plant matured now with the tripple topping because I want to try a similair technique.
Hey there, Mr. Weedle! Sorry, but as you would have noticed I haven't updated this thread much lately - work and day to day life can be distracting! The grow seems to be going ok, if not a little slowwww... we are in the middle of winter here and I have been finding it a little difficult to keep my tempertures up. Apparently, cannabis slows growth if temps fall below 20 degrees celcius, and lately my room is between 15 and 19 degrees during the day and even colder at night. Unless of course, I turn on the air conditioning, but I cannot afford to run it constantly, especially while at work! Not sure what to do - thinking about buying a small oil heater, but not sure how much cheaper it will be to run compared to the air conditioner. Otherwise my girl is coming along. I have been doing a bit of defoliation as well, avoiding over-doing it though. Too much leaf removal can stunt the plant also; it has to be done judiciously. I only remove fan leaves that are blocking light from reaching bud sites. My girl has been scrOGed. I'll post some pics in the next day or so. Got to go to bed - back at work in 6 hours!
Ok, update time! Here's a few pics. The first 2 are from about 10 days ago: These were taken today: As you can see from the 2nd set, I over did it a bit with the nutes - the leaves are slightly burnt. So I flushed Paya with 1.25 litres of plain ph'd water. Those leaves will not recover, but any new leaves should be okay, provided I don't make the same mistake again! You can also notice that more of the scrog screen is filled than in the 1st set of photos. Also there are a few less fan leaves since I did a bit of defoliation - just enough to expose the buds sites to more light. Since we're in winter here down under, I've been struggling a bit keeping my temps up - this may have had the effect of slowing growth somewhat, but hopefully not too much, as inside the server case it usually stays between 20 and 23 degrees (68 - 73 degrees fahrenheit), with the exception of a couple of days where it was really cold. Not ideal, I know, but not much I can do about it without running up a huge electricity bill from using the air conditioning unit to keep my room warmer.
Kofi thanks for the update! I think we all are busy Looks like you have the scrog nice filled with budsites, now you only have to watch everyday to see bigger buds
View attachment 1838732 I guess I have been feeling somewhat disappointed with myself for having made the stupid mistake of giving Paya nute burn by being unmindful while switching to a different bloom nutrient brand. I miscalculated the amount of powdered nutrient to use after being used to using a bottled nute, and used close to 5 times more than I should have. Well, it knocked Paya around quite a bit and I ended up with quite a few nute burnt and deformed leaves. I also suspect the shock of nute burn while being in flower has set her back a bit. Nirvana states that their papaya strain flowers for 7 - 9 weeks. Paya has just entered her 6th week of flowering, meaning that she has perhaps another 3 weeks to go. But at this stage, her flowers are still very tiny, and she would practically have to explode with growth in order to fatten up to an acceptable level by the end of 3 weeks. What do you guys think? She has been flushed twice in the last 11 days. Because today was a particularly beautiful day with plenty of sun shining through my bedroom, I decided to let Paya soak up a bit of natural sunlight, especially as my landlord has gone on holidays, leaving me more able to 'let my hair down' a bit and bring Paya out of the computer case for a few hours a day for the next 20 days.
Hey brother, sorry about the bite burn! Well.. I'm gonna be honest, sometimes it's best to leave them In the flower room during the flower stage and keep away from light changing (such as frequent movement to natural light and electric lights) the reason behind this is every time the light source changes it causes a small amount of unnecessary stress on the plant. But my main thing I wanted to say is next time I would veg that girl longer if you could.i think you might have flipped them over to flower too early lol. Did you have to flip because of travel/work? I flipped my plant over too early one time and I said never again because the yield was low. I'll post a picture of my girls in their case later tonight when the lights come back on (flowering right now) they fill the case completely up with a lot of bud sites. Not trying to brag just trying to help you out for your next run brother! Keep nutrients behind you for now my man let her heal up some, looks like a little bit of an abundance of nitrogen. I'm also no expert with bottle nutes tho either since I'm completely soil organic. How many weeks does that one flower? Hang in there brother! Stay smokey!
Thank you for your kind support GH, as always, it is appreciated! I'll tell you one thing right now, man, as long as you're coming from the heart, you don't need to hesitate to point out where you think I might be stuffin' up - that's really one of the main reasons I'm here - I want to learn. One thing I must say, is that I have learned from this mistake, and it has been the straw in the camel's back; from now on, I am doing only soil grows - super soils. I am over messing around with bottled nutrients! Thanks for pointing out about moving from artificial to natural sunlight. So far, I have only done this once, and don't need to do it again. Regarding flipping my plants over too early, I'm not sure what you would consider too early. I actually had Paya in veg for 7 weeks before flipping; I would have thought that was a good amount of time to veg in a PC case. Do you reckon it would have been better to veg longer than 7 weeks? Nirvana says this pheno flowers for 7 to 9 weeks. She is currently on day 3 of her 6th week of flowering. From what I can see she is quite a bit behind schedule in terms of bud development.
I took a clone of my fruity chronic juice and I vegged her in the server case for a little over 3 months almost four months. Here she is today one month and 13 days into flowering (6 weeks and a couple of days) When scrogging you want the area FILLED with bud sites and you want a lot of nodes. So you must be patient as this will take some time. But it's well worth the extra month or two of waiting as you can see. My server case is filled to the top and the plant is not getting burned by the lights (not every light will be so friendly) I hope this helps out a little for your next grow. I'm telling you it's truly possible to get a great yield out of this server case. You just need to let them veg longer. Don't go by the 2 month veg rule or whatever especially if you're scrogging because with scrogging it takes time to train the plants and let them grow more nodes. I'm saying this as politely as I can. PATIENCE IS REWARDING MY FRIEND!
Ok, this journal has come to an end. Another learning experience for me. It was unfortunate that I over-fed my plant and basically stunted her. But again, I learned from that. My next grow will start soon - probably OG Kush. Also, this next grow will be in a super soil mix. This way, all I have to do is water and watch out for pests. Hopefully, I'll get through this grow from start to finish without stuffin' up. I hope to see you all in my new journal!