First grow, Barney's Farm Pineapple Express auto CFL

This is my first grow aside from killing a few bag seedlings in my closet back in high school lol. As the title says it's Barney's Farm Pineapple Express that I ordered from Attitude. Sadly I succumbed to the marketing and chose the strain based solely on the fact that it's the product of baby f*cking.

I'm growing in a 3-5 gallon bucket, I don't know exactly. All I know is it's a big @ss bucket. I'm growing in MG expand'n gro. Despite MG bad rap I've heard some good things about the expand'n gro and so far have been pretty happy with it. Mainly it was a choice of convenience.

I started out with four 23 watt 6500k CLFs and about three days ago added another four. I've been going 24/0 so far since it's an auto but I may switch to 20/4 I haven't decided. Everything's been going good other than me freaking myself out about a few things that turned out to be nothing and my wife shutting the closet door so the temps got a bit high for about 30 min or so.

Here she is at about 8 days:



Here she is 3 days later today:



And then here's a few pics of my light setup:



Comments, questions, concerns? I'd love to here what you guys have to say.

 

I know it's only been a day but I'm bored so more pics!!






Just a few days shy of 2 weeks. She doesn't have much height to her but man does she have leaves bustin' out all over lol.

 

Man I thought she was growing pretty fast but after checking out some other grow journals I'm feeling kind of envious. My soil pH is kind of low so I'm going to head to the garden center and try and get that taken care of today. Hopefully once that's sorted she'll catch up some.

 

So I went and got some dolomite lime and dug down an inch or so in a few places and sprinkled some from a tablespoon, then covered it back up. I also sprinkled about another tablespoon on top of the soil and then I watered as normal. I tested the runoff and it was still low. I know this stuff takes some time so I don't know what I was expecting but yeah.

She's still growing but I don't really know what to think. Her color is still really off. I looked up threads on different deficiencies and toxicities. None of the description or pictures really seemed to match closely enough. The only spots that look brown or burnt are from accidentally getting a little water on the leaves and putting it back under the lights too soon.

I don't really know what to think or do. I'm hoping the lime ends up sorting out the ph and that ends up having been the problem. Other than that I don't know what to do other than wait and see what happens.

Here's some more pics. There's new growth but it's all still like neon green. I'm pretty bummed.

 

Man I'm not really getting a whole lot of love around here, oh well. Good and bad news. The new growth seems to be getting better but one of the older leaves looks like it's on it's way out. I think I had my lights a bit close on that side the rest of the leaves still look good (well comparatively anyway). If I feel motivated I'll post some new pics later today.

 

Sorry it took so long to reply. I wouldn't say I fixed the ph problem. I addressed it, but I don't think it's quite been fixed yet. I treated the soil with lime and watered. Since then she's seemed to improve but I wouldn't say there's been a full recovery yet. I also moved the lights up. The temps are hovering at about 80F. There's not really much I can do to get them below that without some major work and/or $.

I actually have a question about the whole ph thing. From what I understand the lime doesn't do a whole lot without water. She really seemed to respond to it despite testing the runoff not showing much ph improvement.

So my question is: Even though I know she doesn't need more water yet, should I go ahead, water and risk over watering so that the lime has a chance to work it's magic more quickly or should I wait the week or so until the soil dries out enough to warrant the watering? Basically which would be worse the effects of slight over watering or to continue to sit in soil with a lower than desirable ph?


Now on with the pics.

So these are from 3 days after the last set of pics and maybe 2 days after adding the lime.





This last one is of the leaf I was talking about. It got the worst of being too close to the lights. It actually looks a lot worse in person than in the pic. more brown.

 

Well thanks for that, at least I know I'm on the right track trying to fix the ph. Since I didn't get an answer real quick I said F-it and went ahead and added a little more lime and watered again. I guess now I just have to sit back and hope the lime does it's job.

 

Well she's still not looking the healthiest, but she's still growing so there's that I guess. If anyone has any suggestions on how to raise my soil ph quicker I'd be all for it. I really should have mixed the lime in before hand but hey you live and learn.

The expand 'n gro soil I used is coir based so I've been watering a little more then I probably should to try and get the lime working. From what I've read it's harder to over water with coir so hopefully I can get away with it. I also read that coir has a low ph anyway and that you're supposed to run ph'd water through it until the run off is around 6.8 or so. Which of course I didn't do.

You spend a month or so researching, then once you've started you seem to find out all the sh*t you should have known before hand lol.

I had her out and was checking her out real close and checking the soil and she's starting to smell already. It blew my mind I wasn't expecting that at 2 1/2 weeks. I had to stick my nose right up close and check again because I thought I was imagining things. It's actually pretty strong once you get real close.

It's a pleasant surprise considering I'm having problems. Hopefully I can get her to harvest. If I manage that it'll be a win in my book lol

So here are the pics. The leaves are still kind of shriveled and they're definitely still bright green, but as I said she's still growing. These are at 2 1/2 weeks.













Everybody cross your fingers for me. I'm really hoping I can get all my issues worked out.

 

Correction on coir needing to be 6.8, it should be 5.8. My bad.

 

Yeah I don't really know what else to do at this point. I've been searching all over, looking at pictures of different deficiencies. Nothing looks quite like whats going on. I used the miracle gro soil (I guess since it's coir it's technically soil less) but it doesn't look like nute burn.

I do now have what looks to be a calcium deficiency here in the last few days. Which happens with coir but is weird because I have fairly hard water, and I just added the lime which is supposed to help with that as well as raise the ph. I'm hoping the combination of the 2 didn't through my Mag out of whack because I guess too much can lock out calcium.

I got some RO water from the store and used that today in case my tap water has something to do with it. If the calcium thing doesn't stop in a few days I guess I'll be getting some Epson salts since I don't have time to wait and order actual Cal Mag.

I feel like I'm not really getting anywhere trying to fix things and possibly making them worse. The calcium def (if that's what it is) didn't show up until right after I used the dolomite lime. I didn't read up enough and was trying to get my ph up to soil levels when with coir it needs to be hydro levels so it really wasn't that out of sorts to begin with.

It's depressing and I'm a bit embarrassed lol. It would be one thing if I was getting things fixed but I'm sort of just floundering about. It sucks. Like I said if I somehow make it to harvest I'll be happy, and I guess it's a good learning experience for my next grow though.

I've actually just started it maybe 5 days ago in case this one goes to sh*t. It's my freebie from attitude. I think it's like a CH9 UFO vintage 2006 or something like that. It's doing better at the moment that the pineapple express as a seedling. Pics when I get around to it. I'm not feeling terribly motivated right now.

 

Yeah never mind the first thing I read was incorrect and epson salts is for Mag deficiencies, so I won't be getting any of that yet. Man the internet is great for finding info, but half of it contradicts the other half lol. Maybe I'll just order some Cal Mag and see what happens while it's shipping.

 

Sorry it's been a minute. I don't think I'm going to get rid of her. I kind of want to see what happens. Plus it's kind of nuts, she looks like sh*t but she's starting to stink up the whole room. I know it sounds like BS but it's getting to the point where I'm going to have to do something about the smell. It's really blowing my mind.

I'm wondering if I got a bum seed, my new seedling is doing amazing compared to the first plant as a seedling. The only thing I've done different is add a little perlite and worm casting to the coir before I planted.

PICS!!






She's doing this crazy thing down at the base where she's growing a big bunch of leaves randomly.





And here's my new addition.

 

So quick update. The pineapple express is still alive, still growing and still looking kind of sh*tty. I had to trim a couple leaves that started to die on me. Other than that I haven't done a whole lot aside from water her. I'm still wondering if it's just a bum seed or there's some strain sensitive variable. My newer seedling is still doing awesome despite getting pretty much the same as the pineapple express.

As far as LST it's something I might try with my new plant but I'm trying to mess with the pineapple express as little as possible.

Here are just some general pics of the pineapple express:





Ok so it's weird one side of the plant the leaves are starting to look more healthy and on the other side they are still kind of retarded. I've rotated the bucket and what not to try to make sure the retarded side is getting good light, it doesn't matter. I don't really know what's up with it.

(Relatively) Good side:


Retarded side:



Then some pics of my new seedling looking awesome at a little shy of a week and a half: