So this is my second attempt at an indoor soil grow since my last attempt ended with one of my 68W CFLs falling and hitting my only seedling. Since then, I've started growing some herbs (basil, parsley, rosemary) indoors to learn and of course to cook with them. My setup: Growing 1 World of Seeds Afghan Kush feminized in 12/12 from seed ALL CFL (Flowering and Vegging) 1x 68W 2700K 2x 23W 5500K 2x 42W (not sure, probably 2700K) 3:1 Fox Farm Happy Frog potting soil / Perlite Jack's Classic Orchid Bloom Nutes (3-9-6) Vigaro Liquid All Purpose Fert (10-10-10) Using white posterboard to reflect light as well as 1 large aluminum reflector/clamp on the 68W I'm using a the frame from a cheapo dresser from Bed Bath "dresser" as my fixture to hold all of the lights. GOAL: Get at least half an ounce by July I've read RandyRocket's 12/12 grow and many others, and I think this is possible. To put the plant in darkness for now, I am just moving the plant into a dark closet, and will probably have to continue doing this because I don't trust my "light tight"-ing skills with this setup. Right now I am on day 6 from sprouting the old fashioned way, and the second set of leaves has just formed. Questions: Is the posterboard good enough? I'm skeptical about the importance of reflectivity already, but the posterboard seems pretty translucent and I'm sure it doesn't reflect as good as mylar. I'm keeping costs down though, and for the cost of mylar, I could get more CFL's. How long until I should start using nutes? Is a fan necessary if the room has AC? Using a fan last time caused the light to fall and I would rather get away with not using it this time if possible.
no you need a fan for that stem to get fat, you dont want your buds to overpower the stem, and 12/12 from seed, so your trying to make a normal seed do what a auto flower already does huh, im def. pulling up a chair!!
I'm gonna put a small desk fan on them for now and possibly move up to a full size fan much later on. Last time I had them on a full fan and I'm pretty sure it killed them. Yeah, 12/12 should basically be like an autoflower. Afghan Kush should be medium/short and quick growing, combining that with 12/12 from seed should make this baby shoot up. Right now it's 1.5" tall. Hopefully by the end of this week we'll see the third set of leaves and another inch of growth.
ima pull up a chair right next to ya for this one. im going to keep checkin in because im very curious about this one. i have a few afghan clones so if this works out for ya i might give it a go on one of them. skirrrrrt. i had to add this edit...you definately wanna get those seedlings out of clear cups. put them in red ones. those roots arent going to like the clear ones.
def agreed those roots wont grow towards light, i didnt even notice them clear cups, good thing you were payin attention
What if I just let them sit in a coffee mug? It wouldn't be comletely snug but I think the roots would be pretty much in the dark. EDIT: Just wrapped some foil around the cup. This way I can easily still see the roots by opening up the foil. Aluminum side in so that it doesn't conduct heat from the lights.
should be good as long as you dont use it soo the lights reflects and hits your plants, could cause burnin, but the way they are postioned is good, should work now
Short update -Not worth taking a picture but as a new grower I know the importance of daily updates - this way every other hyper obsessive new grower knows what to expect! The second set of leaves is now larger than the cotyledons. No more vertical growth at all. She's growing way faster than the chives/basil, which is pretty cool. The leaves are getting a lighter shade of green. Not yellow at all, just not as deep of a green as before. I think it may have to do with overwatering from what I've read. But as root growth is the real key here, I'm going to put off adding any nutes and let the happy frog suffice for now.
Day 14 since sprout I've been very busy so I'm sorry for no new updates, but heres a picture of my girl for you all. As you can see there's some new leaf sets. She's pushing out her third one right now and it looks like the beginning of the fourth set will soon follow. Still haven't used any nutes yet. When will it be safe to start using my 3-9-6 mix? I also have cheapo 10-10-10 stuff but it doesn't have all the micronutes that the flowering stuff has. No signs of plant problems as far as I can tell, and I've read to wait until you see deficiencies before you tinker with nutes, but I want these babies to grow as fast as possible! Right now she's sitting at just over 2" Should show sex in 1-2 weeks.
Day 20 from sprout So far so good. The plant was rootbound in the little 8 oz cups so I figured I would just jump her right into the 8" pot. This particular kind of pot had a two part bottom that was easily clogged and caused problems for me when getting it moist, so I took my trowel and hacked off the bottom part pretty easily. Right now the plant is sitting right underneath my big 68W 2700K CFL and has been in 12/12 for almost 3 weeks. A bit of yellowing on the bottom leaves but, since I transplanted into fresh soil and the plant is no longer rootbound, I think it should become more green in the next few days. No sign of sex yet (could be a good thing since females mature later). About 2.7" tall and 3" wide at widest. Please comment on the pics!
wait extra long to start the nutes. i have a nl#5 growing right now in ffof using 1 60watt cfl. i vegged it for 8days and ive been in flower for a little over 4weeks now. let me start out by saying this thing is tiny! i topped it once. it has about 8 little bitty pea sized buds growing on it. im growing it in a small speaker box so there is no room for a fan. im not trying to get alot out of this grow at all. it was more of a "what if" type of thing. id wait till the 4th week from sprout and do the nutes extra low.
I really don't want mine to be too small! I'm actually thinking about just going back into Veg before this thing jumps into flower. Anyone have any experience with that? If this little guy starts flowering at only 5", that means it will be around 10" from what I've read. One 10" bud seems like probably a quarter oz or even less... should I expect this plant to veg until the correct size, or revert to 18/6? Thanks everyone
i say eaither stick with what you're doing right now. or go back and veg it for a good solid week. im using fox farm nutes on mine. i like them. the first time i splashed them with the flower nutes the took off in the first day!
Day 21 I think she's showing sex, if anyone else can confirm this it would make me feel more at ease! New growth seems yellowish and one of the first leaves is yellow with some brown spots. Foliar fed them this morning to see if that will fix the problem, but I still need to properly check the runoff pH asap. Fourth leaf set has 5 leaves (I think)
No female or male calyx there. Not mature enough yet. That looks like another shoot growing in between the node, not a calyx. I could be wrong, give it time, its too soon to tell.
Everything is going great - grew 3" higher and bigger fan leaves! She's sitting in the dark now so no pictures, but I am 100% sure that she's a.. she. Two long white hairs growing out of the nodes. Pretty cool! By the way, this strain is 100% indica. I hope to disprove the theory that you can't use indicas in 12/12 from seed at all. We'll see..
Sorry for not updating for a while but basically she's exploded with hairs all over the place and reached a modest 7". Hopefully she keeps stretching as from what I've heard, more stretch = more bud. I don't know if I should induce stretching by moving the lights up, seems stupid to me but if anyones done that I'd appreciate feedback! I've been feeding her the Jack's Orchid Bloom liquid ferts at 1tsp/liter and she seems to really like it. It's higher than the reccomended dose by about 1/4 tsp. I might move up to 2 tsp/liter if no signs of nute burn occur. Gotta water her basically every 3 days, and I'm using pure water every third time to make sure theres no salt buildup. Anyone have any clue how much bud I'd get off of her? Or any other tips? This is my first grow so please help me out! Thanks