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[AUSTRALIA] First timer! Please help me figure all of this out

Discussion in 'Growing Organic Marijuana' started by lizardo, Oct 15, 2022.

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  1. #1 lizardo, Oct 15, 2022
    Hello! I was very lucky to come across some free seeds recently. Currently, we have three little baby seedlings, and three germinated seeds ready for action. My partner is a horticulturist and has some decent plant expertise, but other than that, we're total amateurs.

    Our plan is to pop the seedlings into some fabric pots with the below soil (as advised by a certain website's tutorial):
    This was as close as I could get to the recommended (US-only) products. Then we plan on following a watering schedule with bottled spring water (maybe a bit excessive?)... We plan on growing outdoors in Melbourne. The same tutorial said that the little guys need 18 hours of sunlight a day, so I'm a little concerned about that.

    It's been a couple of weeks and our little seedlings only have one set of true leaves, they don't seem to be doing too much. I'm not sure if we should plant future seeds in a different medium (I can't remember what we used).

    So basically, this post boils down to three main questions:
    1. Does the soil seem like it would be sufficient?
    2. Would using grow lights in the shed be a better option than relying on Melbourne sunlight?
    3. What's the best medium to pop the little germinated seeds into?

    Any other advice for a complete amateur would be super appreciated! And thank you very much in advance to anyone who reads this whole thing and responds.
     
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  2. #2 Deleted member 1148562, Oct 15, 2022
    bottled water might be excessive.
    you can grow 1LB plants with 4 hours of direct sunlight
    id skip the microbes and save the $36 bucks
    soils seem fine, just make sure good aeration.
     
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  3. #3 smokeout69, Oct 15, 2022
    Add perlite fill in holes add more manure rich compost then top dress to protect soil and living microbs from sunlight
     
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  4. #4 dobro49, Oct 15, 2022
    Welcome to the Organics crew lizardo.
     
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  5. #5 ElRanchoDeluxe, Oct 15, 2022
    Welcome to GC.

    The commercial soil mixes you posted look like they are pretty good from the ingredients list. The green space mix seems like it may work better for seedlings. If the first seedling or two ‘burns up’ and dies the mix will need to be mellowed out with peat moss or maybe even coir. Quite often commercial mixes will not have enough aeration - meaning you’ll need to add perlite, pumice or lava rock. If you can post pics of the soil and seedlings it would be helpful.

    I believe Melbourne is in the province of Victoria? Anyhow, in Victoria there is a big problem with salinity. I believe other parts of Australia as well. Water with high salinity won’t be suitable for cannabis. If you can find a water report it’s easy to determine whether you’re ok or not.
    RD
     
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  6. #6 ElRanchoDeluxe, Oct 16, 2022
    Unless you’re growing autos the flowering period will be induced somewhere around 13 to maybe even 15 hours a day of sunlight depending on genetics. A lot of growers in mild climates place a small cfl over the plant to prevent it from flowering and then remove it when there’s enough daylight hours. @dobro49 uses this to his advantage by planting late in the season and immediately going into flower - this keeps the plants small and more discreet. Whoops. Dobro doesn’t use the cfl trick. He plants late.
    RD
     
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  7. #7 lizardo, Oct 16, 2022
    Thanks guys! Will mix in some perlite for sure and look into top dressing
     
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  8. #8 lizardo, Oct 16, 2022
    Thanks man, great to be here! Already have received much more useful advice than on reddit lol
     
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  9. #9 lizardo, Oct 16, 2022
    Thanks mate, will post a pic if I remember when I have it all sorted. I didn't know that about salinity, I was thinking about just sticking with bottled spring water because I know it'll be pH balanced.
     
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  10. #10 lizardo, Oct 16, 2022
    I'll look into that for sure, seems like it's going to be a pretty gloomy Spring/Summer here this year :(
     
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  11. #11 dobro49, Oct 16, 2022
    The people like Rancho, Bost, and smokeout above along with several in this section have helped me greatly. Direct questions or just following what they talk about is good education.
     
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  12. #12 juicee, Oct 17, 2022
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2022
    Are you set on organics? For the long-term Dr. Greenthumbs stuff is very very expensive. Their imports and original products are good (Tibus, Mammoth P, Root/Fruit Roids, their composts) Otherwise check these links out.

    petandgarden.com.au - volcanic rock dust (same as Dr Greenthumbs, much cheaper), guano (the same but 500% cheaper), neem meal, other good stuff like media, same coco (also neem coco), same pumice, same zeolite.
    batphone.com.au - microbial products, neem extracts, humates
    activevista.com.au - kelp meal, canola meal (very cheap/cost effective), soft rock phosphate, microbial products (BioBoost is great), humates
    nutri-tech.com.au - microbial products, humates, lots of stuff from the site above but can be bought with cheaper postage if you just want that stuff. they also have liquid LAB (lactic acid bacteria) that is amazing and dirt cheap.

    Some advice for everyone. In general a lot of organics you can get on Alibaba, soy meal, kelp meal, fish meal, shrimp/crab/krill meals, cottonseed meal, peanut meal, feed grade alfalfa meal (blend for input, or use as mulch), really the list goes on.
    Australian sea freight from Thailand is relatively cheap, a 50 kg bag of fish meal goes for 130 AUD inc. shipping if you get a shipping agent who doesn't add too many fees.
    Do ask about the salt content of what you are buying, generally anything over 5 or 6% is bad.
    Mentioning that you are using the product for growing is a good idea as well, sometimes they have more relevant material data sheets, or just advice.
     
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  13. #13 invisiblecompletion, Nov 13, 2022
    Be interested if you've actually bought meals from alibaba yourself.

    If so which shipping agent did you use and also which store did you buy from?

    Thanks
     

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