Grow Area: 5'x3'x7' Veg lighting: 4ft 6 lamp T5 (4x 6500k, 2x 4200k) Flower lighting: Galaxy Select-a-watt ballast (400-600-1000), wattage TBD Ventilation: 4" vortex + Phresh filter; 6" ActiveAir inline for cooling lights. Method: organic soil mixture, just add water start to finish. Genetics: Big Budda Blue Cheese fem. and Delicious Fruity Chronic Juice fem. Containers: Germinated in 4 quart grow bags, veg in 2 gallon grow bags, fruit in 5 gallon grow bags. Germinated: Approximately Oct 1st Veg: Oct 22 - ( ? ) Flower: ( ? ) - ( ? )
10/30: Little overview of this grow. I haven't grown anything in a few years now, so I decided to rig up a little temporary area and shake off the rust with a couple plants. I'll be expanding after this one to a vertical stadium setup in a bigger area. I have no idea how long I'll be vegging for, it will primarily be determined by my patience. Wattage will also depend on how big I veg the plants, I'll likely just use a 400w as I've already got a couple of 400's laying around, but I *may* go purchase a 600w if I decide to veg for a while. I'll update with a couple pictures every week during veg. Updates (and pictures) will get more abundant once in full flower. Feel free to leave any comments or criticism.
Want to post up a couple pictures. Bigger one is Blue Cheese. Trying to find a solution to the drooping of the leaves. Wanted a picture of it now to compare to in another day or so when the soil dries out completely to see if I'm over watering or not. Only other culprit I can think of would be the nutrients. I do a little modified version of subcools method in these quart bags. I put small 3" layer of full strength organic mix under seed starting mix. Wondering if I shouldn't have gone with 50% strength.
11-4 Hasn't quite been a week yet, but I'll update anyway. Drying the soil out did nothing to perk the plants up, I'm not assuming it's because they've outgrown the quart grow bags, and so I transplanted to 2 gallon bags tonight. I'll be topping these once they recover from the transplant to bush them out. I'm looking to achieve a large, even canopy, and trimming all under growth to promote large colas. They'll veg in these for a while before being transplanted into 5 gallon bags, following another week or veg before flipping to 12/12
11/17 - 26th day of Veg Been almost 2 weeks since I've updated.Quite a bit has happened. -I topped them originally as planned a couple days after the last update. -The soil was too hot for them, so I pulled 'em out and shook off the dirt and amended with all of the seed starting mix I had leftover. -Blue Cheese, which was hit harder by the burn, perked up well after the transplant as she received more of the seed starting mix. -Fruity Chronic Juice, which wasn't hit hard by nute burn received less seed starting mix, and still has leaf curl, but looks better. This will be fixed when transplanted into 5 gallon containers before flowering. -Today I noticed the first signs of heat stress from them growing too close to the lights. I usually catch it before it happens, but even 3" from the T5 feels okay to my hand, barely warm at all. I'll be keeping them at about 5-6" from here on out - Did some trimming and topped the 2 top leaders again today, leaving 2 nodes. With the secondary leaders, I cut off the lower most node off each branch, leaving the 2 closest to the tip. I'll be topping the secondary as well in a day or two when it catches up in height with the primary. Both plants before the trim: Top of Fruity Chronic Juice before trim: Top of Blue Cheese before trim: And the trim. Don't usually take these, but this will give you a rough idea of what I trim, roughly every other week. I do a slow, steady trimming, first removing the lower branches and any lower leaves that make watering difficult, then I begin removing any nodes that will end up being "larf." Nodes that don't receive much light and end up in the water hash bags: Both plants after the trim, missed a leaf or two on the bottom of Blue Cheese, will take care of that in the morning.: Top of Fruity Chronic Juice after the trim: Top of Blue Cheese after the trim, you can see where the heat stress came in on the top: Hopefully, if things keep going the way they have this past week, by my next update, they'll be looking a lot healthier. Not really sure how much longer I'll be vegging. I'll try to update with more detail on that next week.
Hey Kronity! I'm pretty excited about that one myself, probably the only freebie I've gotten that I actually wanted to try out. Really hoping that I'll get a cheese pheno out of that Blue Cheese too. Grew out 8 beans from a pack without a single Cheese pheno, and then only 1 of the 2 seeds remaining germinated this time. Veg is long and boring. I try not to do too many updates, hell, I try to mostly forget about the plants in veg. Once we hit full flowering, I update *at least* once a week with lots of pictures. Got a few things to get done before I can bust out the HPS. Things are looking pretty shitty and "budget" right now, but they'll only get better! I just wanted to get a head-start on veg and get this part over with. I'm pulling to funds together to bring this grow up to par. -My grow area needs to be finished and/or re-built. It's far from light proof -funding was really low when I started so I nailed together some 1x2's and stapled some panda to it. Its not very strong, but it does the job. I'll be building a proper cab out of 2x3's and plywood. - Need to get a hood. Super sun 2 or bust. That is, *if* I decide not to go back to vert. I love my bare bulbs, and may just hang a light between them. Wish I had a couple more plants for that, though. - Gotta get a heater for lights-off. That's the only reason I'm running 24/0 light schedule right now. Ambient temps are around 60f, and only gonna get colder as winter progresses. Basically, I'm slowing building this up for a future grow, rather than worrying about this one so much. This is just my "I'm sick of paying $20/g" grow. The 1kw'ers come out next
Damn, 20/g? I haven't seen someone pay that in 9 years lol, but good for you. Vegging is tedious and long and boring but so is teaching a child to walk or crawl forward... you just gotta love to do it to get through it. what does your bank say that your chron juice will produce?
Heh, I'll be finding out about that baby stuff soon enough. I'm becoming a father come February. Scary stuff, really. On the bright side, I think that transplant worked wonderfully. Checked on 'em today, absolutely no leaf curl on either plant! Delicious seeds claims 450 gr/m² indoors, and 500 gr per plant outdoors, however that translates, I'm not sure. Seems likely at this point I'll be flowering under the 400 HPS I have as the old lady has been getting on my case about spending too much money on the hobby. I hate estimating yields this early, I need to do some research on the strains still and their flowering tendencies (stretch, etc) but if I had to throw a number out there... 6 zips if I flip to flower here in a couple weeks. 9 zips if I can be patient enough to fill a 3x3 area with an even canopy.
Well, since I skipped a week, and they're *finally* looking healthy. I thought I'd post a single picture. Day 27 of veg: A quick research is showing that Fruity Chronic Juice can be expected to double in size, while the Blue Cheese will double to possibly triple in size. Not going to complain about that, I'll utilize some LST on the branches to spread her out rather than letting her grow up. Both appear to flower around 9 weeks, so harvest time should be very close. I will be harvesting based on trichomes, regardless.
11/26 - 35th day of Veg Went halfway across the country to visit some family for Thanksgiving. Was gone for 5 days, came home and the plants looked pretty good, needed water, but wasn't bad. I hacked away at them pretty good just now, more so than I usually do. There's just so much leaf on these blocking all of my bud sites, so I'm trying to expose those sites to the light to promote some growth to get them to the canopy. This will be my last heavy trimming, for sure. From this point on, I'll just be removing any branches that don't receive enough light to produce well. I'll be transplanting into 5 gallon containers soon, this week probably, and then another couple weeks veg to allow the roots to grow into the bigger container before I flip to 12/12. Once again, some pics before and after the trim: Fruity Chronic Juice, pre-trim: Blue Cheese, pre-trim: Fruity Chronic Juice, post-trim: Blue Cheese, post-trim: Under the canopy of Blue Cheese, you can see that the excessive trimming I've done throughout veg in this grow as resulted in some pretty sturdy branching. Should be capable of supporting some hefty nugs: I'll post up some more pictures once they perk up from the water I gave 'em. Should look much better then.
12/1 - 44th day of Veg Went into 5 gallon bags today. Mixed a brick of coco in with the soil I used to fill the bags with, so hopefully that'll keep 'em from getting nute burn again. Lowered the pH of water going in to about 6.2 because I've had consistent signs of high pH. Been watering about 6.6 - 6.8. 2-3 more weeks of veg, then I'm flowering. Want to give the roots a chance to grow throughout the container. I might top one more time, but more likely I'll just trim from the bottom up. Will be flowering with 400w, so I don't want to need any penetration, I want all of my buds at the canopy Just a quick couple of pictures. Drooping is just due to the soil being bone dry. I let 'em dry out before transplanting as the soil shrinks and it's easier to pull 'em out. They'll look find come tomorrow: I've also never really shown how I have everything set up. Here's some of it, anyway: The fan/filter is located outside of the tent. 4" vortex fan and phresh filter. Intake is only at 4" right now, but will be doubled once I put the HPS in.
Perked up. Now that they're bushy enough, I let 'em grow. Will put them in flowering sometime this month, for sure. The string was where I tied a couple of the branches away from center in the 2 gallon containers. I'll end up tying them all back down, probably tonight.
Taking a few pictures daily so I can have a visual comparison basis to how they take to the soil. Blue Cheese: Fruity Chronic Juice:
12/12 - Will be flowering within 24 hours. Need to figure out when I want the lights running, but I got everything I need to light-proof the tent. Finances are really tight right now, so I won't be getting a new reflector either, unfortunately. What it's looking like right now is I'm about to go throw up the HPS, move the filter inside the tent, and set up the cool tube. Light proof it all and then run the HPS until 6 am, when the plants will get the first 12-off cycle. Still need a space heater, but I have a heater in the garage, albeit a 5,000w one which I can use to regulate the temperature during lights off. Girls are thirsty right now - had to leave town again for a few days. Will post back later with some measurements and pictures of the plants.
Tent is now light proof. HPS is up. Had to give the girls another trimming - they were really bushy and the weak 400w light wasn't penetrating. Removed the lower growth again. The bud sites will develop more over the next two weeks as they stretch. The only trimming I'll be doing is removing any weak shoots that won't produce good, dense nugs. Both plants are roughly 14" tall (give or take an inch or so) and 18" diameter (give or take.) Hopefully they stretch at roughly the same rate, that would be perfect. I seem to have a constant battle with pH, despite the soil being buffered and all water going in pH'd to 6.3. Before the trim: After the trim - I'm aware they look better before the trim every time, but for yield purposes, I believe trimming is beneficial to allow the light to penetrate: Fruity Chronic Juice - has a definite sweet, fruity smell: Blue Cheese - Don't really smell a cheese, but she stinks. Can't quite describe the odor:
12/18 Had to put off flowering another couple days due to temperature problems. Was running about 67f with the HPS on, so I wasn't willing to kill the light. No worries, lights are off now and flowering is under way! Went out and got a heater not too long ago - still dialing the thermostat in right now, but it works well. Taped up the power light with some foil tape and the tent is still light proof. The heating element glows, but you can only see it if the back of the heater is within a few inches of the Panda plastic - which it's not. Didn't notice some of the plants symptoms under the HPS light, but I've got some yellowing on the veins new growth, about to go take some pictures and try to figure out what the issue is, but I'm 90% sure it's an Iron deficiency. Will be posting back shortly with pictures.