this will be my first attempt an actual "grow journal." i'm growing a single blue widow plant, which has already been vegging for about 5 weeks. topped several times, and lots of LST. she went into the flowering tent last night, so more pics to follow shortly . basic info: strain - blue widow, by dinafem 400 w HPS, quantum digital ballast, digilux 400 HPS bulb 3 gallon "geo pot" aeration container, with a mix of perlite and vermiculite using "general organics" bottled nutrients (i'm still in the process of cooking my first batch of soil for a legitimate organic grow ) here are the pics i have so far, a couple from each stage of growth -
I could be just high but I counted better than 20 possible colas, or budsites... And you only topped? No F.I.Ming? A work of art is what that is! Do you the respective ages from each stage of photo above? Got my floral wire today so I'm set got LSTing as well and hopefully I'll do as good a job damn! That Blue Widow has MORE BUSH than W Hahaha damn man! Thx for the up Ps. Does your mix ingredients make it a soilless mix? They get all their nutrient from the bottles?
haha yeah man! at least 20, during "the stretch" some of the smaller side branches usually beef up too . i prefer topping cuz it's simple, you know you've done it right as long as the growth tip isn't there anymore lol and as long as you're topping the tallest colas, it dramatically increases the bushiness of the plant overall. many thanks for the generous compliment! the only age i'm 100% sure of is the last photo, it's the most recent and it was taken just a couple days past 5 weeks. the others were taken at random times when my homie was around and had the fancy camera it is technically a soilless mix, just 80% perlite, 20% vermiculite, with the bottom 2 inches or so filled up with coarse DE to prevent compaction, literally every bit of food she's ever had came from those bottles of GO nutes. although it's cheaper, more practical, and probably more effective to build your own soil from the bottom up like we're doing, i've gotta say i can't complain about this bottled stuff. i posted some pics here http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/1140854-kushage-hempy-bucket-grow.html of my last grow, that was with GO bottled nutes also. the violator kush, that is, the kushage was strictly chem hydro nutes
Bottom line....WELL DONE. If you got that many colas with topping, there's no telling what u could do with FIMing. I was fortunate enough to get to that part on my first grow and the result were shocking. Just seemed like the stem start shooting out bud sites. I got like 8 new bud sites from a single FIM. It's really simple once you look at it an read a bit about it bro. Basically the plants wanna grow like Xmas tree with a tallest singular cola, but when you FIM or top the plant you take it uppermost part away, making it send signals to other parts of the plant that it normally wouldn't, creating more budsites. Same thing happens when you bend it over..the goal is to get as much light to the stem as poss during veg it seems like. Sent from my iPad using GC Forum
finally an update! these pics are from a couple of days ago, 11th day of 12/12 to be specific. she's growing extremely fast, so a new update should be in the works later this week.
So is this roughly about 7 weeks since you planted? And with the HPS all the way thru? Good looking grow MIM! Sent from my iPad using GC Forum #FineSmoking
Marvelous! What sorta lumen output did you get from the T5 you vegged with? Once again I know I'm bombarding you questions, but what you've done is obviously working, so I'd like to take a mental note. To the contrary tho, you went with topping your widow, I'm gonna go with FIMing so we'll see what difference it actually makes or not in FIM vs topping, as it looks like you def. FIMed. I'll also lst. I've read that when you lst as well you for the plant to send its cola forming chemical, auxins, to different spots in the plants creating budsites. But yeah keep up the good work! I'll be chasing your greatness Sent from my iPad using GC Forum #FineSmoking
haha so many kind words! i'm happy to answer any questions i can as well, ask away . this will be only my 5th grow tho, i've learned A LOT as i've gone but still far from being an expert. my T5 is a 4 foot, 8 lamp fixture, 40,000 lumens. here's a pic of how i did my lst, it was like clockwork doing it this way. i put a safety pin through the fabric on the air pot, tied the branch with a bit of butcher's twine, and ran the other end through the pin. i pulled the twin up into the little crevice on the head of the pin, and it stayed put like it was made to do that haha. with some of the more difficult branches i had to loop the twine around a couple of times to secure the twine, but still quite easy.
Awesome! I should putting out somewhere around that right now, so before I switch I'll chime in and compare. I've got some floral wire to do my LSTing with, and I just reinforced the toe of my grow bags with duct tape so that I'll have somewhere to anchor them all to. Can't wait to hear back on that smoke report. Blueberry and White Widow are both renowned for taste! Mmmm Sent from my iPad using GC Forum #FineSmoking
A today(@day21) I woke up and poked my head into my grow space and got a whiff of an odor for the first time. Smells sort musty in their haha def. think odor control is gonna come into play within the next week! Idk which one is it yet, or if its a combo of the three but yeah buddy, I def. smell mine too now :edit: sorry about that post. I meant to post it in my jounal..Pfff Sent from my iPad using GC Forum #FineSmoking
man i have two sets of new pics but im still waiting for them to be cropped and sized, because they're not in my possession . shouldn't be long tho, so the next update my have three sets of pics lol. i'll know exactly how many days into flowering each of the sets are tho, so i'll sort it all out.
That works! Be easy in regards to who knows what you're doing...I'm hoping GC will let me change my username due to a security breach...Otherwise I'll be coming back under a diff name. An old friend of mine who I let in on what I'm doing(the only person other than my girl) got himself hemmed up, and I went as far as to move to avoid even putting pressure on him to snitch as his back's up against the wall! So yeah, that's that....But mine is doing good too tho. Lots of budsites flying out in all directions! I'm too busy trying to keep this thing as low to the ground as possible!
here the latest pics, these were taken about a week and a half after the previous update/pics: EDIT: these are not actually the *latest* pics, just the next in chronological order . the following post will have even more recent pics.
and finally, these are the most recent pics. they were taken 5 or 6 days ago, during which time she's grown exceptionally quickly. if she keeps up this pace she'll be a damn fast finisher, and the yield looks to be impressive. she started stinking like window cleaner, citrus, melons and skunks about 2 weeks ago, and the smell has only gotten more pungent. resin production is amazing, and the calyxes have just barely begun to swell. sooo glad i took a cutting to keep as a mom, i'm falling in love!