I decided to start recording my first grow so I can look back on it when needed. I'm using a 4x4 foot tent with a 600 watt dimmable ballast, starting out with mh then swapping to hps. I also have a few 28 watt GlowPanels I'll be adding to it, don't know how much they will actually help. I'm also using Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil for this. For nutes I have Fox Farm Big Bloom and Tiger's Blood and also have a sample pack of Raw Solubles. I'll start from the very beginning of it. June 2nd: Day 1 Lighting used is a 125 cfl and three 28 watt glow panels Began the Germination of 15 seeds (Don't know if they're legit genetics, just acquired from friends not seedbanks) 4 Trainwreck, 4 Green Crack, 4 seeds from Maui, 3 unknown (will call them headband because that could of been the strain) June 9th: Day 7 veg Out of all the seeds, only 3 Greencrack, 3 Trainwreck, and 1 headband seed actually sprouted. The headband's leaves were kind of distorted. All the plants seem to be stretching towards the cfl. June 16th: Day 14 veg Acquired 6 more clones into the grow, put each into a 3 gallon pot. The strains are LA Confidential, LSD, Herojuana, Jack Herer, Girl Scout Cookies, and True OG Kush. Also switched the lights to a metal halide set to 300 watts and two 28 watt glowpanels. All green crack and trainwreck are healthy, the headband seed is struggling compared to the others. June 18th: Day 16 veg True OG Kush began drooping right after the transplant. It ended up not pulling through. Decided to also germinate one extra unknown seed from a friend. Also attempted on topping all the Trainwreck and Green Crack seeds. June 20th: Day 18 veg Gained 4 more clones into the grow. Two White Fire OG, Illuminati OG, and a stressed Sugar Kane. Added RAW Soluble nutes into the water: 1/8th tsp Kelp, 1/4tsp Humic Acid, 1/4 tsp Silica, and 1/4 tsp OminA per gallon (supposed to be a veg booster solution) June 23rd: Day 21 veg Total plants is now 17 - 3 Green Crack, 3 Trainwreck, 1 Headband (from seeds) - LSD, Girl Scout Cookies, Jack Herer, LA Confidential, & Herojuana (1st round of clones) - White Fire OG x2, Illuminati OG, & Sugar Kane (2nd round of clone) - 1 additional unknown seedling that just sprouted from June 18th Added nutes in today 9mL of Fox Farm Big Bloom and 4mL Tiger's Blood per gallon Also incuded Raw Solubles 1/16 tsp Yucca and 1/4 tsp Full Up (Nutrient Uptake Solution) June 25th: Day 23 veg Plants reacted great to the nutes Going to be the last day of vegging, switching them to 12/12 and a hps bulb tomorrow. I know it's early, but I need to harvest in 10.5 weeks so time is an issue. Also added in some tomatoe cages today to help train them during the upcoming stretch. Also a picture of the whole tent setup
love that you're growing Jack, a favorite of mine. You could use a bit of amending to your ducting. you want to be sucking air in to your reflector from outside of the tent and then exhausting it right back outside of the tent - in this way your air in your grow area and the air going through your light are completely different sets of air. it's generally much easier to control temperatures this way, which means getting your lights closer to your plants. which brings me to my final point, if that MH is 300 watts, it should be MUCH closer to the plants. 12"-20" is plenty of space between a 400 watt bulb and the canopy of the plants. 300, i wouldn't go past 18" It looks like you've set yourself up right front he beginning equipment wise, good on you. I will give you some friendly, highly opinionated, advice; If this is truly your first grow, you may want to reduce your library of strains to no more than 2 or 3,4 is even pushing it. When you first start out, while its good to have one or two different strains to compare to each other and learn from, it's very easy to get data over load and confuse the fuck out of yourself.
I'm excited to see how all the different strains will turn out. The Jack Herer is in the 3 gallon pot closest to the black fan. Thanks for the advice also. The way I currently have the ducting set up is that the inline fan is sucking air from the hood and then all the hot air from light is being exhausted outside my window. There isn't too much heat coming off of it this way, around the 18th hour of use it gets to be around 77 and night temps are around 70. I was thinking this way too it brings fresh air into the tent from the vents since air is being sucked out of the hood. And I agree with you about the light, I actuall forgot to mention that I have been increasing the wattage of the lamp to 450 watts on June 18th and 600 watts on June 20th. I still lowered the light a bit towards the top of led panels at 600 watts. Thanks for the respone, cheers
i could give you loads of advice but i'll hold my tongue, you're completely on the right track. One thing I will mention for your future plants; plants from seed need a solid 7-9 weeks of growth, after the appearance of the first set of true leaves, before they should be topped, pruned, flowered, or cuttings propagated. This is all because of hormones and stress.
I appreciate all the feedback I can get, I'm still learning about growing and am considering this my test run which is also why I have 17 going. I've been reading and I found a few post saying that it's okay to top after the 3rd or 4th set of leaves appear, but I now realize that it does stress the plant. Of the 6 I topped, some handle it really well and others were stressed for a couple days and seemed to stop growing for a little while to heal, so I can see they should probably be more mature. The problem I have is that I'm on a time constraint so I am kind of rushing this grow quicker than I would of liked. Flipping the lights to 12/12 tomorrow, how long would you expect it to take for them to start flowering since they aren't fully mature yet? Also how long would you expect for the seedling I have to begin flowering? I hope to harvest by september 7th which is 10.5 weeks away, do you think that will be enough time? Also when the plants from seeds show their sex, I hope within 2 weeks, would it be advised to transplant the females into 3 gallon pots?
Thought I'd do a quick update today. Just watered using Z7 water conditioner, thought I'd try it out. Has anyone used this stuff before? Here is the whole tent, Day 2 of 12/12 lighting List of the plants starting in the big pots by the black fan and wrapping around left are: Jack Herer, Girl Scout Cookies, LA Confidential, Herojuana, LSD, White Fire OG, illumaniti OG, Sugar Kane Then the small containers are a mix of Green Crack and Trainwreck, the small one in the very middle is the unknown headband, and then the back right small container is the second unknown seed I got next to the second White Fire OG clone too. One of the Green Crack that I topped And also the LA Confidential clone decided to sprout an extra plant. Has anyone seen this before or know what it could be from?
Thought I'd do a little update real quick. I've been gone for 3 days and after coming back they looked a little stressed. I think it was because they needed water, the soil got pretty dry. Gave them each a good amount of water and they seem to be bouncing back. They stretched a good amount when I was gone. I'm hoping the males reveal themselves soon so I can thin out the herd because it's starting to get cramped in there. So far it doesn't seem like any have actually begun to flower. I'm also testing on bending some of the tops under the tomatoe cages. I'm hoping it will encourage lower bud sites to grow higher. Here is Day 8 of 12/12 lighting Any advice?
Here is some of the LST I've been messing around with Sugar Kane Girl Scout Cookies LSD And then pretty much all my clones have begun flowering But I was hoping for some help sexing the ones from seed. Here is what they look like at the moment. Is it too early to tell?
Your mix of plants are looking good, first few x2 weeks of flowering it seemed to me nothing much was happening. Belive me your notice a male from a female when you see it. I had x2 plants going into flowering and one turned out to be male mid way through the 2nd week very suddenly as well, balls everywhere but I removed in time. From you latest photos, it's still abit early to tell sex. What are you feeding your plants? and how often?
I need to source some of those tomato cages in the UK, been looking for them everywhere. Also how high is your cfl from the top of your plants?
@[member="gingerb"] So far I've been feeding them Fox Farm's Big Bloom and Tiger's Blood. I've also been adding in some Raw Soluble additives because I got a sample pack of them. I haven't been giving them too many nutes because they were stressed from transplanting, topping and also from not watering for a few days, so I did just regular water for them too bounce back instead of pumping them with nutes. Also I'm not using any cfl's, I'm using a 600 watt hps about 1.5 feet above and then two 28 watt LED GlowPanels on the sides. And the tomatoe cages seem to help a lot with training, it's really easy bending the plant all around it to get more tops. Thanks for the response!
I would never top a plant now that I have learned how to FIM... It doesn't matter how old a plant is if you top it it will get shocked and won't grow for at least 4-5 days. A FIM with LST will create a bush in that same 5 days. This pic of Critical Hog was taken at 42 days from sprouting. She is already 3 days into flowering in this pic.
I agree with you about that one. I topped most of my seeds, but I FIM'd 2 of them. One of them turned out great and is a small bush now with a bunch of tops, the other one I didn't cut low enough and it didn't end up working.
Time for another update and also I have some questions too To start off here is the tent 12 days into 12/12 lighting. It's getting pretty crowded in there, I'm hoping the plants from seed show there sex soon so I can trash the males and transplant the females into 3 gallon pots and gain a little breathing room in there. Nothing I can really do though until that happens though. I also found a white little spot on a couple leaves in there. I'm beginning to get concerned its powder mold. Did some reading and I found that it is common in crowded spaces with humidity over 50%, which is pretty much what I have right now. Here are some pictures of what one of the leaves looked like and also zoomed in on the white spot. Is that powder mold that I have? If so I've been reading to mix 10% milk & 90% water for a foliage spray to get rid of it, is that the general cure for it? Some advice with this would be greatly appreciated. The final thing I was wondering was about my current lighting set up. I have my 600 watt HPS light going, but i was considering doing a MH and HPS combo. I have another light that is a 400 watt HPS that I could hang in there and then switch the other one I have in there to a MH bulb and run it at 50% or 75% and have the two going. Would this be worth it to get a full spectrum of light, or just a waste of my time and energy? Also with this I'm wondering about the ventilation for this, I currently have 6" ducting going to the hood I have in now. If I added the 400 watt HPS then I would have to attach on a 6" to 4" reducer and use 4" ducting to add it to the other hood. Would this work or would there not be enough airflow and too much strain on my fan? I have a 6" max fan doing 334 cfm.
Just spotted my first 2 males. Can anyone confirm so I can trash them? Looks like I'm down to 15 now. I did spot 1 pistil today though too, hopefully more come soon!
Alright it has been a little while now so time for an update! It's 19 days into the 12/12 lighting. Pretty much all have shown signs of flowering, only 2 of the seeds ended up being male surprisingly. So here is the whole tent as of today. Pretty cramped in there. Seeds: Trainwreck #1: This trainwreck I FIM'd. Came out nice with 4 main colas and two smaller ones in the middle. Few days into flowering. Trainwreck #2: I topped this Trainwreck. Came out with 2 main colas and 4 smaller. Few days into flowering. Trainwreck #3: I failed at FIM this one, so it has 1 main cola and is pretty much unaltered. Few days into flowering. Green Crack #1: Topped and showing about 4 main colas. Few days into flowering. Green Crack #2: Failed FIM for this Green Crack so 1 main cola. This one grew one pollen sack along with pistils, I'm keeping my eye on it to see if it's a hermie. Few days into flowering. Unknown The very last seed that sprouted around June 23rd. Just popped some pisitls yesterday, really curious to how something this young will turn out. It's in a 2 liter pot as well. Clones June 20th: Sugar Kane: It's doing much better than when I first got it. The buds on it look funny to me though, not really too many hairs on them like the others and the leaves are pretty wilted, but it's still holding up! About 1.5 weeks into flowering. Illumanati OG: Has been growing decently, not anything impressive. I chopped off the lower branches on this hoping to lollipop and get one good size bud from it. White Fire OG #1: The pot has been pretty heavy as if the soil is full of water, so I haven't watered in about a week. It's been doing better since then, but still not good as you can see. Thinking about trashing this one to make some more room if things don't change. White Fire OG #2: Hasn't grown much since I got it and seems like the same case as the other one. It's just sitting in the very corner of the tent, away from direct light. Kind of lost interest and hope in this one. Clones June 16th: Girl Scout Cookies: Bushed out really nicely with training using the tomatoe cage. Has a good amount of tops on it, about 1.5 weeks into flowering now. LSD: So far I would say this is the winner in the group. The buds are covered in white hairs, huge leaves, and a handful of tops from LST. I took out the lower bud sites on this one. Really pleased so far, about 1.5 weeks into flowering. Jack Herer: Has been growing real nice since it's been switched to flowering. Was growing pretty slowly during veg, but now it is taking off nicely. I have't chopped a single leaf of this one nor any LST, I'm going to let it grow all natural. Herojuana: Growing pretty great, really strong during veg then seemed to be a little slower now a couple weeks into 12/12 lighting. I took off most of the lower branches and bud sites on this one along with LST. LA Confidential: Growning nicely, did LST on this one along with partially removing lower branches and bud sites. Forgot to take a bud shot on this one!
It's been a little while so time for another update! It's now day 27 of 12/12 light cycle and the plants have been growing very nicely. I think the stretch is pretty much done and now it's time for bud production. Here is the whole tent: Seeds: Trainwreck #1: Trainwreck #2: <strong>Trainwreck #3:</strong> Green Crack #1: Green Crack #2: Unknown: Clones June 20th: Sugar Kane: Illumanati OG: White Fire OG #1: Clones June 16th: Girl Scout Cookies: LSD: <strong>Jack Herer:</strong> <strong><strong>Herojuana:</strong></strong> <strong><strong><strong>LA Confidential:</strong></strong></strong> Let me know what you guys think!
Another week, another update. Right now it is officially 5 weeks (35 days) from flipping the lights to 12/12. The buds are coming in nicely along with the trichomes. The tent is filling up quite nicely, I had to tie some branches together that were getting a little top heavy and falling over. Very pleased so far though! Here is the whole tent. Seeds: Trainwreck #1: Trainwreck #2: <strong>Trainwreck #3:</strong> Green Crack #1: Green Crack #2: Unknown: Clones June 20th: Sugar Kane: Illumanati OG: White Fire OG #1: Clones June 16th: Girl Scout Cookies: LSD: <strong>Jack Herer:</strong> <strong><strong>Herojuana:</strong></strong> <strong><strong><strong>LA Confidential:</strong></strong></strong>
Only a week and a half until harvest, very pleased with the results so far. Hopefully I'll be getting a hefty yeild!