First time growing cannabis, and so far it's going pretty well. I'm doing a scrog closet grow with some feminized White Widow seeds from ILGM. The start of the grow was kind of rough. I was using MG all-purpose plant food, which was too much for the seedling, which you can see from the drooping leaves and super dark green color. It was a real slow grower at first. I looked around and it turns out some phenotypes of WW just take awhile to get started. Right now she's 36 days old in a (roughly) 2-3 gallon fabric pot vegging under a 400W MH. I'm using the FF liquid trio of nutes, and she's loving it! A few days ago I topped her for the first time, and she recovered really nicely. The two new growth tips on top got super bushy and were blocking light from the pair of growth tips below, which I need to bring up to the top for a 4-way LST to begin scrogging her, so I've started a little bit of LST to open up the top of the plant so the lower branches can get more light. Pictures to come later!
I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm still unable to upload any media to any albums. Hopefully that gets fixed soon.
Never tried I normally press the upload a file button when your making s post. Then I sent it from there.
The speed at which your plant goes from germinated seedling to mature plant depends on a few things. First off, I've been growing feminized White Widow now pretty hot and heavy for a couple of years. It's a very popular strain and will knock your socks off if grown and cured correctly. I've seen some posts where others said it can be a difficult strain to grow, but I've found that not to be true. If you want your seedling to mature as fast as possible, start it out in a small container...like a Solo cup with a bunch of drain holes punched in the bottom. Use good quality soil. If you can't or don't think it necessary to buy some real formulated grow soil and choose to go with some off-the-shelf soil, you'll need to amend it pretty heavily with perlite to create sufficient drainage for the plants. They do not like their roots sitting in moist conditions constantly and most of the soils we buy to grow flowers and other plants in, act more like a sponge to hold as much water as possible. We want the opposite with our indoor grow plants. You need a very light and arid soil to grow in for ease of root growth and the best drainage possible. So we've got seed in soil in Solo cup. Water it in with properly pH'd water (range of 6.3 to 6.7 for soil grows) and put your cup under your veg lighting. Then all you do is just leave it alone. When a germinated seed goes into soil, the first thing it does is build it's root system. How long it takes the plant to do this very important thing depends on what size container you've got it growing in. By starting out small with the cup, it takes less time for the plant to root in and get back to growing foliage and using water. While it's rooting in, especially in the very beginning, the foliage just kind of sits there and waits on it and doesn't do much growing or use much water. Just because you don't see something happening with a plant, does not mean it's not doing it's thing. The roots are THE most important part of your plant and if they're not happy, your plant won't be either. Once the root system is formed, you'll see the foliage begin to pick up and grow and the plant will use water again. DO NOTHING TO THAT PLANT UNTIL IT HAS USED UP NEARLY ALL THE WATER IN THE CUP. This will take SEVERAL days...depending on how much water you used to water it in and again, how big the container is. Now, with a Solo cup, I can generally get it big enough to up pot in about 7-10 days. When the plant itself is larger than the container it's growing in (wider and taller), that usually means you're slightly root bound and that is exactly when it's time to repot. Again, don't go from a Solo cup to a 10 gallon pot because you're just going to have to sit and wait on the rooting in thing again. From cups, we go to 1 gallon pots and do the same thing over again. From 1 gallon pots, I usually go to about a #3 pot, etc. Each time you repot or up pot your plant, you replenish the nutrients that are naturally in the soil. You do not have to give nutes (food) to the plants until they have had the opportunity to use up what came in the soil. With frequent repotting and using good soil to grow in, you can get almost all the way through veg without giving nutes. Nutes are NOT the key to big healthy plants and stellar buds. Lighting is the ticket to that. The better stronger lighting you have for them during both veg and flower, the bigger and stronger plants you grow and the more dense and larger buds you end up with at harvest. You only need enough nutes to feed the plant when the soil it's growing in is exhausted of nutrition. Throughout the life of the plant, I only give about a 1/4 or 1/5 of the recommended amounts by the manufacturers. Over the years, I've realized that you don't have to use that many chemicals in my plants if I'm smart about how I grow. But each time you repot a plant, there will be a period of time when it seems as if the plant isn't growing at the proper speed. The metal halide lighting you're using for veg is wonderful. It creates a root system for a plant that you just don't get with the CFLs/T5 lighting during veg. I would love to switch over to straight metal halide to veg with, but until I can get another air conditioner put into the window of that room, it's just too much heat for me to deal with at the moment. For now, we veg under T5's and do fine with those. Listen, most people spend the majority of their time thinking about and putting together the setup they plan to grow under or with and typically put very little effort into researching and reading up on the "how to" part of growing these indoor. It's a bit different doing it this way and you desperately need to learn what I consider the very basics of the way it's done. The more you know, the more it makes sense and the less lost you feel when your plants start doing something you consider odd. So read up on the growing aspects of this in the "new grower" threads here on the forum. There are several "sticky's" on there that contain these basics you need to grasp on to. Good luck and happy growing!! TWW
Hey man, thanks a lot! The metal halide rocks, I agree. Now that the plant has its roots there's a visible difference in size between when I wake up and go to bed. It even looks like it gets bigger overnight too, if that's possible. Anyways, I started in a solo cup and went up to a ~2 gallon cloth pot after that just because I didn't have an in-between size. Although I now realize that I transplanted way too early which caused the slow growth. But now the growth is pretty good in my opinion. In future grows I'm hoping to figure this strain out to the point where I can grow it in my sleep. I still have 9 seeds left, and hopefully tons of clones in the future.
Here's a lineup of photos to show her progress! I don't have all of the pictures right from germination, but these pictures show a couple weeks of nice growth. 20160509_115117 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM 20160520_130109 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0034 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0035 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0037 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0038 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0039 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0075 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM IMG_0076 by Creed Bratton posted May 11, 2016 at 6:10 PM
Day 40 of veg and she's doing really well. Growth is picking up a bit. Not as much as I was hoping for, but that's been the case this whole grow. I'll probably add some updated pics on 5/15, which is the end of week 6 of veg.
I decided to upload new pics a day early. I started some LST today on the top 2 colas so the lower branches can catch up. After LST she's still under 6 inches tall, but man is she getting bushy. In roughly a week I'm going to top her again on her 4 highest growth tips for 8 main colas. Then perhaps more LST, then ride it out until the end of this month when I'm going to flip her into flower. IMG_0127 by Creed Bratton posted May 14, 2016 at 3:47 PM IMG_0126 by Creed Bratton posted May 14, 2016 at 3:47 PM
Today is the beginning of week 6 of veg, day 43. I took some more photos, and overall plant size is still small. But I'm expecting this one to really blow up once she goes into flower in 15 days. I also did a second round of topping today. Her current bushiness was created from just 1 topping. And now I just topped her 6 more times for 12 main colas so she should reeeaaalllly fill out after this. Now there's not much for me to do except maybe some more LST once her new growth tips start growing, then just wail for flowering. IMG_0187 by Creed Bratton posted May 16, 2016 at 10:31 AM IMG_0186 by Creed Bratton posted May 16, 2016 at 10:31 AM IMG_0188 by Creed Bratton posted May 16, 2016 at 10:31 AM
Today is day 45 of veg, and she's recovering from her topping nicely. 13 days until I change the light cycle to 12/12, so I'm hoping the new growth tips will become fully developed by then. This morning there noticeably more space between the nodes. I am a fan of her bushiness, but it is nice to see her growing vertically some, and opening up to let more light in.
Today is day 46 of veg, and she's doing really well. This is mostly for update photos. There are 2 full plant shots, and two showing the developing growth tips after topping. IMG_0266 by Creed Bratton posted May 19, 2016 at 11:03 AM IMG_0265 by Creed Bratton posted May 19, 2016 at 11:03 AM IMG_0264 by Creed Bratton posted May 19, 2016 at 11:03 AM IMG_0263 by Creed Bratton posted May 19, 2016 at 11:03 AM
Today is day 50, the start of week 7 of veg. 8 days until I start flowering, and this is how she's doing. I have some pictures showing her density, and the progress of the new growth tips. There are currently 18-20 active growth tips in the top canopy. IMG_0337 by Creed Bratton posted May 23, 2016 at 2:53 PM IMG_0335 by Creed Bratton posted May 23, 2016 at 2:53 PM IMG_0334 by Creed Bratton posted May 23, 2016 at 2:53 PM IMG_0333 by Creed Bratton posted May 23, 2016 at 2:53 PM
I decided to do one last round of LST before flowering. here she is after being tied down more. The canopy is nice and flat, and she should be good to go in about a week. I also installed my scrog to get used to maneuvering around it while watering, etc. IMG_0360 by Creed Bratton posted May 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM IMG_0363 by Creed Bratton posted May 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM IMG_0364 by Creed Bratton posted May 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM IMG_0365 by Creed Bratton posted May 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM
The first time I did LST on my White Widow, it took her a few days to recover and turn upright. But this time it was so much faster. Within a few hours she was starting to turn back towards the light. Here are two shots just to show her progress in one day. Also, I took a couple of cutting from the lower branches that I'm going to try cloning with the water bottle method. Let's see how it goes. IMG_0363 by Creed Bratton posted May 25, 2016 at 10:01 AM IMG_0367 by Creed Bratton posted May 25, 2016 at 10:01 AM IMG_0368 by Creed Bratton posted May 25, 2016 at 10:01 AM
That's happened to other people when they try and view them with the GC app. Give it a go on a PC, they should hopefully show up then
5 days left until I force flowering, I'm getting really excited. Today I saw some of the first protoflowers growing on the stems, with their light yellow pistils growing out of them. They're still a little too small for my camera to focus on properly, but they're definitely there!
Finally, after 8 agonizing weeks of veg, 12/12 starts tonight! I switched out my 400W MH for my 400W HPS, and tonight I'm officially going to change the light cycle. When I first set up the scrog, I was a little worried that the plant was too short. But now she's only about an inch and a half below the screen, and from what I've read, WW loves to stretch, so I'm not too worried anymore. Here she is now, and I'll hopefully be doing weekly updates as she continues to grow flowers. I trimmed several large fan leaves off of the bottom of the plant a couple of days ago, as well as in the crowded center of the canopy. She has really filled out, and is very healthy. I hope the bud is worth the extra month of veg this plant took. And I'm hoping I have some better phenotypes in the rest of my seeds for next time to try and get a faster grower. IMG_0396 by Creed Bratton posted May 30, 2016 at 6:03 PM IMG_0397 by Creed Bratton posted May 30, 2016 at 6:03 PM And as far as the clones go, one was accidentally knocked over and stepped on, but the other one is down well. No roots yet, but no wilting or yellowing either. So hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to get that one started in a solo cup.
Nice man, I really like what you have done, I'm gonna keep watching. I nearly went for white widow but went for its cousin northern lights in 1/2 weeks off chopping and the wait is killing me!
