Hiya, absolutely newbie here - decided to grow to help family and friends get off pharmaceuticals for pain/anxiety etc. Anyway, i'm had a little microgrow going to test things out like topping, LST etc. It's tiny, the box is probaby 1x1x1.5/2 - im not doing this for yields just experimenting. I originally had two in there but for obvious space issues i moved the runty looking one to my tomato tent and decided to 12/12 it for fun. Low and behold its female, which im currently revegging because my tents now in the garage and i need to 18/6 to combat heat, even though its summer here the city i am isnt the warmest. I'm attached images of the plant i've been tending to with more importance, i started 12/12 on the 15th of December, so 8 days ago (I'm in NZ, we're in the future). and I've had no signs of gender? i've noticed the stipules are crossing over and ive heard thats a good sign? (a female sign?) The colas, or what hopefully will become colas, are becoming a lot brighter. Could the slow gender reveal be because im pruning too much? should i just leave it be for a while? when should preflowers show? sorry for all the questions! again, total newbie with good intentions. Pretty embarrinsgly, ive only recently learned that when LED's are advertised as "100w" usually doesnt mean 100watt, the light im using for this for instance was sold to me as 100w but after investigation its only 20watt! could that be another reason for slow gendering? lack of power? i have another one of these lights, but the "50w" version, so 10watts, would there be any point in putting that in there? Apologies for all the questions, im doing this little micro so i can learn what to do and what not to do when it comes to my real grow. If theres anything else you think i need to know id really appreciate it. I'm a bit dyslexic and didn't do a lot of schooling, im mentioning this because most of the replies at the last forum i was at (full of tall poppy syndrome man-splainers to be honest, they seem to be obsessed with huge yields and perfect buds, would ignore me and not understand why id want to grow ruderalis indica, its 8% thc 8% cbd, growing it for that reason, and because its easy as heck to grow apparently) would just link me to a video. That doesnt really work for my brain, i need words that i can refer back to, add to my grow diary etc. Thank you in advance, really appreciate any advice given. happy holidays
The medium is 2 parts coco coir, 1 part perlite and 1 part soil. Someone told me to never mix perlite to soil, without any explanation obviously - im growing all my plants in this mixture and they love it. For the proper grow ill be using this most likely : https://hyalite.co.nz/products/easy-as-organic-living-soil-25l Expensive as hell but im only growing 3 plants so why not
Micro grows are unique and pleasantly rewarding but yield probably won't provide enough to cover use between cycles. If you have the space it's not too costly to enclose a taller shelving unit to give you a bit more potential. I've adapted a 1 x 1 x 4 ft unit to handle special veg projects but could realistically run flowering and pull down a worthwhile effort. Currently using a 90 w UFO and plants in this cabinet seem to outshine others on the same timeline in other boxes. The specimen pictured broke ground a day before the start of this month and was topped about a week ago. Generally I top then apply aggressive LST through two months of 18/6 in 2 gal containers. The second pic is another that was bumped early to it's final 5 gal in anticipation of going to flower in a few more weeks.
Thanks. Yeah this micro grow isn't for yields, its for experimenting techniques while i wait for my seeds to arrive and other seeds to germinate (if my main seeds dont arrrive). I'd love it to be female but not overly concerned. I think i will install that extra little light and try and help it, see what happens. hopefully it'll reveal its gender in another week :-/
Like, any yield is a success for this, its costing me next to nothing to run, its fun to experiment and im learning I tend to "hyper-fixate" on many different projects, that generally last about a week, ive finally found something thats stuck and its great. Not just growing cannabis but growing in general, made my first batch of home grown sundried tomatoes yesterday, felt (and tasted) great
So i went ahead and installed the extra light, so a whopping total of 30watts for this tiny plant. If there's no sign of gender in another week or two then im stummped. Surely i should be getting some kind of sign a week into 12/12? I have been trimming a bit too much, thinking i was doing the right thing the bigger leaves were shading areas etc so ill stop with that for a while