The I Know Less Than Nothing About Plants Journal

Every new grower has that internal debate, I think. I started with CFLs and LED and I don't regret it. Well, maybe I regret the LED a little. I wonder if new growers who jump straight to HPS are people who have already been directly exposed to grow ops.

This varies a lot by strain. My Barney's Farm LSD plants did not start to stink till the 4th week of flower.

I'm very skeptical about these additives. I don't think they hurt, wallet depletion aside, but I need to see some convincing evidence before I put my skepticism aside. Perhaps, someday, when I'm flowering multiple clones of the same plant...

Droopy leaves may just indicate that they are heavy with water. A day later, they should have recovered. As to when to water, how frequently, I go by weight.

Water is very heavy, much heavier than soil or perlite or dolomite or cannabis. Pick up your plant right after you have watered it. Heft it in you hands. Feel how heavy it is, how low the center of gravity is. Repeat this process every day. As the water is consumed, the plant will grow lighter and the center of gravity will move higher. When the plant is very light, but before it starts to droop (hopefully) I water. When I water, I drench. I water for heavy runoff. And I capture the runoff and measure its pH. The pH of the runoff serves as a proxy for the pH of the soil.

If you have sufficient perlite, overwatering is impossible. You can still water too frequently, but you cannot overwater. Excess water just falls through the porous soil. Fox Farm Ocean Forest comes with perlite and you added some, so you should be good in that regard.

I think you are going to need some way to measure pH before you are done. My soil grows tended to be non-stop pH battles once I got past this first month or so. That was in FFOF with lots of perlite, using Fox Farm nutes.

I have not used Sunleaves, but I have used Fox Farm Big Bloom, which is bat guano and worm castings. I add that to every feeding, two tablespoons per gallon in veg and one tablespoon per gallon in flower, as per the feeding schedule on the Fox Farm web site. I have never gone with the full recommended doses for Grow Big or Tiger Bloom, but I always to so with Big Bloom, which will never burn your plants.

NOW!

I always give the same answer to that question.

You certainly can if you want to. Selectively and sparingly removing fan leaves to expose potential bud sites to more light is a legitimate gambit. Many growers far more experienced than I do it. I haven't really done it, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't under the right circumstances.

Some growers tuck leaves out of the way and keep them in place with paper clips, string and the like. I've tried a little of that, but is strikes me as overly fastidious.

I have employed LST to spread the plant out and get more light into those hard to see places. In fact, aggressive LST was my modus operandi when I was flowering with CFLs.

NOW!

Expect your plants to double in height during the first three weeks of 12/12.

GREAT GROW!

 

Up until now, I've been using the Fox Farm trio and Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus. In soil, I feed the Cal-Mag about once every two weeks.

Every liquid fertilizer company sells one or more lines of the core nutes that the plant needs. In Fox Farm's case, that would be Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. I'm not skeptical about those. I've grown out plants in coco, a soiless medium containing no nutrients, using just the products I listed above. So I believe that they work, and I am sure that similar lines from other fertilizer companies work as well, maybe even better.

Then there are the extras, the non-essential additives, usually marketed with claims of explosive bud growth. I think that stuff is a ripoff. I feel the same way about Superthrive. I say "feel" because I don't have facts, but neither do the people who are using that stuff. I don't have facts, but I do have life experience, which leads me to be skeptical of such claims.

I think unsulfered molasses is probably the primary ingredient in most of those bud enhancement products, and I am thoroughly unconvinced that molasses does anything for plants. I do know that it is sometimes used as an ingredient in tasty candies. Maybe it's great for plants, but until I see it, I'm not going to believe it.

But we are talking about my belief system, here. The belief systems of others will vary, and the facts on the ground are likely to remain thin.

The kit is better than nothing. And just because I grew totally dependent on my pH meter does not mean that all growers must so the same.

I like the whole approach.

Yes. The buds grow at the growth tops and at the nodes, which are also the sides of potential growth tops. A node is the point at which a branch comes off the stem.

LST, SCROG, topping and supercropping all stimulate branching (new branches growing from nodes) and accelerated branch growth. SOG is really the opposite approach: many small, single cola plants packed in tight.

Before you switch to 12/12, if I may be so bold as to make a recommendation, I think you should give your plants a hearty flush: run 3 times the container volume of water through your medium. That will flush out salts that have been building up in your soil since you started feeding. It is customary to flush right before flipping over to 12/12.

I'm glad to have been of assistance.

 

I loved the reaction!

Yes, sadly, that is exactly what I mean. Welcome to soil growing. If you grow cannabis by pouring sodium based liquid nutrients into soil, then you do have to deal with the fact that salts build up in the medium, pulling down the soil pH. Eventually nutrient lockouts occur. The low pH prevents the plant from utilizing the nutrients that are present. The first deficiency one usually sees is magnesium, which serves as the canary in our cannabis coal mine. Magnesium lockout in soil occurs at a pH below 6.5.

Here's a nice chart:




We combat the buildup of salts in the soil by flushing the soil with water. A normal flush is 3x the container volume. If your plant is in a 3 gallon pot then that would be 9 gallons. In addition to occasional flushes, it's always a good idea to water for heavy runoff whenever you water. Salts leech out and leave with the runoff, mitigating the problem and forestalling the eventual showdown, the flush. When you water for generous runoff, capture some of the runoff and put it through its paces with that pH testing kit. The pH of the runoff will tell you the pH of your medium, or at least serve as a reasonable proxy.

 

Just read the journal, way to go for a first grow! You have to start somewhere as they say..

Also to add to an already answered question: Lst, Scrog, supercropping etc. does not only ensure the buds are the same height thus receiving the most ample light penetration per cola (nug), but what it also does is deter natural plant growth known as apical dominance.. To explain this, marijuana naturally grows straight up with the most rapid vertical growth or new growth occurring at the very tip top. Apical dominance is the concentration of the plant growth hormone known as auxin which is naturally concentrated at the tip top of the plant which also explains why most of the new and faster growth occurs at the tip top and why the largest/ dankest nugs on non-trained plants are at the tip top. By lst'ing, topping, etc. You bend or cut the top of the plant which basically sends all that hormone auxin that's concentrated at the top of the plant back down the stalk of the plant which increases side branch growth or "bushiness". So not only are you getting better light to the top of the plants more intensely and equally, you are also training the plant to grow thicker stems and branches which makes for a stronger plant imo that also produces larger, thicker, and more dense colas (nugs : ) overall..
Check out my 1st journal to get a prime example of lst (low stress training) if you want. For a smaller grow with less light its the way to go for the fastest and least stunted growth throughout.. Hope this helped build on your ever expanding knowledge on the matter, keep on researching and learning via the best method, experience!!

 

I have never done that.

 

Bring on the stretch! Early flower is when cannabis plants are at their best.