My first grow - journal w/ pics

[ZBeebs]

I'm looking at the notes she gave me at the shop, and now I'm more confused than ever...

It says to use the beastie bloomz weeks 3 through 6/7, and inbetween weeks 4+5 I should do the heavy flush with 9 gallons per pot.

So do I then flush the pots AGAIN at the end of week 6 or 7, and then feed them nothing but water until harvest?

I'm thinking they are going to get at least another week to ten days of 24 hour light. Even the smallest has at least 5 internodes.

[Trichome_Dense]

Here you go:

week 3 introduce beastie bloom at weak solution...

Gradually increase dosage, week on week, until week 6 when you reach max strength. Fuck what it says on the tin. Continue to feed until 30% trichomes turn amber... then flush for two weeks. Don't over water your pants during flush or they'll wilt. Flush simply means "Plain water feed". Flush often, twice a day is a good start... make sure there's a little run off under the pot.

Flushiung inbetween feeds is a no no, as your plants will get real confused real quick and may hermie on you. The only instances I would flush mid-flower, is if i've nute-burned my plants - then it is necessary, and it delays growth by a week or so.

You'll get there bud

[Cal X]

Here you go:

week 3 introduce beastie bloom at weak solution...

Gradually increase dosage, week on week, until week 6 when you reach max strength. Fuck what it says on the tin. Continue to feed until 30% trichomes turn amber... then flush for two weeks. Don't over water your pants during flush or they'll wilt. Flush simply means "Plain water feed". Flush often, twice a day is a good start... make sure there's a little run off under the pot.

Flushiung inbetween feeds is a no no, as your plants will get real confused real quick and may hermie on you. The only instances I would flush mid-flower, is if i've nute-burned my plants - then it is necessary, and it delays growth by a week or so.

You'll get there bud

Yes! This is good advise. Watch the nutes so you don't burn your plants; that way you will only do 1 flush 2 weeks before harvest.

[ZBeebs]

There's some conflicting information here...some say to flush with a large quantity of water, then feed plain water the last two weeks, and some say the the flush is accomplished by feeding plain water and NOT to run a large quantity of water through the pots. What to do?

Here's some pics, these were taken yesterday, 38 days since planting the seeds. I think I've got some nute burn, as you'll see in the last two pics. For the last feeding I cut way back on nutes and will slowly build back up. They're growing faster now...

























Also thinking I'm going to top them before flowering, I saw a video and it looks easy. Any thoughts?

[Cal X]

You will read a lot of conflicting suggestions for flushing ZBeebs, because there are different methods that work for different growers. This should be reassuring to you, because, you will probably not fuck it up no matter what you end up doing. The important thing to remember about flushing is, you are simply ridding the soil of salts, mostly nitrogen, while keeping the plants unfed until harvest . That is why you do your first flush, about 2 weeks before harvest, or when the trichome glands are just stating to turn cloudy. The consensus of opinion is to pour about 3 times the volume into your pot for the initial flush; that is why the Grow Store person told you to use 9 gal. Some people disagree with that amount, and you might not need quite that much, but, the important thing is that you get as much of the nitrogen salts out of the soil so the plants aren't feeding for the next 2 weeks. Then, let the soil dry out pretty well and flush again. You may need to flush or add water a few days before harvest, but, you want your soil pretty dry when you harvest. Don't worry about it to much now, you have a lot of steps ahead before you get to flushing.
You should get a good Grow book like Jorge Cervantes Grow Bible , so you have a base line of information, because information will really differ on forums.
The Plants are looking good. I wouldn't worry about that discoloration, unless it starts to spread.
If you top your plants, you will add volume on the sides, and it looks like you have very little side space in your tent; therefore, you will probably have to not top them, and go with a dominant main cola. They should come close to doubling in height by harvest, so you can gauge the head room; you may have to do some measuring. Also, I would move the smallest plants right under the light and raise them up with blocks to the height of the tallest plants, so they get uniform light. As soon as the smallest plant has five sets of branches, which looks like that will be pretty soon, you can start your 12/12 light.

[Uncle Ron]

Cal X seemed to throw multiple darts all at once and hit the bulls eye. Some solid advice though my opinion(s)/method(s) differ slightly.

The plants are looking real good, although...
In a couple of the pics I noticed some distinct drooping of lower fan leaves. While the others looked nice and rigid, these few on the bottom shows me that you might be over-watering just a bit. Take a look at the pics and compare them to pics of plants that have been identified as having been over-watered and you will see what I mean. Could be nothing but it won't hurt to take a closer look.

Keep an eye on the leaf spotting. Identify the potential deficiency and prepare to make adjustment(s) if necessary.

Topping, why? This is more of a commercial grow technique. When you top the plant, you are basically cutting off the part of the plant that will produce the single largest contributor to weight (bud). A few years ago I read that topping would increase the size of buds growing on the branches, so I gave it a try. (FAIL) I topped two out of four plants (same strain) and discovered that the buds did not grow massively larger because of topping, not even close. It has been discussed/argued that this method produces two colas. In fact and reality is that they are and always will be branches and because the cola was cut, are now the tallest part of the plant. This does not a cola make, never has, never will. Botany 101.

A pic of a plant that I topped.


Lastly,
ZBeebs, compare flushing to leaching.
It's not semantics, there is a difference though the goal is the same. Food for thought.

Happy farming.

[Boner]

As far as topping is concerned I wouldn't bother as your grow tent will be full once you go to flowering due to the stretch that will come but topping and training is a tried & tested method for home growers (probably more so than commercial imo due to grow space limitations) especially if you want to grow less plants, scrog (screen of green) works amazingly if you do the toppng/trianing correctly, by using the scrog method you're making one plant grow with lots of tops, it allows all your side branches to get as much light as your single top bud thus increasing yield, some plants prefer to grow in a single cola these aren't good strains to top and are better off grown as single plants or even sog (sea of green).

https://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/ ... 8-Cab2.JPG

https://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/ ... anging.JPG

Both of those are 1 single plant.

[Uncle Ron]

...Cab2.JPG
...Hanging.JPG
Both of those are 1 single plant.

Second best use for a refrigerator.
Micro growing at its best.

I've seen topped plants in a beautiful sea of green in a commercial grow. An amazing sight. Nearly all tops were the same height. Lots of work but worth it in the end I suppose.
I can see the potential need for training a plant, ie... super cropping to either get more out of the plant or because of stretching and will be too tall for his grow tent. To cut the main stem when there isn't a need, blasphemy.

The pic below is of a main cola from a Super Haze I grew. Can anyone imagine wanting to cut the top off when you know it will look like this? Tops of branches won't even come close to the size of the main cola. Just saying.


Happy farming.

[ZBeebs]

Good advice here. I'm going to think more about flushing, I've got plenty of time until then. I am going to pick up some stickers so I can label the pots, if I'm going to move them around the tent I don't want to lose track of which is which. I'm also going to get some bricks so I can raise the smaller ones up to level the canopy, and I'm going to move #3 into the #5 position.

I think I may have overwatered a bit. I've done some more reading and it seems MJ grows best when you cycle the plants through different soil conditions. I may have been trying to keep them constantly watered, whenever I saw signs the soil was getting dry I watered which was about every other day. I'm going to stretch that an extra day and see what happens.

I was also thinking it was getting crowded in there, not a lot of room for space between the plants. I also just did some quick math to see how tall I can let them get assuming they will double in size during flower, leaving space for the light, and I think I need to go 12/12 pretty soon - might do it as soon as tomorrow, as I plan on them to be dark from 7am to 7pm, or something like that.

Heres 2 pics from a few minutes ago, the morning of day 40 since the seeds were planted:

[Uncle Ron]

The plants are looking real good. The leaves look really healthy, good job with the nutes. Compare them to what they looked like just ten days ago, amazing huh?

A question for the masses: Given that they are Indica or dominant, wouldn't the concern be with width as opposed to height? All of my grows have been Sativa or dominant and was mostly concerned with height but not width.

As you are discovering, they will let you know when you are fucking up.
I think you have a good idea with moving the smaller plants to the center and raising them to canopy level. I used a couple of 2x4's that were laying about to raise one of my plants. It ended up being the biggest plant I've grown. Go figure.

Before watering, dig down to 3 inches or so. If the soil is moist, don't water for another day. If the dryness of the topsoil is bothersome, use a spray bottle and spray the topsoil lightly.

On average, how much water do you give them each time?

Happy farming.

[ZBeebs]

The past few waterings I've given them each roughly a third of a gallon, they are in 3 gallon pots. I get just a bit of runoff out the bottom of the pots.

[sam]

My #1 tip for growing great weed in the US as I do not know if this is available in other countries is go to a greenhouse short course/seminar/workshop or what ever they are calling it at a University near you. The University of Arizona puts on a really good one. Yes I know they are not for growing weed, but they will tell you how to control bugs, the environmental controls(fans, co2, light, ect.), disease management, pruning, and the nutrients way better than any grow book you will find.
One of these 3-5 day courses will teach you how a plant really works from people that do research for a living. Back in the day I grew more weed than most using lots of different ways to grow it and I learned more in my first 3 day course than I learned in 15+ years of growing.
Trust me I have been to a few of these and am attending one in a few weeks and you will not be the only one there getting info for growing weed. I will include one growing tip you need a 3 layer system to grow great weed inside. Top layer holds the lights, a piece of Solarig 140(or something similar) seperates the light from the plants to difuse the light and keep the heat of the light away from the plants as they really need a much cooler temp than you have now. The middle layer holds the plants and during flowering needs to be 70deg. max. The third layer hold the grow pots/bags or what ever the roots are in and needs to be kept warm around 80 deg. during flowering. I know this sound crazy but I learned this method from one of the top botanists in the world.

[Uncle Ron]

[quote="sam"][/quote]

Oaksterdam University, CA. http://www.oaksterdamuniversity.com/
Oaksterdam University, MI. http://www.oaksterdamuniversity.com/michigan.html

The type of grow setup you are describing sounds like a micro or closet grow. ZBeebs is using a grow tent. No need for "stacking".

I agree that learning from experts, ie... botanists and the lot, can't hurt.
You learned more in 3 days than 15+ years of growing? Leaving yourself WIDE open aren't you? Sorry, couldn't help myself.

KISS is the only real way to grow, nearly fool-proof. The more one adds to the process, the greater the chance it will go horribly wrong. Just saying.

[Uncle Ron]

The past few waterings I've given them each roughly a third of a gallon, they are in 3 gallon pots. I get just a bit of runoff out the bottom of the pots.

Cut back so there isn't any runoff. The root ball should still be somewhat small, not yet halfway to the bottom of the container, probably won't be until well into flowering.

Happy farming.

[Boner]

Tops of branches won't even come close to the size of the main cola. Just saying.

Try doing some real reading on the many grow forums and you'll see thats complete and utter bollocks.

Just saying.