Hello with new grow

[nooners]

Hey everyone, I'm new here and would just like to ask for a little advice. I built a grow box that has two sides, both 18"x24" and about 5 feet tall. I will be vegging and flowering on opposite sides at the same time to get in an approx 2 month cycle of harvesting.

Attached is a picture of my seedlings. planted from free seeds from Nirvana (9/10 germinated) have two away and have 7.

I live near the Gulf of Mexico so it always varies in temp this time of year, growing in an outside shed without insulation. Had a cold snap and was cold for about 4 days, box went as low as 58F and I got a heat mat to try and keep soil temps up. Now the box is around 80 with 50% humidity.

1 - 13 day old since planted
2 - 10 day old " "
3 - 8 day old " "
1 - 4 day old " "

Had some over watering issues when it got cold and I hope it didn't affect them too much. Lighting arrangement is temporary. Going to have a 600w LED panel in each compartment.

Using foxfarm ocean forest, water with seaweed extract pH at 6.7. no nutes yet, will probably wait until flowering.

Please let me know how I'm doing, and when should I transplant these into a 1 gal pot? About 3 weeks?

 

[mo841]

If your growing just straight up normal plants than u poped to many seeds. That is if they are feminized seeds. Your only going to maybe squeeze 2 plants in each side.

The flowering side should be bigger than the veg side but im not sure u can change that with your setup. Good luck and be patient

 

[nooners]

Thanks mo841. I'm looking into cutting the wall out and making it one big area now.

They are not feminized seeds, just the freebies from nirvanashop so if I have to cull a couple I will. I'm thinking two plants will do me, maybe I'll get a tent for flowering after this batch.

 

[moondance]

Hi I would get them up on a milk crate higher up and closer to the lights. I used that shiny stuff a few times but I switched to white panda film you get better light reflection in my opinion and no hot spots at least I did. I use rigid foam insulation under my flower chamber due to it being a basement floor and It gets 20 below wind chills at night here, keeps the roots warm. It may help to stave off the colder night temps, plus raising it up will help with that too. Low stress training and scrog - sea of green would work well in that space. Cant wait to see the grow - Grow!
MD

 

[nooners]

Hi I would get them up on a milk crate higher up and closer to the lights. I used that shiny stuff a few times but I switched to white panda film you get better light reflection in my opinion and no hot spots at least I did. I use rigid foam insulation under my flower chamber due to it being a basement floor and It gets 20 below wind chills at night here, keeps the roots warm. It may help to stave off the colder night temps, plus raising it up will help with that too. Low stress training and scrog - sea of green would work well in that space. Cant wait to see the grow - Grow!
MD

Thanks MD. Great advice. I will raise them up and see if that helps, trying to battle high temps now, I believe my fan for swaying the plants is creating some high temps. I transplanted a couple today and the soil was dry, not a good sign. Glad I got them in larger pots with the proper drainage.

I believe that I cut the drain holes too large and the soil was drying from two sides.

I'll keep everyone updated and thanks again for the advice. The grow box is very rudimentary right now. I plant on getting two tents soon and donating this box to someone new

 

[moondance]

Any chance you cut a hole in the top of the boxes?
MD

 

[OldMedUser]

High Nooners

CFLs need to be a lot closer to the plants and most of their light is given off from the sides so some sort of reflectors would help. I found some of those catch tray things for under the coil elements on stoves cheap at the bargain store and put them over the lights to get more onto the plants. Good old tin foil can be shaped to work too. You won't get hot spots with foil or mylar when using CFLs. They just don't have enough intensity and as most fancy hoods and reflectors use aluminum folks that bitch about foil really haven't thought things through.



Then I put a small shelf bracket on each end of the vanity fixture so it could sit sideways and just draped a long piece of foil folded lengthwise on top of the bulbs and grew these which are now a lot bigger and on day 50 of 12/12. There is two 23w, 6500K and one 40w, 2600K CFLs doing those babies.



You can get plants pretty big and healthy with CFLs but if you want nice phat buds then you really need more power. I use HID lights that I've had for 15 years but the big thing now is LEDs tho they are expensive as hell for decent ones. I see from your previous postings that you have LEDs planned and those should work fine.

Your plants will be fine in those cups until you start to see bottom leaves yellowing as they use up the nutes in the soil they are in or start getting rootbound. Then you can let them get fairly dry and just lift them out and drop them in bigger pots.

Good luck with your growing!

 

[nooners]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the advice, I will post up what I decided to do once I get home today. I have opened up the other side of the box and put 4 plants on one side and 3 on the other. Added some additional lighting including 2 35w LED lights. The plants are now in 1 gal pots and growing steadily!

My plan is to hang 4 bulbs on the sides in each section of the grow box to help deliver more light.

I do need a little additional advice though, how do I know when the plant needs transplanting from the 1 gal to the 3 gal pots? These are not feminized seeds and I do not want to plant all 7 in the 3 gallon pots so when should I start flowering to determine sex? 2 weeks prior to transplant? 1 week?

Again, thanks everyone for the help! And thanks Old Med User for the advice and pics, looks awesome.

 

[OldMedUser]

I like my plants in pots that can go at least 3 days between waterings so once they take less than 2 days they go up a size.

Take a couple cuttings off each plant to make clones with and put them under a CFL with a timer at 12/12 in a closet right away. In 10 days or less they should show sex and then you don't have to waste time and soil repotting the males. Can keep a couple male clones going in the closet to collect some pollen to make seeds with too if you want free seeds.

 

[nooners]

Thank you so much! We have had horrendous temp swings here in the south lately so I'm just trying to keep them all alive now haha

I'll check out the clone thing for sure and I'll send some pictures once I get home. The plants look gorgeous and I can't wait to flower them lol patience is tough!

I need to look up how to clone (sorry, first grow here) and try that route, might be easy to top a couple plants and use the tops to determine.

 

[OldMedUser]

Thank you so much! We have had horrendous temp swings here in the south lately so I'm just trying to keep them all alive now haha

I'll check out the clone thing for sure and I'll send some pictures once I get home. The plants look gorgeous and I can't wait to flower them lol patience is tough!

I need to look up how to clone (sorry, first grow here) and try that route, might be easy to top a couple plants and use the tops to determine.

When I'm starting new plants from seed and need to sex them I like to top anyway so let them go to 7 nodes then chop them off just above the 4th and use the top for sexing like I described. The ones that are female can be re-vegged and Kept until the parent plants have been grown out and sampled. The best one's clone can be used as a mother plant for lots more or flowered when it's the size you want.

If you just want to sex them and don't care about making clones you can put the tops in a glass of water instead and set them to 12/12 too. They will often root in water as well.

 

[nooners]

Here the grow box is after work today. Planted the left side on Dec 20th from seed, and the right side from the 24th from seed.

It is all in a shed, outdoors, not insulated.

 

[nfhiggs]

One of your plants has a potassium deficiency.

 

[nooners]

One of your plants has a potassium deficiency.

I was thinking it was a little sunburn myself but I'm very new. LEDs were a little close to it and it's only two nodes that exhibit that coloring. Same soil for all (ocean forest).

Any way to test for the deficiency?

 

[nfhiggs]

I was thinking it was a little sunburn myself but I'm very new. LEDs were a little close to it and it's only two nodes that exhibit that coloring. Same soil for all (ocean forest).

Any way to test for the deficiency?

Watch for it to worsen. If the yellowing spreads from the edges into the leaf margin between the veins then its probably potassium. If its light burn then it won't advance.

 

[nooners]

Watch for it to worsen. If the yellowing spreads from the edges into the leaf margin between the veins then its probably potassium. If its light burn then it won't advance.

Thank you, I'll.keep an eye on it and get a better picture of it tomorrow.

 

[OldMedUser]

I don't concur with the low K diagnosis. I'm almost certain it's low S. I had the same thing a few months back. Leaves in the middle of the plant going solid yellow from the edges in.

Looks just like yours. Tsp of epsom salts per liter stops it. The yellow may get a little greener but not likely. The leaves can stay on if still lots of green in them.



With low N,P or K, Mg and ZN the older lower leaves are affected first as those nutes are mobile and can be stolen from the upper growth which remains healthy until the deficiency becomes acute.

Deficiencies in all the rest like S will first show in the middle or upper growth areas.

Here's an excellent chart with good explanations for various nute problems. Save this for future reference.

 

[nfhiggs]

I don't concur with the low K diagnosis. I'm almost certain it's low S. I had the same thing a few months back. Leaves in the middle of the plant going solid yellow from the edges in.

Looks just like yours. Tsp of epsom salts per liter stops it. The yellow may get a little greener but not likely. The leaves can stay on if still lots of green in them.

View attachment 3875901

With low N,P or K, Mg and ZN the older lower leaves are affected first as those nutes are mobile and can be stolen from the upper growth which remains healthy until the deficiency becomes acute.

Deficiencies in all the rest like S will first show in the middle or upper growth areas.

Here's an excellent chart with good explanations for various nute problems. Save this for future reference.

View attachment 3875898

Oldmeduser - yours actually looks more like magnesium. Middle leaves, margins and edges yellow. Solution is the same - Epsom salt (or calmag). Sulphur is distinctive in that it hits new growth, and yellows from the base of the leaf outward:

https://www.buydutchseeds.com/blog/sulfur-deficiency-in-marijuana-plants.html

Potassium typically hits the edges of the leaf first and hits lower growth:

http://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/marijuana-nutrient-deficiency-potassium/

I thought potassium because OPs second picture shows the yellow edges on the very bottom leaves as well as the upper leaves. His could also be magnesium as its very similar.

 

[OldMedUser]

I've had Mg deficiency a few times over the years and it's always presented in the old leaves with yellowing between the veins and not solid yellow like those going in from the edge and it certainly looks nothing like low K. The epsom fixed it up so I'd try that first as it's the least troublesome of other things. If pH is a little high S is one of the early ones to be blocked and doesn't always start right at the top in cannabis as noted in Cervante's grow bibles.

It seems a very minor issue with one plant and as they are grown from seed it may just be a slight genetic difference in that one. They are all growing in the same media so something is different with that one.

If you look closer you will notice that the affected lower leaves are on a small side branch under that perfectly healthy much older fan leaf that would be one of the first to be affected by low K or Mg.

I'm not often wrong but then again, I'm not always right.

 

[nooners]

So the yellowing started when the plant was about 10in from the led bulbs and there was no new growth on top, the yellowing leaves were the new growth. The yellowing has not spread in 1 week