First Grow In Five Years!

Hello All:

So I want to start a journal and begin to learn tons more from all of the collective experience on the site. I have 4 or 5 grows under my belt from years past, but haven't done any in about five years or so. I live in a medical state and recently got my caregiver card and am off and running. I currently have five beautiful ladies in a 78 X 78 X 78 grow tent under a 1000 watt mh. I got the ladies from my patient as newly rooted clones. Four are Northern Lights X Big Bud and the other is Pineapple Express? I received them on August 24th. Since then, they have been in continuous 24 hour lights. Until I could get the temps under control and where I wanted them, I was dimming the ballast based on what the thermometer was reading. When I received them I believe the smallest one was 7" tall and the tallest was 11" (not exact, but around there). One was also topped by my patient. Soon after receiving them I topped all of the NL X Big Bud, but left the pineapple express as it was, as it was growing a nice compact indica (I later topped her, but I'll get there). All of them have responded very well to the toppings. I never did this in my previous grows and I can not believe what I was missing out on.

After they grew a little, they went from small circular pots (maybe 1/2 or 1 gallon) and put them in 5 gallon pots. They are in Fox Farm Ocean Forrest soil and I have been feeding them Fox Farms Grow Big as directed. Given the timing of when I received them, I have been holding off on putting them in 12/12 as my sister and my brother in law are coming Oct. 21 and the smell is totally manageable now, but I know when they flower it will smell like crazy (just don't want to deal with my sister). I have a carbon charcoal filter and a nice 6" inline hydrofarm fan (420 maybe 460 cfm). Right now it is just pulling through the air cooled hood. When it comes time I'll hook up the filter and it will tie into my dryer hose and vent directly outside. I know I might be able to manage the smell, but just don't want to risk it. My sister and her husband would flip.

So, I got nervous that my first tent wouldn't be able to house the flowered plants so I got a new one. The other one will become a clone/ veg room, which I will take cuttings this weekend and setup the smaller tent 2' X 4' X 4' with a 125 W CFL hydrofarm light. After topping them, I have supercropped different shoots on different plants at different times (never did the pineapple express. It has always been the shortest and just looks great as it is.) I have tried to maintain a relatively flat canopy between the plants. If one shoot was really outpacing the others, I would super crop it. I had one giant scare with one shoot where I snapped the limb and broke probably 60% clean through, but I made a splint out of capri sun straws and some duct tape. Healed in a few days and now you can barely even find the area on the plant where it happened. All plants have responded well to the super cropping. Now, the plants have gotten so large that I'm getting nervous again about my ability to accommodate them in flowering (not a bad problem to have in my opinion). So, I recently have LST'd them and I am so happy with how they are looking. I have never done any training and now I have done a combination of LST, super crop, and topping on all my plants and they look great.

So, I'll post a few pics of the overview of the tent and then post a profile of each one individually and then a nice view of all shoots. I do have a few questions I'd love to hear any responses to:

1. Do you guys think a combo of three different training methods is okay?

2. Anyone do much with a light rail in a grow tent? (I've read threads, but just a small caveat question).

3. Do you think my tent will be able to accommodate the plants in veg until Oct. 21 and then flower thereafter?

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions based on my pics. Sorry if this is too many photos as well. In order it is an overview, then plant 1, then plant 2, then another of plant 2. Then plant 3, plant 3 top shot, then plant 4 (with the duct tape 4 and short bushy), then a top shot of plant 4, the two shots of plant 5. Plant 4 is the pineapple express, while the others are all NL X Big Bud. Enjoy!

Peace. Outlaw

Hey outlaw. Their all looking sweet so far. Your tent is probably 2 sizes bigger than mine with 1 less plant, u got some space. Def. keep super cropping, topping and LSTing them. Will help you maintain height for bushiness. More big tops Should be fine untill october

to much to read .. to early in the morning .. sorry

but do me a favor .. secure that cool hood somehow .. last one I saw with a tent like that had a little accident with a tent pole that broke .. result was some broken and burned plants and almost a burned house ..


btw
hope you plan on twice as many plants and one more light for that big tent .. Ooh well atlest you got some space to play with ..

Nice shit. What lighting you using for flower?

Update for you all. I LST'd the pineapple express. I also supercropped one shoot on it that was growing faster than some others. Lastly, I supercropped a shoot on plant #3. I am in a love-hate with supercropping. I have given myself a few scares and the shoot on plant #3 is one that is scaring me. I think I did too much, so I splinted it and imagine it will be fine. I get nervous that it could get rot or infected up in there. The shoot has vertical slits and already has noticeable discoloration. Anyways, I think the benefits are there, but am nervous that I'll screw it up too much one day.

I watered the girls this morning. They are all looking good. I'm getting excited to flip them into flowering. It will be sometime in late October. I'll have to look at a calendar though as I'm doing a lot of traveling in December and want to be here for trimming, drying, and curing. Enjoy the photos, responses to comments are under the photos, along with a few questions.



Alright, now for the comments...

• but do me a favor .. secure that cool hood somehow .. last one I saw with a tent like that had a little accident with a tent pole that broke .. result was some broken and burned plants and almost a burned house ..
  
  
  btw
  hope you plan on twice as many plants and one more light for that big tent .. Ooh well atlest you got some space to play with ..​
  
  

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Any suggestions on securing it? I have wanted to. I think I might do a 2X4 structure. I wouldn't mind doing that and potentially getting a light mover. You can't tell from any photos, but I actually constructed a deck for the tent to sit on. That area of my basement was ideal for ventilation, but had rocks (rather large ones) sticking through the poured concrete. So I built a deck to level the surface and protect the tent bottom. Also, it would have been hard to put pots down.

Trying to take some clones tomorrow. Will definitely get more plants. But I think those five will take up a lot of room once I flip the lights. They are pushing 2' in height and at 2.5' across. I've always heard to expect them to double to triple in size. I shall see soon enough though!

• Nice shit. What lighting you using for flower?​
  
  

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The ballast is convertible. I'll throw in a 1000 watt hps. Maybe after the first harvest I might consider grabbing two 600 watts. I'm also playing with the idea of a light mover in there. Don't know at this point.


Tomorrow I hope to set up my small 2' X 4' x 4' tent with a 125 CFL light over a 16 site clone machine. The machine I haven't set up yet. It is from an online retailer and it was about $55.00. Never done much with cloning. I have successfully taken a few, but put them in rockwool cubes and only did a few. I was always interested and I am real excited to learn how to do this on a regular basis. I already know a few other caregivers who want to trade strains as well.

Lastly, I got a little scared I might have spider mites. However, I watched and read a ton of stuff and now I am not sure if I do. I have seen probably four tiny red looking dots on four separate plants. I don't think they move, but I can pick them off the branch. But they are tiny, like tip of a pin small. I don't see any white spots on any of my leaves. No webbing either. I checked the bottom of tons of leaves last night and didn't find anything remarkable. Humidity is at 50%. I know I need to get it up, but that seems alright. Should I get some mighty wash and take preventative precautions? Everything I read made it seem as though spider mites could be one of the worst things to happen.

Peace. Hope everyone has a good weekend! Outlaw

Hey outlaw, space is looking good. I would definetly put a 6ft light mover, or another 1000w light, preferably another 1k hps. I see you have a washer/dryer over there, there are light controllers that can handle 4k+ watts that plug straight into the washer/dryer outlet, you should look into it. Makes lighting MUCH safer, since its the most common cause in fires. That tent with 4k w would be so delicious. Looks like you have a great start. If you are going to veg any longer than 2 weeks, I would also suggest upgrading your soil containers. If you go from 5gallon to 10gallon, your havest would go 4oz to 6-8oz per plant. Good luck! Ill be watching.

Took my first set of clones tonight! It's super late, so I want to keep this short. Took 9 cuttings. 3 from pineapple express, and three from plant #3 and three from #2 I think. Now I have a clone tent (will be veg when the other is in flower) and a veg tent (which will be the flower when I go 12/12). I hope to have a flower room, veg room, and a clone space. That would be ideal. I'm a little nervous that the pump with the machine I got is kind of bunk. It doesn't spray very much. It goes some, but I expected more spray.

The tent they're in is a 2' X 4' X 5'. Enjoy the photos.

Friendly Caregiver said:

Hey outlaw, space is looking good. I would definetly put a 6ft light mover, or another 1000w light, preferably another 1k hps. I see you have a washer/dryer over there, there are light controllers that can handle 4k+ watts that plug straight into the washer/dryer outlet, you should look into it. Makes lighting MUCH safer, since its the most common cause in fires. That tent with 4k w would be so delicious. Looks like you have a great start. If you are going to veg any longer than 2 weeks, I would also suggest upgrading your soil containers. If you go from 5gallon to 10gallon, your havest would go 4oz to 6-8oz per plant. Good luck! Ill be watching.

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My electrician rigged up a four outlet close to the washer dryer, but they are on a separate circuit. Is that safe? I thought I would be fine since they are on separate breakers. We'll see on another light. I'll keep saving and see what happens when it is time to put them into flower. In terms of the container, I would be nervous to transplant now. They're big and I think the ten gallon container would be too large. What do you think? Do you know how tall a 10 gallon container is? They have four more weeks at least veg and they're at 22" now.

Alright, peace out everybody. I have an early meeting and need to get to bed.

Outlaw

Wanted to give a quick update of the clones. They seem to be doing well at this point. They really had me worried the morning after taking them. I went and looked and they all were limp. All were totally bent over with the tops of the plant laying on the top of the bucket. One looked a wee bit discolored. I was nervous whether it was the cloner or what at that point.

I sprayed them once with a mister before going to work. Upon return 10 hours later, all but 3 of the 9 were standing straight up (this was about 4 hours shy of the 24 hour mark). At the 24 hour mark all but 1 were standing up tall. The following morning (today) all were standing up with their leaves looking for light. Really amazing when you think about what you're doing with the plants. Even more amazing when you consider that humans were tinkering with this idea thousands of years ago and it is now a tool to facilitate efficient cannabis cultivation! Enjoy the pics.





Definitely considering adding a new light in the flower grow tent. Would it be more worthwhile to add another 1k to my flower or get an HID in the veg. Right now it is just a 125 watt CLF hydrofarm ballast in the veg. The clones are in there now, but I'll transplant into soil and keep them under the same light for the time being. Thoughts?

I am going away for Columbus day weekend, so I hope the clones do well by themselves for two days...I think it should be fine. Hopefully they have nice root growth when I return.

Any suggestions or advice for motivating root growth? Is there anything I need to be doing from now until roots start to show?

Thanks for the input. Peace out everybody.

Outlaw

Buenos Noches!

Update on everything. Clones are currently in day 10. The pics are from yesterday. I was gone for the long weekend. The clones were doing alright. Some of the fan leaves had yellowed a decent amount. However, plenty of the clones had root nubs and four had enough to transplant into soil (did that last night). The other five range from looking good to looking okay. The okay ones show signs of roots, but not substantial growth at all. Only little bumps. Today the five are progressing, but still nothing like the four that had been transplanted. I think at least two look like they will be viable. How long do you guys give your clones before transplanting from a DIY bubble cloner to soil? Any suggestions as to size of roots? I read everything from 1/2" to 3/4" to suggestions of multiple inches. The consensus seemed to be around 3/4" But how many root hairs do you require at 3/4" before you transplant?

Here are some pics of the clones and transplanted ones:





Additionally, here are some photos of the five in 24/0 veg. They are pretty big. I have definitely never vegged plants out this long. This is crazy! I think the LST, super crop, and topping has/ will really help as well. I need to do some more LST to get them ready to switch the lights over. I think it will be sometime in late october (23-30). Check out some pics of the five:



Do you guys think another light would be more beneficial in the flower room (for a total of 2 1000 watts) or an HID to replace the 125 watt CFL light in the veg tent? It would be a 1000 watt mh/hps dimmable ballast. I just don't which room would be more beneficial. I ultimately want to have a perpetual thing going keyed in on a 3 week cycle with 3 plants at a time. Clone three, transplant the previously cloned three, move the 3 week vegged clones to flower, etc. etc. This cycle would be designed around my plant limits.

Any helpful feedback would be much appreciated.

Later.

Outlaw

looking nice bro

Quick update. I transplanted all clones from the clone machine into 6" x 6" square pots. I took 9 cuttings and 8 are transplanted into FF Ocean Forrest. I have the eight under a 125 watt cfl. I have a question about the use of a cfl below. The ninth cutting was cut in half. I think I accidentally did it with the razor blade when I took them, but that the neoprene collar was holding it together. Roots had started to grow, but as soon as I removed the collar the bottom half fell off.

Alright, my gf wants me to go to bed...enjoy the pics and help with the question below.




I am considering getting another light to use in the veg or add into flower room. Any suggestions on what you guys would do? Use one 1,000 watt in flower and one 1,000 watt in veg or two 1,000 watts in flower and a 125 watt cfl for veg? I have the eight newly rooted clones in veg and the five big girls in flower. See pics in previous posts. New ones to come soon of those girls soon.

Oh yea...I got a pH meter. Long story short...my pH of my water ranges from 9.2 - 9.8, so I'm glad I figured that out and now have the tools to address the issue. I'll share more later.

Peace

Outlaw

What's up. Sorry for the delay since my last update. I flowered the five beasts. They have been in for a week. Take a look at some of the photos below. Some are curling down a little from the leaves. I think I'm gonna back off the nutes a little. Right now I am running Fox Farm based on the feeding chart. I will start doing 2/3rd strength to see if that does anything.

All of my clones are looking good except for one. The one was the crappy one from beginning. It doesn't look like it's dying, but it doesn't look like it is thriving either. I would say that it has looked the best it has ever looked today and that maybe I was detecting some new growth. I was debating whether I should just scrap it. If I did, that would leave me with seven left. I want to throw three into flower in two or three weeks. I want to be able to take clones from them all before I do that though. I'm not sure if they'll be ready, but we'll see.

Here are some of the clones (there's a pic of the stretching one and the scrappy one):





One of the clones is stretching more than I'd like, but it is what it is. They're only under a 125 watt CFL Hydrofarm setup. I hope to get a 400 w or 600 w in the future for the veg. Right now it's not in the budget. I actually just bought another 1000 watt lumatek dimmable mh/hps ballast. I haven't put it up yet because I am building a frame to hang the lights from. I was relatively close to finishing it tonight, but I need to trim a few inches from four pieces of wood and I have no saw. I don't know if I'm just going to buy four new 2X4s and have them cut it or purchase a hand saw. I'd buy a circular saw, but I'm broke and I gots to quite spending money on the garden! Eight weeks from now I think the extra 1,000 watt will definitely pay off.

I hope to complete the frame this Saturday or Sunday. I want the light up ASAP so it can do its magic. I'm nervous about the plants getting too big and getting burned a little. They're huge. They're all pushing 3' and they don't have much space above them. I'm also nervous that the fan won't be able to deal with the heat from the extra light and run a charcoal filter. It's a 400 CFM hydrofarm. I haven't hooked up the filter, but it hasn't started stinking yet. It will any day now. I flipped them one week ago. Like I said though, I can't buy any more shit. Enjoy the photos. If people have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

I just realized how shitty the photo quality is with the hps light on. I'll take some photos soon right before the lights come on. Nonetheless, here are some of the flowering room:




Peace.

Outlaw

Gots to keep this quick. Nonetheless, here are some photos of the clones and the flowering plants. The plants are on day 11 of flowering. I added a new light last night. I finally got the support structure built and added the light. Temps are doing fine right now. It would be nice to have some more cfm going, especially since I haven't hooked up my filter yet.

Any suggestions as to dual spectrum? If I have two lights should I just go hps with both? I've read that dual spectrum can be real nice for the ladies. Thoughts? Also, what setting should I have the ballasts on? Right now I have them at 75%. The settings available are: 50, 75, 100% and 500 watts, 750 watts, 1,000 watts, and super lumens.

I was running 75% to try and maintain temps (they're good, but a little higher than I'd like). Everything I've read seems as though I got them covered just fine. Any thoughts on this either?

Stuff seems to be going well at the moment. I'm getting excited to start seeing some trichs. I'm hoping smell doesn't become a giant issue. Thus far, smell hasn't been an issue at all (no one can go in my basement though). I hope that once the trichs come, I'll hook up my filter and all will be well.

That's all for the evening.

Here are a bunch of photos in no particular order. You can see the support structure I built is just 2X4s. I really like what it has done though (peace of mind, new light mount, and general support). The plants are really starting to fill out. The stretch isn't as vigorous as it was when I first flipped them. I have a little room to go if they want to stretch a little more, but not a ton. Oh yea, last question...what do people do for pics of flowering plants? Take pics before and after the lights or just turn off the light to take some pics? I don't want to do anything that my herme them.



Peace.

Outlaw

Hey dude, why do you clip the ends of the leaves on the clones? All is lookin real nice and fancy. i wish i were your patient

thejazzman said:

Hey dude, why do you clip the ends of the leaves on the clones? All is lookin real nice and fancy. i wish i were your patient

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Just always read that it is the right thing to do. The reasoning being that the plant needs as much energy to put towards root growth versus photosynthesis. Another way of thinking about it is that you trim the "solar panels" so the plant focuses on root production. I think over all that its 6 one way half a dozen another. Some people say that they prefer it as well just to keep the yellowing fan leaf tips away.


Happy Gardening

Outlaw

This update is more photographic than written. I topped all but three of the clones. No photos yet. All the photos are from the flowering chamber. Trichs are starting to come in strong on all plants. I'm not sure when I am going to put some of the clones in flower. I imagine I'll let them start to grow out from the topping then I'll put a couple in flower. I'd like to wait until I can take some cuttings from them. Anyone have any idea how long they normally have to wait from rooted clones until you can take cuttings?

I want to order some seeds to have some genetic mix up. I have some leads on some cuttings in the area as well. I wouldn't mind ordering some genetics so I know where they came from and what they are advertised as. Anyways, here are the photos. And how about Colorado and Washington! Hell yea!

Peace.

Outlaw

What's going on? I can't upload my pics. Bummer. I have a lot of tasty pics as well.Outlaw

This post is from my phone and I can upload pics from here (but don't want to do so because of the hassle). I sent an email to support, but was curious if any of you had an idea of what was preventing me from uploading pics from my laptop. I can post through "go advanced", "reply with quotes", or "quick reply", but the editor then only has text input and smiley face options. No font, bold, attach pics, bullet points, alignment or any other options are available. I tried last night and first thing this morning. Same thing both times. I also tried from Firefox and safari.

I'd really like to get this figured out. I have a great batch of photos from last night that I want to share. Any help would e greatly appreciated and you will be rewarded with glorious photos of flowering plants.

Outlaw

Looks good !I was looking through your thread , lots of good info .I'll keep checking your thread out Keep it up Thumbs

Here are a few pics...



More to come when the editor gets fixed.


Outlaw