First "Official" Grow

Day 25
Decided not to wait for 15 and just do 14 plants. Most of them are looking really strong and healthy! A couple have been slow starters, but are showing definite signs of progression either way. Working on getting a 600 watt by the end of this weekend.

get that 600 mate make all the difference pal...

Day 30
So I went to the hydro store yesterday, but they were out of 600 watt ballasts and were much more expensive for some reason, so i just went with a 400 watt mh/hps replacable air coolable kit. It's really lighting up the room (might have to get another fan, its getting a little hot in there around 90 degrees). The plants have started doing a few things that I can't seem to find information on and it would be awesome if you guys could let me know whats happening:
1) On a couple of the plants there just like one or two little ball things hanging from a very small flimsy stem coming out of the node. (pic 3)
2) A couple of the plants have little white hairs growing from the nodes. (pic 6)
I tried to get pictures hopefully you'll be able to tell.

sounds like u got male and female plants mate

Did you look at the pics? Why are these signs appearing so soon? They're really not even that big yet... and it's only been 30 days from seed to now. Any more help would be greatly appreciated.

the balls are male mate for sure pal..are they autos the female by any chance whats your light schedule...

males can show early in photoperiods... but that don't explain the "white hairs" thinking autos myself... but i didn't read the first part of the thread so i don't know if you've already said if they are or not ...


just checked and yeah "maybe unknown strain in there" ... auto me thinks

Damn. Well they've been on 18/6 for about 19 days and were on 24/0 for the 11 days as seedlings. Though my power did go out about 5 days ago causing them to have a 10 hr dark period, but that was only for one day and they've continued on 18/6 since. Could this be the reason why? Either way I have 5 confirmed males right now and 2 confirmed females. As for the females... can I keep them in veg for any longer or do I need to switch the light cycle?

sounds like you stressed them out ... 5/2 males is a tad unlucky if not

I have 8 more plants that haven't sexed yet, so I hope to get at least 2 more. I've pulled the males now, but what should I do about the two females? Can I veg them longer or not?

Or could I clone one of them now?

i don't really know... i'm doing my first Auto grow.... but i hear people saying they have sexed a female plant and put it back into veg for clone'ing later... so yeah dont see why not

just keep going 18/6 or whatever... if it keeps flowering its defo an auto i'm afraid

Alrite cool. Thanks for all the help, guess I'll just keep with what I've been doing and hope for the best haha!

shame about the power upset... but least you can work with what you've got either clone from them (i have no experience with cloning) .... or veg the shit out of them and tie em down until you get two dozen tops ..... mmmmmmm 2 dozen tooooooooooooopppppppppps

I second the 2 dozen tops haha, I've been reading a lot about training and I've decided to try LST on all the ones that are big enough just as a little experiment. I have one more that I think is still male (it looks like the other 5; tall, long, quick growing branches) and I tried supercropping it just for the hell of it to actually see that method in action and if it dies no big since it's probably a male. Once the biggest female (picture 8 of my last update) gets a little bigger I think I'm going to clone the shit out of her.

Two more started to show hairs (females! yay!) and I've been reading a lot and it looks like its normal for them to show preflower signs. They're not actually budding yet just showing sex because they're mature enough to bud (they are about 4 1/2 weeks in from seed til now... atleast the ones that have shown signs are). I also killed the male that I supercropped, because I'm pretty sure I supercropped him too low. It looked like he was having a real hard time making his way back up. Oh well, learned a little something from nothing basically so thats cool. Anyways 4 females 6 males(killed) and 4 more yet to be identified; stay tuned!

Had to go buy some pH up today the plants were around 5 :X I've got them around 6.3, 6.4 right now, but didn't want to keep going in fear of over watering them, so I'll just wait until they dry out then fix them up just right. I also grabbed FF grow big and want to start using it every other watering after I get the pH between 6.7-7.2. I've been reading and most of the recommendations I see is to add however much fert your going to use to water then check the pH of the water and use the pH up/down accordingly. Is this the best way to go about it? Also I was wondering how much I should start feeding them... the back of the bottle says "General Feeding... 2-3 teaspoons/gallon of water every other watering". Should I follow this or reduce the strength more? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I use the FF line and I went with 3tsp every other watering with good results. When I switched to 12/12 a couple weeks ago I began switching to the FF Tiger Bloom with a gradual ween off grow big. The first week I switched to 2tsp Grow Big to 1tsp of Tiger Bloom. Last week 2tsp Tiger Bloom 1tsp of Grow Big. Next week just Tiger Bloom. I also add 1tsp of the Big Bloom worm tea every week, the water week. Just my personal regimen, I would be interested in seeing how others use it.

Day 37
They were fertalized with 3tsp FF grow big to 1 gallon water for the first time about 3 days ago, since then they have really gained some ground. The pH is sitting around 6.5 now, but I'd still like to get it up to 7. I'm going to do two more weeks in veg to try and let the others catch up to the big momma. I'm going to do some construction on the box this weekend and split it in half so I can have a veg chamber and a flower chamber, then I'm going to clone the shit out the big momma while the others flower. Right now it looks like a total of 5 females, the other 2 have yet to show sex. And yes they're laying down because I'm using LST on them, but its not working out very well because the soil isn't filled up to the top of the pot so there is some constraint by the edges of the pots (I'm going to saw the top of the bucket off for the mom and I'm just going to fill the buckets to the top for future grows).

how you gonna saw it without getting shavings in the dirt mate??