Our First Grow

you guys are doing a great job . like how you're trying different things at the same time . very informative to follow . keep it up
oh and use the "putting a hand under the light" method for figuring out the distance.. you can't go wrong with that one .

Thanks man! Basically we started and we knew the bare minimum. Then we started reading and found out there are so many different things you can do to manipulate the plant. After that we were hooked man haha. We just experiment on marijuana, it's fucking awesome. Plus we are just hands on people, reading only does so much for us. I hope people keep coming up with new things to try! I think they are at a pretty good distance from the hps now. We have a temperature gage right at the top of big mama's canopy. The max temp was 79, but it generally hovers around 72 to 74.

So Big Mama has been in her 12/12 cycle for 2 1/2 weeks and we started noticing some plastic-y blotches on some of her leaves. We didn't panic, we just figured we'd see if it got worse and monitor the situation closely. We'll I wouldn't say it is worse, but it isn't exactly better either. Now we have two of her clones in flowering with her. It has been a few days of them being in there and now they are showing the same symptoms. The pictures are taken under a HPS, but due to big mama's setup she can't really be moved anymore and the HPS is the only light in the room. But it started off looking waxy/plastic-y and now some them are kind covered in light brown spots. My guess at that from comparing pics and reading is a calcium deficiency. But any opinion would be nice.

Things that may be factors:
-We have never flowered before, maybe this is normal
-Raised all the plants on CFLs and switched to HPS for flowering
-Humidity is at a consistent 20%, though I must add they were raised in a 20% humidity area and didn't show this until now.
-We use Fox Farm Nutes. Until the last few days she was getting Grow Big, then Big Bloom and then a plain watering. She is now being weened off of Grow Big and onto Tiger Bloom. Symptoms were showing before this change.
-Top of the canopy is 17 inches from HPS
-Mostly showing on older growth, brand new growth looks healthy.

I am a newbie and its been a month and my plants are growing slow, I have to sex them because I am growing regular seeds with cfl. I have 550 watts of cfl bulbs. Has anybody had this problem or can give me some advise?

Dought boy you should start a tread, not hijack someone else's. And to sex a plant grow till it shows per flowers or turn them to 12/12 then you will figure that out... I'm not sure what the problem is. But start your own tread and post pics so that people can help ya. Ya digg ? Good luck on your grow.

Breadedbandit I've never had that problem with any plants I've grow.. Sorry man can't help ya with that one.

It has been a while since the last update, I was trying to wait only a week so that change would be apparent. However I lost track of time haha. A lot has changed, hopefully I don't leave anything out!


BIG MAMA
Big Mama is around 3 1/2 weeks into 12/12 now. We think we can subtract about 5 or 6 days to get her actual flowering time, but we can't be sure. We didn't know when to officially start counting until we were passed the part where you would. But she is looking really beautiful we have a telescope lens we look at the plant with and it works very very well. It worked okay with the camera but you can see trich development, it makes me so happy!


MARY KATE
Mary Kate is healthy and is starting to show pistils. She's about a 1 1/2 weeks into 12/12 now. She has a definite stunting of the growth due to the defoliation when compared to her sister. She stands at 23" right now.



ASHLEY
Ashley is also 1 1/2 weeks into her 12/12 cycle. She has more prominent pistils and nearly all the way down her meristem. She towers over her sister at 29" tall. She does have a branch of sickly looking growth though. If any one has any ideas I'm more than open to listen! I had found another thread where someone showed very similar pictures and everyone said magnesium. Mary Kate, Ashely and Big Mama all showed the same symptoms. I started spraying Mary Kate and Ashley with an epsom salt/water mix, we worked it into Big Mama's watering instead because we don't want to risk mold. Mary Kate has fully recovered, Big Mama has shown no change (but doesn't have as much of it as the little girls did) and Ashley just has one sickly branch.


BIG MAMA'S BUSHY BABY
This girl got topped essentially. Really she was just getting too tall for the box she's in, we couldn't move her to flowering yet but we didn't want to get rid of Big Mama's genetics if it turned out we liked the finished product. So currently she is just being kept alive, but we may have to put her down due to space restrictions and wanting to begin our perpetual grow.


BAGSEED T
Bagseed T is DrJohnStiver's beautiful creation. He read up on mainlining and has made a very beautiful girl (fingers crossed). The model of function and form!


BAGSEED M
We finally got a bigger container to put this girl in, stripped her down and LST'd her into a cross. She'll probably go to flower in the next rotation.


FRANCESKA JAIMES
ScottieBennis's HSO Blue Dream. This girl has just took off and started doing her own thing. I tried to snap a good picture of it, but she managed to split her meristem into two tops. Then shortly after that one of those tops decided to split as well. All in all, she's beautiful little girl.


NATALIE PORTMAN
Even though we both got our HSO Blue Dream from the same batch of seeds, mine seems to be exhibiting more of an indica phenotype. She is short and bushy but has nearly as many nodes as Franceska. I attempted a FIM but I believe I cut too low and just topped her. Which is okay by me because really I'm just going for 4 main colas. So if I have to I'll just top the tops and I'll be fine. I love the her symmetry though

All of them are looking nice man! I wish I would have got a hps, oh well? I have 4 100 watt equivalent lights and compared to my prior grow she's growing at the same pace, well she how the buds turn out tho. Tomorrow I will be at 3 weeks so I'm pretty impressed with the growth from cfls.

Yeah I have no doubt the CFLs will do well for you. We raise all the plants with CFLs. I enjoy being able to supply light exactly where I want it. The only reason we went HPS for flowering is ease of use so we can get the perpetual going. It would have been a bitch to have to work with CFLs around just the girls we have in there, let alone the 9 we plan on having when the perpetual is at capacity. One thing that kind of worries me is that she doesn't have much of a smell to her. I mean she has a weed smell to her, but no more pungent than when she was in veggie stage really. It's a little disappointing, but she's got time I guess.

great thread, thanks for sharing!

Thanks 4000wHPS, I am going to be making a new post today when all the girls are awake and taken care of for the day

Sounds good man can't wait too seem how there doing!

Let's see it's been 8 days since the last update. Big Mama has really gotten a smell to her now. We're hoping to identify, or at least narrow down possible strains by smell and possibly sight later on in flowering. She has an weedy ammonia smell that kind of stings your nose when you take a deep breath right over a bud. Also some additional news, all the plants we have are girls for sure. The cross LST and mainline bag seeds were the ones we were still having to check, but no more! One last thing, I took pictures with a tape measure for all the plants besides Big Mama. I know you can't get super accurate number from the picture but really I just wanted something to show size comparison between all the plants. But enough chit chat, picture time:

BIG MAMA
Such a pretty girl, smells delicious too.


MARY KATE
Monday she officially started flowering. I can't wait until she really starts smell too!


ASHLEY
She started flowering monday as well. She has some sickly growth but I believe (fingers crossed) that we have it fixed. I think it was an abundance of nitrogen and lack of phosphorous. Time will tell.


BIG MAMA'S BUSHY BABY
She looks so different compared to before we chopped her in half lol. I've been playing around with LST on her for a bit. I want to turn her into a well trimmed bush, mostly for aesthetics because most likely we'll have to put her down later because of lack of space. We didn't expect all our plants to survive since we are new to this, but due to the great advice and info at RIU they all did. Above that we expected some males, but we have all females. Bet that's the first time some one bitched about having having too many healthy, female cannabis plants lol.


BAGSEED T
You couldn't ask for better symmetry out of a plant. I love this girl. She is like a bonsai tree…of weed.


BAGSEED M
I don't really know what to say about this girl. Everyone has taken one or more plants under their wing to nurture and love, she's kind of like a step-daughter that you love for who she is but you don't really feel to invested in because you've got your own kids to worry about haha.


FRANCESKA JAIMES
Scottie pulled down her three tops to expose undergrowth and control height. And though she is a freak, she is quite beautiful and will some day be a mother.


NATALIE PORTMAN
I put off taking pictures yesterday because of this girl. She's a bit droopy because I topped her a second time and did some pruning. I was hoping she'd be prettier for the public today, alas the show must go on.



I really feel like we owe the community at RIU a big thanks for all the help and information that we've received. I honestly knew nothing when this began. I still am learning new things and love constructive criticism. We'd love to make the switch to full organic with things that we produce. It really has inspired the green thumb in us all. We started a compost, we will probably start a garden when it warms up outside, we are now growing sage and lemon balm in the veg room and I have been desperately looking for ways to get into or start a community garden. Really thank you to everyone here at RIU for building a community so rich in knowledge for people like us!

man lookin real good! keep it man! + rep for these girls

Thank you sir we try hard! Can't wait for the first harvest, we're thinking it'll be mid march before harvest though. It's exciting!

Hope for the best I'll be here for the updates!

Nice thread broski!!

enjoying the defoil comparisons thanks for pointing out the journal to me pal

Candleguy: no problem man, I'll be taking new pictures today and will have an update.