Small Grow room

Tuesday 2nd February 2010 15:00h GMT
Finishing todays entry in the grow journal will have to wait as I have had one of those eureka moments? One of my CFL’s does not have a light reflector so I took some card covered it in tin foil and threaded it on to the electrical connection which is about one inch above the ceramic fixing this will stop the cardboard foil combo from heating up and spontaneity combusting but also reflects my light and heat back down to my plants.
Wednesday 3rd February 2010 14:00h GMT
One of my ballast is not starting my Metal halide bulb I swapped it for my high power sodium and works fine so it must be the starter I will have a look when I have a spare bulb to play with I can’t afford my tinkering to ruin my HPS as it’s almost time for bud cycle. I left my Metal halide on as I checked my stats against the cannabis cup winner stats and I only have one plant that fits the bill for perfect size. The rest are between 6 and 10 centimetres smaller than perfect maybe more light will speed growth up too 2cm a day instead of 1.2cm which there growth rate is at now. I also took 21 cuttings today dipped in rooting powder which I obtained free of a family member and planted into fresh grow soil watered and misted placed them on top of my ballast as it’s very warm. All my plants I snipped of the bottom branches as I don’t want buds forming so low on the plant. According to the cannabis cup cutting the lower branches helps the plant concentrate on producing fat buds everywhere else.
Thursday 4th February 2010 15:00h GMT
When I checked the grow room this morning the cuttings that I left on the ballast must have got too hot as some have wilted and soil is so dry I have misted and watered but I think the damage is done I will give them until I switch to 12/12 cycle on the 11th February if they have not rooted by then I will take another 21 before the switch. I still take the stats every 2 days but as the growth rate is on average 1.2cm a day there is no point in posting data I will however post all 21 plants stats on the day of 12/12 cycle. As we stand today I am right on track however I will have to wait and see if its all been for nothing when they get sexed fingers crossed.

Friday 5th February 2010 18:00h GMT
Growth rate is up on 90% of the crop the switching on of my Metal Halide lamp lit the room up even though the CFL’s were doing a great job this has boosted height and caused all the internal leaves to bloom thinking up the plants now resemble small bushes. As I keep charts I can look back at water and nutriment intake for the life cycle of the plant also ph. levels I don’t know what help this will all be to me in the future but as I have looked back on the data a few times and seen first-hand that every little detail you perfect like ph. Levels temperature lights soils airflow your results get better and better check the pics

Above shows the growth rate of plant 14 I have suspicions of this plant being another variety but will have to wait and see on the 27th this plant got topped and clearly see by the chart it did not recover for 100 hours so be careful not to do it before bud cycle is started you want the plants at maximum health when budding. My hole grow is on target for budding the 11th of February is the last day of vegetation light. As I don’t want to shock my plants the next 7 days will go like this
6th 23/1, 7th 22/2, 8th 21/3, 9th 20/4, 10th 19/5, 11th 18/6 then as long as plants meet spec on the 12th of February switch to high power sodium on 12/12 cycle within 7 to 10 days they should show sex then weed out the mails put in plastic bag in freezer for hash making sesh in the summer.

Sunday 7th February 2010 19:00h GMT
Well last night I had to get out of bed at 0130h and turn the extraction off the noise of the fans was magnified as I screwed it to a wood beam (Joyce) and the motor seems to make an isolating sound like jet taking of. So I moved it to back at the top of the grow room instead off screwing it I hung it from some metal cable the noise has stopped thank god. I also got some hooks to mount my sodium light better but I cannot do anything at the minute as they have 2 hours dark tonight from 18:00 to 20:00 then I will pop up mount the baby into final resting place. I also have some 2700k cfl90 watt light 11 watt actual power consumption I have 4 so I am in the process of rigging some mobile pot lights I want beneath the plant to be lit as well as the canopy is high and wide and not much light is let through. I want the buds to do well so this will be a nice boost for them and guess what they were sent through the post for free Philips in conjunction with power gen are giving them away free so I checked the spec from Philips web site and they list them as 2700k so well chuffed free budding bulbs.

Monday 8th February 2010 18:00h GMT
Well got up this morning my clone 14 the first one I did no rooting powder died even though it looked alive had no roots in 2 weeks all so went through my cloning tray had to dispose of six from there I ruined them leaving them on the metal halide ballast overnight cooked them I think some of the bigger ones may survive. The plants look mighty fine watering them in such a tight space is a nightmare so when I am working again I will invest in a pump spry should help no end.

Tuesday 9th February 2010 20:00h GMT
My grow room is all set up now I finished my 90w 2700k CFL’s have them spaced in between the plants for extra light. All I need to do now is hang a dark curtain behind my setup and use the last of my space for a vegetation and clone room just to keep my clones alive until bud cycle is up. Also made a rooting tray and put some clones straight in hopefully this method will yield better results so far its 21/0

All plants look amazingly healthy to think one can achieve this in their own homes why buy anymore.

Wednesday 10th February 2010 15:00h GMT
Well today was stats day and also the first 5 hours of darkness before night cycle began I took height measurement plant 14 was 47 cm high when I measured after lights on it was 50 cm. So it looks like lights out definitely make the plants grow in search of the light I know this as a fact through experience strange as it seems your plants might be better off on 18/6 right from the beginning? All the other plants are doing fine I am looking forward to finding out there sexes this way I can plan my constant supply of weed.

Thursday 11th February 2010 15:00h GMT
Well from 18:00h GMT this evening my plants get thee first 18/6 according to my calculations I should be putting on bud cycle 12/12 tomorrow but as I have not established a clone for each plant yet I will wait. As soon as I know that I have living clones for every plant then I will sex this way I don’t have to start over again from seed making Grow two just nine weeks long. As for my plants spec only 7 reached 40cm which is the high times cannabis cup recommended height for flower then they grow too 60cm for final height. I will not know if the clones are done until Monday.

Friday 12th February 2010 18:00h GMT
Most of my plants are 40cm at the moment but have to wait until my clones take before switching to 12/12. Because of the tight space it’s hard to water keep splashing the leaves causing bleaching and drying out. Not all just a few leaves are affected and the very bad ones I removed already 10 have replaced the ones I cut. Also because the container s isn’t wide enough to support 4 plants light is finding it harder and harder to penetrate the canopy. I have set a couple low mounted CFL’s 90w to give light to the troubled areas after only 24 hours and 6 of them being dark leaves under the dense canopy are increasing in size and amount. 4x90w is 360w of light hitting the underneath now so don’t be put off by low watt CFL’s as long as they are the right frequency you are ok mine cost 3gbp each so for extra underneath canopy light you cannot moan. The 16 planted clones I have left seem ok fingers crossed they are on a shelf in my veg room and should take. Only 4 of my 14 water clones have roots so today I dipped them back in rooting compound and put them back in the water. All I am waiting for is the clones then I will remove the bulbs for budding ones and set up a small veg room for a couple of mothers and my clones. I have done a strange thing and only give 20/4 cycle as I have at least another week before I 12/12 cycle. The reason behind my poor cloning results was lack of research I should have seen at least 3 inches and 3 sets of nodes are required for good cloning results also note cloning liquid is better than powder more care is needed with powder technics but good results can be obtained.
1. Make sure cutting is at least 3 inches long and comes from a plant on vegetation cycle 5 weeks plus in age.

2. Cutting should be taken from as near to the top of the plant as possible as these are the most fertile part of the plant.

3. Cutting of the stem should be done on a 45 degree angle this is to expose more fresh root tissue. Alternatively you can cut straight as long as you score the stem for an inch with a craft knife about 10 cuts all around just enough to break the skin this method will yield far better results as more of the stem soft tissue is exposed to the rooting agent.

4. Rooting medium and have tried 3 methods and find this method best by far find a container fill with water and rooting agent find a plastic egg box cut the round bottoms from each cup and fix just above the water with a hot glue gun. Now each egg cup can be used for a clone to help keep the leaves out of the water so just the stem is emerged in the solution.

5. Clean film should be placed over the top sealing it up this will keep the humidity nice now the leaves will need feeding with water 7 times a day light misting and covering back up

6. The temperature should be between 72 and 78 Fahrenheit no direct sunlight should hit the leaves in 6 days’ time you should see root formation on the clones and 3 more days in the shaded part of the grow room and they are time to be planted

Friday 12th February 2010 18:00h GMT

Well My first grow is going fantastic I have had to lay of the nutriments as I have potassium burns on some of the plants I am only going to feed once a week from now on and seeing its one week until sexing there will be only one more. Notice the 350w extra CFL’s I whipped up, get this with a hot glue gun I stripped some wire then attached directly to the bulb (As I had no connecters). I found an old hanging basket metal frame and used this to attach the bulbs too. When I finished, checking each bulb as I went I wired them all together. Underneath the lamp I fixed a plug socket so I can run fans and other lights of it too. I used the bulb boxes and some hot glue to make cover then hot glued some foil over it and fixed it in place. It is now providing light for the underneath of the canopy and cost me not a penny to make 350w CFL FREE.

Saturday 13th February 2010 20:00h GMT
Half of my cuttings have took I need to put them on bud his waiting for clones is highly annoying but on the other hand I suppose i will be thankful come next crop all the plants but five are 40 plus cm high. As they grow another 20 cm in two weeks it takes to sex them I am pushing my height limit.

Sunday 14th February 2010 19:00h GMT
I had to prune some more leaves today as they were dyeing lack of light under the canopy become brittle and yellow plant was wasting energy keeping it alive so all the dead foliage is gone new shoots coming through every day plants are fine specimens well chuffed with the results just got to keep it going like having a third kid.

Monday 15th February 2010 19:00h GMT
I made another240 cfl 2700k light today out of 2x75w cfls 1x90w cfl no fixing fabricated them out of some plastic pipe and a hot glue gun so much light for bud now 1500w should be a good harvest. Well lights off for four hours, but I checked I am going to put them on bud tonight when I switch back on I will drop the veg lights and stick up the bud. I will put the veg light at the back of the grow room partition it off and stick the smaller plants and my clones in there tonight and leave on 20/4 as usual. The rest it’s time to sex fingers crossed they should all be female.

Tuesday 16th February 2010 12:00h GMT
Well it stunk of skunk when I entered the grow room this morning put the lights back on no its 12/12 of at 1800 back on at 0600 less than 13 days I should no sex. My clone room small as she is can handle about 30 clones and my mother plus I have 4 plants that just was not big enough to flower so I left them in here too another week or so and I stick them back into the flower room. Temperature is at a steady 74f as long as I keep fan on else it raises to 82f because I removed space it heats up to a higher temperature. All my willow water clones died the cat knocked the box of the side all exposed to cold night air when I got up this morning I had to control myself as I put the cat out I could feel the urge to wring its neck my hand round it so tight little (b-----d) I called it shady the stupid animal thinks my weed is catnip. And when I checked the roots not one had took after nearly 4 days. My cloning side off the grow is awful. I will have to invest in some branded rooting hormone and buy myself a cheap propagator. As some of the soil clones I planted rooted (I think), 15 clones four plants that need sexing so still should be alright.

read the whole thread and i think your doing wonderful .. necessity is the mother of invention so keep up the good work your plants look great !!

cheers mate made my morning well buzzing off the hole green fingers bit got all types of veg and herbs(love munch)

Wednesday 17th February 2010 12:00h GMT
Well got up this morning checked the plants and 2 definitely have white hairs already that’s 2 out of 17 so far. All plants are 50cm plus. Also I had to redo my lights as it gets hotter the glue heats up and connections come loose. So I soldiered them to the bulbs they working fine now boy.

Friday 19th February 2010 12:00h GMT
Well no timer so you guessed it up at 0600h GMT to switch bud cycle on plants smelt lovely and as I only want 8 in my room rest are getting binned I definitely have 6 females 2 showed on second day so I put them in clone room on 24/0 to revert back to vegetative state for cloning. I am going to remove clones from their containers and move them into the propagator this is a good way for me to check for roots if they have none after 3 weeks, time to bin and invest in some equipment. I planted 12 seeds in the propagator straight in grower’s compost, and 12 went on tissue saucer in the dark when the tooth root appears I will transfer to propagator with the seeds I am going to put them in a mates back garden for the summer I have to start early as I have loads of friends gardens to do in fact 10 or so people in my family are trying to get clones for summer it’s a night mare ten each garden that’s 100 plants I need to ready. I don’t mind because I get half the crops so I will only grow once a year indoors from December until may then I should have enough garden weed to last me rest of the year (and the people whose garden I put them in). So every ones a winner I have been reading up on garden growing pitfalls and now think I have them covered. Out of 17 plants on bud cycle 4 are female over 50 cm in height and 1 plant unknown sex 13 cm high and 12 of unknown sex 50cm plus.

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