Some advice for a newbie grower (Pic inside!)

Hey there Rollitup.org,

I have been reading through the forums and this site for a while now. It seems to be good with lots of valuable information contributed from experienced growers, hopefully some of them see this thread.

I have decided (read: convinced girlfriend) to grow one plant for personal supply. I'll keep this plant low, tying it down and making it kinda bushy. I live in the southern part of Australia and we are in mid-summer, so the sun is hot and the days long making it perfect growing weather.

I've read heaps of guides and have gotten to the point of a well established seedling.

I just picked some seeds out of some *great* weed I had, I am just going to grow my plant outdoors in a pot. I bought some Grodan cubes, raised my seed and now have it outside in a glass vase that sorta acts like a mini greenhouse. It's great because it protects the plant, keeps it a little humid in there but is still open at the top for ventilation.

The little guy seems to have been loving his new home.

This is where I turn to you guys and ask you some questions I have been getting varied responses to from other growers and online resources.

First up, the promised pic. Here is Mr. Youngun:


So ill just list questions, I know some may have already been answered elsewhere, I would love it if anyone could contribute personalised advice though.

Thanks Rollitup.org!

1) At what point do I need to worry about sex? Fairly soon (judging from the pic)? I only have one plant, so I really want it to be female. Some online guides recommended spraying the plant with a product that will ensure it turning female, although I can't recall it's name now and the site is down. Is there a magic, spray it on stuff that turns a plant female?

What do you guys recommned for getting making sure this guy ends up a girl?

2) We are going away for a few days, I am worried if I leave him for 3/4 days he is going to dry out and die. I am thinking of putting him in his pot (with potting soil) in the next day or so and using those water saving crystals to make sure he's happy. It's been hot here in Australia, no reason to expect the temp won't be around 30 degrees for most of the 3/4 days. Any tricks to keeping the Grodan wet for that long without an actual hydro setup?

3) Nutrients. I have been using one recommended to me by the guy that sold me the Grodan cubes, I think it's aimed at the vegitative state. I have been using this stuff about half or even less strength, and it's been getting great results. After some of this the seedling seems to grow more the next day.

Do I need another type? Keep going with this stuff for how long? Would changing to another nutrient improve chances of a female plant?

Keep in mind this is outdoors in a pot, getting nearly 8 hours sunlight a day. Full sun.

Here are some pics of the nutrient so you know what I am on about (while i've got the camera out )



As you can see on the front label, bottom right it lists NPK as 26:11:36
I assume this means Nitrogen, Potassium and something else (I wasn't a science major ).

Here is a link to it being sold
HY-GEN GROW A-B 2 LTR

So any advice anyone could give about anything to do with my plant would be great!

m3thuselah said:

I've read heaps of guides and have gotten to the point of a well established seedling.

I just picked some seeds out of some *great* weed I had, I am just going to grow my plant outdoors in a pot.

1) At what point do I need to worry about sex? Fairly soon (judging from the pic)? I only have one plant, so I really want it to be female. Some online guides recommended spraying the plant with a product that will ensure it turning female, although I can't recall it's name now and the site is down. Is there a magic, spray it on stuff that turns a plant female?

Keep in mind this is outdoors in a pot, getting nearly 8 hours sunlight a day. Full sun.

Click to expand...

You weed couldn't have been that great if it had seed in it, but anyways yes it looks like you have a well established seedling. She's in vegetative stage now. As for that stuff you spay on your plants to ensure all females, i never heard of it. Only 8 hours of sunlight per day i don't think that's too good.

MajoR_TokE said:

You weed couldn't have been that great if it had seed in it, but anyways yes it looks like you have a well established seedling. She's in vegetative stage now. As for that stuff you spay on your plants to ensure all females, i never heard of it. Only 8 hours of sunlight per day i don't think that's too good.

Click to expand...

It's outdoors. How do I get more than 8 hours sunlight when the sun goes down at night?

I don't think its the season for outdoor growing, not here in canada anyhow we got 3ft of snow LoL

Where are you Toke? Here in So. Ontario theres absolutely none. Sucks.

Im in southern ontario as well and havent seen any for a while

Your plant is a baby don't worry about the sex yet.

Put it in potting soil.

Just a couple of things right off.

1. Get that plant out of that vase. If left in it in the heat it will surely fry up and die! You have to keep a fresh flow of air as well.

2. Your plant is stretching, bring it inside and place under a florescent light to slow down the stretching.

3. The one inch cube you have the plant in is ok, but at the size of the plant your roots have to be coming out the bottom by now. Take cube and all and place in a flower pot with a good soil.

4. 8 hours of light is horrible for a seedling. Get it inside under a florescent light with a light cycle of 18/6.

5. Get that plant in a pot before you go!

6. If by chance you do get a male, why not read up on crossbreeding and cross it with another strain of higher quality?

How To Grow Marijuana

There's been no Snow here in West PA either... That shit sucked. We had like a week of snow mid november... After that NOTHING... Which is fine... Nothing to slide the car on... I had an automatic car last year and was sliding now I have a honda 5 speed and I KNOW i would slide on that shit haha

Hey Meth.

There are some really knowleadgeable growers here but ...........
most of them are from the states and grow inddoors and don't quite underdstand the climate we have in Australia.

Have a look at my gallery, I'm in the middle of doing what you want to do.

I started with three plants, one ended up male, if I was you I'd get a few more going so you can kull the boys.

I have bent mine so they are low and inconspicuous but the good thing about bending is I now have about 8 cola on each plant that receives even sunlight.

While were on sunlight; my plants started with getting about 4-5 hours a day during this summer, it has since increased just because of the angle of the sun. They were growing sweet as with even that much light.

The indoor boys use big light hours cause they can but I'd guess that even a 1000W light won't give you the energy of a good ole Aussie summer sun will. My plants now get about 6-7 hours of full sun on a clear day, and where I'm at thats 99 percent of the time.

Next, use ferts 20/20/20 I use miracle grow for Veg, some say not to but you wont tatse it cause you only use it for vegative growth.

Use a a blooming fert once u get pistils, you'll find heaps of pics of how to tell male from female if you look through the posts.

You cant spray something on to make a female, you can put one leaf into 12/12 to see signs, but thats just silly for outdoor.

Grow more plants and kull the boys, it's 50/50. And, tell your g/f that and if your lucky you'll get 3 or 4 girls haahaaa, thats what I did!

Once you have your plants well established see if you can create a artificial nighttime using a box or something to give 12 hours of pure darkness, I did this for two weeks in the middle of Summer and now have flowering plants that are getting kick ass sun to grow my buds. if you wait too long before you get into the 12 hour cycle your plant may get too big, you dont want to have to tip a budding plant, do you!

I have one plant that I havent put into 12/12 and its about 2 foot high after two months getting only 3 hours of morning sun, I'll have to wait until winter (5-6 months) before it will flower.

Use big pots too, their roots grow really quick and can dry out too quick, I have to water mine every day now, mainly cause of the heat and the limits I have of pot size.

Fuck, cant remember many more of your questions now, by the time you have afew seedling you should have read every thing possible on this sight to grow big buds. This is my second grow and I'm kicking ass now.

O, and for bugs just use a very smal amount of dishwashing detergent with water and spray under leaves at night if you get spider mites or thrips. Not too much and dodge using any sort of oil, it tends to block the stomata.

Let me know if I can help any further!!!!!!

And, once I suspected I had a boy I pissed it off to a mates place, a week later it's flowers were out, that would have fucked the whole lot, keep a close eye on them!

Hey guys!

MUCH thanks to everyone that posted advice. You're all fuckin awesome and I really appreciate the help you've given me. Marius in particular, you seem to know alot about my situation and I would really appreciate more posts if you can.

If being a stoner means smoking weed and helping other people (like I see in my thread) then call me a stoner anyday, I'll wear it like a badge

Well, tommorow will be a month (to the day) that I posted this thread. So ill be posting update pics to show you guys what your advice has enabled me to do. We are making great progress, I think, and I am sure in a month or two I'll be smoking my first home-grown bud. It'll be damn sweet

I put it in potting soil (like a few suggested) but stayed away for a day longer than we intended. I came back and he was burnt to a crisp! Not dead, just most leaves were dead and brown and it had shrivelled right up. Imagine a scene out of ER (or whatever prime-time medical drama show), sirens wailing and me running the pot into the laundry.

'I NEED WATER, STAT'
'Doctor, soil level very dry. Plant vital signs low. It doesn't look pretty'
'I DON'T CARE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU. COME ON, COME ON, YOU CAN MAKE IT!! CLEAR!'
*put water in pot*
'CLEAR!'
*more water*
'COME ON DAMN YOU! CLEAR!'
*more water*
'Doctor! We've got pulse! You've done it!!'

After a huge drink and a couple of days light sun he has made a full recovery. My water crystals didn't seem to do much, then again it might have been long gone if I hadn't put them in.

Just then I went out to check on him, and what did I find. Little spots, looks like they've been eaten. Ok, don't panic. Call my mum first (grade A green thumb, although not like us guys lol) and she said straight out, white fly. Then some googling, reading of the sticky in this forum, some more googling and Dr. m3th is confident in a diagnosis of whitefly. Little fuckers!

Ok, so it's nearly 9pm here and I can't rush out to a store and buy some stuff (like Neem Oil, or the yellow traps). I don't have anything really yellow to make a trap out of, so I have make a mixture of LOTS of water, garlic and dishwashing detergent and sprayed my plant liberally with it. Let it dry for half an hour and when I went out to check again, not a whitefly to be seen.

I don't want to keep doing this though, I am sure the dishwashing detergent probably has something in it not too good for the plant (and for me eventually, but as we are nowhere near buds yet that isn't really the problem). So tommorow ill get some Neem Oil and traps to keep up the warfare, tonight's brew was just to keep it safe while I sleep so I don't wake up with a nice infestation.

Looks like I caught it early (I give it love everyday so no wonder lol).

Anyways, stay tuned for tommorow's progress pics and feel free to suggest whitefly related stuff if you think it'll help.

The yellow sticky traps are the easiest way to see what is flying around your plants. Also, turn the leaves over and inspect the undersides, it's there you will see any eggs or larva.

HTH

new pictures please

yeah new pics...and how come we dont see very many outdoor grows in the grow journal section?

Sorry for the delay guys, I had stuff to do.

Ok here he is. One month in, thanks to advice from this forum.



That pot is about 30cm across. Is it too small? Should I repot or just leave it? I know repotting will stress the plant, but I don't want it to get really root-bound ethier.

Spider mites now along with the whitefly (ffs lol) but I've got my natural soap solution and ill just keep spraying the bastards.

Wow, she looking better than I expected it would!

Looks like good ole Aussie weed to me!

The detergent should be biodegradable and is probably quite nice compared to some of the chemicals you will be using in the way of ferts, which I'd start now!

My spider mites soon got the jist that this was not their plant to be eating, also allowing othe rbugs like a odd grassshopper or a bigger spider seems to keep the little nasties away.

At least with big bugs u can kill them now and then, I often leave the dead bug on the leave to show the rest of the buggers too!

Get some ferts on her, the pot size is good if you have good soil.

Get some perlite in there though, it allows the roots to hit 100% of the area instead of going digging deep and getting root bound.

She aim't a girl just yet though buddy, you have to wait a few months to see that happening. Lets hope she not a boy, I'd be planting more cause you'll cry if he has balls!

Keep the pics coming and you keep getting help!

Good smokin!

yeah shes a beauty..shes more taller than bushy..which i dont particularly care for, but besides that your off to a good start..good luck growing

O god.

I screwed up. I didn't water it for 2 days and then we had a REALLY HOT (as only in Australia hot) day yesterday.

This is what I found when I got outside to check on it. Straight in to the laundry (as you can see) and a good soaking with water. Hope I haven't stressed the hell out of it (although by the looks of things, I must have).



Worse than that though, the bugs are eating it to hell. It's really bad around the smaller leaves.



I'm thinking of finally biting the bullet and bringing it indoors. I'd hate all my hardwork to go to waste because of those damn bugs. I've got a natural soap solution I've been spraying with, but it doesn't seem to be getting the job done.

Also wondering if the lack of water allowed the bugs to ravage it more or something, it's leaves got weaker and the bugs went to town.

What do you guys think?

Thats so depressing. im sure itll stick around, tho. u saved it before. o and ive heard hippie tales of trauma-induced plants yielding super weed.

really hope u get a female after all this.

Righto.

Well, I've finally convinced my girlfriend to let me build a little grow box and do a couple indoors.

She's seen all the work I put into my outdoor plant, but it just so damn variable. A hot day, a nasty bug, any random thing can come along and stuff up all my efforts. Indoors I can control the enviroment so much more (as you all know) and I think it's the only way for me to finally break the 'find guy with weed, pay lots of cash, smoke weed, start again' cycle.

I wanna be self suffcient with weed, I want to smoke but not have to mix with the dodgey guys I used to get it from nor pay out of the ass for a herb.

So I'll be continuing with my outdoor, he'll recover (he already looks much better after much drinking and some hours out of that crazy Aussie sun) but I'll be starting some indoors asap. Also the fact my single plant may end up male is also freaking me out a bit, I think I would seriously cry lol.