Xinjun's CFL Closet Grow

Comments welcome!

I'm starting a new thread because I think I've got something of a "legitimate" grow going on now (as opposed to the ghetto grow I had before: https://www.rollitup.org/t/xins-first-grow.795854/)

I've taken over a small bedroom closet, painted with flat white paint, washed it all down with diluted bleach, and closed it off with windshield reflectors + a tarp zipper. I've installed a bathroom fan in the closet for ventilation. I have two plants (Northern Lights feminized from the same batch as my first grow) under home-made CFL lighting rigs of about 9600 lumens (138 watts) each. I purchased a local organic soil mix (Seller's description: "This Mix contains: Pro-Mix BX, Worm Castings, Bat Guano, Shrimp Compost or sea soil, Added Perlite, Sub Culture B"). I am not doing any topping, just LST to keep them low and horizontal. My girls are about 6 weeks old right now, their main stems are both thick and horizontal, but they measure around 7-8" in length. I don't see any pre-flowers yet but I am in the process of building a second chamber on the top shelf of the closet where I intend to clone and veg and switch these girls over to flower in the next couple of weeks

Here they are, looking a little weird and floppy because I had just finished tying down the tops. (And yeah I misted them but light burn from water drops is not really an issue with CFL lighting)

I am really happy with these girls now. I call them The Princesses - Diana and Kate, respectively lol. Their early growth was slow and stunted with yellowing leaves. Just like Consuela! Which got me thinking: "What was the difference between Consuela+The Princesses and Hope? Hope grew really well and fast, Consuela was tiny, had leaves dying constantly they were both in the same soil, lighting... was it just genetics? Then it hit me! HUMIDITY! I've read tons of threads that say low humidity is not a huge problem and won't kill a plant. BUT it was literally the only difference in environment between Hope and Consuela. I live in a high humidity climate but in the winter, it gets pretty dry indoors with the heat on. Consuela was vegged in winter, Hope was vegged in Spring+Summer when the RH rises significantly! So, I got my girls a humidifier. Check out the difference!!!! Granted, I had also recently repotted them from seed-starting soil to the organic mix mentioned in the OP so that likely has something to do with it but that was not a factor in Hope vs. Consuela, so.

Pictured here is Diana, After & Before. It's the exact same plant (note the little green dome in her pot!). Before is small, stunted, and pale with dying lower leaves; so similar to how Consuela looked. After is amazing broad green leaves and she got so tall that I tied her down to the side of the pot toward the direction of the green dome. Since upping the RH (and repotting to the organic mix), I have not had any yellowing, crumbling lower leaves.

(Note: In the "before" picture, the RH is pictured at ~35% - this is AFTER I had started the humidifier up - you can see it working in the background there. Before that, the RH in the room was 10-20%. Now, I aim for 50% but it does end up being around 40% a good portion of the time due to not being able to vent it outside and having huge moisture control problems in the bedroom it's venting in.)

My girls recovered beautifully after their most recent round of LST. I intend to take clones within the next couple of days - wish me luck! I had many failures with attempting to clone Hope, but I believe I have identified my errors. I was allowing the pucks to sit in a small amount of water in the bottom of their tray for moisture purposes but I think this was keeping the peat too moist and discouraging the cutting from forming roots to seek moisture. My dome was unvented, I tried to just set it askew on the tray to vent. Now - I have adjustable vented domes, grooved trays and name-brand (Clonex) gel ready to go. I trust that I will have greater sucess rooting

good luck mate

Here's some better pictures of my girls before I start chopping clones. <3 ~7 weeks

Never topped all of these other "tops" are just side branches and can be chopped for clones!

Ok so on Sunday last week, I took 8 clones. Here are my girls post-op, my clone tray and my girls after they recovered (taken today).

None of my clones are showing visible roots yet Their lower leaves are yellowing, though, so maybe they are consuming their N.

I just sealed my flowering chamber to the best of my ability (seems pretty damn dark) and set the timer for the lights to go off at 7 a.m. and on at 7 p.m. so I can check on them in the morning before work and in the evening after work here we gooooooooo

Well I am still failing at cloning. I think I am STILL overwatering them. I still have hope that some might pull through but they are looking pretty shitty and the roots are very small. The only good (and strange?) part is that they are surviving just fine without a dome for the past few days so I planted them in medium (varying mix of full Super Soil - seed starting soil to see if good nutes or nute-free is the way to go right now.) I'm going to turn the humidifier on this evening and then leave them alone with their new soil and high humidity and hope they can pull themselves through.

My girls are starting their stretch and I see hairs on both of them so I believe both to be female, as they should be from the feminized seeds. The only complaint I have about them is that they are looking pretty pale - more of a pea green than an emerald green and they are still in the same soil they have been in the whole time with no added nutes. I stared misting them with a light proportion of Shultz a few days ago but they haven't improved so I just put some bloodmeal in the top of the soil last night. I will leave them alone for a while now and see how things go. I may take another cutting or two before they get too far along in the flowering process ... bleh I'm so retarded at cloning.