California Orange Bud CFL grow [Archive] - Green Grass Forums

syde00

04-26-2009, 01:51 AM

Looking pretty good. Got any kind of fan circulating air, or are you just moving air through atm? careful on the CFL's, you may end up spending more on little lights than you could have on a single 250hps. CFLs also add a little length to the flowering. HID's just promote flowering and growth altogether much quicker.

beSafe:jointsmile:

edit:: get paper plates, cut holes in the middle of them. Cut 1 slit from the edge to hole and slip it over the top of the pots upside down. Should reflect well and keep moisture retained in the pot.

yep, there is a a 5 or 6" diameter fan in the ceiling of the cab with some ducting attached to it at the moment to pull air from a little closer down near the plants, i have a few more of them, i;m thinking about adding a second one... it was very out-of-season warm here today and i noticed the temp inside the cab went up quite a bit with that... gave me a bit of an idea as to what to expect in a couple months when its like that everyday

I hear you about the CFLs... i think it probably would of been cheaper for me to go HPS... but i;'ve got too much invested in it now, and at least i can use the CFLs around the house later on when they are not in use.

as for the paper plates... that is an excelent idea! my dryness problem hasn;t been much of a problem lately... but i was getting a little pissed lately when i noticed some algae growing on the perlite... the paper plates should help kill that off :)

syde00

04-26-2009, 09:54 PM

Alright heres a Day 11 pic update.. cab arrangement has been changed again a bit... liking this alot better.

I also added the paper plates on-top of the soil that BeFree suggested :thumbsup: this should actually do alot of things:

1. keep temps around the plants down a bit (white plates reflect light, instead of the black soil absorbing it and converting to heat)
2. help keep moisture in the soil
3. reflect other-wise wasted light back up at the plants

win-win-win :jointsmile:

plant #2 (pic 2) still looks a little crappy from when i think i scorched it a little being too close to the lights, new growth looks good though.

i've noticed a couple of small spots on some of the leafs like you can see in pic #1... is this something i need to worry about? i don;t see any other signs of pests anywhere so i;m not sure what could be causing that?

BeFree

04-26-2009, 10:51 PM

Looking good. Nice green growth. :jointsmile: But the small yellow/brown spots could be from a little splash of water or just because it's the second set of true leaves and just die off as -hopefully- she matures. Like getting your adult teeth, first the young ones must fall out. The upward leaf taco'ing means something, I'm just not too sure. But I am certain it's not too good. Downward taco curled leafs means salt build up. Hopefully someone can help ya out.

beSafe:jointsmile:

syde00

04-26-2009, 11:12 PM

ah the water spots totally explains it!

i know i have seen them with big drops of water on the leafs after watering them and i didn;t really think much of it to get that off... but now that you mention that, i realize the drops of water was focus'ing the light like a magnifying glass and burned a hole in them! oops! probably happened when i took them out of the cab and put them on the inside of the patio door to catch some intense afternoon sun... i hope they'll forgive me :(

jakezking

04-27-2009, 07:38 PM

syde00, your plants look really good. Cali Orange - I can't wait to see the hair! How many CFLs do you have, and have you noticed any heat associated with them? As all of my grows have been outside, I'm not nearly as familiar with indoor growing; 1 day when I have a bit of cash, I want to move indoors - at least during the winter months; and, when that day comes, I hope to know more of what I want/need. I've always read CFLs eliminate much in the way of heat issues, but wondered if that was tempered by the number of CFLs.

Take good care.

syde00

04-27-2009, 09:37 PM

hey jakezking, thanks for stopping in :jointsmile:

for the lights... right whats in there is:

6x 23watt (1600 lumens @ 6500K) - these are the ones in the parabolic refelectors
4x 29watt (2200 lumens @ 2700K)

they are arranged that each plant is basically dedicated a 6500K bulb + a 2700K bulb and then there is 1 more 6500K bulb per 2 plants

I was planning to veg off the 6500Ks on their own, but then i started reading about people mixing it up a bit... i had the parts and the bulbs... so i figured i'd give it a try.

when i move onto flowering i'll be switching to 6x 29watt 2700K + 4x 42watt 2600 lumens @ 2700K bulbs

this has been working pretty well so far.. i keep the lights as close as i can, and this seems to be helping with keeping them bushy even though its a sativa dom hybrid... i haven;t measured but i'd say they are still under 6" in height and i can see the some leaf growth already that is the start of the 5th node.

edit: i totally forgot about the heat issues you mentioned lol... there certainly is some heat build up from the CFLs... i couldn;t compare it to a HPS because i've never used one... but considering from what i've read you need to keep an HPS about 20" away from the plants otherwise you'll burn them... well my heat problems seem pretty minor in comparison as my CFLs generally sit around the 2" away mark as best i can.

i do have a 5 or 6" industrial fan in the top and passive air intake at the bottom... i think i'll be adding a second fan to the roof though as I know heat is going to become a bigger problem in a month or 2

syde00

04-27-2009, 09:39 PM

as for a day 12 update...

plants seem a tad on the droopy side today, not sure what the deal is, the soil still feels moist so I don;t think they are in need of water...

i added a small desk fan into the cab about 30 minutes ago to help get the air circulating inside

syde00

04-27-2009, 11:38 PM

hrm... this droopyness seems to be getting worse.. some of the leaves look like they are curling under themselves. i popped the paper plates off the top to check if they needed watering and they still feel moist, certainly not dried out... i've been trying to find some information as to what it might be and it seems it could be:

1. under-watering
2. over-watering
3. magnesium deficiency (but i don;t think its this one)

the pic is of the one that is the worst, which sadly is also my favorite one!

I have not watered them since Friday afternoon... and they were fine up until sometime today... i had been watering every other day before... but Sunday they just didn;t feel like they needed it... and they don;t really today either... i think maybe just the paper plates are making the water near the top evaporate much slower than the water gets sucked up from below by the plant... so logically i am thinking under-watering... but the fact that the soil still feels most also makes it seem like over-watering?

anybody have any thoughts? it isn;t a huge problem yet, so i don;t really want to post about it in the plant problems forum just yet, as i think its something simple...

maybe i should try just giving one of them water and see if it perks up?

syde00

04-27-2009, 11:54 PM

haha, oops forgot to post the pic

jakezking

04-28-2009, 01:29 AM

syde, as your plants don't look over-watered, I'd go ahead and add a bit of water. I agree they look a bit droopy, and seeing as how they haven't received water since Friday, I'd say the soil at the bottom of the planters must be a bit dry - as you suggested, the surface remaining moist due to to the paper plates.

I appreciate all of the information on your lighting. It will really help me make a decision on lighting for when I move forward with that indoor dealio.

Good luck, my friend!

Jerry Garcia 2007

04-28-2009, 02:11 AM

Syde,

Hello I have gone over your entire log and can't seem to find anything about your watering technique. It will help if you go into detail about your routine. Include how much water you use every watering, any nutes or supplements you may be using. I do think you mentioned you had them in 1 gallon pots but what is your soil mixture also.

We should be able to figure out what is happening with that info.

JG

syde00

04-28-2009, 01:49 PM

Hey guys :)

well, I gave them some water last night ~10PM EST.

I checked in on them this morning but there seems to be no change really, they don;t really look any better, but they also don;t look any worse and they do appear to be continueing to grow at a normal pace... i suppose i could be over-analyzing here a bit, but the curl on some of those leaves seems like alot... but theres also absolutely no discolouration anywhere on them

JG - thanks for stopping in :)

the watering scheduling so far has been roughly every other day, when i had them in 4" pots (transplanted up to the 1gal pots around Day 8) they seemed to need it everyday at that point, but i kinda blamed that on the lights being so close to the soil and evaporating it quicker than normal. When i water them I basically give them just enough until i see a little bit of run-off coming out... i'd say on average about 100-250ml's of run-off comes out (sorry, not familiar enough with fluid oz and quarts to think in those terms!) I generally don;t pay a ton of attention to how much i;m putting in though... basically once i see the run-off start i stop putting more in. I know they are holding some of it though, as the weight of the pot is significantly heavier after watering like it should be.

I am not giving them any nutes at all yet, they are not even 2 weeks old just yet so there should still be lots of nutes in the soil for them to suck up... they have been getting nothing but tap water that has been sitting out for > 24 hours before being used (not sure of my chlorine content, but i figured no reason risking it on something so simple to avoid).

The soil is Hortibec Premium Nature Mix - Vegetable Garden & Herb Mix which is made up of Peat Moss, Compost, Humus and Sand... not sure on the ratios though, and i;m also unsure of its initial NPK values (might have the NPK on the package... i'll check when i get home tonight). I did however add perlite and vermiculite to hortibec soil, i mixed at a ratio of roughly 2 parts soil, 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite.

I kinda realize what I;m about to say is kind of like asking somebody to punch me in the face but... i do have no idea what my Ph levels are... i have been shopping around for a good test kit but have not come across a good option yet... i have found a couple soil test kits which test for a few things aside from just Ph, however the kits i have seen are either single-use or double-use kits and they cost about $10... $10 for a single-use or even double-use kit just seems like a huge scam to me... i have seen one place that sells regular ph stripes (at least i think thats what it is)... they are in a relatively small pill bottle like a small asprin bottle so i couldn't actually see what was in it, but it was a little over $20 for that, which again doesn;t seem like a great deal for litmus paper... and i also know litmus paper tests on soil run-off water is well... a little inaccurate at *best* and could be extremely inaccurate.. so again, that doesn;t seem like a wise investment... i'd much rather spend the extra money on a decent digital pen or something but i haven;t done enough research yet into figure out if i can get a decent one for say < $100 (i also don;t know what a "decent" one is yet).

i know my issue could be a slight ph issue, especially with the peat moss in the soil, as i know as it breaks down it becomes acidic, but the soil does also have humus in it which should help buffer the ph to keep it more consistent.

sorry, i know my posts can sometimes be a bit long and i can tend to blab on a bit lol... but i work in the IT field, and I know very well, that quite often big problems come from the smallest of details... so i;m kinda just throwing all my thoughts out there and seeing what sticks!

thanks for your help :smokin:

BeFree

04-28-2009, 04:53 PM

I could be wrong, considering you have sand, perlite, and vermiculite in your medium. But some spots could have been moist at one time and dried up so tightly that water runs around the most heavily rooted area. They don't seem to be having that bad of a PH issue. But getting a nice pen and dialing it in around 6.5 will definitely show improvements by gifting you with explosive growth.

www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/test-meters-monitors-c-373

www.htgsupply.com/productsubcategories.asp?categoryID=13

besafe:jointsmile:

syde00

04-28-2009, 06:06 PM

hrm, thats an interesting thought about dry pockets in the soil... how would one go about correcting a problem like that? the only thing i can think of would be to basically flood the crap out of them during a watering session to make sure the water stays in the pot long enough to sucked up by the dry pockets.

I did just run home during my lunch break and took a quick peak at them... they do seem to have perked up a bit since this morning... i think... its kind hard to tell, i should stop looking at them so often so i see more dramatic changes instead of small incremental changes that are harder to see :p

going to look into the whole ph testing problem when i come home from work.

what do you think is a better approach?

1. a ph meter designed for soil that goes right into the soil
2. a ph meter that designed for testing liquids, and then testing the run-off water Ph?

(1) seems like its kind of more what i care about... but it seems the meters designed to go right into soil do not work at all for testing liquids, so i still wouldn;t have a way of testing my tap water ph... which ultimately makes it impossible for me to actually correct a ph problem since i'd have no way of knowing if i am flushing with correctly ph'd water... i could get some cheap litmus papers for this i suppose...

i kinda prefer option (2) even though i know testing run-off water isn;t as good as the soil itself... but option 2 just seems more versatile, and not to mention, the digital soil meters seem a tad expensive... though the analog ones are pretty reasonably priced, but i also suspect their quality and accurance is not nearly as good

i;m also assuming that when it comes to the digital meters... Hanna is the way to go? i see the Milwaukee ones look a little cheaper, but i;ve only ever heard people mention Hanna meters on these boards.

Jerry Garcia 2007

04-28-2009, 10:08 PM

Syde,

Thanks that helped.

I have an opinion of what is happening now. Please keep in mind I am giving you some constructive criticism so do not take anything wrong, I am only trying to help. I did the same mistakes my first grow.

I feel your droopy leaves are caused by a couple of things, but mainly over watering. Watering every couple days is way to often for a plant that size in one gallon pots. The good thing is you are watering correctly by watering until it flows from the bottom. Again I use the keep it simple rule of thumb. I water the same way but when done I lift the pot to judge its weight. Then every day I lift the pot to check its weight again. I do this until I feel the pot weighs 1/3 of the weight just after watering. For a plant that size in 1 gallon pots should take around 5 days or more. The MJ plant likes slightly dry soil not saturated, plus letting the soil slightly drying out makes the roots grow to all areas of the pot looking for moisture therefore a bigger root structure =bigger buds.

Next I think you transplanted to early and is contributing to your problems also. I wait until roots are coming out the drain holes before I transplant. For a plant to get root-bound would take around a month in the first pots you used. Also by waiting longer the root structure holds everything together nicely and make transplanting a simple process. But the reason this may be adding to your problem roots may have been damaged during your transplant if it did not go smoothly and is still in the recovery phase.

What I remember about my first grow was that I could not leave the plant alone for a minute, and was always in danger of loving them to death. Now that I have the experience I may only check them for 20 min a day other than that I just let them do their thing and grow.

Hope this helps you out and Keep Growin

JG

syde00

04-28-2009, 10:31 PM

JG,

that totally makes sense and i appreciate the feedback, i wouldn;t of started the thread if i was going to throw a fit when somebody was going to give me criticism... i;m new to this and i know it... i feel i have a bit of knowledge based reading a ton of stuff here, but i;m also smart enough to know that i don;t know even close to everything :cool:

the overwatering makes sense, and it was on my list of possible causes, so i'm glad to see i wasn;t way out in left field with that one :D I just feel horrible now that i gave them more water yesterday! haha

watering does seem to be a little bit of a tricky one... i mean, its a really simple thing, but at the same time it seems so different for everybody and there are alot of variables that come into play... it seems to be one of those things that no matter how much you read about it (of which there is actually rather little info on these boards... except for "check the soil moisture about an inch or so down" and "the biggest problem with newbies is over-watering"). nobody can really tell you exactly what the soil should feel like since its all relative to so many other variables - your soil mix being the most obvious one... my soil being dry might feel completely different than the next guys..so not having a reference point to begin with makes it a little tricky... so kinda learn by doing i guess :)

as for when i transplant before... i actually did have roots at the bottom of the pots at the drainage holes poking their way out a little bit, and i had read that when you see roots growing out the bottom it means they are becoming root bound, so thats why i transplanted them before, but admititly, it did seem very early to be doing it at the time. The root ball did hold together fairly well when i did the transplant, but once i did pull them out of the previous pots i didn;t think they were as root bound as i had initialy thought at the time... there was lots of visible root structure at the bottom of the root ball, but it certainly wasn;t as filled out as i had thought it would be... again, just one of those things i think i need to learn by doing.

i;m kind of big on the whole trial and error thing when it comes to most problems in life, so i;m not worried at all about making mistakes and i;m really glad theres a big support community like this one to help people like me learn the basics :)

again, much appreciated! i'll let them chill out on their own for a few days and we'll see what happens

jakezking

04-28-2009, 10:45 PM

syde00, it looks like I gave you some bad advice - my sincere apologies, and my sincere thanks to JG for spotting the issue and providing much better, experienced advice. I've learned something here as well - ask more questions before providing advice and if I am unsure of an answer, ensure I provide my advice with a grain of salt.

Best of luck in your continued grow, my friend!

killa12345

04-28-2009, 11:00 PM

i would have to agree with JG on this one.....underwatering usually shows a wilting effect along with droopy leafs....the pictures look like overwatering......i would of said as well as distance to the light but 2 inches is fine....id not water those puppies for like 4-6 days you should see a noticable improvement! Good Luck! Oh yeah and mixing the CFL works good but i tend to mix them according to stretch....if its a indica...i add more 2700k to my veg...closer to 60/40...opposite for sativas 80/20....helps control plant size in small areas..

syde00

04-28-2009, 11:30 PM

headshake

04-28-2009, 11:39 PM

i would stay away from hanna meters. i've heard a lot of bad things. stinky used to recommend milwaukee.

a good way to tell if your plants need watering is to pick up your pots by the rim, with your index finger and thumb on both hands. (think of a diamond if you weren't holding the pot.) bounce the pot up and down and get a feel for the weight of it. do this when they are dry and after you just waterd. this will help you get a better feel for when your plants need to be watered/fed.

-shake

Jerry Garcia 2007

04-29-2009, 12:08 AM

Syde,

Thanks for the kind words, I had to put that first sentence in due to I have been blasted too many times by know it all newbies that it gets frustrating at times. It is my way of heading it off if it may happen with "think before you respond".

But glad you took that advice, and I will keep checking in to see how things are going.

BOL
JG

syde00

04-29-2009, 12:21 AM

shake - thanks for the tips on watering and the ph meter :)

JG - yeah I know how it goes... I can't say that I haven;t done the same myself... i'm new to these boards but i've seen that type of behaviour in many other places before :) I;m here to learn, and when I can, help others with what I know too, so its all good :jointsmile:

syde00

04-30-2009, 05:02 PM

Alright, got a couple of questions for those of you with more experience than me (which is probably all of you lol)

1. Detecting a plant that is root bound... like i mentioned before, one of the detection methods I have read here is looking for roots growing out the bottom of the pots... my plants are in 1 gal pots at the moment (well, slightly less than 1gal), the plants are only about 4" tall at the moment, so these potters should be good to hold them until about 12" (going by the guideline of 1 foot per gallon of soil).... now for a few days already, i have had visible roots at the drain holes of the pots, some of which are starting to try pretty hard to come out of the pot... i can;t imagine that my 4" plant could have this pot root bound already, but here are a couple pics... pic #1 is the plant from the top so you have an idea of how large it is, and pic #2and 3 is some of its roots coming out the bottom... i know its not excessive, but basically, how much is enough? sorry, i know pic #2 is a little bit blurry, but holding the plant in one hand and the cam in the other didn;t really give me a whole lot of stability lol anyhow, i've seen the roots at the bottom for a few days, but the last day or 2 there have been more and more coming quicker... and if this is going to be a problem soon, i need to get ready for it (I haven;t actualy sourced any 3gal pots locally yet... best i have come across so far is some 1.8gal pots, but i'd rather jump straight to 3gal pots just to avoid one of the transplants... but i;m willing to do the 1.8gal ones if that is a better idea.

is cali orange perhaps just a strain that goes insane with root growth and i need to step up the transplant schedule because of this?

2. as you can also see in pic #1, some of my leaves from the over-watering are still quite curly... will these leaves straighten themselves out at some point? (ie. when the soil has gone through a proper dry cycle) or will those leaves stay like that forever? the newer growth seems to not be curling at all, so i;m happy about that right now.

3. pic #4 is a shot of one of the plants first true leaves... it seems to be *very slowly* developing the yellow/brown spots you can see in in the pic... is this a problem? or is it simply old growth that the plant doesn;t need/want anymore and is basically slowly dying off normally? or is this possibly some kind of nute/micro-nute deficiency?

TIA!

syde00

05-01-2009, 09:27 PM

ok... so my roots problem seems considerably worse today... i can;t explain it... everything i have read says about 1 gal of soil to 1 foot of plant height to avoid a plant becoming root bound, and that a sign of becoming root bound is the the roots growing out the bottom.... this plant is roughly 4" in height, and well... look at the pic.

my thoughts are that either this strain goes insane with roots, or that my soil over the last 4 days became incredibly dry and the plants went searching for a water source

the soil seemed very very very dry today - its been 4 days since the last watering so i've given some water to 2 of them since i got home from work... they got about 1 litre of water each, and i suspect i'll be giving the other 2 water shortly.

I also decided, since it seems i have some pretty good roots at this point that perhaps i could probably get away with giving them some weak nutes... i gave them 1/4 strength 20-20-20... so we'll see how they like that!

proper pic update later tonight or tomorrow I think!

headshake

05-02-2009, 12:46 AM

i went back and skimmed through your log but couldn't find if you started from seeds or clones. i'm sure i just missed it.

also, what size are those pots?

-shake

syde00

05-02-2009, 03:08 AM

hey shake,

they were started from seed, sprouted right about 2.5 weeks ago and they are currently in 1 gal pots

the pic i posted is the one with the most roots poking out, which is actually the one that seemed the least upset about me overwatering it a bit earlier in the week

syde00

05-02-2009, 08:41 PM

Well its been awhile since i've done a proper pic update.. so here we go...

i let the girls chill out on the inside of the patio door today to catch some sun rays, they were there for maybe about 5 hours this afternoon and they seemed to really like it, when i got home the tops of all of them were all leaning towards the sun!

they all seem to have recovered from the over-watering i think, plant #1 still looks kinda crappy, the pic makes it look worse than it is.. but i think its looking the worst because it also has pretty fat leaves...

now that they are back under the lights i've positioned them all in a way that should help them straight back out a bit.

I also had the raise the lights another notch today, they were getting a little too close for comfort

pic 1-4 = plant 1-4

pic 5 just kinda shows how the plant really started leaning towards the sun

BeFree

05-02-2009, 11:11 PM

Wow. :greenthumb:

Nice looking little monsters ya got there. :stoned:

Also like the very 'green'
picture update.:D

beSafe:jointsmile: and keep up the good work.

syde00

05-03-2009, 08:52 PM

Thanks BeFree ;)

they do seem to be turning into little monsters! I think they are taking a liking to the low-dose nutes.

I;m also noticing all the new growth is starting to look alot more sativa-like, i can;t wait for a couple more days when the new growth has come out a bit :D

Italiano715

05-03-2009, 09:03 PM

Those are starting to look really good, looks like your doing things right :thumbsup: Keep it up and you will be satisfied when it's all said and done! :D

headshake

05-04-2009, 04:25 AM

looking damn fine syde! keep up the good work. can't wait to see what kind of real monsters they turn into.

be careful taking them out and then bringing them in, as you can invite guests into your "controlled" grow environment.

-shake

KillerBudG

05-04-2009, 06:38 AM

Syde can't wait to see them bad gurls in flower I have always been interested in cali orange bud so hope it turns out good:thumbsup:

~One~:rastasmoke:
~BudG~:rastasmoke::rastasmoke:

syde00

05-04-2009, 01:11 PM

hey guys, thanks, they are starting to look really awesome :thumbsup: i totally can't wait until flower, but i;m still a little undecided on how long to let them go. my orignal plan was going to be about 18"... but then i read a comment somebody made about this strain here somewhere that said it stretches like crazy and that has me a little worried :(

my grow space is only about 58" tall, but of course there has to be room for the pots and lights in there too... fortunatly i am using CFLs, so i can let them get pretty close to the top though.... if i do run into a major problem i guess i'll just have to take them out of the cab... fortunatly i don;t really need to be stealthy at all with the grow (as long as its inside). I'm thinking it might be a safe bet to flower them at 12" and get a feel for the strain before starting again and letting them go bigger.

shake - i don;t actually take them outside to catch some sun, i live in ontario and my patio doors are south-facing, so they actually stay on the inside of the glass, haven't actually put them outside :) I know its probably still not great to even move them around different parts of the house... but my regular cabinet is in the part of my basement that is unfinished, and i;m pretty sure if there are pests in the house, they are probably there anyways lol. I have already given them a light spray with neem oil though about a week and a bit ago.... just incase ;)

headshake

05-04-2009, 02:12 PM

gotcha syde! just want to make sure that your ladies are safe!

-shake

syde00

05-07-2009, 12:57 AM

eeek! i think i might have a ph problem starting! hope the ph pen i ordered last week shows up before the weekend... don;t want to have to cave and pay for litmus paper, which i know is slightly inaccurate at best for soil runoff :(

starting to see some yellowing of the leaves and brown spots similiar to what you see in the 4th pic the last time i posted pics, except, it seems to be getting worse... it all seems to be happening on the lower leaves, everything up top is still looking great

bertoxxulous

05-07-2009, 05:27 PM

Hey syde00. I saw you posted in my log and wanted to check yours out and also thank you for the complament for my name ; ). I also work in the IT field how about that! By the way, I saw you inquired about PH pens. I'm using a milwaukee PPM and PH pen and they have worked just great for my E&F system. I would recommend them to anybody but if you go through my whole log you'll notice its been a dog and pony show over at my joint till I figured out I was trying to grow in poison tents..go figure...I bought those suckers at a grow store too. This is really my first successful (presumably as of right now anyways) grow right now so hopefully we are both in luck!

syde00

05-07-2009, 05:44 PM

haha yeah, i read about that in your log, thats pretty BS that they'd sell that kinda stuff at a store dedicated to this!

It actually is a milwaukee pen that i picked up :) I found a ph56 on sale for $64, which seemed like a good deal since all the non-sale prices i've seen were ~$100... now if just the stupid thing would show up!

denialisback

05-07-2009, 08:28 PM

hello syde00 very nice grow!!

Would just like to mention your 'problems' creeping in with PH, are probably nitrogen deficiency(lockout) caused by a PH too close to 7.0, I've had WW and RH skunk plants do the same :( It sucks.

Hope you sort it, and be careful with any ph down, can be unhealthy for plants to say the least if you screw that up :) heheh.

Oh, make sure you use phosphoric acid for flower ph down and nitric acid for vegging, otherwise could be bad. Remmeber using ph solutions will increase about of nitrogen or phosphorous respectively, so be careful of overnuting when PH Downing...otheriwse you'l have no damn clue wtf is causing any probs !!!!

Well jsut wanted to help out cause I've had this problem myself, Good luck dude!!

peace.
Denial

syde00

05-07-2009, 09:42 PM

Thanks Denial :)

Yeah, I was figuring it was something along those lines.. i;m pretty sure its a ph problem, and its not really destroying them overnight, so i know its not *too* bad so i;m not really obsessing over it yet. Unfortunatly I just can;t tell until my ph meter shows up, but i think if it doesn;t tomorrow, I'll probably cave in and buy some test stripes so i;m at least not flying blind... i;m not gunna fly blind with adding ph up/down lol.

I actually didn;t know there were different types of ph up/down solutions, so that is very useful information :thumbsup:

I suppose my next problem is where to actually get the solutions from... I have looked in every garden centre i've been in locally and haven;t seen anything... one of them had a ph downer I think, but it was being marketted for outdoor water gardens... like backyard ponds and stuff.

There is a hydro store near me that i;m sure carries it... i just haven;t actually ventured into it yet, it doesn;t exactly look like the kind of place that gets alot of traffic, and i;m sure the second i walk in i;m going to have a sales person jump on me, and I don;t really want to walk into that situation completely uninformed and having no clue what i;m talking about lol... i;m sure that'll make it obvious that i;m up to something a little.... sketchy... lets say.

I suppose i could order it online as well, but i'd rather not have to wait for mail.

jakezking

05-08-2009, 12:07 AM

syde, sorry to hear about the spots seeping up your plants. I don't know a darn thing about ph, but I can see denial's post being valid. I was going to say it's probably over-nute since the brown spots are hitting your lower leaves first. From what I gathered of denial's post, the ph issue may actually be causing an over-nute effect - which essentially jives with what I was thinking. As before, it's always best to take the advice of a more experienced pro than I.

From the last pictures your plants look awesome, dude - extremely green and bushy as heck! I don't know that I've ever seen plants as bushy as those at such a short height? Sweet! Good luck with your ph issue, my friend!

bertoxxulous

05-08-2009, 12:09 AM

You know what man, I wouldn't worry to much about being hassled at a grow store. Those guys know over half the folks rolling in there are trying to grow mj. All they guys at my store are young punk dressing guys that are probably growing themselves. I wouldn't worry to much about it. If somehow they ask what you are trying to grow, which I can almost promise they won't...just say your trying to grow tomatos and your having unexpected problems and they will probably try and help troubleshoot the issue for you. I'm pretty positive any grow store realizes who at least 50% of their customer base is.

P.S. All these %ages are a shot-in-the-dark guess for me but honestly I doubt its that far off the mark from the other customers that have been shopping in there while I was.

syde00

05-08-2009, 01:29 AM

Hey guys :)

jake - thanks so much for the compliments! i kinda really have to chalk it up to a little bit of blind luck ;) well.... may not quite blind, i did do alot of reading here before starting, and i do approach things from a very scientific point of view, so i;m sure that helps a bit :) I owe ssssssoooo much to the other posters of this forum... i have learned an immense amount from reading stuff here, and i;m actually getting ready to make what I hope will be a good contribution-type post regarding CFL lighting. I need to make some diagrams and shit for it though and just haven;t gotten to that yet.

denial - you are so right about the grow store, i have driven by the place and i am pretty sure its run by a bunch of mj growers, its just a little intimidating walking into a specialty store knowing next-to-nothing about it. its seriously in the strangest part of town... like there isn;t really another "retail" store within a mile of it except for like a gas station lol... I think the next closest "business" is a strip club lol! so i;m sure they get absolutly nobody walking in "just to see whats there" kinda thing if you know what i mean.

Anyways...

After i replied to denail's post i started thinking about it more and well... curiosity got the best of me... and i ran out to walmart and picked up an aquarium ph test kit, it was only $5, so didn;t really feel like i was tossing away too much money since i have the milwauke pen in the mail... anyhow.. my tap water ph is like 7.5+!!! the test kit i bought only measures between ph 6 and 7.6 and said "anything below 6 will register as a 6 and anything above 7.6 will register as a 7.6" and well... i;m pretty much the same as the 7.6 colour... ouch.

its a liquid test kit, so unfortunatly testing it with the plant-prod nutes that i have is kinda flawed as the nutes do tint the water slightly.

I also haven;t tested the run-off water yet since i just watered them yesterday and i don;t want to overwater again! that can wait for the weekend i suppose.

I think I will run over to the hydro store tomorrow during my lunch break at work though (its pretty close to there) and pick up some ph down.

:jointsmile:

syde00

05-10-2009, 02:42 AM

Alright, its day 24, thought i'd do an update!

SO I think I have come to the conclusion that what I thought was an on-coming ph problem, infact, was still just further damage from when i was overwatering. I have noticed that the yellowing and brown spots have only appears on the leaves that were affected by the overwatering, and those leaves never really did look right even once the soil dried out.

Today was a watering day, so I used my crappy aquiarium liquid ph test on the run-off water, and surprisingly, it actually was giving me a run-off of around 6.6, which means my soil should be in the 6.3-6.4 range... which is pretty much dead on! hooray for blind luck!! :thumbsup:

Of course, the run-off was slightly tinted, so i really won;t know until my ph pen gets here... damn slow international mail!

I also decided to experiment a little with plant #3... it seemed to be out-growing they others a bit at the time, so I thought i'd experiment and FIM'd it... i might of taken off a little too much, so it might end up just being a topping, but I should know pretty soon!

they are all sitting in the 7-8" range right now and are still extremely bushy, but I think this is a sleeping monster, I think during flower its going to stretch alot...

roots also seem to have filled out quite nicely in these pots and I think I am going to do my final transplant tomorrow... I know they aren;t 12" in height yet, but i am noticing some curling of the leaf tips, which from what i understand is a sign of becoming rootbound... so i popped one of them out of the pot, and they pretty much look like they are out of space already.

So I;m going to transplant tomorrow, then I think i'll continue veg for about another 7 days, which hopefully they will be close to my 12" goal and we'll start flowering em :jointsmile:

anyhow, heres some pics

plant #1 kinda continues to look sad and mopey... seems to just be its thing!
plnat #2 ouch at the bottom yellow/brown leaves :( you can also see a few of the curly leaf tips here - this one is the largest of the bunch now that #3 was set back a little with the FIM'ing
plant #3 this is the one I have attempted a FIM on , its also my favorite so far! more curly leaf tips here too!
plant #4 it might be last, but at least it looks happier than the leader of the group!

jakezking

05-13-2009, 06:55 PM

syde, they all look like they are experiencing some rapid vegetative growth - really nice lookin' plants, bro! Let me know how your ph pen works out, as I may need to invest in one; I've tested input and runoff with a pool test kit, but am not certain of the accuracy due to age of the chemicals used. I have a few minor issues I need to address just to see livelier plants, and the ph pen will be a step in the right direction for me.

Thanks for the update - the pictures are awesome! I can't wait to see what they do in flower.

syde00

05-15-2009, 02:45 AM

Jake~ thanks! they do seem to be growing great, maybe I have some beginners luck :thumbsup: my ph pen showed up yesterday, so i am pretty eager to try it out... i calibrated it and tested my tap water, but I haven;t had a chance to check run-off water yet... so really just been screwing around with it heh. the girls are scheduled for a watering tomorrow so i'll let you know how the run off test goes!

Anyways, today is day 29, thought i'd do another pic update, i'll be doing one final pic update before i start flowering. I'm going to be away for a couple of days so I didn;t want to start flowering while I wasn;t here, so I'll be starting that on Monday, which would put them at vegging for 33 days. I think there going to be a little taller than I wanted to be. all 4 are in the 9.5-10.5" range, so I suspect they'll be about 11-14" by Monday as they seem to be picking up some rapid height ever since I transplanted on Sunday, i had to raise the lights by about an inch twice this week already, and i;m going to raise it 2 more inches tomorrow before i take off.

pic 1- right after i made fun of all her for being sad mopey she started perking up alot, go figure!
pic 2 - haha looked at the pic now... it looks kinda weird because i had just flipped the handle over the pail and must of caught a branch
pic 3 - still my fav! this is the fim'd one... i think i might of fucked it up though (read pic 5). this one i think sadly is going to be a male... if its true what they say about them growing faster... its been ahead the whole time, and i set it back with the FIMing, but its already ahead again
pic 4 - from the right angle, this one totally looks like a christmas tree! i think christmas might be coming early this year haha
pic 5 - this is another pic of #3, this is where i cut it to do the FIMing.. i wasnt quite sure what to expect to happen, but the branches from the node below shot right up, which made me think I had just done a topping instead... but then a couple days later that shoot started growing out of the main stem... is this what is suppose to happen with a FIM? I wasn't sure what it'd look like

Italiano715

05-15-2009, 02:53 AM

looking at pic 5, looks like you have yourself a ladie there!!!

syde00

05-15-2009, 02:57 AM

omg, i forgot the most important part!

I had noticed the smell from them for the past couple weeks... and its been slowly getting stronger and stronger. it was just kinda normal everyday plant smell for awhile, but its started smelling sweeter and sweeter as time went on.

after i had my hand all over the one from flipping the pale handle over it tonight, i smelled my hand a few minutes later and i realized they are starting to actually smell like oranges! i totally can;t believe how much it smells like them... i kinda wasn;t expecting anything like that until flowering started!

:jointsmile:

syde00

05-15-2009, 03:07 AM

looking at pic 5, looks like you have yourself a ladie there!!!

wow, i didn;t even notice those hairs there until you said something! hmmm!!!

As soon as you said that i was kinda thinking it might of just been some random plant material that didn't get cut away properly when i fim'd it... so i went and grabbed another pic of what might be some hairs on the same plant.

this pic is the top portion of that shoot growing from the stem now... it looks totally freakish, but maybe thats normal for what I did.. anyways, it looks like those might be some tiny hairs there as well?

it kinda seems really early to me for them to be showing sex in the veg cycle though? they are only 29 days old and have been on 24/0 light. i have had alternating nodes for probably about a week and a half though, so i suppose they are mature.

but what do you think about this pic? is that another hair on that stem right around the part where it starts to split into different directions?

if those are hairs on my favorite one, that is totally a way better discovery than them starting to smell like oranges lol! :rastasmoke:

Italiano715

05-15-2009, 03:17 AM

Definitely another female there...Maybe they are showing because of the 24/0 schedule they are on. Whatever your doing, your in the right path. So keep it up and keep us posted because I will be here till the end! :thumbsup:

camoxnhx

05-17-2009, 02:51 PM

Look at them little monsters. They arent taking and lumes hostage! they are looking healthy and the fact that there so lushish green makes them all the more better to look at. keep up the great work!

jlve187

05-17-2009, 05:30 PM

:thumbsup:
Jake~ thanks! they do seem to be growing great, maybe I have some beginners luck :thumbsup: my ph pen showed up yesterday, so i am pretty eager to try it out... i calibrated it and tested my tap water, but I haven;t had a chance to check run-off water yet... so really just been screwing around with it heh. the girls are scheduled for a watering tomorrow so i'll let you know how the run off test goes!

Anyways, today is day 29, thought i'd do another pic update, i'll be doing one final pic update before i start flowering. I'm going to be away for a couple of days so I didn;t want to start flowering while I wasn;t here, so I'll be starting that on Monday, which would put them at vegging for 33 days. I think there going to be a little taller than I wanted to be. all 4 are in the 9.5-10.5" range, so I suspect they'll be about 11-14" by Monday as they seem to be picking up some rapid height ever since I transplanted on Sunday, i had to raise the lights by about an inch twice this week already, and i;m going to raise it 2 more inches tomorrow before i take off.

pic 1- right after i made fun of all her for being sad mopey she started perking up alot, go figure!
pic 2 - haha looked at the pic now... it looks kinda weird because i had just flipped the handle over the pail and must of caught a branch
pic 3 - still my fav! this is the fim'd one... i think i might of fucked it up though (read pic 5). this one i think sadly is going to be a male... if its true what they say about them growing faster... its been ahead the whole time, and i set it back with the FIMing, but its already ahead again
pic 4 - from the right angle, this one totally looks like a christmas tree! i think christmas might be coming early this year haha
pic 5 - this is another pic of #3, this is where i cut it to do the FIMing.. i wasnt quite sure what to expect to happen, but the branches from the node below shot right up, which made me think I had just done a topping instead... but then a couple days later that shoot started growing out of the main stem... is this what is suppose to happen with a FIM? I wasn't sure what it'd look like

Hey if you don't mind could you help me out on this??? I kind of know how to fim but when can i start it and can you explain how to do it like you did??? and you just fim the main top of the plant rite??? and also how many times do you think i could do it while in veg stage??? Looking forward to your response thanks man

Italiano715

05-17-2009, 05:42 PM

:thumbsup:

Hey if you don't mind could you help me out on this??? I kind of know how to fim but when can i start it and can you explain how to do it like you did??? and you just fim the main top of the plant rite??? and also how many times do you think i could do it while in veg stage??? Looking forward to your response thanks man

Just pinch off about 1/2 to 3/4 of the top with your finger. That's what I do, but be careful not to pluck the whole thing off, otherwise you just topped it :stoned: You can FIM a plant as many times as you want, but a lot of times depending on the strain it may only respond up to a certain point. Which in other words, if you have say, 6 main tops and you try to FIM each top to promote more growth, then maybe 3 may respond to the FIM postitively and the other 3 may not do anything. Then again, they may ALL respond to it. Never grown any of your strains so I don't know, but just maybe do some FIM and see how you like it. Below is a link on FIMing and how to do it! Hope it helps.

P.S. Sorry syde, i know he asked you, but i couldn't resist. :thumbsup:

Click Here Jlve187 (http://www.drugs-forum.com/growfaq/727.htm)

jlve187

05-17-2009, 06:01 PM

Just pinch off about 1/2 to 3/4 of the top with your finger. That's what I do, but be careful not to pluck the whole thing off, otherwise you just topped it :stoned: You can FIM a plant as many times as you want, but a lot of times depending on the strain it may only respond up to a certain point. Which in other words, if you have say, 6 main tops and you try to FIM each top to promote more growth, then maybe 3 may respond to the FIM postitively and the other 3 may not do anything. Then again, they may ALL respond to it. Never grown any of your strains so I don't know, but just maybe do some FIM and see how you like it. Below is a link on FIMing and how to do it! Hope it helps.

P.S. Sorry syde, i know he asked you, but i couldn't resist. :thumbsup:

Click Here Jlve187 (http://www.drugs-forum.com/growfaq/727.htm)

Thanks man you are the best!!!!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

syde00

05-18-2009, 10:17 PM

Hey jlve187, I know italiano answered ya already, but i just got home from the long weekend and just thought i'd say that I basically followed this: http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs/144573-guide-fimming-topping-made-easy.html thread about how to do it... but italiano got ya covered already I think

Italiano, np about answering! I wasn't around for the weekend anyways

camoxnhx, thanks very much! some more pics here for ya!

today is day 33 and will be the plants final day of veg! All of them are about 11-13" tall, which is pretty much dead on what i predirected they'd be last week. I've swapped my CFLs around and here is what I am running now:

4x 29watt (2200 lumens @ 2700K) - in parabolic reflectors, one directly over each plant
2x 22-26watt (1600 lumens @ 6500K) - in parabolic reflectors, one shared between 2 plants
4x 43watt (2600 lumens @ 2700K) - these are not in reflectors, and are hanging sort of in the centre area between all the plants

this is a total of 22,400 lumens (19,200 @ 2700K + 3200 @ 6500K).

I think all of my plants are showing signs of sex, I know #3 already was before I left, but after doing an inspection today, I think I might actually have 4 females! what are the odds!

pic 1-4 are of plant 1-4 respectively as usual

pic 1 - this is the only one that i'm really unsure if its female or not... i couldn;t find any hairs like the others, but I also couldn;t find any balls... and this kinda looked like hairs about to pop maybe?
pic 2 - can see a hair both on the left and right
pic 3 - this was he already-confirmed female, but i found an orange hair!
pic 4 - couple hairs on the left

pic 5 - just a bit more of a wide angle shot showing the grow... some of them are a little all over the place since I had them all out and inspecting them for hairs

jlve187

05-18-2009, 11:34 PM

syde00

05-18-2009, 11:49 PM

Thanks for getting back to me!!! Hate to be a pain but what do you like better fimming or topping? and what did you do to your plants???

i can;t really say which i prefer honestly... i hadn;t done either before and just thought i'd try something. It seems to me like i could try doing a FIM but have some wiggle room that if i screwed it up it would probably come out as a topping instead... so i knew i wouldn;t be killing it.

all i did was use some sharp shears to cut off about 80% of the new growth like that post i linked and italiano gave ya a link for

MerryPrankstr

05-19-2009, 12:33 AM

Hey now!
I love Cali Orange bud. Those are some nice thick specimens, there.
Good luck Syd, I'm just watching and grinning for ya.

MP

syde00

05-28-2009, 06:56 PM

Think I have a hermie... but i;m a little confused about it.

so plant #1, the one that has been my enemy since day 1, I think might have gone hermie.. not really sure why, as im pretty sure i am pretty light-proof, and aside from that, they have gone pretty much untouched except for watering with the same nutes as the others.

but i;m also not totally sure its a hermie... having not actually seen male. anyways, what i;m seeing looks exactly like other pics i have seen that people have said are males... but... it also kind of seems like hairs are emerging from what i believe to be polen sacks, so confused to say the least.

this plant doesn;t seems to have the least hairs on it so far out of the 4, infact, i think ive only seen them along the main stem so far.

anyways... maybe somebody can let me know.

pic 1 - this is along the main stem, a few nodes down from the top... you can see some white hairs here, but it also kind of looks like they have come out of what looks like the sacks that you see in pic 2. if you look at the hair on that node in the back left you can see it best, it kinda looks like the hair splitting one of those sacks open at the top and coming out, which i expect will look much more like the one in the front left later today or tomorrow.... you can also see the one in the back right that looks to be doing the same but is not as far out.

pic 2 - this is of one of the branches that shows kind of a cluster of the sacks that i am seeing all over... which again, i believe to be a characteristic of male polen sacks.

pic 3 - this is just another one like pic #1 showing what kinda looks like hairs coming out of the sacks... this pic doesn;t really do it justice though... my camera won;t focus on a macro much closer than this :\

anyhow... any thoughts? i;m confused to say the least.... the only thing i can think of is that perhaps this one is a different phenotype than the others and maybe its just a little different... this one has seemed a little different almost right from when they were seedlings.

syde00

05-29-2009, 04:55 PM

Well, I decided I shouldn't risk it and wait to see what happens with the sacks, as my gut instinct is screaming hermie... i pulled it out of the cabinet this morning and just going to let it chill out by a window for the day and going to pop it into an unused closet in my house... and hang a few spare CFLs in there when i get home

I guess maybe I can get some seeds out of it... i;m just a little afraid that those seeds will now be more likely to produce more hermies :(

it'll be interesting to see what happens with the clone of that plant i took several weeks ago, which is now growing outside nearby a single clone of each of my others.

around what time of the year to outdoor plants begin flowering? (in southern ontario - very close to NY state) I;m guessing late august/early september? I'll be wanting to check on that clone early in the flower process... if it hermies as well i'll be wanting to chop it down asap otherwise its going to pollenate the other nearby female clones.

the outdoor clones aren;t exactly in a place that i want to goto often... i dug some holes and gave them about 24 litres (6.3 gallons) of soil mix. same base soil i am using indoors (Hortibec Vegetable Garden & Herb). I mixed 60 litres of soil with 18 litres of perlite an 18 litres of vermiculite and popped a few fertilizer sticks in each hole.

I don;t really care about the outdoor ones too much... its really just an experiment... if they die i don't really care, if they don't then well... thats great. I won;t be too surprised if they don't survive since I don;t really intend on giving them too much lovin'

jakezking

05-29-2009, 07:48 PM

syde, shim appears to be a hermie. Your pic 2 definitely appears to show pollen sacs, while pic 3 definitely shows some calyx/pistil action. I have no experience on hermaphroditic seeds, but have read they have a greater propensity to produce hermaphrodites than "normal" beans. However, if an environmental factor caused the plant to "turn" hermaphrodite, and it wasn't the particular plant's genes, I would think you could wind up with some decent beans?

syde00

05-29-2009, 09:13 PM

hey jake, yeah that was pretty much my thinking... i;m really not too sure why that one has gone hermie though. i do think that the soil ph of that one has been off by quite alot for some reason, but i haven;t a clue why... its gotten the exact same soil/nutes/watering as the rest, but when i tested the ph of everything last time, its ph was about 0.8 points lower than the others, which was pretty huge... maybe that caused it? i don;t think i have any light leaks, my temp has been pretty constant (maybe a little cool when the lights are off), and none of my transplants have gone poorly at all... the ph is the only thing that has been out of whack on that one.

its not really a big deal, i mean i wasn;t expecting to get all females... i had expected to either kill a couple with this being my first grow or have a few males. i did kill one early on when a light fell on it as a sprout, but that wasn;t entirely my fault! my grow box has been a little cramped lately due to the remaining 4 being fems, so at least moving the hermie out frees up some space for the others!

syde00

05-31-2009, 04:55 PM

Well i got the new makeshift cabinet setup for the hermie... it seems very very male dominant, theres hardly any hairs on it! hopefully it'll produce some seeds.

heres a couple pics of the new hermie closet... its running right now with 3 CFLs:

2x 2200 lumen @ 2700K
1x 1600 lumen @ 6500K

will be posting a pic update of the fems later today once i put them back in the regular cab, they are taking in some sun rays behind the patio door this afternoon for another hour or so before i move them back to the cab.

syde00

05-31-2009, 06:00 PM

Alright, just moved the girls back into the regular cab and took some new pics

they are all now standing between 20 and 25", which means at the upper end of things, they have doubled in height since i threw them into flower 2 weeks ago!

pic 1 is the cola forming on plant #2
pic 2 is the one of the colas forming on #3 (this is the one i FIMd)
pic 3 is the cola forming on #4
pic 4 is just a shot of the canopy - plant #2 is the tall one in the back, #3 is the short on in the front-right, and #4 is in the front-left

i;m gunna see if i can come up with something over the next couple days to try and get the light over #3 a little lower - the current setup puts them all at the same height, but plant #3 seems to not be stretching nearly as much as the other any more - its pretty much been ahead of the game maturation wise the whole way... it also has way more hairs on it than the others

bertoxxulous

06-01-2009, 03:11 AM

Very nice syde00. Its really interesting to see the difference between our plants and how each strain is so unique.

Jerry Garcia 2007

06-02-2009, 12:57 AM

Syde00,

Been a while since I checked in and looks like you have some real beauties now:thumbsup:

Good recovery from the over watering and yes your past issues with the Ph was due to the over watering or low Ph. When water builds up it eventually begins to stagnate and the Ph goes down.

I have had this happen in the past and I solved it by doing a raised Ph flush. This may sound CRAZY BUT IT WORKED. But I will try to explain it. Lets say you have a runoff Ph of 5.5 which is very low and will cause nute lock. You want to raise that runoff to 6.5 by watering with water in the 7.0 to 7.5 range for one watering. The higher Ph counters the lower and will balance out to the range you desire, also add some nitrogen to the water to help the plant recover and get the much needed nitrogen once the roots begin to grow again. Keep in mind when nute lock occurs the roots are dying and decaying adding even more to the stagnation. So it is a slow process to recovery while you build up a new root system.

I see you already have recovered so this is not needed for your plants but I just wanted to let you and those following this log know how to deal with it for future reference.

JG

syde00

06-02-2009, 04:33 PM

bertox - yeah, its pretty cool that we are pretty close to one another time-line wise in our grows too, your a couple weeks ahead of me so it kinda gives me a good guide on what i should be expecting lol. I really like your scrog setup too... kinda makes me wish I had done that, especially now that I have one plant getting significantly taller than the others.... I think I;m going to tie it down a little bit so I can get the lights evened out more again.

JG, thanks for coming back to check up! They really did turn around a lot after i got the overwatering issue fixed up, thanks! :thumbsup:. the pH stuff actually makes perfect sense to me... i;m totally a science geek, but unfortunetatly i don;t really have a lot of chemistry background... I really only have baisc chemistry experience from up until about grade 10 general science... I have taken advanced physics up to the lower university level though... my degree isn;t in physics, but did involve some mandatory physics courses. So when it comes to the lighting/electircal/etc, thats a little bit more of my A-game than the soil chemistry side

syde00

06-08-2009, 12:22 PM

Day - Flower 21

Just a quick pic update... since not too much has changed in the last week... they don;t seem to be stretching nearly as much now which is great, and trichs are spreading!

pic 1 - the canopy
pic 2 - the top of #2
pic 3 - one of the tops on #3 (the FIMd plant)
pic 4 - the top on #4
pic 5 - an upclose shot of #4's cola

these pics were taken this morning, which is basically the end of day 21 for them... they go lights-out in about 10 minutes

syde00

06-15-2009, 12:54 AM

Well, just another pic update, buds are slowly getting bigger

pic 1 - plant #2
pic 2 - plant #3
pic 3 - plant #4
pic 4 - group photo!

all i can say is... if i were a male canna plant, i'd totally hit that :jointsmile:

fluid69

06-15-2009, 02:53 AM

all i can say is... if i were a male canna plant, i'd totally hit that :jointsmile:

LMAO!:D:smokin::D

bertoxxulous

06-15-2009, 10:19 PM

Very nice syde00, last time I checked in here they was just little button buds...looking ver ver nice! Your grow room looks nice an neet.

syde00

06-16-2009, 10:56 AM

heh, thanks bertox :) this cabinet has its own issues unfortunatly. its a tad crowded both horizontally and vertically... i think when/if i grow this strain again i'll probably stop vegging around 8-10" instead of the 12-13 i did this time... either that or build a slightly larger box.

though i;m also kinda tempted to try doing a scrog or sog next time, i think my cfl setup would work well for that.

McDanger

06-16-2009, 02:15 PM

This is just my opinion, and it may be wrong but looking at the plant you segregated, it looks to me to be male and not a hermie. A new pic will tell for sure. Hermies look like bananas, a straight male will have balls.
Females are lookin great tho.

syde00

06-16-2009, 03:51 PM

It is a hermie for sure, there are/were lots of white hairs along the main stem... some of them are still there, but as pollen sacks started bursting on it a week or 2 ago, most of the hairs are kinda shrivling up and retreating back into the calyxes.

it does look kinda crappy though and i have some serious doubts as to if it will produce any decent seeds... i've considered just killing it a couple times over the last week... but since it is my first hermie i figured i should just let it go as a learning experience, its not really doing any harm where it is, and i;m not too concerned about accidental pollenation of the females since i have them on seperate floors of the house, and they are almost on completely opposite light schedules as well, so theres no real risk of pollen being transferred on my hands by going between the 2 areas, since one is in its dark cycle when the other is in its light cycle... plus i always make sure i wash my hands after working with the hermie.

syde00

06-22-2009, 09:23 PM

dododododo

the last week has been again somewhat uneventful... buds are getting and whats kinda cool to see is some of the hairs are starting to go orange like strain calls for!

anyhow, heres some updates porn! they were taken on flower day 35

pic 1 - plant 2's cola
pic 2 - plant 4's cola
pic 3 - macro of the top of plant 4's cola
pic 4 - one of plant 3's cola's (FIM'd plant... but i;m not sure if this is off one of the top branches)
pic 5 - macro of one of plant 3's cola's

EnhAnceD

06-25-2009, 06:02 AM

wow very very nice. Im interested in your grow as your using similar lighting as I am, with those 4 40watt 2700k blubs, do you find that plants still stretched alot being that far away from the bulb, at least it looks like they are a bit far away. I have my lamps as close as I can without touching. My poor girl has been abused by light burns b.c a bulb fell on her early on, ironic how out of 5 this one had to be the girl. Anyways, Nice grow, I will deff keep my eye on it.

jakezking

06-25-2009, 04:16 PM

syde, it's strange how something so monstrous can be so dang sexy, but your Cali Orange is both. That main cola is sick, dude! And, for it to be not only so dang bulky but to have such a vast amount of trichomes? Wicked work, my friend! Congratulations to you and continued good luck!

syde00

06-26-2009, 12:12 AM

hey guys :) thanks for stopping back in!

enhanced - they didn;t stretch at all during veg... my lighting setup did change a little through my grow but... if you look back at this pic Cannabis Forums Message Boards - Medical Marijuana, Cannabis Club, Dispensary, News (http://boards.cannabis.com/attachments/grow-log/218152d1242684728-california-orange-bud-cfl-grow-dscf2971.jpg) that is the very last wide angel shot i took on the day i started my flower cycle, they were very very bushy back then and were only about 11-13" tall

I actually haven;t measured them in awhile, but the lights come on in about 20 or 30 minutes and i promise i'll try and remember to measure them and report back then! I'd say they are probably in the 30" area now... almost all of that stretch occured during the first 2 weeks of flower.

the 4 42w CFLs i have in the middle are a little far away, but i do also have at least 1 29w (2200 lumen @ 2700K) bulb in an aluminum reflector that is within 2 inches per plant - the exception being the one i FIMd as it is much much shorter than the other 2 and my setup doesn't really accomdate plants of varying height very well :(

jake - thanks so much! i know eh... i just can;t wait for all those hairs to turn that sexy orange colour... the ladies are going to look like they are dressed and ready for a little somethin somethin

the next couple weeks should be really interesting... they said to expect 8-9 weeks flowering time for this strain, and i'm coming up on the end of week 6, so starting to enter the home stretch :D I figure since i;m using CFLs it might be a little longer than normal though

headshake

06-26-2009, 01:03 AM

syde, put something under your plants to raise them up. that's what i do.

-shake

syde00

06-26-2009, 01:06 AM

enhanced - haha shit, i remembered to measure the plants, but i almost forgot to post it lol... i totally went off reading some completely unrelated stuff and just remembered... the FIM'd plant i now standing at 25" tall, the other to are 31".

I killed the hermie a week or so ago... but when i killed it, it was about 36" tall.

the hermie was looking in really really sad shape and i didn;t care about it enough to try and figure it out, but i suspect it was a pH problem

syde00

06-26-2009, 01:07 AM

syde, put something under your plants to raise them up. that's what i do.

-shake

hahaha wow... you have no idea how stupid i feel right now for having not thought of that... hahaha thanks shake!

headshake

06-26-2009, 01:08 AM

no worries my friend. lol.

it's kinda a pain in the ass, but it's worth it.

-shake

syde00

06-26-2009, 01:58 AM

ssssoooo much better!! shake... you are the man! i don;t know how i didn;t think of that... the funny thing is, I have done exactly this already with the clones upstairs (prep'ing a couple mothers for the next grow that I'm going to use to make clones for a SoG grow next round I think).

Its amazing how I sometimes overlook the most obvious solution lol

the one on the close-right is the one i put something under.

edit: damnit, i tried to rep you, but silly boards are making me spread it around some more first!

headshake

06-26-2009, 02:18 AM

lol. you just needed a reminder.

the ladies look amazing by the way!

-shake

BeFree

06-26-2009, 02:55 AM

Woooo.:stoned::stoned:

Starting to ripen up man!!

Can't wait to see all the orange hairs and furry buds. The odor and thickness of the calyxes will increase plenty more in the next week or two. :jointsmile:

They look damn great. :greenthumb:

begood syde

be

JD1stTimer

06-26-2009, 05:05 PM

Were these feminized seeds? I would be very curious to see a comparison of the males and females in veg but you didn't have any males except the hermie.

syde00

06-26-2009, 09:38 PM

Nope, they are not from feminized seeds, I did have a 5th plant early on, but it had a pretty short life from a light falling on it and me not noticing for a couple hours :\ it had just barely popped out of the ground and was starting on its first true leaves when it happened, so I don;t think that'd be of much use :(

i did read your thread (i think it was yours) about having male plants that were very bushy and fem plants that were much taller though, seems very interesting, considering I think there was 7 plants? seems like too big of a coincidence in this case to not be linked to the sex gene somehow. would be really interesting to see if that characteristic would continue if you breeded them.

JD1stTimer

06-26-2009, 09:50 PM

That would be interesting but since I don't know the strain I probably can't get any males again. I just couldn't think of a good place or want to expend the effort to keep males alive. So if I ever decide to make seeds they will all be feminized. The reason I'm thinking about the possibility of Cali Orange Bud genetics is that this page: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/archive/index.php/t-207224.html has the only reference I could find on this phenomenon via google. Here's the quote:
Out of the 10 Orange bud seeds 9 sprouted, ended up with 4 females, the most of them were males unfortunately, too bad the males looked better as the females did, weird thing is that 3 of the females are pretty tall and lanky, while ALL of the males are extremely short and branchy. Usually it's the other way around.. Anyways, got the 1 short female right below, pretty tight internodal branching, definitely gonna make some seeds with her.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/Bobelindegrower/11buiten2005.jpg

syde00

06-30-2009, 01:20 AM

interesting! as much as i don;t want to say its too bad i didn;t get a male... well... for the sake of the experiment, its too bad i didn;t get a male lol.

I do have 5 more seeds, I'll have to try and remember to keep an eye out for that when I use them... not sure when that will be though, I'm hoping to do a SoG setup next round that i'll use clones from this grow as mothers for the SoG.

syde00

06-30-2009, 01:29 AM

So I didn;t get around to my usual Sunday pic update... so here it is now!

Everything is still going pretty good... I noticed a little nute burn on the bottom leaves, which of course is completely my fault, i knew i was kinda pushing it, so I gave them a little bit of a mini-flush with my watering yesterday.

pic 1 - plant #2's top
pic 2 - plant #3's top
pic 3 - one of plant 4's top (FIM'd plant) - kind of a crappy picture, lots of leaves kinda got in the way
pic 4 - tight macro of plant 3's top that that shows its trichs pretty good
pic 5 - wide angle of the canopy - #2 is the one in the back, #3 is front-left, and #4 is front-right.

I'm thinking these guys I believe have a minimum of 2 weeks to go, but probably at least 3 more realistically... anybody have any thoughts on that based on these pics? i;m planning to give them one more shot of bloom nutes on the next watering and then I think i'll start going water-only

EnhAnceD

06-30-2009, 01:30 AM

Im glad you found a solution to your high problem syde. I actually am using the shelving unit in my closet to hold my clip lamps and I found the best way is to use dvd cases. My shelves are about 10 inches apart so I couldnt really raise my lamps, still looking amazing tho, Thanks for the measurement as well, I should be able to reach that height, Im going to ahve to get 2-4 more 40 watters tho, the 23 wat bulbs dont do a good enough job.

EnhAnceD

06-30-2009, 01:31 AM

Italiano715

06-30-2009, 01:32 AM

Loooooking goooood. Nice ladies you got there Syde00! Keep it up my friend because your doing something right! :jointsmile:

syde00

06-30-2009, 01:39 AM

Im glad you found a solution to your height problem syde. I actually am using the shelving unit in my closet to hold my clip lamps and I found the best way is to use dvd cases. My shelves are about 10 inches apart so I couldnt really raise my lamps, still looking amazing tho, Thanks for the measurement as well, I should be able to reach that height, Im going to ahve to get 2-4 more 40 watters tho, the 23 wat bulbs dont do a good enough job.

heh I actually had something perfect to put under the plant, had an old spindle from some speaker wire that was just the perfect height :)

If you can find them - i'd recomend these ones (don;t buy them from this URL since they are crazy expensive!)

GENERAL ELECTRIC Fle29hlx/2/Xl827 Lamp, FLE29HLX/2/XL827 (http://www.grainger.com/1/1/11434-general-electric-fle29hlx-2-xl827-lamp-fle29hlx-2-xl827.html)

those are what I;m using in the reflectors - 2200 lumens for 29w, the 4 biggers ones I have in there are 2700 lumens for 42w - so the 29w ones give about 8 more lumens per watt

syde00

06-30-2009, 01:43 AM

Loooooking goooood. Nice ladies you got there Syde00! Keep it up my friend because your doing something right! :jointsmile:

Thanks Italiano :D I have to give all the credit to all the excelent contributors on this forum though, I couldn't of gotten this far without all stuff i've learned here :thumbsup:

As great as the plants are looking, I;m looking forward to chopping them down and seeing them make me look like this :stoned: lol

EnhAnceD

06-30-2009, 01:50 AM

speaking of reflectors, I just made another one with cardboard and tinfoil haha, its working great. I find it funny this is working, alot of people didnt think I could do it and complained how it was so hard, its interesting not hard. eitherway, looking great again.

syde00

07-06-2009, 02:43 AM

Sunday night pic update! here we are at day 49 of flower, some hairs are starting to turn a nice deep orange!

pic 1- plnat #2s top
pic 2 - plant #3s top
pic 3 - one of plant #4s tops (FIM'd plant)
pic 4 - close macro of one of the tops
pic 5 - the overall setup

no sign of any amber trichs yet, i know these plants have a bare minimum of 1 week left, but i think its going to be closer to 2 or more. going to see if i can pickup a cheap microscope locally so i don;t have to rely on the camera to see them

headshake

07-06-2009, 03:04 AM

good looking ladies you've got there syde!

radioshack for the microscope (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2179604).

-shake

syde00

07-06-2009, 03:09 AM

thanks alot shake :jointsmile:

I wish we still had "normal" radioshacks here! I'm in Canada, and radioshack a few years back changed to 'The Source - by Circuit City"... all they sell now is really really really crappy consumer electronics for the most part :( even before then, radioshack in Canada started heading that way anyways... the american radioshacks are so much more cooler!

edit: hrm, although, the source's website says they do have a microscope on clearance price atm... don;t think i've seen anything like that in the stores themselves, wonder if the web version stocks a little more

headshake

07-06-2009, 03:12 AM

the american radioshacks are so much more cooler!

LMAO! that's one of the funniest things i've heard in a long time.

good luck with your 'scope search.

circuit city just went out of business in the states. lol.

-shake

Darkace

07-06-2009, 03:13 AM

nice girls ya got going there cant wait 2 hear a smoke report:D

syde00

07-06-2009, 03:23 AM

LMAO! that's one of the funniest things i've heard in a long time.

good luck with your 'scope search.

circuit city just went out of business in the states. lol.

-shake

haha yeah i know... radioshack is kind of by defination, uncool, but for the purpose its suppose to serve, yours are way better ;)

yeah, i heard about them going under in the states, i wish the source would go under.. they are just a big waste of space imo :p

EnhAnceD

07-06-2009, 04:18 AM

nice looking buds dude. Considering we are using the same kind of lights I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks. I remember when radioshake left, I was like wtf, the source, screw them. Not that I shopped there, but I still never liked the source either. Ironic tho how circuit city went out in the states but lives here in canada, yet the shake is alive and thriving in the states but dead here. Oh well. Cant wait to see final product.

syde00

07-09-2009, 02:48 AM

Well, its earlier than i normally do a pic update, but i had the girls out for a drink tonight, and i couldn;t help but notice how awesome #2 is looking

I've also noticed a little bit of the leaf tips curling UP... i know your suppose to hit a N def. late in flower, is this what it looks like at first?

they also seem to be getting alot more sticky! i can feel it all over my arms where the plants brushed up against them

pic 1 - wide angle shot of plnat #2 - its by far the largest - #3 hasn;t as many buds because i took additional clones from it, and #4 is FIMd

pic 2 - one of my many curling leaf tips

pic 3-5 random bud porn!

EnhAnceD

07-09-2009, 03:25 AM

drooling dude. Man oh man. Hey I was wondering if you could put up a few pictures with the top of your lights, more like just your lamp setup. I have a really similar space and grow as you and Im curious/need some examples. My closet has shelves in it that i keep raising, and I am using similar lamp clips such as yours and Ive pretty much been clipping on both sides with y splitters but the light is all around the plant, not just on top. I dont like the shelves, want to put something I can just adjust you know. Again, amazing job on the buds man.

syde00

07-09-2009, 03:50 AM

sure, here ya go

basically I just have a rectangular wooden square i made out of 2x2 that i hang from some hooks at the top using chains and then clip the lights onto that.

I've had a few different versions of the square thing... basically a few different sizes.

as you can see with what i have right now i;m pretty much at my max height... what i was going to do if that became a problem was make another wooden square thats not quite as wide and then clip the lights on horizontally instead of vertically and change the others in the middle to use more direct sockets instead of prong adapters to get them a little higher too... luckily i haven;t had to do this though... my plants haven;t gained much height at all in the last 3 or 4 weeks

EnhAnceD

07-09-2009, 04:17 AM

very nice. I think my room is just alot bigger. the clip lamps I bought are more like desk lamps, I found the exact ones you have at canadian tire but there like 4 bucks more than the ones I have. I like how its set up. I may have to try something like that. And I have the shelving in there already so I could probably just measure the width of the room and add some 2x2 to hold the clip lamps. hmmmm I dunno. Im frusterated. I picked up this cronic 140 a ho and its way to strong. lol. My head feels like its gonna pop. Thanks alot for the pics btw.

syde00

07-10-2009, 03:35 AM

ya, those ones i have came from canadian tire lol

the setup i have i find has worked fairly well... i wish it was a little wider and deeper though for this type of grow... i;m planning to try a sog grow next go around which i think will work out better in that box... either that or throw the plants into flower earlier than i did, they are just a little bit too large for the cab imo, and i think the secondary buds are suffering because of that

syde00

07-15-2009, 05:36 PM

Welll.... after 58 days of flowering, the day to chop finally came! I read about a trick about using binoculars backwards to see the trichs since I knew my camera wasn;t cutting it, i found a bunch of amber trichs a couple days ago, so I gave it about another day and a half and chopped em today!

Heres some pics of the final plants

pic 1 - plant #2 - this one I think is the real bread-winner of the bunch
pic 2 - plant #3 - looks a bit sparse because I took a bunch of extra clones from this one
pic 3 - plant #4 - the FIMd one

pic 4 - the plants hanging

I have the plants hanging as a whole at the moment, but when I come back home later I think I'll cut the branches and hang them individually.

plan is to hang them for about a week and then trim and cure with mason jars

Italiano715

07-15-2009, 06:10 PM

EnhAnceD

07-16-2009, 02:17 PM

wow dude, that is very impressive. I havent changed my light setup yet, But thanks alot for the imput. Im going to wait until next grow to see the difference. but ya man that makes me very hopefull since we both ran cfl grows.

syde00

07-16-2009, 07:14 PM

Thanks guys :)

Yeah I found the CFLs worked pretty well, not that i really have a frame of reference yet. My lower buds are definatly nothing to write home about, but I suppose that was expected for the most part... it probably didn;t really help that my plants stretched a bit more than I had anticipated and the box got a little more crowded than I had orignally intended.

All in all though, I'd say it was a pretty successful experiment, I do think the CFLs are probably a little better suited to a SoG or SCroG setup, I;m going to try a SoG on the next round, I have the mother plants vegging right now... the plan for that grow is going to be take cuttings from the mother, once they have rooted I;m going to top them as early as possible, give them a few days to recover from the topping and grow out the new tops slightly, then send them into 12/12.

the idea will be to have alot of really small topped plants - the FIMing was cool on the current grow, but I think the extra shoots from FIMing compared to what topping would have been, was basically just not really worth it, the middle shoots just didn;t grow tall enough and got crowded by the fan leaves off the other shoots so they didn;t get too much light.

I think the mothers for the SoG setup should be ready to start taking cuttings from in a week or two