Grow Log: Beginners Attempt at Dank Nugs

I wanted to start a grow log here to get feedback from other growers along my journey. I will keep this updated as the grow continues and hopefully come harvest time I'll have some sticky nugs.

2/11/08 -- Day 1
Well today is day one of my grow log, I recieved 20 seeds today from Planet Skunk an order of Dutch Passion Orange Bud as well as an order of White Label Double Gum. I have the seeds germinating in a wet paper towel so an update will come with their progress.

2/13/08 -- Day 3 (Temp:80 RH:55%)
The seeds have mostly all started germinating and have little white tap roots emerging from the cracked shell. I mixed a batch of Miracle Grow Organic Soil with about 30% perlite in dixie cups and placed the seeds in the soil. I placed all of the cups under 2(two) four foot shop lights. They have been watered and have a fan blowing on them at all times.

2/15/08 -- Day 5 (Temp:82 RH:50%)
Most of the seeds have sprouted and the cotyledons are emerging. It looks like 10/10 of the Orange Bud will make it and 8/10 of the Double Gum should survive. So a total of 18 plants. I am leaving for the weekend so a friend will be taking care of watering while im gone. The lights will remain on 24/7 and a fairly regular watering schedule is set. It will be interesting to see the progress of the plants over the next few days. Update when I get back.

2/17/08 -- Day 7 (Temp:81 RH:53%)
The plants are looking very healthy and are already showing at least one or two sets of leaves growing. They look like they were stretching a little bit so I lowered the lights a few inches closer. Temps and humidity have been pretty stable and good airflow getting in. The stems are still very thin and weak but the plants look to be growing very well.

2/21/08 -- Day 11 (Temp:78 RH:55%)
Well the progress the last few days has been exciting, all of the plants seem to be having their second set of leaves growing and the first getting much bigger. The cotyledons were about 2 inches from the soil due to stretching so I decided to add some more soil to the cups to encourage new root grow up the stem. The plants structure is getting much more stable with a widening stem and the leaves are of a deep green color. I've been watering about 2-3 times a day with a spray bottle just keeping the soil moist. No problems as of yet but the garden is at 19 plants as of now with 1 dead. I also added a timer to the lights to give the plants 6 hours of darkness. Tonight will be the first night so I will wait to see how they react.

2/25/08 -- Day 15 (Temp:78 RH:30%)
The past few days have show amazing growth. Many of the plants are growing 3 new sets of leaves and are spreading out. A few plants have been moved into the grow tent and have been put in a new batch of soil. The mixture was about 1cuft of potting mix, 1 bag of perlite, 1 bag vermiculite, 1 cup bone meal, 1 cup blood meal, and 1 cup organic miracle grow feed. We mixed a 4 cu ft batch in a large container and it looks like a much richer soil. The three plants are planted in 5 gallon pots under 1 80W CFL each 24/7. The conditions and soil down there are what the rest of the plants will be transplanted to once it is determined safe. The dehumidifier and the heater have brought the environment to be ideal so we want the transfer to be smooth when the new light is put in the grow tent. The rest of the plants are still recieving 6 hours of dark each night and it seems to be better than 24 hours of light.


The first 2 pictures are one week from putting in soil and the last 3 are two weeks from planting.

I will continue to update this log as progress is made.

oh snap

Good start off with the grow log and your little ones. I'm in the same boat as you, a beginner trying to have some green on the side. I see that you're going to be growing the same strain that I am, im doing the Double Gum also. I figured it'd be a simple grow and the seeds werent too expensive. Keep up the good work man, and keep the log alive. Maybe you can help me through my log :thumbsup:

Looks good so far! The only thing is don't add soil after sprouting, you are not creating new root growth and run the risk of rotting the fragile stem.
Just keep them dancing in the wind from the fan. this will help with streching and strengthen the stem.

BOL.

true story on the addition of soil to cover weak stem.
itll just rot the stem and the plant will eventually fall rigth over.....

happend to me last night on a plant that was ready to start flowering... :S4:

Bummer chinacat. Sorry to hear that. It happened to me with a Sweet Tooth mom that had a rockwool plug around the stem for too long. Drat!

Here's a hint about adding soil over the stem:
You CAN do it, but never on from-clone plants, and ONLY up to the node where the cotyledons had originally been, and then, only before the stem grows that dry, flaky bark that mature cannabis plants get. The moral of this story is, give ample light early to control stretch so you don't have to think about this! :D

yeah it was absolutely the suck. it happened when i transplanted last week. this particular plant wa a runt and i wnated to support it a little more. should have used a stick.....

this site needs a personal message or im feature bad. i would love to be able to talk to veteran growers in a more private manner.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chinacat443

this site needs a personal message or im feature bad. i would love to be able to talk to veteran growers in a more private manner.

---

PM features on a cannabis site inevitably get used for hookup requests and are impossible to moderate, and could get the site in trouble.

The issue of personal attention from veteran growers is that the whole point of a forum is to learn from the questions of others. Veterans don't want to answer the same Q over and over via private email, so we have threads where people can discuss certain general and specific issues as a group, getting the most possible feedback on them.

I'm going to get off this thread here since we are threadjacking it and that's not terribly polite. Sorry about that KindBlunt... I'm still looking forward to more pics as the sprouts get bigger!

I haven't updated in a while but a lot of progress has been made. It's been exactly 3 weeks since they sprouted and I have a few sick plants right now and I think its a PH problem. My soil tested at a ph of 7.5 with a soil test kit and I have been trying to monitor my PH better, but with a liquid indicator i am afraid my results are not accurate so I ordered a digital PH meter. I got all the plants out of their party cups, and it was just in the right time because a lot of the lower leaves started to turn yellow but most of the plants are looking healthy besides just a little weak stems right now.

I have all my plants in my grow tent now underneath my 600 W HPS light and I have fed them all with a dilute dosage of fish and seaweed emulsion with the PH around 6.5. The temps at the canopy are just above 80F and humidity about 40%.

My camera broke so I haven't been able to get updated pictures, but I will try to get some pictures up and hopefully get some of the problems worked out.

I finally got a digital meter and tested the PH of the water I was feeding the plants and it was 6.3 and after I watered them the run-off was 6.5 so is this gonna cause problems for my plants? the reading i was getting with the liquid indicator PH test was pretty close to my digital reading.

Here are some pictures from my cell phone of my plants.

The first pic is the plant I just tried to FIM, and to the right of it is one of my sick plants where the lower leaves started drying up and twisting and crumbling off but its stopped and is starting to take off again

The second pic is my bushiest plant so far and i've started LST on it.

The third one has also just started to be LST and is looking good.

#4 is a picture of my sea of green set up

Beautiful plants!

The plants are starting to fill out nicely and are responding very well to all the new light. Some plants are looking slightly a bit heat stressed on the leaves but the temp hovers at around 80 all day and usually doesn't go above 85 but it has spiked at 89 for a few minutes but never for extended time.

The first picture is the plant that looks the most heat stressed, the other 2 pictures are just a few days difference in growth.

I'm not sure how much time I need to veg them, they are just about a month old and I want them to at least get twice as big before I start to flower them. Should I take clones and flower the clones to determine sex or just wait and remove males after they start flowering? I'm gonna want to take clones anyway but I know clones take a while to root and don't know if I could do it successfully before these plants are ready to start flowering.

that's a nice sea of green.:thumbsup:

KindBlunt,

Nice set-up:) Now lets getting it working for you, but first I have a few questions.

What is your complete watering routine? mainly nute mixture, how often you water, and how much each watering.

To answer one of your questions.

Yes take cloans now or plan on 3 to 4 weeks till when they enter the veg stage. Then toss males when sex is known on moma's.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jerry Garcia 2007

KindBlunt,

What is your complete watering routine? mainly nute mixture, how often you water, and how much each watering.

---

After the first two weeks of using plain tap water I started using Neptune's Harvest fish emulsion one capful per gal of water and 1ml of superthrive. I haven't been using a set schedule but I've been watering about every 4 days with this mixture. I've been watering by feel, when the pot feels heavy and water runs out the bottom I stop. My soil also has bone meal, blood meal and some miracle gro organic chicken meal mixed in.

I have the exact same digital thermometer. Walmart ftw!

What are you using to LST them?

KB,

Good watering routine. Only suggestion is alternate between nute mixed water and plane water each watering. This prevents nute build-up in the soil.

Other than that continue to LST and your good to go.

Thanks for the tip Jerry, my next watering will be plain H20. Some of my leaves were starting to show a little bit of heat stress, so i've pulled the light up a few more inches. The canopy temp was at 82 but now its back to 80. I also added some stuff down to keep the pots off the cold floor.
Also, the plant that I tried to FIM the other day has 3 new stem shoots starting to grow.

Here's some pictures.

Picture 2-3 are of a plant that is sick and I don't know whats wrong with it.
The other pictures are of my sea of green, the pre flowers are just starting to show on some of the big ones.

I've been training the canopy down to make a nice sea of green and fill in the space

Ok, I'm getting ready to switch to 12/12 cycle and begin flowering but I wanted to get some questions answered first.
These are all from seed plants so sex is still waiting to be determined so how long will I have from switching to flowering will I have to find and remove males from the room? I'm planning on removing about 8 or so males and having the rest of the plants fill in the space of my room.

Also, I have been using fish emulsion throughout the entire grow with an organic soil amendments and I was wondering what type of organic fertilizers I could get for flowering. The fish emulsion is a 2-3-1 ratio and I'm worried it may not work as well during flowering even though the results so far have been great.

Should I do 48 hours of darkness when I switch the timer to induce flowering sooner and when should I feed it bloom fert?

Hey m8, nice plants...i gonna try to answer a few Q's, but i think you should maybe wait for someone else too...

I think after the switch to 12/12 you will need to remove the males, it will take max. 1-2 week to find them all...

About the bloom fert...you should get some organic bloom fert. most people here use foxfarm nutes - Tigerbloom i think, i use the BioCanna products, i heard BioBizz nutes are also good....

Don't know about that 48 hours of darkness tho...i think you should just set the timer to 12/12...

After the switch feed the plants whit veg fert(fish emulsion is good i think) for 1-2 weeks, then later you should use veg+bloom nutes together for a few weeks, and in the final few week use the bloom nutes only....

Here are more pictures of the grow. The canopy has filled almost the entire 5x5 area with top growths. The males still need to be removed when they start to sex but the females should fill out the rest of the space well. The lights will probably be switched to 12/12 in 4-5 days.

Real beautiful plants, nice & healthy....can't wait to see them flowering....:thumbsup:

thanks zeb, i appreciate the comments. I'm hoping that I get a good ratio of females. I would hate to have to lose more than half of these plants, but they have had relatively low stress and great conditions so I don't expect to lose that many and I have already confirmed a couple females from pre-flowers