CFL, third grow, bagseed from EXCELLENT bag (popcorn)

I am growing these under CFLs. I have four pots I seeded directly in soil. Four pots with seeds germinated in paper towels. The direct-to-soil pots were planted on different days. I planted two pots Sunday, Apr 26 2009 with seed from a really old bag. The seeds may have been a year old and it was from shwag if I remember correctly. Those two have no growth except some mushrooms. BTW, my Miracle Grow soil with time-release fertilizer grew mushrooms 24 hours after I watered it the first time. Watch out for this soil evidently it's not sterilized.

Two others seeded directly into soil Monday night (4-27-09) from my really excellent bag of pot had all the seeds up Tuesday afternoon, and now I have little hempseeds sticking up on little stalks. :) When the shells come off and I have leaves I'll post a pic. That's quick germination, no?

For sowing directly into soil it has been my habit to put three in each pot then thin them once I figure out the strongest ones.

Also Monday night I put four of those seeds into a wet paper towel, and four of the old shwaggy seeds into a towel. The good seeds were about to split yesterday, and today (4-29-09) three out of four had their taproots out, so I planted them today. The ones which were already germinated went one pot for one seed. One had no taproot but it looked like it was about to crack.

I am hoping I don't have the same bad luck I had last time with both plants being males. I want to see how my cabinet I have posted about works for flowering these (hopeful) girls. I think I will spray the inside with flat white paint and cover the outside with black contractor bags, and make a flap to cover my intake and exhaust holes.

I am also testing the effect of chlorine in tapwater on the growth of cannabis. The two I sowed directly were watered with bottled spring water, and the four I germinated in towels were germinated in springwater but I used tapwater to water the pots I planted them in. My water is very hard and alkaline, and recently the chlorine was upped to the point where it makes the water taste funny. I will be posting pictures as soon as the hulls are off and the leaves appear. Right now all you can see is stalks with beans on top. They're cute but nothing you haven't seen a billion times.

BTW I got my popcorn for $60/half and it was excellent, as good as most dro I've had around here, but with some seeds (about 24 seeds per ounce). What I call two-hit shit (I have a high tolerance, being a daily smoker)

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Originally Posted by JD1stTimer

I am also testing the effect of chlorine in tapwater on the growth of cannabis.

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I can tell you right now... it won;t do anything positive... chlorine will only serve to hurt the plants. They will be able to tolerate it to a point, but if your water has alot of chlorine you should probably remove it.

However, it is incredibly easy to remove from tap water. Just pour it into a large jug and let it sit on the counter for > 24 hours, all/most of the chlorine should evaporate in that much time.

The other benefit of leaving the water sitting out is that it adjusts to room temperature, so your not giving your plants a bit of a temperature shock every time you water

good luck!

you leave the jug open i assume?

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Originally Posted by fluid69

you leave the jug open i assume?

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Yep, i should of said that... whatever container you have it in should not be sealed, otherwise as the chlorine evaporates the gas will not be able to escape the container, effectively stopping its evaporation until you open the container and it can 'breath'

if you need faster results you can also boil the water... make sure its not boiling hot when you give it to the plants though! you can also just leave it sitting in the sun for awhile... basically the warmer the water is, the faster the chlorine will evaporate... of course, the water will evaporate faster as well, but not nearly at the same rate as the water..if you go this route, just make sure you boil a larger amount of water than you actually need, because you will lose some of it... IMO, boiling is just a waste of energy though... just plan ahead and let it sit on the counter for a couple days... boiling it might also remove some other harmful products from the water too... but it will also kill any micro-organisms that may be living in the water, some of which may be beneficial... but i am neither a biologist or a chemist, so... :p

the other option is buying dechlorination drops/tablets to add to the water that will remove it... you can generally get these from any pet store that have aquarium supplies

JD, I'm looking forward to your grow, bro. It sounds like you have plenty of action in the germination phase, and I know they will quickly become lil' seedlings. I love the early vegetation period, where you can really see the transition from seedling to plant - when the stem really begins to strengthen and thicken.

Good luck with all of your popcorn popping! I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures.

Well, that didn't take long! I got 8 out of ten germinated from the fresh tasty bagseed. So far none of the old shwaggy seed has come up. I removed those from the experiment, and I think I'll take all those ancient seeds I have collected in little tins and pill bottles and what not over the years and throw them on roadsides hoping some of them grow.

The reason I'm testing the effect of chlorine is not because I think it might be good for them. I know chlorine is bad. The thing is, I've always used plain tap water straight out of the faucet and I wanted to see exactly how much better it would be to use bottled water or dechlorinated water. I may even treat some water with my aquarium conditioner, although the warning not to use it on fish intended for food might change my mind on that one. I wouldn't want to smoke poison.

The pic of the one still down on soil level is one of the ones I put in a wet towel Monday, using spring water to wet the paper towel but I watered the soil with tap water. There were four of those seeds, and three sprouted. The other two of the three are just starting to peek out from under the soil.

The ones which are green already JUST turned green, in fact earlier this afternoon they were still kinda yellowish/purple cotyledons which I have never seen before. They were planted on Sunday. I planted three in each pot, which is my standard when planting. I intend to get rid of the two weaker seedlings once there's enough true leaves for me to make a good assesment.

The seeds which I germinated in paper towels I put one per pot, since I already knew whether they were germinated or not.

and so it begins......

i am subscribed.

They are all up now. I'm amazed how quick they are going, much faster than before. I guess having good herb makes better seeds, probably passed through less hands before it got to me. One seed germinated, but never put out the cotyledons, only the taproot. I guess I'll count that as a non-viable, giving me a viability rate of 7/10. Here's my five pots all together. The tough part will be deciding which seedling to get rid of in the double-planted pots. :( Oh well, it happens. I have to do the same thing in my vegetable garden. Is there anyone else who hates thinning plants as much as I do? I almost feel like I'm killing puppies or something.

how big are your pots?

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Originally Posted by JD1stTimer

They are all up now. I'm amazed how quick they are going, much faster than before. I guess having good herb makes better seeds, probably passed through less hands before it got to me. One seed germinated, but never put out the cotyledons, only the taproot. I guess I'll count that as a non-viable, giving me a viability rate of 7/10. Here's my five pots all together. The tough part will be deciding which seedling to get rid of in the double-planted pots. :( Oh well, it happens. I have to do the same thing in my vegetable garden. Is there anyone else who hates thinning plants as much as I do? I almost feel like I'm killing puppies or something.

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Maybe you should just transplant the extras into separate pots before they get too big....Plus with my experiences, the more vigorous growing seedlings ended up being my males:wtf: So never count the slower ones out as they could very well be the better ones! :thumbsup:

Either way I hope they bring you some dank and a huge harvest!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

They are four inch pots. It's true that the biggest fastest growing ones are often males. However, if I have five plants chances are good to get at least one female right? I'm curious, when people have used bagseed from really excellent bud, has it generally bred fairly true? I don't need super-icky-gooey-danky-mcpurple-purp-funky-sneezer boutique quality, just some good daily smoke. :) If I can get just one good quality mother I don't think I even care about breeding, although that may change if laws change or my economic situation changes. :) I've never had a clone fail so far.

Do you think it's too late to try to separate the two seedlings? I also don't have quite enough room under my lights for two more pots. I would have to rotate them at intervals to make sure each one had some time in the sun. I know it's not the best setup, but I just lost most of my employment ten days ago, and even before that I have been strictly rationing my food due to poor cashflow, so more lights and equipment is a definite no at this time. Right now I have 46 watts of CFL over the babies.

WOW, this one has grown it's leaves much bigger in the course of HOURS! It's amazing to see a plant visibly grow not in days but hours. And the little fairy ring is cute! :) I don't think it's dangerous to the plants, AFAIK, most mushrooms are very specific in their feeding and if they are saprophytes they will only help convert the wood chips into usable nutrients, and won't attack living roots. Where's a tiny gnome when you need one? Or a teensy toad. :)

Oh, and these leaves look wider than what I have seen in past efforts. I think it may be more indica, which tells me the weed was grown by a pro, which is why it was so much better than what is commonly available here. (At decent prices anyway, I only paid 60/half for it.)

definetly seperate your two into seperate pots. just stick them into solo cups etc... it shouldn't be too late.

Okay, I transplanted the seedlings. Now I have to stack some pots on top of eachother. :) I've done it before, once I sex the plants I can get rid of the crowdedness.

First off I dug a hole in the center of each pot I was going to put a seedling into.

Next I dug a small hole using a spoon as a shovel about one inch away from the seedling I intended to remove from the pot. I did this so I could dig out the seedling without crushing the roots (an empty spot for the soil to go into instead of compacting).

Then I put the spoon directly in the middle between the two seedlings, stuck it in as deep as I thought the roots would be, and scooped the spoonful of dirt containing the roots in the direction of the hole I had dug.

Then I just tugged gently on the stem, and there was some resistance so I dug a little deeper and tugged a bit until the seedling came free. Then I patted the soil back around the remaining seedling, place the roots of the dug-up seedling into the hole I dug in the other pot, patted the soil down around it, and I'm done!

Now I just need to wait and see if I have killed them. I guess I'll know by bedtime. :) Hopefully this is a good technique. If anyone has comments or suggestions I would love to hear it.

The one on the lower left of the picture is standing up again now. :) They all look great, no signs of wilting. I think they are just fine! :)

There likely won't be much to report for a few weeks now. I will post if something unusual happens, like the next set of leaves is a group of three or one of the plants dies or something. Otherwise, my next posting will be when they begin alternating nodes and then I'll post pics of clones going into my cabinet. :)

A few days ago I looked at a pot that had mushrooms in it but I thought the seeds in it were dead. Lo and behold, one stem wasn't a mushroom but a sprout. It's one of the twisty mutant seedlings. :) It seems to be growing very slowly, but hopefully it will get stronger and I hope it's female. :)

Also, I accidentally knocked one of my seedlings off the shelf and all the dirt fell out and I put the seedling back but some of the leaves are damaged. It looks like it'll survive though.

For the record, I see no difference so far in size or healthiness of the seedlings that are on spring water compared to the ones on tap water.

Here's a pic of the twisty plant. Does it not look like a caduceus? I haven't photoshopped this in any way whatsoever.

LOL, I thought another seed had sprouted when I saw this. It was actually just a mushroom which just happened to sprout with the empty shell of a hempseed on its cap.

The twisty plant that looked like a caduceus has radial instead of lateral symmetry. :) and the first two sets of leaves were one-leaflet leaves, the third set is four fingered. :) It's funny looking, and very stunted. I will keep updating on this little guy. BTW it's more frosty than the others. I hope it's a girl and yields some good stuff. :)

I decided to take clones off all my plants today. Some of them are so small I don't even think it will work. I want to find out how small is too small though, so might as well. And I like to make my plants bushy and branchy so even if they fail I won't be too disappointed. I'll just consider it pruning and try them again later when they have bigger branches. I don't know why some of them are so much smaller, and one plant seems to have a P deficiency. They are all in the same soil, but I have a feeling that Miracle Gro soil may not be mixed very well. There are mushrooms always popping up after I water, so I'm pretty sure they are seriously being cheap and cutting corners.

I like to cut my clones right above the third node, and when they have at least two nodes to go into the clone. No other reason than a superstition regarding the number three, and it has never failed me so far. This time I am expecting some failure due to using clones much tinier than any I have worked with before. Also I am using a jiffy tray with all eight clones inside instead of putting each clone in it's own pint glass. (I used to use a beer glass with a rocks glass nested in the top as a lid.) If one of them gets a mold, it may spread to all of them, and if that happens I will go back to the beer glass method. But I will keep my fingers crossed, because I don't want to be delayed the several weeks that would cost me.

Time for pics!! The first one is all the parent plants in their regular home in my closet. Next we have a top-down view of the mommies and daddies in my bathroom, ready for surgery. The third picture is the clones in their peat pellets, and I continued the theme of having four in spring water and four in tap water. I labeled the jiffy tray along the side so I will always know which clone was from which parent. The fourth picture is of the clone tray in their cabinet. The light fixture has two switches one of which controls a 23 watt cfl reptile uv light, which I will leave off until they root. I am starting them at 12/12 because the main point right now is just to sex them, although a nice j out of it would be a good bonus. :jointsmile:

Any comments or suggestions please reply! Thanks everybody! I'll keep you updated when they root or rot. :)

Gently took a peek at a couple of my clones. Looks like the larger ones are starting to root, the smaller ones not yet. The roots I saw were about 1/4 inch long, not too bad after only 5 days. I think I like the jiffy tray, having a little more air space seems to be a benefit.

Like I said before, I won't be too surprised if the smaller ones don't make it, but they still look green and un-wilted, so I've got my fingers crossed. The only bad thing if they don't make it is that I'll be delayed a bit in getting all my plants sexed, which I really want to do quickly. Yeah, I'm impatient. And I don't have room for all my mothers in bigger pots which I want to transplant them to, and some of them have roots coming out the drain holes already.

I added some water today, and I used tap water on all the pellets. I'll go back to the tap-vs-spring experiment once they are in soil again and have separate pots.

Three of my clones had roots coming out of the peat pellet. Time to plant them!!! One clone stays nice and crisp instead of wilting when I open the tray to ventilate, but I don't see any roots so that one will stay a few more days. Here's pics!!

The other four clones are the ones that I thought may be too small to root, although it's only been a week so I'm not giving up on them yet. At least not until their mother plants have enough vegetation to cut them again.

One of the clones is starting to flower. No surprise, the mother plant is also the first one to go alternate leaves. For some reason I am really dumb about the sex, to me it looks ambiguous. I am almost leaning towards female, but I don't see any pistils. Do the pistils appear exactly on time with the first calyxes or do they grow out from the calyx over a day or two?

Anyway, I made the cuttings 13 days ago, and all have rooted except for one, which I knew was the very weakest of all the cuttings. It is still alive though. However, the four which rooted more recently don't have roots big enough that I think I should put them in soil just yet, especially since the soil I am using has time-release ferts. (Yeah, it's the MG soil. Okay, so I get a tad of burn at the tips of some weaker plants, and then there is that period of time when you say "OMG, they're turning yellow! Two months is up! Time to feed! I know the cons of using this stuff, Fox Farm is where it's at, blah blah. I have limited local selection and I don't want to mail-order items intended specifically for cannabis. I live in a nasty bad state. They beat you and throw you in Huntsville for growing if you have to use a public defender.)

Here's pics of the brand-new baby flowers:

Hmmm. I found this picture on weedfarmer.com they say it is a male. http://www.weedfarmer.com/g2.2/main....serialNumber=2 Looking at that I'm pretty sure this is a male. Anyone wanna confirm or deny? Appreciate it, and I don't know why sexing is still so difficult for me in the early stages.. :/ The females have pistils immediately as soon as they appear don't they? I read somewhere, can't remember where, that the first female flowers may not have pistils. Is this true or false? Anyway, if this is a male I'm gonna dry the little chunk at the top in my toaster and smoke it. I know it won't be fantabulous, but when I've been on a tolerance break I have gotten a buzz from fan leaves. It would be better than scraping resin and smoking it anyways. Oh well, one down 7 more to go amirite?

Take my opinion for what its worth. But Im pretty sure your correct about it being male. What parts do you plan on smoking? Just thought Id take note when I have to chop one down

Just from where the flowers are located and higher up, and from the mother plant I will smoke the tips where the leaves aren't folded out yet. I have found that the small, undeveloped leaves have almost as many trichomes as the large leaves. What I mean is, if there are over 9000 trichomes on a fully-grown leaf, there are 8000 on the baby leaf, but so much less actual leaf material to smoke.

I can't recommend it though, it is as good or even worse than shwag dirtweed and is way harsh on the throat. I am just completely dried up and broke at the moment. To me it's one step above smoking resin. And yes, I have smoked vegetative plants before. I am fully aware of how much it will suxxor.

I try to mix in my resin with my last bits of weed if Im scroungin. Its horrible to smoke straight up. I didnt realize the leaves contained trichomes like the buds.

No, not quite like the buds. Instead of a lush carpet of trichomes it's more like a light sprinkling of trichs. But the thing is, there seems to be almost as many on a small leaf as on a big one, but with less actual leaf to smoke. So you can actually get buzzed without choking to death. I can't say it's good, but I have no little bit of shake and I have just a little resin in my pipes.

Anyway, if you look in my pics of these flowers you can see the sparklies. Those are the trichomes. You can tell that they are scattered few and far between.

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Originally Posted by JD1stTimer

No, not quite like the buds. Instead of a lush carpet of trichomes it's more like a light sprinkling of trichs. But the thing is, there seems to be almost as many on a small leaf as on a big one, but with less actual leaf to smoke. So you can actually get buzzed without choking to death. I can't say it's good, but I have no little bit of shake and I have just a little resin in my pipes.

Anyway, if you look in my pics of these flowers you can see the sparklies. Those are the trichomes. You can tell that they are scattered few and far between.

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Yeah I understand ya. If your gonna smoke leaves might as well be choosy about it. Your smaller ones are gonna be denser. Hopefully this holds ya over a little longer til harvest

Okay, so MrDiff and I both think it's male. If anyone disagrees or thinks it's too soon to tell let me know because I will chop the clone and it's mother before the end of the day. One down, seven to go.

Surpsied nobody else has chimed in. I found a pretty good page with some good photos of male preflowers. Check out the ones titled male preflower. They have me worrying about mine now. lol
Male or female? Cannabis sexing

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Originally Posted by JD1stTimer

Okay, so MrDiff and I both think it's male. If anyone disagrees or thinks it's too soon to tell let me know because I will chop the clone and it's mother before the end of the day. One down, seven to go.

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:) It is a male, so if it's a clone then your mother wouldn't be a mother anymore :thumbsup: It's a transgendered ladie :D

lol good one. :)

Well, I just rolled up a pinner joint with some leaves and the flower of that clone that was male, and the two growing tips from his accursed father.

I put them in my toaster oven at 150o + convection for about 35 minutes. The leaves were crispy, the flower still had some slight moisture.

At first I thought "I can't believe I'm smoking something that tastes like a mix of newsprint, freshly mown hay, and rotten garbage." It was harsh on the throat, it a bit of a sting to it. DO NOT WANT.

But, now I have smoked it and I have the roach plus a fresh leaf in a small bubbler and I plan to smoke them, And also, I am HIGH. About .3 grams I think after it came out of the toaster. Maybe I am not tolerant anymore, but if the females are anywhere near as good as this one, that's gonna be some GREAT smokage. And I think they should be since it's from the same bag and all the plants basically look alike except one mutant which may even be from a hundred year old schwag mexibrick seed, so I think they would all have to be fairly similar. Although it appears there are two distinct phenotypes. Could one be the male and one be the female form? They run about half and half. One group has lots of tiny branches, and is much shorter and bushier, while this one came from taller, lankier, lesser lower branch development. You can definitely tell they are all related though, between each group you would almost think they were cloned. I guess it means the parents were a standardized line. Or maybe someone more skilled will look and say "Those are miles apart bud!" I dunno. Anyway, I'm gonna smoke this roach now. I'll keep you updated on the next clone that flowers, and I'll update my alternative sexing method thread also when I have another subject.

Oh, and this plant was "Spring A". So far I haven't noticed any difference in the spring and tap water plants. Since I can't really tell anything I'm just going to compare the average dry weight of any buds I get to make a conclusion on my spring vs. tap water experiment. Assuming that the potency is almost alike. Peace.

I potted two more clones today, now I have four in pots and three which still aren't rooted. I can't see flowers on any of my clones yet. Is this just a normal result of taking my cutting before the plants are sexually mature? I guess they will start flowering whenever the parent plants go to alternate leaves, just like what happened with the above-referenced male which I smoked. The parent plant was not rootbound, so I don't think the rest of the plants are either. They seem to be growing very slowly, could I have some kind of problem? I would say lack of light, but they are not stretching noticably. I do have gnats, maybe the larvae are putting too much hurt on the roots? Is there anything non-chemical I can put in the soil to kill them?

BTW, I put all the remaining leaves from the dad and son into a bubbler and smoked it, it tasted terrible and did not get me high. So for anyone who wants to be smoking the leaves, don't bother with fully expanded fan leaves, only go for the tender young growing tips and any flowers you have.

I was checking out my plants and I almost missed this. For some reason I really scrutinized this plant, and lo and behold, faintly visible, about 1 mm long, was this little item. I had to put a magnifying lens in front of my camera to get a picture of it, so it's a little wonky, but :thumbsup: it's a girl!

I checked the three remaining cuttings and two of them were rooted and I put them in soil! Yay! I'm giving up on that last one as it doesn't have even a root nodule. It came from a mutant and it was really tiny, only about an inch tall with a 2mm diameter stem, so I didn't really expect it to root. I will take another cutting from the parent plant today.

I have found that taking cuttings for sexing purposes really has no benefit until the leaves go alternate. You will just see your clones vegging and vegging under 12/12 until the parent plant starts alternating. How the clones know how old they are is beyond my comprehension, but there seems to be no advantage to early cloning, and I think it just hindered the growth of the plants with no benefits at all. It's okay though, I was impatient and for good reason. There's a good chance I may have to move within a few months, I just lost my other job which was paying my mortgage. My last paycheck from that job will arrive sometime in August. :(

Started LST on Spring G, the first known female. I also have a pic of her mother's nodes for the alternate sexing thread.

I have a question which I cannot seem to find information on. When a plant is just barely starting to flower, is the trichome production greatly diminished and increases as the bud grows?

I really don't see very many crystals and I am wondering if this will improve over time or whether it is poor genetics, poor environment, or both. I can't seem to find any pics of teeny tiny eensy weensy baby buds to compare against. Of course, the bud is almost entirely leaf material at this point, but I am almost thinking that all the new material growing should be stinky and sparkly. If anyone has macros of their first beginnings of bud development I would really like to see. Thanks. :)