California Orange Bud CFL grow

[syde00]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[syde00]

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]

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: