Eastwind (a Noob) Rolls The Dice On His First

8-31-16 - in my grow closet the right and left side trays (6 per tray) are starting to look...and smell...good. Not wanting to loose my grow to chance...I brought on a guard animal to keep an eye on things.

9-20-16 It's been a little while since I had a chance to update how things are going. I had to leave for a week, so I needed to rig up a self-watering system, with the hope that some of the plants would make it. Using both a twine wicking system on some and Blumat jrs , drip feed, on others, I got mixed results...but they all lived.

I posted about it here: https://www.thcfarmer.com/community...t-way-to-slow-down-growth.83889/#post-1775126

Now that I'm back I started transplanting to larger pots (1 gal) and continued topping and LST to try and produce more colas. I am going to add the Mars Hydro LED this week...and additional
210watts (5w per led) to the 345watts of CFLs already going. I can see by how fast they are growing that there will be more plants than I have room for. I gave 1 away and planted 1 outside, so there are 11 in the closet. If half are males there should be just enough room left for the females.
I put up the last section of Mylar on the wall and started moving the overhead CFLs to make room for the LED panel. Shown below are two pics of the room...showing the height of the Mylar and a little extra space I got from re-organizing the layout. The other two are a plant before topping and two transplanted into larger pots.

9-20-16 Here are a few photos to show how the topping and LST is going....It worked just like forum members here said it would....I now have plants with many colas heading upwards.

9-21-16 Installed the Mars Reflector 96 LED panel today. It adds another 210watts to the 345 W of CFLs I've been using. Its cooling fans are very effective..the temps in the room did not rise after the light being on all afternoon. A few pics shown below.

Nice job, can't wait to see them flowering...

Srguzman said:

Nice job, can't wait to see them flowering...

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Thanks for your feedback. As a first timer I'm happy with how its going so far. All the diaries and info on this site....and those who have given suggestions have made it possible....I can't wait for flowering myself. After topping and LST I see all the new colas pointing upward !

9-25-16 Another two plants transplanted from the solo's into 1gal pots. Every other watering they get nutes in the water ( Grow, Pro-Tek and also Superthrive at transplanting). Backing off and lowering the amounts must have helped them adjust because I no longer get brown edges on the leaves. The rate of growth is amazing...change you can see within a day. LST and Topping on all
plants is really paying off. All the wire and pipe cleaners might look a mess...but all the new Colas heading up will be rewarding. A couple of pics to show the progress. So much growth I am running out of room, so I moved two plants outside. Because the weather is changing here in the east...I think one has started to bud...but its a very small plant....as seen in two pics below.

9-25-16 Can anyone with more experience tell me if what I am seeing here in the photos below is pre-flowering in a female? It looks like the start of a Calyx near the Stipules, shown at the nodes where I pushed back the leaves with a jewelers screwdriver. One of the plants has brown leaves from where a light fell over a week ago.

9-28-16 Well it's been about a week with the Mars Reflector 96 LED going. I have it set about 20" from the canopy. I definitely see a real growth spurt since adding it to the CFLs...1/4" to 1/2" a day, which seems good to me for a low-end light. I got larger overflow trays and centered them under
the LEDs with the CFLs all around the outside as side fills. I took a few pics of the plants outside the room as I re-set the lights...shown below. The rest show the new layout and plant growth.

10-13-16
Yesterday I reset the timers for flowering, 12/12. Lowered the LEDs by 2". This past week I have really seen some growth in the plants. Its getting cold at night here on the east coast...the outside plants know it. When I had to go away last month, I planted two runts outside to make room. They have both turned out to be males, so now I know what to look for there. The LST has really paid off in keeping the inside plants squat and wide. The side fill CFLs have made them dense on the stems. So pictured below are two grow room shots and then a few of the plants outside the room and in a better light for a picture.

10-20-16 Catching up on some pics. Out of the 11 plants in the grow room 6 showed as males and were removed. The 5 females now have extra space to grow. Today is the 26th, so just two pics from last week. One of a starting female colas and the other of the plants in the room. Note the height to the CFLs on the right....my next post with have the same shot from this week to compare growth.

10-26-16 A few from this week. The first shows the width of one plant that was transplanted into a 3 gal pot. 7 colas are showing, but there more than that. The next is the same plant from the side to see its LST that gave it its width. Then a close up of colas growth and the last a room shot with the CFLs..to compare height to the same pic from last week. Thanks for viewing.

Eastwind said:

10-26-16 A few from this week. The first shows the width of one plant that was transplanted into a 3 gal pot. 7 colas are showing, but there more than that. The next is the same plant from the side to see its LST that gave it its width. Then a close up of colas growth and the last a room shot with the CFLs..to compare height to the same pic from last week. Thanks for viewing.

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Looking good bud! They're looking happy over there.

11-1-16 The last two days the colas have really started to shoot up...and start to look like real colas. This is about 2 & 1/2 weeks into flower, so I was planing to let them grow a while longer.

Eastwind said:

8-31-16 - in my grow closet the right and left side trays (6 per tray) are starting to look...and smell...good. Not wanting to loose my grow to chance...I brought on a guard animal to keep an eye on things.

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Looks like my old friends cat named Primer

11-6-16 Things are looking good and smelling amazing. Here are a few pics of the colas....up close....and at a distance. The benefits of LST is really showing results !!

11-28-16 I'm about 6 weeks into flowering. There was a few very cold days here and I left the vent window open during lights and fans out. Cold air came in and settled on the floor area ( where the plants are)....causing the roots to get shocked and make the uptake of feeding poor. That let to a phosphorus deficiency. Closing the window at night, a good flush & keeping the temps in the 70s has cured the problem. Also...for all you Mars Reflector LED users... They have 5 watt bulbs...which are very strong ( Mars other panels had 3w). The Co says 12 to 16" distance in flowering....well that is to close...makes fans leaves turn purpleish...also thin, stretchy buds. I moved them to 25" ( between 2 to 3') and the plants really took off ! Big improvement....frosty, thick buds. Too close will cook them. Photo 1 & 2 show buds & colas from 10 days ago...not very frosty & stretchy colas. Photos 3, 4, & 5 are today...buds getting thicker and frosty. Photos 6 & 7 of buds today...more frosty....man, the great smell !

12-4-16 Well some are ready and the others are next week. Last week I cut some lower branches as "testers", to see where the buds are at. So its been 10 to 11 weeks from seed...on 3 plants the Pistils are 50-70% brown, but the Trichs' are still mostly clear...these three have stopped growing, so it just about time. The other two are not yet at 50% brown, with the buds still fattening up. I did give it one dose of MOAB last week and saw a bit of gain in size. Will start earlier with that next time. I did flush with distilled two days before cutting my testers...which I cut before lights on( my Ph had been 6.5 to 7 before flush). I cut in the AM, before lights on. Pulled a fan leaf for the mouth taste test...not bitter on the tongue,,,so I'm hoping for smooth buds. Plants numbered 1 to 5 so I can tell which came out the best. I made a drying box on the cheep with wire and wood ( pics below) in prep for next weeks cut. First photos are the plants that will be going this week. Very happy with the frost I got on my first run....given some of my errors...LOL.

12-4-16 a few more pics of the plants and the trimming....

Eastwind said:

8-30-16....I don't know if the way I set the CFLs up is making a difference, by letting more light get to the sides of my plants, but I thought I would post a couple of pics to show more experienced members. I have CFLs over the plants ( with reflectors ) and I have a number of CFLs as side fill lighting...to get light up and under the leafs. Looking at pictures of other grow diaries, at 3 weeks of growth, these seem to be coming in thick at the stems and grow points. Can anyone tell by looking if its the lights that are doing this?

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I would say the side lighting is deff helping, because it's lighting up those secondaries making them bust out.