34 days into first ever grow - the story so far...

[Nectarivorous]

Some photos on day 37. Undergrowth/structure, love how the nodes are fattening soooo well. My stunted girl whose fan leaves got a bit damaged and had to go early, the bottom left one, is a bit skinny, the bottom right is a week younger than the other three and has overtaken her.

See also my first failure in LST on the big girl top left. All I will say is it may be well known but I have seen anyone say it - pink thread tape/plumber's tape. I wrapped it within 30 seconds, then used sticky tape to seal it and anchor it to the remnant of the top. I lost a leaf in that 30 seconds, but see the new growth 72 hours later. The shoot is exploding even more if anything. The other leaf took no damage. This was from about a 90% split. Plumber's tape sticks to itself without having glue touch the plant, and is designed to stop fluid leaks. Only been 72 hours but a great save so far. Plumbers tape ftw.

Enjoy!

 

[Ems49]

Evening all. Day 34 since seeds went into coco, and really happy so far wth the results. Germinated seven seeds altogether, some were shit and not worthy, these four were my Highlanders (there can be only four). Have benefited from the assistance of so many of the crew here, managed to avoid seriously fucking up thanks to some timely advice.

First lesson learned was add perlite next time, I know rookie mistake, I got given some bad advice. It's not the end of the world I just wait longer between waterings. Next time I will add so I can do heaps regular fertigation.

I'm in a 4x4 wth 2x Mars Hydro TSL 2000s side by side for 585 true watts at the wall. Have just moved them up as optimum spread is at 14" from canopy and they were growing into that. Moved up to about 17" to let the grow into it again - still only set at 30%. Should have more than enough ppfd to get me right the way through, we'll see how it works out for spectrum as we go but I'm pretty impressed with the node spacing of my four Green Crack, being about 70% sativa I was concerned about height but they are staying shrubby. All we're topped around day 30-32, have now begun to train fans and shoots aside to get maximum bid sites developing and fill out the canopy ready for trellis.

Had a lot of trouble working out watering schedule, lots of help from Aqua Man there, watering too often in 100% Coco definitely caused some minor root damage to one of the plants. See plant two below. Also tested my tap water the other day and realised EC is 0.7!!!! I have been giving Canna A+B at 1.7 and wondering why they are lacking magnesium and nitrogen. The big girl is obviously taking longer than the others to respond I guess due to size. I can only go up to 2.0 without worrying about nute burn which only gives me 1.3 EC to squeeze all my nutes into. Needless to say I've ordered an RO tap filter, will be here tomorrow. No more loading my Coco up with useless inaccessible salts from the water lines. In the meantime I went to the hardware and bought four gallons of distilled water to get me through. Can give the girls a proper 2.0 that is all good quality nutes. You can really see the remnants of that early lack of magnesium on those early leaves. I'm loving the colour and vibrancy of all the new growth after topping.

Girl 1 was the first to pop and has raced along. Signs of those small early deficiencies in older growth buy just explosive since topping about 5-6 days ago. My first attempts at LST trying to get the shoots out from under the fans.

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Girl 2 suffered when I moved to more regular waterings which just didn't work. Another plant showed early signs but this one just didn't handle it. I've already cut the fan leaves of the first three nodes, I have wanted to cut any more off while it is recovering from topping but those two leaves just insist on flopping in the dirt. I know it's better to cut off damaged leaves but the plant will be okay with just its new growth?

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Girl 3 was a strange one, popped upside down and needed help, recovered and has just plodded along, but loved being topped and has just exploded. As with girl 2 at the moment I'm doing a lot of fan tucking mostly, will start to tie down as they stretch for the light.

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Girl 4 came off the bench after a couple didn't make it. Is a week younger than girl 1 in terms of germination date, but has done well, while perhaps taking a little longer to recover from topping. She's very airy and open so I hope that makes her easy to train and that her flowers aren't also airy..

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Cheers for checking out my first grow. Hopefully some okay pics there. Really happy and grateful for loads of help and reassurance here so far. Peace and blaze.

Wow this looks amazing for a first grow !

 

[Nectarivorous]

Wow this looks amazing for a first grow !

Thanks bro. I did a lot of reading and YouTube watching before I started Like two months before focusing on not much but my job and trying to get my head around it as much as one can without actually doing it. That combined with good help from the folks here at the farm did the trick.

Here they are on day 63, day 16 of flower. Very proud of my girls.

 

[Nectarivorous]

The two biggest plants each have at least 15 of these, that still have a week and maybe a bit of stretch. Expecting good things from them.

 

[Aqua Man]

 

[Nectarivorous]

Credit to you as much as anybody mate. With defoliate I've been told during week 4 of flower I'll want to do a heavy defoliate. Is that something you generally agree with?

 

[Aqua Man]

Credit to you as much as anybody mate. With defoliate I've been told during week 4 of flower I'll want to do a heavy defoliate. Is that something you generally agree with?

Of they need it yup. Depends on the strain.

 

[Nectarivorous]

Of they need it yup. Depends on the strain.

Hmm interesting. Is there an indicator you would look for to decide how much or if at all? From what you've said previously squat indica looking plants like mine are more likely to need it? Sounds like good tight node spacing would be another reason. I've certainly got 4-5 layers of leaves on some points so that's gotta change. Any issue doing it earlier? Do people wait until week 4 so the defol doesn't affect the stretch?

 

[Pondracer]

I havent seen this thread in a while and the plants have really improved. Your leaf color is much better.

 

[Nectarivorous]

I havent seen this thread in a while and the plants have really improved. Your leaf color is much better.

Hey thanks man! Yeah I learned a lot during this grow which I guess is the idea. In the early days I was giving them way too much photons which in turn was driving am excess need of nutrients for that stage of growth. Started to resolve when I fixed the light issue. Also found out my house water was a full 0.7 EC, way too much of my max EC being taken up by that. Bought an RO and learned from Aqua how to pH buffer, resolved all my residue issues in nute tank, and let me decide everything they receive. Has made all the difference. Thanks again for the encouraging words!

 

[Nectarivorous]

Day 64, day 17 of flower. Still stretching, actually more than they did in first two weeks of flower. I've also got the heater running at night when the lights are on. In the day on lights out it naturally drops to 63 or so, and I am getting it up to 81 at night. Want to increase diurnal range a bit to increase stretch. Loving the flower development, reckon by the time stretch finishes should be ready to build some nice heavy colas. Top photo is back half of 4x4 tent.

 

[Aqua Man]

Day 64, day 17 of flower. Still stretching, actually more than they did in first two weeks of flower. I've also got the heater running at night when the lights are on. In the day on lights out it naturally drops to 63 or so, and I am getting it up to 81 at night. Want to increase diurnal range a bit to increase stretch. Loving the flower development, reckon by the time stretch finishes should be ready to build some nice heavy colas. Top photo is back half of 4x4 tent.

Really impressive on a first run man... I can't stress that enough. Your doing amazing

 

[Cypress66]

Thanks bro. I did a lot of reading and YouTube watching before I started Like two months before focusing on not much but my job and trying to get my head around it as much as one can without actually doing it. That combined with good help from the folks here at the farm did the trick.

Here they are on day 63, day 16 of flower. Very proud of my girls.

So you should be looking kushty peace

 

[Nectarivorous]

Really impressive on a first run man... I can't stress that enough. Your doing amazing

You're a legend mate. Been so good to have support from someone so knowledgeable. Just gotta get them thru six more weeks...

 

[Aqua Man]

You're a legend mate. Been so good to have support from someone so knowledgeable. Just gotta get them thru six more weeks...

Stay the course and make no drastic changes... keeping it simple is the road to success on a first grow.

 

[Nectarivorous]

I

Stay the course and make no drastic changes... keeping it simple is the road to success on a first grow.

I will continue to 'K.I.S.S.' these little babies. I've also decided against doing the full 'schwazz' at end of week 3. I'm not convinced on the benefits and there doesn't seem to be much outside of broscience to back it up (though I understand you are correct when you say there are certain phenos and strains that may like it). I just don't see the benefit in stressing them so much when they're just getting ready to move into flower stacking. I'm not a 'solar panelist', I take little handfuls of leaves every couple of days, but only lower fans that are completely shaded by leaves above, or large fans at top that are shading whole top sites. I am just going to continue to do that right through. Just little trims that don't stress them too much (literally about 1% of leaves at a time), and just give them the absolute most to draw on when I start dropping nutes and flushing. Based on what I've seen and most scientific writers this seems to be the way forward for now

 

[Nectarivorous]

Stay the course and make no drastic changes... keeping it simple is the road to success on a first grow.

I did also cut a node one branch off two of the plants last night. Some of the plants I've basically lollipopped the lowest branches right up to the tops and the tops look fantastic, but a couple were so shaded by the above that the tops weren't even to 50% height of plant, long leggy and stringy, they had to go. I think next time when I top to node 4 and then remove node 1 altogether. It seems a plant topped at that level can realistically support 3 nodes. The bottom one doesn't do as well, which makes sense as the growth hormones recede down from the apex so these only get whatever the other 3 have left behind.

Really clear to see the difference in swelling compared to the three above.

 

[Nectarivorous]

Day 19 of flower. 3 girls stretching for the sky, the little stunted girl front left not even showing pistils yet?! Anyone seen this before? I think it's a genetic weirdo, got some twisty leaves and stuff. Don't know if it just hasn't adjusted to 12/12 as well, I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't go Herm. Don't know why it's still vegging after this long...

 

[Justlovetogrow]

Looking healthy azz mate ya smashing this man your a natural for sure not over feed vibrant green leaves great job

 

[Nectarivorous]

Looking healthy azz mate ya smashing this man your a natural for sure not over feed vibrant green leaves great job

Thanks mate. Little hint of Mg deficiency juuust appearing, mainly on the stunted one. I read that usually half nutes are actually enough so I thought I'd halve the 2ml/litre the bottle recommended - appears they are honest. Plus I'm using RO. Only did 3 feeds with the reduced amount and that was enough to see some transported out of the leaves. Have gone back up and once again if it ain't broke don't fix it I guess.

Any ideas why the one plant not showing pistils yet after nearly 3 weeks? Just the genetic lottery of grow from seed?