420Captain first grow. How are they doing ?

420Captain · Mar 2, 2026

Damn, that seems alot. But okay, i'll give them 10% next time.
Okay, that's a good tip, i'll will try.

MrSativa · Mar 2, 2026

420Captain said:
Damn, that seems alot. But okay, i'll give them 10% next time.
Okay, that's a good tip, i'll will try.

First let them dry back untill the first 2inch of the top is bone dry .
And as the other person said, if you are using the Plagron Terra line that not organic but salt based soil nutrient and u have to adjust PH with that.
the Alga line is the organic

trygrowup · Mar 2, 2026

You could also read this one more time.

TerpBeans said:
500ml of water is nowhere near enough for those size of pots. Really have to work on feeling the weight of the pots after a watering with some run off compared to plants/pots needing watering because they are just about dry! I would suggest roughly 1.5L per plant. Start around the edge of the pot and pour all the way around in a circle. Let sit for 5 minutes and do it again

2 inch bone dry top layer in a fabric pot......
How many inch/cm is your pot?
Guess how wet or dry the rest of the dirt is.

You get what i'm saying?

JIMKSI64 · Mar 2, 2026

Drybacks for cannabis is def another one of those topics that seem to be polarizing with everybody having an opinion and very few seem to change that deeply held belief.
It is such a prevailing topic that it makes its way into coco posts as it seems to be the single most easiest thing to go to for watering issues.
Btw you do not dryback coco.
A lot of growers here get a bag of happy farms or plagron or lots of different names and some use as is but more amend the pot with stuff. One thing I have noticed is that the water content for peat based soils is pretty damn consistent. It all is just enough moisture to not kill gnants but every time we put a pot into action with a peat based soil clone, seedling, sprout we all do the same thing.
We water the plant.
I think that this is important. Potting soil right out of the bag gets watered.
But would a bag of potting soil kill a plant right off as being too wet or dry if we left it alone for say a day?

I have lifted pots and weighed pots and documented pots for 4 grows now. Still have had overwatering events. Still have had problems.
A 5 gallon fabric pot will have a soil column from 10 to 13 inches. Fabric Pots allow a steady loss of humidity but the soil during a grow will have wetter and dryer areas. Watering quickly can makes channels in these columns and cause watering issues that would not be present in a slower more paced watering.
So far in this grow I have decided to try for a feel test of the top of the soil. 2nd knuckle down can be dry but the tip should hit moisture of the same consistency of freshly opened peat based potting soil that we all water right out of the bag.
2 or 3 day turn around.
Once the leaves span the pot start watering the pot not the plant.
Your milage may vary..

trygrowup · Mar 2, 2026

Yeah try the 2 inch bone dry dryback.

I tried it myself in dirt. for two years Made me quit growing. Gave me all sorts of problems. Advice was always dry back.

Now i don't use it and harvest is double. I still have a lot to learn but now i can focus on the real issues.

Over watering in dirt should be called wrong watering method imo

420Captain · Mar 2, 2026

Should i give them now some extra to drink, or wait ?

JIMKSI64 · Mar 2, 2026

trygrowup said:
Yeah try the 2 inch bone dry dryback.

I tried it myself in dirt. for two years Made me quit growing. Gave me all sorts of problems. Advice was always dry back.

Now i don't use it and harvest is double. I still have a lot to learn but now i can focus on the real issues.

Over watering in dirt should be called wrong watering method imo

My second knuckle is 1.25 inches about.
Any more than that and the peat based soil rejects water and pools. Big hint of too dry a pot.

trygrowup · Mar 2, 2026

II'd say take a look at what @TerpBeans said

If you havn't given water till small runoff by now i would do it straight away. Just what i've had done.
But check him out

Edit: he's been hitting his head on the nail before

trygrowup · Mar 2, 2026

Also don't take peat advice when growing in soil.

420Captain · Mar 2, 2026

trygrowup said:
II'd say take a look at what @TerpBeans said

If you havn't given water till small runoff by now i would do it straight away. Just what i've had done.
But check him out

Edit: he's been hitting his head on the nail before

I am watching youtube about watering untill runoff as we speak!

Yeah i know, you are right!

420Captain · Mar 3, 2026

Update,
Pic taken right after light on, and i think they look okay.

gmonster714 · Mar 3, 2026

Hey Cap, gonna jump in and take a seat. I got nothing real constructive to say ir give so ima just be quiet in the corner..lol.

Yeah, dont top these. If ya want branching bender over. A lil this...

When she recovers...

Then smash her down like this...

Ya end up with this...

Or something close to it. I know its your first ride but I want ya to know there are options..lol

I guess this blows away my sit in the corner and be quiet gig..lol.

Really nice lot of plants ya have there. Nice n healthy. Just how we loke to see them.

Grownsince95 · Mar 3, 2026

420Captain said:
Update,
Pic taken right after light on, and i think they look okay.

Your plants have looked good from the first post. They will droop right before lights off and stay that way until shortly after lights on, it's called nyctinasty.

Beware of highly specific watering advice from anyone who's never picked up one of your pots. General guidance is great but tossing around numbers like "you should water x amount every time" might be perfect for them but way too much/little for you.

Learn the basics of how the root zone works and you will make better decisions on when and how much to water. For me in soil grows it's the weight of the pot. Especially in dry environments, the top two inches of soil are not a great indication of what's going on in the whole pot. For a fully grown plant the bottom 2 inches of soil are way more important.

420Captain · Mar 3, 2026

I have decided that i won't top them or anything crazy for now, Let me get a feeling for an easy grow and then work my way up.
This tent i'm gonna flip in at the end of the week, they had 4 weeks grow then.
This weekend i'm gonna pop some seeds for tent #2, and also do a normal round, maybe some topping.
When they are done i've got some supply and some more time to try some things.

Do you think the spider farmer soil sensors would be a good addition ? Or else i'm gonna save some money for them.

Grownsince95 · Mar 3, 2026

420Captain said:
I have decided that i won't top them or anything crazy for now, Let me get a feeling for an easy grow and then work my way up.
This tent i'm gonna flip in at the end of the week, they had 4 weeks grow then.
This weekend i'm gonna pop some seeds for tent #2, and also do a normal round, maybe some topping.
When they are done i've got some supply and some more time to try some things.

Do you think the spider farmer soil sensors would be a good addition ? Or else i'm gonna save some money for them.

Save the money on the sensors!

Im a very visual learning person so I made a diagram to explain my watering philosophy so that maybe it's easier to understand.

The plants roots look like a mirror image of what's above ground until the confines of the pot take over. At your current stage of growth it looks something like what I drew below. The most important thing to remember is that the growing tip of the root is another apical meristem just like the top of the plant. It's loaded with stem cells and hormones and is the "boss" of the root zone.

The dotted line represents the 2 inch deep mark and the wavy line on the bottom is where your excess water will settle. If the root meristem is constantly sitting in a wet, low oxygen zone, it will rot and die, effectively topping your roots and stunting the plant because there's not enough roots to drink it away.

Without factoring in the weight, it's possible the top 2 inches are dry but the tip is drowning in a small layer at the bottom of the pot. The top layer has the highest concentration of roots at this stage. That, combined with evaporation from the atmosphere is going to dry it out faster, but your roots need O² as much as they need water.

The arrows are to illustrate why we water in a ring around the edge and never against the stem. You want the roots to expand into new areas chasing that water. The deeper you go, the less roots will be on the sides of the container.

420Captain · Mar 3, 2026

Great explanation, thank you

trygrowup · Mar 3, 2026

It is a great explanation.

Only thing i would ad for your understanding is that a plant of that size, still growing, will have these fine roots In all the pot, unless they die from wrong watering method

At least they have when i pot up

420Captain · Mar 4, 2026

New day new update,

I think they have a bit too much light ? Some leaf points are curling and getting lighter in color.
I put my light 2cm higher. Total distance is now 42cm.
I was not sure about watering today and was not home when the light came on, so i'm gonna do the water till runoff tomorrow. What could is expect on the water usage? So i can make enough water with nutrients.

trygrowup · Mar 4, 2026

I find it hard to track when and how you water and feed.
The curling and the light tips is on the smaller plants or on all?

Brother_Antioch · Mar 4, 2026

JIMKSI64 said:
I have topped most of my plants including autos. I top once enough stems have sprouted and then use fixtures and green wire to pull the node stems away from the main stem. I keep pulling them until I flip to flower or the autos start to flower. This allows long bud runs to develop. I used this technique to train my last auto runs but it was for THIS run that I practiced this technique.
I am going to break the dominance feature of the main stem with a manifold.
This is done by toping when the plant reaches node 6 but bobbing back to node 2 or 3. Then topping and keeping the stems cleared while building out the growth.

View attachment 2607626
You pull out the stems and allow them to turn up and grow another 3 nodes and top with 2 nodes showing. You then pull those stems out and after you get enough growth you allow the stems to turn up and run upwards.
View attachment 2607627
This gives you 8 cola plants. You can top the plants again at this point and build another level for 16 colas.
This stops the dominance of the main stem and allows the nutrition to spread out evenly.
I practiced this on the autos to get an idea on timing. I have a pretty good sense of how you can make this plant go where you want and produce well. This part of the growing comes easy cause the same type of situation for tomatoes. Just some simple training you can double tomato output and the same thing works on pot.
My problem has been nutrition and actually using a cannabis feed chart will/should fix this part of my grow.

The goal.
View attachment 2607638

I'm a few days away from my second topping for an 8-cola manifold. First time trying it, but seems to be going well. Patience is key.

Cheers,

BA.

420Captain first grow. How are they doing ?

420Captain first grow. How are they doing ?

420Captain

MrSativa

trygrowup

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420Captain first grow. How are they doing ?

420Captain first grow. How are they doing ?

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