First grow, self build grow closet with cfl lighting

[blues frog]

Little update.

Just found two suspiciously male looking bobbles on one branch, although there are already formed female flowers on the same branch.
Also added 5 more ladybird larvae (only four now as one was cannabilised), and one lacewing larvae. I hope UK ladybird larvae eat thrips, else they will eat each other, then starve.

 

[crom]

Lost - Thanks for that. First grow and all, I'm probably over worrying.

Living Legend -Thanks dude.

This though is a worry. I have thrips. :sick0026: Well, not me personally, but my plants in the closet (and the outdoor ones) have definately got thrips. Now the ones outside I am not too worried about, as we have plenty of predator bugs out there, but the ones indoors are more of a worry.
Caught a ladybird larvae today and put it in there with them, and am going out tomorrow to look for more of those, and also lacewing larvae. If anyone has any other ideas (bearing in mind my girls are two weeks into flower) then I would love to hear your input.

I have read the thread on thrips on this site, but want to know everybodys preferred methods, especially organic/bio.

I would try using Neem Oil it works well with spider mites so try it out with your issue.

 

[blues frog]

Neem oil arrived this morning. 100% neem, cold pressed. £6.79 for 100ml.

 

[blues frog]

Well, mixed neem oil with soft soap and warm water, and totally covered my plants with it, then watered the rest into their roots, cos apparently the plants take it up and when the thrips suck sap it fucks them up. Now it's obviously not an instant fix cos I still have live thrips, but as I understand it it should stop them feeding and breeding, and in about two weeks they should all be gone.

If this is wrong then someone please correct me, cos I am not sure of any of this and I need everyone's input here.

Been doing some more reading up on Neem, and its like a wonder tree, or maybe a superhero type of tree, this thing has so many uses. They are even researching it as a contraceptive in India.

Anyway, I hope it is as good as it's supposed to be, cause I have quite a lot of lower leaf damage. Looks like they just sucked all the green out of the leaves. And for something so small they move fast, like little formula 1 insects.

Also I have damaged two of my seedlings by moving them under a 300w light too early. Burnt their growing tips. One of them will die I am sure:sick0004:, but I think the other one is gonna survive as the tip was only partly burnt, and it is now putting out new leaves.

Oh well, you only really learn from your mistakes.

 

[blues frog]

Latest update.

New pics one week later, now three weeks into flower.

One of the early misty girls is chucking out flowers at an amazingly fast rate, and they all seem to be loving the 300w CFL's. I've got them both in the flower room as I've got nothing in veg at the moment. She's showing the most white hairs, and has ten branches all budding up nicely.

The other misty has been a slow starter, but is finally starting to build up some flower, although she is a lot more leafy, and slightly fleshier leaves too.

The bag seed female is just now starting to accelarate her production of white hairs, so I expect by next week she will be looking really good, cause she has lots of branches, and fairly close nodes, and I can already see how she's gonna fill out.

So, life is good, even though they have still got thrips, but then the neem hasn't had time to do its job yet. I am expecting wonderful results.
Does anyone know when or if I should do another application?

 

[crom]

I use it every other week and I love it! I don't have visible mites or any other type of insect except some fruit fly looking bugs that hang out in the soil. Yes my friend I don't know if you got the Neem idea from my post or not but enjoy it. I don't particularly like the smell of Neem oil, but the trade off is worth it! I love the way it makes the leaves look! Damn now I feel like posting a grow journal for my grow.

 

[blues frog]

I would imagine the fruit fly looking things are fungus gnats, more annoying than anything, althugh it's my understanding they lay larvae that eat the fine hairs off the surface of your roots, and slow plant growth.

When I was reading about neem, it said you can use on fruiting plants on the day before harvest if neccassary. I cut a male down that had been neemed a couple of days previous, and when i dried a leaf to get an idea of taste, it tasted like neem smells, which I find rank. I mean the stuff made me gag, I can't stand the smell.

Will this go away on the male I am drying out, or will I have to just chuck it away?

 

[blues frog]

Got the idea from you and others as well. lots of people using it it seems.

 

[crom]

Neem taste

I would imagine the fruit fly looking things are fungus gnats, more annoying than anything, althugh it's my understanding they lay larvae that eat the fine hairs off the surface of your roots, and slow plant growth.

When I was reading about neem, it said you can use on fruiting plants on the day before harvest if neccassary. I cut a male down that had been neemed a couple of days previous, and when i dried a leaf to get an idea of taste, it tasted like neem smells, which I find rank. I mean the stuff made me gag, I can't stand the smell.

Will this go away on the male I am drying out, or will I have to just chuck it away?

I think that the taste/smell of Neem oil will go away after a proper flushing. I don't know if you put the remaining mix into your soil after you sprayed like I do or not. I would think that the taste might be from being on the leaf and then it was dried leaving the neem on it. Why are you drying a male anyway? I also do not like the smell much. How can I get rid of those gnats?:anim_44:

 

[blues frog]

I am not sure how much of a problem fungus gnats really are, as I have had them since I started this grow, as we already get them round some houseplants, and I don't think they have affected anything too much. I believe they don't like dry conditions, so letting the soil dry between waterings seems to help (if you are growing in soil).
Don't know if you have seen it, but there is a thread in the Forums/Cannabis Infirmary, at the top of the page, about nutrient and pests, and is excellent.

 

[blues frog]

Oh, and I am drying a male to get an idea of the taste, and because I have spent every last penny on building this and getting it running, and I can't afford a smoke until I get some of my own. So at least I can smoke a little something, even if it does very little.

What are you growing and what kind of setup?

 

[blues frog]

Fungus gnats

This is from that thread. Thanks goes to Mace for this thread, it's extremely useful.

" Fungus Gnats
Fungus gnats like to feed on roots of the plants and organic matter. Adults and larvae live in moist, shady areas. The adults lay there eggs on top of the soil, near the base of the stem and takes about 4 days to hatch. The larvae will start by eating the root hairs of the plant then working their way up the plant, Fungus gnats like to eat organic matter so they will be stealing away nutrients from your plants, so its best to get rid of them completely.

If plants are outdoors, check the soil of plants before taking them back indoors for adult gnats or their larvae.

Prevent indoor entry of gnats by making sure there is no open windows open without screens on. Aug is a bad time for them as they are worst that time of the year.

Put sticky traps on the soil surface to trap the gnats

Put potato slices on the surface of the soil. The larvae like it and will be drawn to it.. After about 4 to 5 days, remove the potato slices with the larvae. To get rid of them you can do a lot of things like either use a NO pest strip, neem oil or putting sand on the surface of the soil will suffocate the eggs and get rid of them as well. Tobacco juice kills them, and works well for re-occurrences!

They can be in or on the soil and can fly. In order to get rid of them you can use neem oil, sand on the surface again kills them, and no pest strips catch the ones that fly. A chemical product called Zone works very well and is very powerful and works well in hydro!
Other Products which can be used in hydro and soil are:
Chemicals
Hot Pepper Wax,Safer Yard & Garden Insecticide (which can be used right to the day of harvest),GNATROL( used in hydro in the water as well as soil),Doc's Neem Pest Soap,Safer Sticky Stakes,TR-11000 Pyrethrum."

 

[shdowlkr]

This is from that thread. Thanks goes to Mace for this thread, it's extremely useful.

" Fungus Gnats
Fungus gnats like to feed on roots of the plants and organic matter. Adults and larvae live in moist, shady areas. The adults lay there eggs on top of the soil, near the base of the stem and takes about 4 days to hatch. The larvae will start by eating the root hairs of the plant then working their way up the plant, Fungus gnats like to eat organic matter so they will be stealing away nutrients from your plants, so its best to get rid of them completely.

If plants are outdoors, check the soil of plants before taking them back indoors for adult gnats or their larvae.

Prevent indoor entry of gnats by making sure there is no open windows open without screens on. Aug is a bad time for them as they are worst that time of the year.

Put sticky traps on the soil surface to trap the gnats

Put potato slices on the surface of the soil. The larvae like it and will be drawn to it.. After about 4 to 5 days, remove the potato slices with the larvae. To get rid of them you can do a lot of things like either use a NO pest strip, neem oil or putting sand on the surface of the soil will suffocate the eggs and get rid of them as well. Tobacco juice kills them, and works well for re-occurrences!

They can be in or on the soil and can fly. In order to get rid of them you can use neem oil, sand on the surface again kills them, and no pest strips catch the ones that fly. A chemical product called Zone works very well and is very powerful and works well in hydro!
Other Products which can be used in hydro and soil are:
Chemicals
Hot Pepper Wax,Safer Yard & Garden Insecticide (which can be used right to the day of harvest),GNATROL( used in hydro in the water as well as soil),Doc's Neem Pest Soap,Safer Sticky Stakes,TR-11000 Pyrethrum."

From my own experience
Neem oil - they love the stuff... may affect them as adults but the larva dont mind it at all
No Pest strip - works at first but they build a tolerance to the stuff. I put a new one in on the last infestation and it worked ok for a month then the population exploded
Pyrethrum - this shit kills'm. I used a flea and tick spray for pets, knocks them out the air and kills the larva. Cannot be absorbed by the plant so is safe to use on the soil surface up to harvest. I find it more effective to spray the soil then to chase down flying adults.
Mosquito dunks, BTI - these work also, use them 2 different ways.
First way, soak in a gallon of water for 48 hours then water the plants with that
second way, crumble them up and sprinkle into the top soil of your pots. plants cannot absorb this either.
Gnatrol, if you can find it, get it!

 

[blues frog]

Latest pics

Here are my latest pics, 4 and a bit weeks into 12/12.
Have had pythium in my seedlings pots, not enough airflow in the little room. I think it was caught quick enough.
The largest of the seedlings is Soma Lavender, then Blue Cheese, then Magic Bud. Bottom of Blue Cheeses stem was narrowing and going brown from the pythium fungus, but watered them with Cheshunt compound (Copper sulphate and ammonium nitrate), and it seems to be recovering.

I am on such a steep learning curve and it feels like anything that can go wrong, IS.

The upside is very sweet, as my plants are budding up nicely, and I have very small trichomes coming up all over the leaves around my buds. They are only minute at the mo, but I can see that the whole of the leaves are gonna be really frosty.

If this sounds old hat to you all, as you have seen it all before, well this is my first time and I am F*%$ing STOKED.:sun2:

 

[shdowlkr]

Be excited as hell bro.. looks as if you are 6 weeks from your own homegrown! Definitely something to be excited about!!

 

[blues frog]

Do I count the flowering time from when I started 12/12 or do I do it from when they started to show flowers, cause the early misty is supposed to finish in 8 weeks, and its been 4 and a half weeks since they went 12/12.

Their growth has been quite slow, will that extend the flowering time do you think.
Oh, and I've already got a few hairs going a kind of orangy brown colour. Trichs are better defined today.

I just noticed the bottom of the plants, where not much light was getting was developing small flowers that weren't really growing, so I have removed them. Hopefully, as I understand it, this will make all the main tops develop better buds (I hope this is right).

 

[shdowlkr]

Do I count the flowering time from when I started 12/12 or do I do it from when they started to show flowers, cause the early misty is supposed to finish in 8 weeks, and its been 4 and a half weeks since they went 12/12.

Some breeders suggest flowering time based on what they know on the strain and some breeders actually flower out a group of females and get an average finish date.. Do not base your chop date solely on the time frame suggested by the breeder. Use trichs and bud development to "nail it down"
I sometimes feel that starting the count on the day of the switch is incorrect and that the stretch phase should be considered part of the veg stage, since the first portion of it is just an accelerated veg cycle, til buds begin forming. And cause of that, flower days should not be counted until clusters of calxys start to form. But, thats just my own mind rambling, no book to base it on or other blah blah....

Its all pretty much a mute point anyway tho as optimum harvest times is really up to trich development.

I just noticed the bottom of the plants, where not much light was getting was developing small flowers that weren't really growing, so I have removed them. Hopefully, as I understand it, this will make all the main tops develop better buds (I hope this is right).

Nothing wrong with that and it is not an uncommon practice at all. Logically speaking, removing those buds should free up more energy within the plant to be put into the top buds. Others leave them and make the hash pile prettier, lol.

 

[blues frog]

Thanks Shdow.

 

[blues frog]

First attempts at close up photos of trichomes

This is my first try at this using a 5mp cameraphone looking through my loupe. Its really hard to keep both steady, but it seems to work, so I'll get better at it and post some more soon.

 

[blues frog]

Latest pics

Sorry it's been a while, but here are my latest pictures. they are doing really well.

The early misty girls now smell like christmas, sprouts and expensive mince pies, still a hint of coffee.

The two of them are very different in their structure.
One is very flat leaved, and very frosty, with more compact buds.
In fact its producing masses of trichomes, the buds so thick with them that they are almost a solid mass. They are on the tops of the fan leaves, the stems of the fan leaves are covered in them, and so are the veins on the backs of the leaves.
I don't know if this is normal or have I got a really good plant in this one, mother material maybe.
Oh, and it has bud sites about an inch up the stem (from the base) of all the top fan leaves, something I didn't know they could do.

The other Misty has leaves that want to curl, especially in the buds, and the buds themselves are stretchier, Less trichs on the leaves at the moment, but the buds are crammed with them. Seems to be putting on more bud, but less trichome.

The Bag seed plant is doing nicely, not hugely frosty at the moment, but I have just noticed that it is starting to improve now. The trichs seem smaller on this plant, perhaps because it is obviously sativa, as I understand they have more small trichs.
Smells like lemon cheesecake made with added hash.
Very pretty smelling, and all the lower buds are doing alright as it is such an open plant that the CFL light can penetrate all the way down.

As far as I can see there are no trichomes gone cloudy yet on any of them, but I am sure I will spot it when they start to change, as I spend a lot of time studying them through a loupe. Whoever said weed wasn't addictive obviously didn't grow their own.