First time grower, have some questions

[PipeCarver]

This is pretty relieving for me, so thank you.



I appreciate what you're saying, but I still don't fully understand. Can you point out where there's light stress in my pics? I'm not sure what to look for in that regard.



I've never really been much of a gardener, and never really had anyone who could show me the basics, so I've been solely going by things I've read online, youtube videos, and now this forum. And while there's lots of great information, sometimes it just doesn't click until I can see/feel it in person.

Anyway, here's a pic this morning. I did some more LST'ing, so hopefully I'm doing okay with it.
View attachment 1291994

So, from what I'm experiencing/seeing, training topped plants is a ton easier than non-topped in regards to getting the bud sites out from under the foliage.

Think it would be too late to top the 2 left plants? I plan on flipping at the end of the month to a 12/12 cycle. Would those 2 recover fast enough and would it be worth it at this point, or just ride it out?

Top away, I'm a topping nut, I can't help myself. I pinch the tops off right up until about 10 days before I flip. I want the 2 shoots under my topping to produce small branches, elongating the top buds. If I top and flip I get 2 smaller pine cone sized buds where I topped

 

[PipeCarver]

This is pretty relieving for me, so thank you.



I appreciate what you're saying, but I still don't fully understand. Can you point out where there's light stress in my pics? I'm not sure what to look for in that regard.



I've never really been much of a gardener, and never really had anyone who could show me the basics, so I've been solely going by things I've read online, youtube videos, and now this forum. And while there's lots of great information, sometimes it just doesn't click until I can see/feel it in person.

Anyway, here's a pic this morning. I did some more LST'ing, so hopefully I'm doing okay with it.
View attachment 1291994

So, from what I'm experiencing/seeing, training topped plants is a ton easier than non-topped in regards to getting the bud sites out from under the foliage.

Think it would be too late to top the 2 left plants? I plan on flipping at the end of the month to a 12/12 cycle. Would those 2 recover fast enough and would it be worth it at this point, or just ride it out?

What I'm seeing with your girls is that what ever light you are using its, keeping them short and compact with nice wide Indica leaves. If you top you might get a mess of leaves in the center and you might want to cut off the large fan leaves that are over bud sites once you flip. I find adding red led lights in veg will help stretch short stalky plants like that if you want more height

 

[elusiveshame]

Okay cool. I’ll top the other 2 today, then.

I’m hoping for a max height of like 3.5 feet, so I was thinking of flipping between the height of 15 and 18”, just because I don’t want to risk light bleaching of the buds or running out of room for growth, so I don’t mind too much about the bushing (though that really seems to be happening with the top right - the rest are growing between .5 and 1.25” a day, with the top right being between 0.25 and 0.75”. (As of the last 2-3 days, anyway).

As for the light, I’ll likely upgrade when I start my next grow :)

 

[RootsRuler]

I always suggest newbs learn basic plant biology first. Once you learn how a plant grows and what systems it uses to accomplish that you won't have to second guess yourself and 90% of your questions will be answered. This forum is for the other 10%!

 

[elusiveshame]

I always suggest newbs learn basic plant biology first. Once you learn how a plant grows and what systems it uses to accomplish that you won't have to second guess yourself and 90% of your questions will be answered. This forum is for the other 10%!

Understandable. I didn't go into this completely blind, and there's only so much you can learn before hands-on experience helps solidify the knowledge you learned up to that point. I'm sure I still have some knowledge gaps on basic information, but ya gotta start somewhere :P Plus, it seems like cannabis plants are very forgiving to most beginner mistakes. I am glad that I started with bag/photoperiod seeds instead of autos, as it seems like a bit more experience should be gained before doing those.

I don't think I'm doing bad at all, though, I don't think I'm doing as good as I could be, but that'll come with experience.

 

[elusiveshame]

2 of my plants have started showing their genders!

Top left plant:

Bottom left plant:

Probably still too soon to tell, though. Any guesses? From pictures I've seen, it looks like male to me on both, but I'm not seeing a stem, so maybe still female?

 

[RootsRuler]

Agreed. My Mother is an avid gardener, where I learned it in the first place, but was completely against any sort of weed cultivation, you know, reefer madness. After Cali went rec legal, I brought her a clone and told her to grow it but not flower it so that she wasn't too uncomfortable. After 2 weeks she called me and asked me what kind of fertilizer I had left her and if it was ok to use on her other plants because the weed plant was growing at a fantastic rate!

I told her weed was a great plant for beginning gardeners because, as you mentioned, they are very hardy and can take newb mistakes. She confirmed it by telling me she had accidently fallen on the plant when she was trying to access some other plants and figured she'd killed the plant. NOPE! She was amazed at how quickly it bounced back and got even bigger!!

She started questioning me on flowering methods and processes!!

She's still opposed to weed in general but she told me she has a new found respect for the plant itself. She said she really enjoyed growing it and understood why I like to grow it.

 

[elusiveshame]

Agreed. My Mother is an avid gardener, where I learned it in the first place, but was completely against any sort of weed cultivation, you know, reefer madness. After Cali went rec legal, I brought her a clone and told her to grow it but not flower it so that she wasn't too uncomfortable. After 2 weeks she called me and asked me what kind of fertilizer I had left her and if it was ok to use on her other plants because the weed plant was growing at a fantastic rate!

I told her weed was a great plant for beginning gardeners because, as you mentioned, they are very hardy and can take newb mistakes. She confirmed it by telling me she had accidently fallen on the plant when she was trying to access some other plants and figured she'd killed the plant. NOPE! She was amazed at how quickly it bounced back and got even bigger!!

She started questioning me on flowering methods and processes!!

She's still opposed to weed in general but she told me she has a new found respect for the plant itself. She said she really enjoyed growing it and understood why I like to grow it.

Oh man that's a fun story :)

My mom was super into gardening, but I never paid it much attention (and of course, now that I'm into it, she's no longer around to ask questions that I'm sure she'd love discussing).

And yeah, I had a clip fan fall on one of my plants early on (I didn't have a tent pole clip style, just the fat clips, which fell off the pole as soon as I closed up the tent.. whoops) xD

 

[Buzzy12]

@PipeCarver could just be genetics too, it's bagseed, not sure what strains are growing. Early signs of a couple of males...

 

[elusiveshame]

@PipeCarver could just be genetics too, it's bagseed, not sure what strains are growing. Early signs of a couple of males...

Yeah that’s what I thought. I’ll give it another few days to confirm though. At worst I can move them upstairs and harvest the pollen sacks

 

[PipeCarver]

Okay cool. I’ll top the other 2 today, then.

I’m hoping for a max height of like 3.5 feet, so I was thinking of flipping between the height of 15 and 18”, just because I don’t want to risk light bleaching of the buds or running out of room for growth, so I don’t mind too much about the bushing (though that really seems to be happening with the top right - the rest are growing between .5 and 1.25” a day, with the top right being between 0.25 and 0.75”. (As of the last 2-3 days, anyway).

As for the light, I’ll likely upgrade when I start my next grow :)

This an old pic of a Cherry Bomb I grew when I had 5' from light to floor, keeping it 18" away from my 1000w hps. I vegged for 3 months and used a lattice for support. It was about 3.5 ft from soil to top.

 

[PipeCarver]

2 of my plants have started showing their genders!

Top left plant:
View attachment 1292019

Bottom left plant:
View attachment 1292018

Probably still too soon to tell, though. Any guesses? From pictures I've seen, it looks like male to me on both, but I'm not seeing a stem, so maybe still female?

I can't tell until I see balls, I've grown out a bunch of plants I thought fem....old and 1/2 blind doesn't help. It sucks to grow for 6-8 weeks. flip and see balls....Its best for me just to get fems from the beginning.

 

[elusiveshame]

I can't tell until I see balls, I've grown out a bunch of plants I thought fem....old and 1/2 blind doesn't help. It sucks to grow for 6-8 weeks. flip and see balls....Its best for me just to get fems from the beginning.

I tried buying seeds online earlier in the year, which flagged as suspicious activity in my card, so I ended up getting seeds from my dealer instead.

I did manage to order some online last month without issue, so that’ll be what I use in my next grow.

 

[RootsRuler]

This an old pic of a Cherry Bomb I grew when I had 5' from light to floor, keeping it 18" away from my 1000w hps. I vegged for 3 months and used a lattice for support. It was about 3.5 ft from soil to top.View attachment 1292082

Beautiful!!!

 

[RootsRuler]

I tried buying seeds online earlier in the year, which flagged as suspicious activity in my card, so I ended up getting seeds from my dealer instead.

I did manage to order some online last month without issue, so that’ll be what I use in my next grow.

There's a member on THCFamer that sells clones. His screen name is Trustfall. Check out the clones he has for sale. Seem like good genetics and guaranteed ladies!!

 

[elusiveshame]

So I think the bottom left plant is female after all, while I think the top left is male.

Here's a pic of the bottom left plant (the ball seems to be more pear shaped now rather than a sack that that splits):

Sorry for the blurry pic - I couldn't get it to focus.

The other plant looks more or less the same as before, just other nodes starting to get what looks like balls now too. I kind of suspected it was a male plant, as silly as this sounds, because the bud sites look very different than the rest of my plants.

Both of these were topped earlier today, and they weren't showing signs of sex before then. Do you think the extra stress made them show, or is it starting to get around that time where they start budding preflowers?

 

[RootsRuler]

Patience Young Padawan!!!

I was in the same boat. I thought I had 6 females but once they popped it turned out that 4 were males.

 

[elusiveshame]

Patience Young Padawan!!!

I was in the same boat. I thought I had 6 females but once they popped it turned out that 4 were males.

The patience is killing me! If I only had a flux capacitor for my DeLorean :(

 

[FuriousStyles]

Healthy plants will never grow faster with less light. That makes no sense at all... You can give them too much, but that's not the case here if the PPFD is around 500

Hey Buzzy did you actually read what you said before you posted it? "Never grow faster with less light" LoL never? So healthy plants will ALWAYS grow faster with more light? If you "can give them too much" light, by definition "less light" would be better for that plant.
I get what you are saying though about the PPFD and in your opinion its not too much. I understand the quantitative value of the numbers, yet I see a small space with a couple plants that look microwaved.

If my man is at 80% of what the light can do, there is no room to increase and decrease the intensity through the life cycle of the plant. If you start at 25%, then what he is running, can gradually work back up to 60-75% during peak flower and back down again as the plant finishes. In the process learning what the sweet spot is for his tent with his light. Then would be the time and place for PPFD to quantify the results as he repeats the process for the next grow so that he can get the same results every time with any light in his tent. You know observe, measure, repeat. Scientific process. Our problem in the US is we want the template, the plug and play. There is one for his tent and light set up, lets find out what it is through observation first, then chase numbers.

@elusiveshame you're doing great. Try dropping the lights back to 25% for the next two weeks till you start flower. After first week flipping to flower gradually increase the light by 10% every week after. You WILL be able to see when you hit the too much and where the sweet spot is during flower. Who knows? 40% of your light in veg as the starting point may be the sweet spot for your tent. You won't know till you observe for yourself.
By the way don't top these plants, flower them as is and get a nice harvest, or top them and get a bunch of popcorn. You do not have enough room to make effective use of topping this run if you are wanting to flip at the end of the month. Or better yet top two and leave two and see the results for yourself to use on your next run.

 

[Buzzy12]

Yea that is a contradictory statement. There is a balance for everything in life.

@FuriousStyles You don't think it could possibly just be genetics causing that look of the leaves?