First time grower, have some questions

[sportyridr]

Please don't bounce your pots on the floor and pack your medium, just looking for trouble packing it like that....filling pots up after settling sure but packing you medium like that ain't it!

I agree with your current assessment of plants :)

 

[PipeCarver]

Please don't bounce your pots on the floor and pack your medium, just looking for trouble packing it like that....filling pots up after settling sure but packing you medium like that ain't it!

I agree with your current assessment of plants :)

I bounce them a bit just to make sure there are no cavities as I fill the pots, but not with plants in them and not to compact it just to make sure there's no gaps in the soil.

 

[PipeCarver]

Now ya see....I've run my tent with my lights at full blast from out of seedling into veg until now and have had zero issues with too much light. I say genetics will tell you how much light they like.

I guess "agonize" was the wrong word! More just helicoptering over your plants. That's something a lot of newbs tend to do in the beginning. They'll be in and out of the tent 100 times during lights on looking for issues! Just let them do their thing and they'll tell you if they need anything. Of course, it doesn't hurt to be pro active but, again, just let them do their thing!

I try and be as inobtrusive as I can. I only open the tent to get a peek to see how they are doing and if there's anything obvious I need to attend to. After that they only get distrubed at feeding time and that's if I'm hand watering. Since I've set up my auto irrigate I don't even need to get in there other than to check for disease or pest infestation. Next run I'm going to set up a camera so that I can check on them without disturbing the environment.

" More just helicoptering over your plants. That's something a lot of newbs tend to do in the beginning. They'll be in and out of the tent 100 times during lights on looking for issues! Just let them do their thing and they'll tell you if they need anything. Of course, it doesn't hurt to be pro active but, again, just let them do their thing!"

I'm retired and I spend upwards of 6 hrs a day in my shop/ grow room. helicoptering over and around my plants, moving clipping watering feeding picture taking recording reading smoking chatting cleaning adjusting building rearranging filling water jugs did I say smoking? and I'm not a newb....lol.........emotional damage

 

[GNick55]

" More just helicoptering over your plants. That's something a lot of newbs tend to do in the beginning. They'll be in and out of the tent 100 times during lights on looking for issues! Just let them do their thing and they'll tell you if they need anything. Of course, it doesn't hurt to be pro active but, again, just let them do their thing!"

I'm retired and I spend upwards of 6 hrs a day in my shop/ grow room. helicoptering over and around my plants, moving clipping watering feeding picture taking recording reading smoking chatting cleaning adjusting building rearranging filling water jugs did I say smoking? and I'm not a newb....lol.........emotional damage

i’m usually cleaning something, keeping things neat and tidy, smoking joints, listening to tunes..
i’ll give a tour of my grow set up/drying room etc later,
on the sunday update..

 

[elusiveshame]

Yeah, I could probably have added in another 1.5” or so of soil. First time with pots of any kind, and it never occurred to me that the soil will compress a little bit after watering. Lesson learned for next time though!

I’m not gonna bounce them, though.

I wasn’t able to snap a pic this morning, but I’ll take one tonight.

Also, I will say it’s tough to not keep poking my head in my tent as I work 8 feet from it lol. Even with the camera, nothing beats a direct and up close view of these lovely scented beauts. Idk if I would smoke around them - they might start fearing for their flowers and scare the production

Since I’m planning on flipping them to a 12/12 cycle in about 2 weeks, when would be the best time to defoliate? I’ve read 2 weeks before flipping, 1 week before flipping, and some places say up to 1 week after flipping.

Also, all fan leaves should stay, right? Things that should be removed are inward facing leaves, and anything lower on the plant that doesn’t get much light from what I can gather. I watched the Kushman video and the “if it doesn’t reach halfway up the plant, it goes” seems like wise words. I don’t want to over prune or over stress these ladies.

 

[TomH]

i’m usually cleaning something, keeping things neat and tidy, smoking joints, listening to tunes..
i’ll give a tour of my grow set up/drying room etc later,
on the sunday update..

I'm no longer feeling odd because I look for excuses to be with the plants. Inside or out, doesn't matter.
Sometimes I just hang out and try to meditate around them, a couple big bong blasts helps!

 

[elusiveshame]

Here is today's progress pic:

Plants got some growth. The left 2 are over 11" now, the bottom right is 10.5", and the top right is just over 9.5".

The soil in all of them looks almost dried out. The 3 suspected ladies pots are fairly light, so I'm anticipating on having to water them tomorrow, maybe Tuesday. The male pot is still fairly heavy, so I'll likely leave that one alone for now.

I'm most likely going to need to remove my pot of carrots within the next week or 2 as there's not really much room left, which kind of sucks as I was hoping they'd be ready to harvest before the cannabis plants started to overtake everything. I suppose I could take the male out and set it in my spare room and let it go to flower so I can harvest the pollen sacks first and buy some more time for the carrots. I'm thinking Saturday for the move, but might sooner depending on how crowded it gets. I'll also be doing the first defoliating on Saturday as well. Overall, they're looking good. I need to adjust the garden wires tomorrow, and add some to the bottom left plant.

 

[Halebop]

I usually topmy plants and just spread them out a bit using the trellis and it works well for me. As long as you do a bit of pruning later on

 

[Buzzy12]

If you watched how Kyle Kushman defoliates his plants, do exactly what he does. You will not overstress the plants. He knows what he's talking about. The plants are looking healthy, keep up the good work!

 

[elusiveshame]

Decided to give the girls a haircut tonight.

Pic around noontime:

Pic about an hour ago:

Pic after more lst, defoliating, and watering:

It doesn’t look like much of a difference, but I got rid of a fair amount of lower leaves and stems that weren’t growing out.

Some yellow leaves as well were cut, and a fan leaf or 2 (one was in the dirt and the other was covering 3 bud sites).

Less than a third on each plant. Tightened up some bends and added a few more to even out the canopy as best as I can.

I didn’t touch the male plant today. He seemed heavy enough to not feel like he needed watering, and he’s likely leaving the tent this week to go into a south facing window to begin flowering so I can snag some pollen.

I’ll check back on the girls in about 30 minutes to see if they need topping off with some water.

One thing I noticed about each plant was how unique and different each plant smelled. All of them smelled wonderful.

Another thing I noticed was how the bends from the training were thickening and holding in place pretty well.

Some exciting stuff here :)

Also with the watering, I added 75% of all nutrients instead of 50% and also added a full dose of orca. I ph balanced it to between 6.2 and 6.5.

Can’t wait to see tomorrow’s progress!

 

[elusiveshame]

Progress pic from last night:

Progress pic from this morning:

Plants are now sitting between 10” and 14” now. I need to do some more stress training to even up the canopies a little more (the right 2 are pretty even with each other, the bottom left needs some adjusting to slow the height while the other 2 catch up).

Anticipating putting the netting up this weekend or early next week, and will likely be removing the male plant which will go in my game/music room to push it into flower to get those pollen sacks developed for cultivation.

One leaf on the top right plant has some yellowing on a single leaf finger. I’m not too concerned with it just yet, but will be keeping an eye on it.

 

[Buzzy12]

Don't be afraid to pull off those big fan leaves if they're blocking light to the lower flower sites. I take just about every single leaf off except the top two nodes on the last day of the Veg cycle before I flip the lights. The plants handle it just fine.

 

[elusiveshame]

Don't be afraid to pull off those big fan leaves if they're blocking light to the lower flower sites. I take just about every single leaf off except the top two nodes on the last day of the Veg cycle before I flip the lights. The plants handle it just fine.

Thanks for that reassurance. I was a little afraid to clip them. Maybe when I adjust the wires tonight I'll give them a quick snip.

 

[elusiveshame]

So while I had one of the girls out for more stress training, I decided to pull the male out and give him a haircut. Then I noticed what looks like female parts. And male parts.

I’m not 100% sure, but is this a hermie?

What do you all think? These 2 pics are from the same plant.

 

[sambapati]

I just watched a 30 minute video of him trimming and going over everything yesterday! After watching his video, I pretty much came to the same conclusion as you - to wait a bit more.



I'm not sure why I thought they would appear sooner, but that's good to know, thanks!



That's what I thought but I wasn't 100% sure. I'm not sure when the veg cycle starts (I've read a lot of conflicting answers), but the plants will be 6-7 weeks old at the end of October, so I was thinking of flipping then, but maybe I'll wait until the first week of November, depending on plant height.



Okay cool! I wasn't sure about the autoflower. Since I'm growing bag/unknown strain seeds, if I do decide to seed an autoflower, I'll likely use colloidal silver and get seeds that way, so it'll maintain the characteristics of that plant.


I don't think I have the ability to do a timer setup for the 4/2 or 6/2 schedule. I was more wondering if it was possible to grow an auto in the 12/12 cycle so I could have one going toward chop n crop time of the current plants. Maybe when I'm down to the last 2 weeks of these photoperiods, I can start germinating and getting the autos to the sapling stage and then place them in the tent. I guess that's a future me problem to work out, though :P

Thank you for all of you responses!

I'm not sure why the pics aren't loading up as I uploaded them to the site (the web cam pics are from my cellphone, so it might look like there's more than 1 picture in each photo, but the blackness is just the "white space" on my phone)

Looks like you could add some nitrogen to your plants. What I'd recommend is for you to urinate in the water as you go until you flip to flower. The when to flip question has an easy answer -- the longer the veg time the bigger the plants will likely be. Looks like you're border line going to have a crowded tent so that is part of your planning. Nick has a really good point about overhead supports. I am rethinking that part of my grow for next time. I like your attention to detail and the camera is good. 2 other points-- use gloves when you go in there to trim because the oil and whatever else is on your hands isn't good for the plants.

 

[Buzzy12]

Those pics look like you might have a hermie plant and if that's the case do not collect pollen from it. That's the most undesirable trait a Cannabis plant can have imo. You have time before you have anything to worry about as far as pollen sacs opening up to confirm it, but if it's hermie, that plant needs to go.

@sambapati I hope urinating in your water is some kind of metaphor, that's for the toilet, not to feed your plants. And some of the best growers/breeders in the world don't use gloves when they trim/handle the plants, never heard of oil on our hands not being good for Cannabis plants. Is there any information to support that thought? We live in a world of oversterilization and cautiousness. These plants have been around much longer than us. I can't see how oil from our hands possibly bothers them. I don't even use scissors to trim my plants. I use my thumb nail to snap the leaves off.

 

[CKoko13]

Here's the current tent setup (it's a vivosun 4x2x5' tent).

Top plant was transplanted about 1.5 weeks after the other 3.

The 2 on the right were topped (top was was topped too low, bottom seems to have been a good spot)

The bottom left plant isn't topped.

Ignore the other 2 pots :P (just some carrots and non-devils lettuce)View attachment 1290488

As far as when to flip the lights to a 12/12 cycle u'll wanna do this once they reach a certain size which is hard for me to tell since I can't see it tent and don't know how high the ceiling is but keep in mind when u do flip to 12/12 ur plants gna stretch like a mofo so it's better to flip to 12/12 sooner than later otherwise the plant will get too tall for ur tent unless u top and trim the shit out of it constantly. As far as when to trim the lower leaves I'd wait until the plants are about 10 days into flower so then ur plants will be just starting to put their energy into developing buds and then when u trim the lower leaves that won't reach the top of the plant like the main branches will then when u cut those off it's gna send hella energy to ur main branches which will then stack up with bigger buds and even more bud sites.

 

[elusiveshame]

Those pics look like you might have a hermie plant and if that's the case do not collect pollen from it. That's the most undesirable trait a Cannabis plant can have imo. You have time before you have anything to worry about as far as pollen sacs opening up to confirm it, but if it's hermie, that plant needs to go.

@sambapati I hope urinating in your water is some kind of metaphor, that's for the toilet, not to feed your plants. And some of the best growers/breeders in the world don't use gloves when they trim/handle the plants, never heard of oil on our hands not being good for Cannabis plants. Is there any information to support that thought? We live in a world of oversterilization and cautiousness. These plants have been around much longer than us. I can't see how oil from our hands possibly bothers them. I don't even use scissors to trim my plants. I use my thumb nail to snap the leaves off.

Yeah, that was my thought as well. Thanks for confirming my suspicion. I’ll give it another week, but it does look hermied, and I don’t want to pass those genes on.

And...have you never pissed on grass @sambapati ? That kills your plants lmao

 

[CKoko13]

Looks like you could add some nitrogen to your plants. What I'd recommend is for you to urinate in the water as you go until you flip to flower. The when to flip question has an easy answer -- the longer the veg time the bigger the plants will likely be. Looks like you're border line going to have a crowded tent so that is part of your planning. Nick has a really good point about overhead supports. I am rethinking that part of my grow for next time. I like your attention to detail and the camera is good. 2 other points-- use gloves when you go in there to trim because the oil and whatever else is on your hands isn't good for the plants.

I've never heard about the urination thing. I've actually heard that urine kills cannabis plants whether dog piss or human piss, I know dog piss kills them cuz back in 2013 1 of my little shits pissed All over what potentially coulda been the biggest plant I've ever grown since it was almost 7' tall at the beginning of June. I was in a rage to say the least. Can u explain the urination thing to me? cuz I'm not quite sure what you mean. Thanks bro.

 

[elusiveshame]

As far as when to flip the lights to a 12/12 cycle u'll wanna do this once they reach a certain size which is hard for me to tell since I can't see it tent and don't know how high the ceiling is but keep in mind when u do flip to 12/12 ur plants gna stretch like a mofo so it's better to flip to 12/12 sooner than later otherwise the plant will get too tall for ur tent unless u top and trim the shit out of it constantly. As far as when to trim the lower leaves I'd wait until the plants are about 10 days into flower so then ur plants will be just starting to put their energy into developing buds and then when u trim the lower leaves that won't reach the top of the plant like the main branches will then when u cut those off it's gna send hella energy to ur main branches which will then stack up with bigger buds and even more bud sites.

Thanks for this! My tent is 5’ tall, so I’m planning on flipping between 15-20” of height. That should give a range where I don’t run out of vertical space. I also intend on weaving the growth through the net horizontally, so fingers crossed!