Northern Lights First time grow

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Arktwo

Arktwo

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Hi all,

Looking for some feedback on this 35 day old Northern Lights Photo. She was abit stunted for the first week or so due to insufficient nutes but now growing much better. Using General Hydro Trio + 1 Ml of Cal mag - 1ml of each nute per Litre. Does this look pretty normal for the time frame?
 
Northern lights first time grow
Northern lights first time grow 2
Northern lights first time grow 3
JohnBlazr

JohnBlazr

523
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I would say it’s a bit small for 35 days, how often are you watering? What size pot was it in before? What soil are you using? What are temps humidity of environment?
 
Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
I would say it’s a bit small for 35 days, how often are you watering? What size pot was it in before? What soil are you using? What are temps humidity of environment?
Watering every other day / sometimes daily. It was in a 3L pot using coco coir 70/30 with perlite. 60/70% Hum / 24 - 26 degrees C.
 
bullfrog13

bullfrog13

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Oh, also forgot to mention just re-potted yesterday into 5Gal fabric pots.
water it everyday . water the coco evenly to about 10-15% run off
that will ensure you maintain the correct nutrient ratio and concentration in your rootzone.
what height and dimmer settings on your light ?
18" at 100 % is a good veg for that light.
get a cheap EC pen and you dont have to guess what your feeding it or whats in your coco.
 
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Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
water it everyday . water the coco evenly to about 10-15% run off
that will ensure you maintain the correct nutrient ratio and concentration in your rootzone.
what height and dimmer settings on your light ?
18" at 100 % is a good veg for that light.
get a cheap EC pen and you dont have to guess what your feeding it or whats in your coco.
No dimmer on the light - just 100% or 0%. I’ll move light abit further down and invest in an EC Pen. Thanks!
 
bullfrog13

bullfrog13

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also mix your nutrients to 3-2-1 ratio thats the growing section of your feed chart
1.8ml grow
1.2ml micro
0.6ml bloom
make the concentration 1.2EC. you can stay on that for the next couple of weeks and see how she goes.
 
N

Northernroots

15
3
Watering every other day / sometimes daily. It was in a 3L pot using coco coir 70/30 with perlite. 60/70% Hum / 24 - 26 degrees C.
Are you fertilizing or amending any nutrients? Coco is pretty inert, so you’ll need to give the plant everything it needs! I’m growing my first NL this year too, so far so good
 
PHO 1698
Flower16
PHO 1698
Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
At the moment just giving it 1ML of each of the Flora Trio & 1ML of cal mag per litre used. I’m not amending anything as it’s my first grow so keeping it simple.
 
H

hoobastank_enthusiast

86
33
I won't say it looks "normal" for that age, you can definitely tell it was stunted. I can also tell just by that picture that the media is entirely too dry. You want to be keeping coco between 90-100% saturation which means watering to run-off (10-20% run-off by volume) at least once a day in most situations. Unfortunately that 5 gallon container may not have been the best choice.

You're asking that plant to build a root system in that 5 gal container, which it will try to do before it pours energy into above-ground growth. The larger the container, the longer it takes the plant to fill out its root system, which means it will take even that much longer to fill out above-ground. A 5 gal container is going to be massive for a plant that size, so while that plant is spending time and energy filling out its root system you are going to continue to see subpar above-ground growth. If you're going to stick with this plant, that's fine, but then just be mentally prepared for that fact.

This relative mismatch in size also means that you will need to saturate your media incredibly thoroughly to ensure the very small space occupied by your rootzone actually gets the nutrients it needs. You could be using a gallon of solution a day to completely saturate that pot; it quickly becomes clear why that is not commensurate to the size of the plant itself. It's my general opinion that for most (coco) situations a 3 gal is better than a 5 and even then, the plant is still transplanted up multiple times to build a large, healthy rootzone first.

As for nutrients, I also use GenHydro Flora 3-part plus CalMag and Si. Personally, I follow a reduced version of GenHydro's weekly feed chart, typically 70-75% of the "Light" feed numbers, and then I use the Coco For Cannabis nutrient chart to get the CalMag/Si amounts as well as my target EC/pH for the week. I reduce the GenHydro nutrients proportionally like that because otherwise the EC would come out way over target. EC is everything in coco, if you don't have an EC meter you're flying blind. Don't worry about or bother using PPM or TDS scales; these are just estimated scales that derive from EC anyways.

I won't lie, you are in like exactly the same situation I found myself in on one of my first coco grows. I thought I was clever going into a 5 gallon pot early and it ended up just being a complete waste of time and money. I ended up just calling it a learning experience, axing that plant and starting over. With everything I learned over those failures this is what I have going now, day 14 Durban Poison.

022717301


This went from a 1/4 gal bag to the 1 gal its in now before it eventually ends up in a 3 gal fabric pot. Those smaller pots/transplants up are incredibly necessary to make sure it actually has the gas to continue in that 3 gal pot unabated. But man once you get all this shit dialed in, coco is absolute jet fuel for your grow I tell you what.
 
Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
I won't say it looks "normal" for that age, you can definitely tell it was stunted. I can also tell just by that picture that the media is entirely too dry. You want to be keeping coco between 90-100% saturation which means watering to run-off (10-20% run-off by volume) at least once a day in most situations. Unfortunately that 5 gallon container may not have been the best choice.

You're asking that plant to build a root system in that 5 gal container, which it will try to do before it pours energy into above-ground growth. The larger the container, the longer it takes the plant to fill out its root system, which means it will take even that much longer to fill out above-ground. A 5 gal container is going to be massive for a plant that size, so while that plant is spending time and energy filling out its root system you are going to continue to see subpar above-ground growth. If you're going to stick with this plant, that's fine, but then just be mentally prepared for that fact.

This relative mismatch in size also means that you will need to saturate your media incredibly thoroughly to ensure the very small space occupied by your rootzone actually gets the nutrients it needs. You could be using a gallon of solution a day to completely saturate that pot; it quickly becomes clear why that is not commensurate to the size of the plant itself. It's my general opinion that for most (coco) situations a 3 gal is better than a 5 and even then, the plant is still transplanted up multiple times to build a large, healthy rootzone first.

As for nutrients, I also use GenHydro Flora 3-part plus CalMag and Si. Personally, I follow a reduced version of GenHydro's weekly feed chart, typically 70-75% of the "Light" feed numbers, and then I use the Coco For Cannabis nutrient chart to get the CalMag/Si amounts as well as my target EC/pH for the week. I reduce the GenHydro nutrients proportionally like that because otherwise the EC would come out way over target. EC is everything in coco, if you don't have an EC meter you're flying blind. Don't worry about or bother using PPM or TDS scales; these are just estimated scales that derive from EC anyways.

I won't lie, you are in like exactly the same situation I found myself in on one of my first coco grows. I thought I was clever going into a 5 gallon pot early and it ended up just being a complete waste of time and money. I ended up just calling it a learning experience, axing that plant and starting over. With everything I learned over those failures this is what I have going now, day 14 Durban Poison.

View attachment 2032496

This went from a 1/4 gal bag to the 1 gal its in now before it eventually ends up in a 3 gal fabric pot. Those smaller pots/transplants up are incredibly necessary to make sure it actually has the gas to continue in that 3 gal pot unabated. But man once you get all this shit dialed in, coco is absolute jet fuel for your grow I tell you what.
Thanks for your response - was proper helpful. 👌🏼
 
Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
I won't say it looks "normal" for that age, you can definitely tell it was stunted. I can also tell just by that picture that the media is entirely too dry. You want to be keeping coco between 90-100% saturation which means watering to run-off (10-20% run-off by volume) at least once a day in most situations. Unfortunately that 5 gallon container may not have been the best choice.

You're asking that plant to build a root system in that 5 gal container, which it will try to do before it pours energy into above-ground growth. The larger the container, the longer it takes the plant to fill out its root system, which means it will take even that much longer to fill out above-ground. A 5 gal container is going to be massive for a plant that size, so while that plant is spending time and energy filling out its root system you are going to continue to see subpar above-ground growth. If you're going to stick with this plant, that's fine, but then just be mentally prepared for that fact.

This relative mismatch in size also means that you will need to saturate your media incredibly thoroughly to ensure the very small space occupied by your rootzone actually gets the nutrients it needs. You could be using a gallon of solution a day to completely saturate that pot; it quickly becomes clear why that is not commensurate to the size of the plant itself. It's my general opinion that for most (coco) situations a 3 gal is better than a 5 and even then, the plant is still transplanted up multiple times to build a large, healthy rootzone first.

As for nutrients, I also use GenHydro Flora 3-part plus CalMag and Si. Personally, I follow a reduced version of GenHydro's weekly feed chart, typically 70-75% of the "Light" feed numbers, and then I use the Coco For Cannabis nutrient chart to get the CalMag/Si amounts as well as my target EC/pH for the week. I reduce the GenHydro nutrients proportionally like that because otherwise the EC would come out way over target. EC is everything in coco, if you don't have an EC meter you're flying blind. Don't worry about or bother using PPM or TDS scales; these are just estimated scales that derive from EC anyways.

I won't lie, you are in like exactly the same situation I found myself in on one of my first coco grows. I thought I was clever going into a 5 gallon pot early and it ended up just being a complete waste of time and money. I ended up just calling it a learning experience, axing that plant and starting over. With everything I learned over those failures this is what I have going now, day 14 Durban Poison.

View attachment 2032496

This went from a 1/4 gal bag to the 1 gal its in now before it eventually ends up in a 3 gal fabric pot. Those smaller pots/transplants up are incredibly necessary to make sure it actually has the gas to continue in that 3 gal pot unabated. But man once you get all this shit dialed in, coco is absolute jet fuel for your grow I tell you what.
When does the 90% - 100% saturation rule come into play? Just after Veg begins? Or during the seedling stage?
 
H

hoobastank_enthusiast

86
33
When does the 90% - 100% saturation rule come into play? Just after Veg begins? Or during the seedling stage?
Yeah, always. One big difference between soil and coco is that coco maintains oxygen even when fully saturated, unlike soil which requires wet/dry cycles to maintain a pendulum swing between oxygen-rich and water/nutrient-rich. This removes the guesswork out of it; the plant always has water/nutrients because the media is saturated and it always has oxygen because of the properties of the coco/perlite mix.

Just be careful with the seedlings when they're new and first coming up. Coco is a little bit looser than soil so you want to be careful not to agitate or disturb the seedling with the water. I personally use something like a 3/5 mil pipette or similar to deposit water onto the media without the aggression of a falling stream of water.
 
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Arktwo

Arktwo

20
3
**Update - plant is absolutely rocketing now, new bud site’s developing almost daily now. EC’s coming out at around 1.8 atm so think I need to dial down the nutes. Plant seems to be good though.
 
IMG 6703
IMG 6704
H

hoobastank_enthusiast

86
33
**Update - plant is absolutely rocketing now, new bud site’s developing almost daily now. EC’s coming out at around 1.8 atm so think I need to dial down the nutes. Plant seems to be good though.
Yep. Coco is hydro, it needs to be saturated. Letting it dry out is parallel to letting your DWC reservoir run dry. Your run-off EC is generally going to spike if you let the media dry out, so that is expected. If your nutrient levels are accurate to where they should be, either through GenHydro's instructions or your own, then the real solution to high EC is not adjusting those levels but instead increasing the frequency and volumes of your watering until the run-off EC returns to acceptable levels. Increasing the frequency/volume is meant to increase the amount of run-off that is coming from the plant; it is this run-off which removes the salts that are causing your EC to spike.
 
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