Please help a novice in distress

[IsanFarmer]

I've mixed organics with synthetic many times it works really good.
Yes follow the instructions and post progress we will follow along.
;-)

What is the usual procedure with that on this forum? Shall I keep posting in this thread or do I start one of these grow journals?

Sorry I did not get back to you. I work full time then, run my own business after hours, had to go work and missed some posts.
You asked about mixing organic and non organic. Yes you can. We do this all the time. It's not wether you can or not it's what you mix. I'm just heading out to work again. I will address the questions you asked me as best I can when I get in a little later today as it will take me an hour or more typing and I'm short on time now.
Ron

Yeah no worries, I know how it is. I'm really busy right now too. Please do respond because your advice is really appreciated. I knew when I made this thread that I would get conflicting opinions and it's difficult to know which advice to follow. I guess that's one of the reason why this is such a fascinating hobby and so rewarding when you get things right, because everyone has their own ways of doing things and you need to work out what works best for yourself. At this stage all opinions are valued. I'll have to make a decision on which ones to listen to soon!

 

[Trash_2002]

What is the usual procedure with that on this forum? Shall I keep posting in this thread or do I start one of these grow journals?



Yeah no worries, I know how it is. I'm really busy right now too. Please do respond because your advice is really appreciated. I knew when I made this thread that I would get conflicting opinions and it's difficult to know which advice to follow. I guess that's one of the reason why this is such a fascinating hobby and so rewarding when you get things right, because everyone has their own ways of doing things and you need to work out what works best for yourself. At this stage all opinions are valued. I'll have to make a decision on which ones to listen to soon!

Anything you feel more comfortable doing I think. A journal could be nice too, link the journal here if you open one so in the future people has the reference to where this went to.

Cheers

 

[ArtfulCodger]

At this stage all opinions are valued. I'll have to make a decision on which ones to listen to soon!

I think that's the single biggest challenge for new growers trying to learn on the internet. Everything works, but it doesn't all work together.

 

[IsanFarmer]

NEVER flush organic soil, please don't go that route they are hungry!!!! It's not the molasses the problem. Do a good soak with water to 10% run off. They could be hungry because the soil is too dry and roots are too small and having a hard time growing and taking up more nutrients, also check my other post, cheers.

Let's break it easier for you
Do a a good saturation of your media so roots can grow everywhere, wait till first two inches of soil is bone dry to water again:

Please forgive my ignorance if it's because I don't understand but isn't giving them a good soak of plain water until I get 10% run off the same as flushing the soil? Something else that might be important - today I saw that there was only run off in one of the trays even though I gave them all about 2 litres of water. My PPM meter is only a cheap shit one so I can't be sure if it's a correct reading because it kept saying 'error' on the display to begin with and then the reading fluctuated wildly but the readings were all around the 1400 region. Isn't that way too high?

Can I ask if they are autos or regular/photoperiod plants? They look healthy to me. Quite often though, plants will pause after being transplanted as their roots were disturbed, and need to now focus on their new home. After a number of days, it could be 4, it could be 8, it depends on how much the roots were disturbed, how much "shock" is involved......but, after a certain amount of time of very slow growth, they'll begin to take off. When you transplant, the soil should be thoroughly moist, no dry pockets.....but not beyond saturated/muddy. Roots don't like hitting dry pockets and bone dry soil often repells water. Water slowly, in stages. Give it time to soak in properly.

If they are autos......they really don't like being transplanted, so this could add to the issue.

I agree that you need to get watering on point, it means letting the pot dry, but not completely, then watering sufficiently, but not too much. 2 liters of water for a 5gallon pot seems like it could be a bit too much. You have a good soil mix, with enough nutrients to carry them through for many days after transplanting. You shouldn't need to jump so quickly into feeding. I agree with the "keeping it simple" rule. Lay down the framework.......good soil, good temp/humidity, sufficient water, good light at enough of a distance (pure Indicas don't need super strong light, especially early on). And then once you've given them the right environment......let them be. Let them grow and wait until they give you signs that they're ready for what's next. Don't look for something "wrong". Usually the first sign that they're ready for a light first feeding is slightly yellowing bottom leaves. And if they're growing nice tight nodes, each leaf set bigger than the one before......that's enough light. If they start stretching/searching.....turn up the light a little, but quite often, because the plants are now taller, and now the light intensity is stronger, raising the light distance is a good idea, at first, to allow them to get acclimated to it. Over time all of these things will become more obvious to you as you learn to read the signs of what they need. If those signs aren't there yet.....let them be.

Thanks for your advice and I think I understand the point you're trying to make with things becoming more obvious over time. It's a real learning curve and I need to be patient. By the way, they're photoperiods so they've handled the shock well and now that a few days have gone by they're starting to grow.

 

[Mifarmer]

I'm currently on day 18 of my first grow. I'm growing 2 Hindu Kush and 1 Northern Lights. I started in plastic cups but the Hindu Kush plants became root bound so I transferred all of the plants 3 days ago to 5 gallon pots. My plants look quite healthy but the problem I have is that they don't seem to have got any taller in the last week. If you look at the close up photos you'll see that the Hindu Kush plants have a whole bunch of nodes in the same place which I can't understand. Also, the Northern Lights plant seems so small compared to the others even though this is also an Indica strain. What am I doing wrong? I was thinking that I might need to top the two Hindu Kush plants because this is causing the problem with the node bunching but aren't they a little small to be topped now?

I'm using a Mars Hydro FC-E4800 at 24" and 50% power. 18 and 6 hours. The temperature and RH is constantly 76 to 80 Fahrenheit and 50% to 70% respectively. I've got three fans on constantly. Two oscillating fans, and a 6" Spider Farmer exhaust fan on speed 3. Everybody says it's better to underwater than overwater but I think I may have underwatered too much and this has stunted their growth? I've been using molasses and liquid seaweed to feed them and I've just given them about 2 litres of water each. I've just ordered the Fox Farm nutrients trio and some Cal Mag and they should be delivered in the next few days so I'll start using them as soon as they come. Why do my plants look like this or are they normal at this stage and I

I'm currently on day 18 of my first grow. I'm growing 2 Hindu Kush and 1 Northern Lights. I started in plastic cups but the Hindu Kush plants became root bound so I transferred all of the plants 3 days ago to 5 gallon pots. My plants look quite healthy but the problem I have is that they don't seem to have got any taller in the last week. If you look at the close up photos you'll see that the Hindu Kush plants have a whole bunch of nodes in the same place which I can't understand. Also, the Northern Lights plant seems so small compared to the others even though this is also an Indica strain. What am I doing wrong? I was thinking that I might need to top the two Hindu Kush plants because this is causing the problem with the node bunching but aren't they a little small to be topped now?

I'm using a Mars Hydro FC-E4800 at 24" and 50% power. 18 and 6 hours. The temperature and RH is constantly 76 to 80 Fahrenheit and 50% to 70% respectively. I've got three fans on constantly. Two oscillating fans, and a 6" Spider Farmer exhaust fan on speed 3. Everybody says it's better to underwater than overwater but I think I may have underwatered too much and this has stunted their growth? I've been using molasses and liquid seaweed to feed them and I've just given them about 2 litres of water each. I've just ordered the Fox Farm nutrients trio and some Cal Mag and they should be delivered in the next few days so I'll start using them as soon as they come. Why do my plants look like this or are they normal at this stage and I just need to be patient?

I grow outdoors but it seems with indoor growing you are trying to create an environment that is similar to being outdoors. The genetics of the plant know what its suppossed to be like outdoors and if it isnt they will struggle. In 4 years, going on 5 I have never had a seedling not make it to harvest and ive grown outside in dirt, mud, clay, organic, miricle grow, fox farms and sometimes a mixture of all the above and I have never measured PH, i water everyday unless it rains or is crazy humid out and in all hoensty I still dont have a clue what I am doing. I have struggled with insects, weather snapping branches, and even some mold and fungus, but in the end it always works out.

If this is your first grow, maybe you should scale back on the fancy stuff like mollasses and sea weed and watch what happens when you let her grow naturally in an artificial outdoor environment(meaning indoors)with just water, light, a fan to mimic wind and the nutrients already in your soil. I understand how molasses and seawead can be beneficial but its not an essential component to growing marijuanna and if not done right can cause problems.

As my daddy used to say K.I.S.S. Good Luck

 

[Trash_2002]

Please forgive my ignorance if it's because I don't understand but isn't giving them a good soak of plain water until I get 10% run off the same as flushing the soil? Something else that might be important - today I saw that there was only run off in one of the trays even though I gave them all about 2 litres of water. My PPM meter is only a cheap shit one so I can't be sure if it's a correct reading because it kept saying 'error' on the display to begin with and then the reading fluctuated wildly but the readings were all around the 1400 region. Isn't that way too high?



Thanks for your advice and I think I understand the point you're trying to make with things becoming more obvious over time. It's a real learning curve and I need to be patient. By the way, they're photoperiods so they've handled the shock well and now that a few days have gone by they're starting to grow.

5-10% runoff is more like leaching, just a little bit to make sure you saturated the media.

Flush is like "500%" runoff to clear the soil of "everything".

 

[IsanFarmer]

I grow outdoors but it seems with indoor growing you are trying to create an environment that is similar to being outdoors. The genetics of the plant know what its suppossed to be like outdoors and if it isnt they will struggle. In 4 years, going on 5 I have never had a seedling not make it to harvest and ive grown outside in dirt, mud, clay, organic, miricle grow, fox farms and sometimes a mixture of all the above and I have never measured PH, i water everyday unless it rains or is crazy humid out and in all hoensty I still dont have a clue what I am doing. I have struggled with insects, weather snapping branches, and even some mold and fungus, but in the end it always works out.

If this is your first grow, maybe you should scale back on the fancy stuff like mollasses and sea weed and watch what happens when you let her grow naturally in an artificial outdoor environment(meaning indoors)with just water, light, a fan to mimic wind and the nutrients already in your soil. I understand how molasses and seawead can be beneficial but its not an essential component to growing marijuanna and if not done right can cause problems.

As my daddy used to say K.I.S.S. Good Luck

I think there's some good advice in that post. Fortunately I live in a country that has an ideal climate for growing ganja and I own a big piece of farm land too. The plan is to start growing outdoors at some point in the future. I'm not so busy today so I am going to start researching this KISS method that people have mentioned.

5-10% runoff is more like leaching, just a little bit to make sure you saturated the media.

Flush is like "500%" runoff to clear the soil of "everything".

Ok cheers I am going to try that later today because the soil is starting to dry up again. So the 5 to 10% run off should be 5 to 10% of what? The total amount of water that I use? For a novice like me, that's going to be hard to work out how much water to use to ensure that, but I will give it a go! I hope it doesn't matter too much if I don't do it perfectly, and the water will improve things whatever happens? Or am I over complicating this?

Nobody has got back to me about topping but I think they're ready now so I'm going to do that today and then give them a soak with some plain RO water at 6.2 to 6.8 PH. My Fox Farm trio should be here tomorrow so I'll start feeding them in small amounts soon. I'll see how they react to the plain water first. Please feel free to make comments and give me advice no matter how small because the advice has been invaluable so far and I feel more confident about things since I started using the forum.

Here's a little update from this morning. The plants are looking healthy and they're starting to darken in colour which is great. I've raised the light to 27" and set it to about 35% power. The Northern Light plant looks a bit pathetic compared to the two Hindu Kush but at least it's starting to grow now.

 

[Trash_2002]

I think there's some good advice in that post. Fortunately I live in a country that has an ideal climate for growing ganja and I own a big piece of farm land too. The plan is to start growing outdoors at some point in the future. I'm not so busy today so I am going to start researching this KISS method that people have mentioned.



Ok cheers I am going to try that later today because the soil is starting to dry up again. So the 5 to 10% run off should be 5 to 10% of what? The total amount of water that I use? For a novice like me, that's going to be hard to work out how much water to use to ensure that but I will give it a go! I hope it doesn't matter too much if I don't do it perfectly, and the water will improve things whatever happens?

KISS method has an history with "lucas formula" but i say KISS method any method that's simple and use as little products as possible with great results. Witch Fox Farm Trio already is a KISS method in my book.

yep just water slowly and when you start seeing water come out of the pot bottom stop. you gonna get around roughly 10% run off. drain that run off to waste, throw it in some plant in your house garden if you want :-)

 

[IsanFarmer]

KISS method has an history with "lucas formula" but i say KISS method any method that's simple and use as little products as possible with great results. Witch Fox Farm Trio already is a KISS method in my book.

yep just water slowly and when you start seeing water come out of the pot bottom stop. you gonna get around roughly 10% run off. drain that run off to waste, throw it in some plant in your house garden if you want :-)

I've just edited that post. I added some more text and a couple of photos, so I thought I'd let you know just in case you overlook that.

 

[Trash_2002]

I've just edited that post. I added some more text and a couple of photos, so I thought I'd let you kn

ow just in case you overlook that.

Hehehe yep I had overlooked that typed before the edit, nice they are looking good, still a bit hungry but nothing major, NL will come up in time, some.plants are slow veggers but makeup for it in flowering.
Topping, some like it early, I like a bit further when they are 6-9" depends how much height clearance you have to work with and how.strongis your lights.

 

[BillyBanchan]

I think there's some good advice in that post. Fortunately I live in a country that has an ideal climate for growing ganja and I own a big piece of farm land too. The plan is to start growing outdoors at some point in the future. I'm not so busy today so I am going to start researching this KISS method that people have mentioned.



Ok cheers I am going to try that later today because the soil is starting to dry up again. So the 5 to 10% run off should be 5 to 10% of what? The total amount of water that I use? For a novice like me, that's going to be hard to work out how much water to use to ensure that, but I will give it a go! I hope it doesn't matter too much if I don't do it perfectly, and the water will improve things whatever happens? Or am I over complicating this?

Nobody has got back to me about topping but I think they're ready now so I'm going to do that today and then give them a soak with some plain RO water at 6.2 to 6.8 PH. My Fox Farm trio should be here tomorrow so I'll start feeding them in small amounts soon. I'll see how they react to the plain water first. Please feel free to make comments and give me advice no matter how small because the advice has been invaluable so far and I feel more confident about things since I started using the forum.

Here's a little update from this morning. The plants are looking healthy and they're starting to darken in colour which is great. I've raised the light to 27" and set it to about 35% power. The Northern Light plant looks a bit pathetic compared to the two Hindu Kush but at least it's starting to grow now.

Which fogger/humidifier is that? Do you like it? Would you recommend it?

B²

 

[Trash_2002]

Hehehe yep I had overlooked that typed before the edit, nice they are looking good, still a bit hungry but nothing major, NL will come up in time, some.plants are slow veggers but makeup for it in flowering.
Topping, some like it early, I like a bit further when they are 6-9" depends how much height clearance you have to work with and how.strongis your lights.

forgot to add. topping is also VERY cultivar AND style of grow dependent, you have to know your genetics and how you wanna grow them to understand how to train/top them properly for each case..

 

[IsanFarmer]

Which fogger/humidifier is that? Do you like it? Would you recommend it?

B²

It's cheap one I bought on the internet that doesn't even appear to have a brand name. It's doing the job so far but I wouldn't recommend it because it has a UV light on it for sterilization purposes that changes colour and gives off light, hence the reason why I've covered it in silver tape. It still gives off a little bit of light when it's dark so maybe that is affecting the growth of my plants?

forgot to add. topping is also VERY cultivar AND style of grow dependent, you have to know your genetics and how you wanna grow them to understand how to train/top them properly for each case..

I'm going to go ahead and top my plants today because I think they're ready. Would you advise that with these two strains? Do you think the small amount of light coming from my dehumidifier is harmful to my plants?

 

[Trash_2002]

It's cheap one I bought on the internet that doesn't even appear to have a brand name. It's doing the job so far but I wouldn't recommend it because it has a UV light on it for sterilization purposes that changes colour and gives off light, hence the reason why I've covered it in silver tape. It still gives off a little bit of light when it's dark so maybe that is affecting the growth of my plants?



I'm going to go ahead and top my plants today because I think they're ready. Would you advise that with these two strains? Do you think the small amount of light coming from my dehumidifier is harmful to my plants?

Go ahead and top them, see how they respond ;-), I wouldn't let any light inside the tent that could disrupt the night time, principally in flower, could trigger Hermie's quite easily.

 

[IsanFarmer]

Go ahead and top them, see how they respond ;-), I wouldn't let any light inside the tent that could disrupt the night time, principally in flower, could trigger Hermie's quite easily.

By hermies do you mean hermaphrodites? These are feminised seeds so that shouldn't happen?

 

[Trash_2002]

By hermies do you mean hermaphrodites? These are feminised seeds so that shouldn't happen?

Yep hermaphrodites, if they get disturbed with light at night they can pretty easily trow out some bananas/male flowers. Feminized seeds do that too. Some cultivars are very sensitive to light at night, but any will suffer stress and can hermie.
In fact feminized seeds are even more prone to Hermie by the nature of how they are done.

 

[IsanFarmer]

Well here's an update from today which is day 22. The plants look healthy to me although I think their leaves aren't quite dark enough. They're certainly starting to grow now and one of them is growing much faster than the others. If you look closely at some of the photos to can see that two of them aren't growing straight which is a concern, or is this quite normal and they'll straighten up over time? I gave them a good watering today with plain water at PH 6.2 until I had about 10% run off, which was about 4 litres of water each. I topped all of the plants today too. Two of them I did with scissors and were easy to do but the Northern Lights plant only had a small apical meristem and it wasn't so easy to remove. I tried doing it with my hands but couldn't so I cut it off in the end but it was so small there wasn't any stem left underneath it. My Fox Farm nutrients have been delivered so I'll start using them soon. Oh yeah I tested the run off and it was all around PH 6.2. I'm using a foliar spray once a day which is 2 millilitres of liquid seaweed mixed with 1 litre of RO water. Is this a good idea or not?

 

[Trash_2002]

They have been decapitated lol
Yep seaweed is a pretty good stress reliefer addon, you can use that foliar in veg once a week.
Witch seaweed you using? What manufacturer? Cheers

 

[Trash_2002]

They have been decapitated lol
Yep seaweed is a pretty good stress reliefer addon, you can use that foliar in veg once a week.
Witch seaweed you using? What manufacturer? Cheers

Don't spray with lights on, better yet, spray right before lights go out.
in flower don't spray anything.
But you can use kelp as soil drench together with the molasses waterings in flower if you want..

 

[IsanFarmer]

They have been decapitated lol
Yep seaweed is a pretty good stress reliefer addon, you can use that foliar in veg once a week.
Witch seaweed you using? What manufacturer? Cheers

The seaweed I'm using is made by a local grower from my neck of the woods so you won't have heard of it but it's good stuff. I live in Thailand so buying products from leading brands is expensive because it all has to be imported. I've had to look for alternative brands at times to keep the costs down because I've already spent approximately $1,600 on my set up.

Don't spray with lights on, better yet, spray right before lights go out.
in flower don't spray anything.
But you can use kelp as soil drench together with the molasses waterings in flower if you want..

Oh shit I read the above just after I sprayed them with the lights on. I'll do it just before lights out from tonight onwards. I've started using that app for the light which is really good and I'm going to buy a new humidifier that doesn't give off any light. I will start my feeding regime either tomorrow or the next day depending on the medium, my nutrients have been delivered now so the next step is to work out how the fuck I use them. When I use them do I have to make sure the water is at the correct PPM level or should I wait until I am more experienced because I know very little about adjusting PPM levels? My plants are really starting to grow now and I'm delighted.