First Grow Ever! CFL's and plastic boxes

[nuserame]

Hello, all! I've been lurking here for a few, and reading up as much as I can. Made myself a little rubber-maid setup which much gratitude towards red-greenery. Here's what she looks like:



Two rubbermaids, a PC fan. a vanity light strip from lowe's, a PC power supply plugged into a digital timer. Some more pics:





I've never grown before, and dropped some cash on some decent seeds. After trying and failing to germ my whole supply of White Widow, I tried again with the two free seeds attitude gave me.

One failed to germ, the other germed twice!
So I have two plants from one seed, though I'm not sure which seed. It's either DNA LA Woman or Sour Cream.

Put them in dirt on 12/16.
I ended up transplanting the smaller plant about a week ago.



The older leaves are yellowing at the edges. Is this a nute issue? I haven't given them any so far, though I've bone and bloodmeal waiting for when I put them in a bigger pot.

 

[Mind Grenade]

If thats tin foil, get rid of it and get some other reflective material or paint it white. Tin foil causes hot spots.
Otherwise good luck. I like rubbermaid setups

 

[nuserame]

hey man, thanks for the well-wishes! tis not tinfoil though, it's that mylar emergency blanket stuff. taped up very poorly, haha.

and the cups have 2 parts "professional mix potting soil" from some local place, 1 part vermiculite and 1 part perlite in them.

Since these rubbermaids are pretty small (12 gallon maybe?) I plan on eventually getting some large ones to flower in. I even have a bake-a-round I could use as a cool tube in it. Maybe I could keep the tiny one to keep a mother in.

But that seems far off! Right now I'm focused on keeping these tiny plants healthy.

Here's what the plants looked like together. I felt kind of bad splitting them up. haha.

 

[StealthDragon]

cool. looks good.

So that was a twin seed? were the roots systems separate when you split them up?? Did the seed look weird shaped or anything?

and the yellowing leaves look kinda like a nitrogen deficiency, but I can't imagine any "fresh" soil would be outta N already. It could be a lot of things...are those the separated plants? cuz if so, then they might be stressed from the separation. With some of the cheaper store bought soils ph can be a problem because the soil is designed more for flowers and stuff, I think those soils are usually more acidic. It's kind of hard to say what exactally is causing it, over/underwatering, ph, nutes, stress, humidity...could be alot of things. Especially since this is your first grow (no offence)

 

[ScrubNinja]

Give em some food high in nitrogen such as fish emulsion. Probably half what they say on the bottle, if they don't have a specific dosage for seedlings. That "pro" mix would be made with regular plants in mind and canna is a heavy feeder in comparison to many. Once you water it down with perlite etc it becomes weaker again.

If you're stuck with blood and bone, you should mix the future soil straight away so it can rest a while and begin breaking down ready for the plant. If you look in the stickies section of the Organic Soil forum there's a lot of recipes with details of how much to use, and other stuff you may wanna consider. Good luck.

 

[nuserame]

awesome, thanks for the replies guys!

stealthdragon: Yes, the two plants were a twin seed and I split them up. I sort of dug up some soil around the tiny one and plucked it out. It didnt resist much and the root seemed unharmed. and I bet it is actually a few of those issues, no offense taken, I'm sure I'm doing tons wrong :lol

scrubninja: great info man, thanks. I'm not really stuck with blood and bone, but its what I have and I dont know what else to get. I'll pick up some fish emulsion, and I've been on the lookout for some schultz plant food but can't find it anywhere.

I also got a pH tester and found out that the water I've given them a few times is quite acidic. So I'm going to fix their water and get them some nutes, stat. I also picked up an 8-inch pot, so once I get these guys looking healthy I can give them some room for their roots

edit: they didn't have any fish emulsion at lowes, but I found some Schultz plant food and game them some of that, half-strength. I also mixed up a batch of soil with bone and blood for when repotting comes. There's a hydro store damn close to me, so it's not like I don't have access to fancy nutes, just for some reason that route sketches me out a bit.

 

[nuserame]

here are my two babies now:

The first is actually what was once the healthier, bigger plant. The second is what was once the runt, seemingly doing better than its brotha.

I've been feeding them with the Schultz and the fish juice, switching between feedings. They still aren't looking too hot, especially (maybe?) after a month of veg. I'm thinking maybe they need more root space, so I'll likely move them over to their new homes tomorrow.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Damn, not looking too great. I would get plenty of compost and/or worm castings into that mix. The NPK of Schultz liquid plant food is 10-15-10, so that is high in P. I'm thinking it would be great in early flower. I wouldn't use it at this stage personally.

Also, it would seem to be a chemical fert, so not organic friendly. In organics, as most of your inputs seem to be, the nutrients don't just get taken up like chemicals do. They have to be broken down by micro-organisms in the soil which then pass them to the plant. With chemicals you need to ph the nutes because the plant will only intake them at certain ph ranges.

So my theory is that you are feeding organic feed (fish emulsion), then bombing it with stuff that kills the microbes that you need to utilize that previous organic feed. On top of that, it's been PH'd which can only serve to make the microbial life uncomfortable, or even kill it if it's hydro PH adjusters. And then there's the fact that it's essentially a flower fert anyway.

What is your water's starting ph? What do you adjust the ph with? Did you calibrate your ph meter? (essential)

There's an infirmary section too, mate. I am totally guessing on the above stuff by the way, since no experts are answering. If you ask on the infirmary and give lots of info, they'll help. Good luck.

 

[TexMex McDirt]

Hey nuserame. Good luck with the grow. What are your temps like? The way your plants are droopy and look like they are twisting a bit. Mine did that early in veg when I was still dialing in my cab and I found a few posts that led me to believe there was some heat stress. Also had problems with ph, so make sure you get that fixed, high ph caused me some problems early on. I used fish emulsion in veg, although I should have started it earlier than I did. I find it at most hardware stores garden centers. Lowes, HomeDepot, Ace.

Good luck. Mahalo.

 

[nuserame]

hmm, thanks for your help guys. appreciate the chem/organic breakdown, didn't realize it worked that way.

scrubninja: I've checked the pH on my tapwater, but the color-coding drops I have seem pretty inaccurate to me so I noted it was neutral-ish and carried on. I don't even think there is a way to calibrate these things.

texmex: I don't have a thermometer so I don't know the temps exactly. I guess temps and pH are things within my control that I need to keep a tighter rein on. if I want nice plants like you folk I should probably step my maintenance up

so I moved the plants over to some bigger pots around last week. there were all sorts of roots tangled up at the bottom. they seem to be doing a bit better now, but the yellowing of old growth still might be a problem. I've continued feeding them with the fish emulsion I got. I'll get some new pictures up as soon as I can.

 

[nuserame]

here are some pictures I just took. again, the initial runt seems to be the healthier one. I also noticed that some of the old growth that died off appears to be growing new leaves back or something.

if they keep up their general healthiness, I'd like to LST them. should I be doing that now? I'm not even sure if they're female yet, so I guess i'll just keep my fingers crossed..

 

[ScrubNinja]

Cool bro, yes you probably should LST soon. The stem gets tougher as it gets older. There are some good threads on it. I like using tent pegs.

 

[nuserame]

'sbeen a while! switched my plants over to flower maybe a month-ish ago. LST worked pretty well on one of them and I think the tape I was using to tie the strings down on the other one came undone, so I decided to keep it a single cola plant

the hairs on the tallest node here are just now turning amber.

this one's had amber hairs for a few weeks now, though it just now, when i went to take a picture of it, looks all fucked-up-like. last i saw it it looked like the other buds, just a bit bushier and more amber hairs. did I let it go too long? should I clip the sucker now?

I also made a little clone chamber type thing. just a light in a tiny cabinet i got for free a while back. no idea if the cuttings are too big or small, or if I even took the cuttings right. i'm going to pull them out after seven days and hope they have roots..

there were a bunch of 150W HPS fixtures for cheap at lowes so I grabbed one. discounted to $35 bucks from $80, I think. dusk to dawn outdoor lighting thing. the plan is to stick it in a larger rubbermaid setup with a cooltube around it.

so i need some help.. when should i be harvesting these guys? is it possible to tell from looks alone, since i'm not entirely sure when I made the switch..

 

[nuserame]

also wondering if its possible to tell the strain of the plant by looking at it..
I think sativas are supposed to be bushier, and indicas grow taller?

The plants are either both DNA LA Woman, which is mostly indica.
or DNA Sour Cream, which is mostly sativa.

anyone care to weigh in?

 

[ScrubNinja]

It shouldn't be too hard to work out if it's just between 2 strains. Go look at a bunch of pics of those two and see if you notice traits. Those buds are some of the hairiest I've seen without being chemically induced. So that's a big pointer right there. Sativas are tall/lanky, and indica is short/squat btw.

Using a loupe/scope is the standard technique for viewing trichomes to judge harvest time. 5 bux on ebay. You need 30 to 40x magnification for a handheld.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Also, it will take more than 7 days to root them, I would wager. I would wait until they show roots out the bottom, as against manually pulling them out of the medium and checking.

 

[nuserame]

Moved my little clone! had all sorts of root growth. hopefully it takes a liking to the soil more than the initial seedlings did.

also, I sampled a bit on the twentieth. was a good time.

 

[stankj]

hey nuserame, got any updates ?

I have some DNA sour cream and id like to know how you faired

 

[nuserame]

yeah man! thanks for asking, been meaning to update things for a while now. I'm pretty sure these things are sour cream, since they don't really grow tall or lanky at all, they stay pretty bush-like.

well since last update I harvested the old crop (didn't get pictures of the end product, and have no real idea the yield since I don't really know weights), revegged one of the mothers, put some clones into flower with my new HPS box (though they aren't looking too hot/big) and took some new clones. I'll have pictures up once I stop being lazy.

 

[nuserame]

here's how the family looked as of early june:

revegged mother:

and here's the top part of the HPS box I made. likely leaking lots of light from that hole, maybe that's why the plants inside aren't getting big buds?