Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[desertdweller]

being 53 yr old and just starting to grow, having read all post for 1 month before starting a 4 ft cfl grow in spare bedroom closet my head exploded with all the suggestions for lighting, nutes, fertilizer,gadgets, soil ph, even where to order seeds. so as a first grow, i did indeed not sweat the details, used fox farm ocean forest in 5 gal container, schultz 10-15-10 with micronutes for veg and lighting is 8 4ft t8 32w bulbs fastened to back wall of closet and 1 4 bulb fixture t8 4ft long cfl for lighting from above and adjusted by chains connected to clothes bar in closet. The plants are 18 days into flowering in flowering room.using schultz orchid bloom dont care if they have humongous buds this time, just trying to get to the end. the bad part was had 8 plants and five were male. the middle and left ones are nirvana chrystal and the one on the right is a bag seed female plant. so i agree it is possible to overthink this. next step, ordered 2 600w hps units from digital greenhouse thru htgsupply for the flowering room. might not be best 600w hps but it is a next step

 

[hoosierdaddy]

On Superthrive...
I can't argue with the worth of the stuff as it has been proven effective.
However, I have seen grows get hosed by it, including in here. The effective dosage of ST is ONE DROP per gallon of water. Two drops would be double the recommended dosage and could easily be leading to problems. ST is a very concentrated hormone solution.
If your hydro store sells it's own brand of cloning solution, it is a high likelyhood that they are selling you a pre-mixed superthrive solution. Take a whiff and see if I am not correct...

lilgreen, as HK suggested, you may want to put drainage holes in the pots if there are none. That may be the key to your problems.
But now that a problem exists, it would be wise to do what you can to correct it.
I would suggest getting yourself an even keel if possible by cleansing your medium a bit. It may be chock full of anaerobic bacteria that will fight good health till the end.
Using plain pH correct water, flush those babies out with loads of water. Flush and flush won't hurt at all, and will help to run out any bad things, including any excess salts. It will also help to drive in new oxygen around the roots. Then let them dry out until the pots are light. It is a very key part of growing, the being able to discern between pots that are needing water and those that don't. Guessing leads to over-watering problems, lack of oxygen for the roots, and bacteria. Cannabis likes to see the dry out period before it gets fed for whatever reason. And even if you wait too long and they start to droop from the lack of water, you can easily bring them back with fresh watering, although that is a stress and not really a good thing to let them go that long without hydration. But, IMO it beats drowning them in bacteria laden water.

 

[HempKat]

being 53 yr old and just starting to grow, having read all post for 1 month before starting a 4 ft cfl grow in spare bedroom closet my head exploded with all the suggestions for lighting, nutes, fertilizer,gadgets, soil ph, even where to order seeds. so as a first grow, i did indeed not sweat the details, used fox farm ocean forest in 5 gal container, schultz 10-15-10 with micronutes for veg and lighting is 8 4ft t8 32w bulbs fastened to back wall of closet and 1 4 bulb fixture t8 4ft long cfl for lighting from above and adjusted by chains connected to clothes bar in closet. The plants are 18 days into flowering in flowering room.using schultz orchid bloom dont care if they have humongous buds this time, just trying to get to the end. the bad part was had 8 plants and five were male. the middle and left ones are nirvana chrystal and the one on the right is a bag seed female plant. so i agree it is possible to overthink this. next step, ordered 2 600w hps units from digital greenhouse thru htgsupply for the flowering room. might not be best 600w hps but it is a next step

Well as long as it works you should be quite pleased with the improvement over the fluoros.

 

[HempKat]

On Superthrive...
I can't argue with the worth of the stuff as it has been proven effective.
However, I have seen grows get hosed by it, including in here. The effective dosage of ST is ONE DROP per gallon of water. Two drops would be double the recommended dosage and could easily be leading to problems. ST is a very concentrated hormone solution.
If your hydro store sells it's own brand of cloning solution, it is a high likelyhood that they are selling you a pre-mixed superthrive solution. Take a whiff and see if I am not correct...

lilgreen, as HK suggested, you may want to put drainage holes in the pots if there are none. That may be the key to your problems.
But now that a problem exists, it would be wise to do what you can to correct it.
I would suggest getting yourself an even keel if possible by cleansing your medium a bit. It may be chock full of anaerobic bacteria that will fight good health till the end.
Using plain pH correct water, flush those babies out with loads of water. Flush and flush won't hurt at all, and will help to run out any bad things, including any excess salts. It will also help to drive in new oxygen around the roots. Then let them dry out until the pots are light. It is a very key part of growing, the being able to discern between pots that are needing water and those that don't. Guessing leads to over-watering problems, lack of oxygen for the roots, and bacteria. Cannabis likes to see the dry out period before it gets fed for whatever reason. And even if you wait too long and they start to droop from the lack of water, you can easily bring them back with fresh watering, although that is a stress and not really a good thing to let them go that long without hydration. But, IMO it beats drowning them in bacteria laden water.

Actually for occasional treatments for stress you can go as high as 1/4 teaspoon per gallon but for the continual application it says 2 drops or one minum per gallon. (minum = 2 drops). Everything else you said is valid though and it can mess an otherwise good flowering cycle up.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

The term "minum" is an old world term used for measurement, and it equates to the what would conventionally be considered a minimum about measured, which would be equal to a drop of water for definition and practical purposes.
A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems, that is equal to about 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water

In any event, ST is very potent stuff, and I have seed folks with problems report that the higher values of ST was one of their amendments. (shrug)

 

[HempKat]

The term "minum" is an old world term used for measurement, and it equates to the what would conventionally be considered a minimum about measured, which would be equal to a drop of water for definition and practical purposes.
A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems, that is equal to about 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water

In any event, ST is very potent stuff, and I have seed folks with problems report that the higher values of ST was one of their amendments. (shrug)

Okay well whether a minum is one or two drops is irrelevent since on the directions it says 2 drops (1 minum) per gallon. Clearly they think 2 drops is a minum but the dosage does specify two drops on the label.

 

[lilgreendude]

HempKat thanks for taking a peek at those pics... and sharing some knowledge with me. this is my third round bro, and my methed was all dr bud style. As you say what i was feeding should be split up, i'm picking up what your laying down so.....yea im going to switch it up. One mom died. A sweet skunk bagseed i ran across. r.i.p. Onto bigger and better things. i'm upgrading my cabs.
i was on a micro til i got dialed in with a good couple of moms. i'm about to start giving a decent veg time and bigger flower cab. im tired of going through some thugged out gangster just to get some meds. so if ya'll dont mind im going to hang out with yall for a min till i get right. o-yeah hoosier, you arent left out either bro. i'll be applying both of yalls knowledge. thanks againThe homemade aluminum cans...are reflective tape around 20 oz gatorade bottles with drainage holes. LOL!! I think it might be something else other than the drainage, and possible not rootbound. It all started when I did the molasses but some of them still look okay that didnt get hit w/the molasses. Like some of my new sprouts. I gave them a good flush but the fan leaves are still drying out and dying from the inside out of the leaf. I dont know if you can clearly see it in some of the pics i posted, but its getting worse. HELP....????? Its spreading slowly and one took really bad. It died. Im thinking about starting over fresh. What do you suggest? I think i might have a virus. The mosaic virus? Man, I hope not....alright man, thanks again. Let me know something when you have some spare time.
PEACE OUT ALL.............

 

[HempKat]

HempKat thanks for taking a peek at those pics... and sharing some knowledge with me. this is my third round bro, and my methed was all dr bud style. As you say what i was feeding should be split up, i'm picking up what your laying down so.....yea im going to switch it up. One mom died. A sweet skunk bagseed i ran across. r.i.p. Onto bigger and better things. i'm upgrading my cabs.
i was on a micro til i got dialed in with a good couple of moms. i'm about to start giving a decent veg time and bigger flower cab. im tired of going through some thugged out gangster just to get some meds. so if ya'll dont mind im going to hang out with yall for a min till i get right. o-yeah hoosier, you arent left out either bro. i'll be applying both of yalls knowledge. thanks againThe homemade aluminum cans...are reflective tape around 20 oz gatorade bottles with drainage holes. LOL!! I think it might be something else other than the drainage, and possible not rootbound. It all started when I did the molasses but some of them still look okay that didnt get hit w/the molasses. Like some of my new sprouts. I gave them a good flush but the fan leaves are still drying out and dying from the inside out of the leaf. I dont know if you can clearly see it in some of the pics i posted, but its getting worse. HELP....????? Its spreading slowly and one took really bad. It died. Im thinking about starting over fresh. What do you suggest? I think i might have a virus. The mosaic virus? Man, I hope not....alright man, thanks again. Let me know something when you have some spare time.
PEACE OUT ALL.............

Well when these things happen it's not uncommon at all to hear the grower thinking they got some sort of exotic virus. I would bet the odds of you or most indoor growers getting something like the mosaic virus are pretty slim. It's far more likely that it's something alot more simple. Growers don't like to accept that though because it makes them feel like they're not good growers. It happens to the best of us though. Usually when we get comfortable with something and start taking it for granted.

Like for example, I was having some ph problems but my meter was reading the ph was good on everything I was feeding them although I was having to add more ph up then normal to get it to read a good ph. Now what I should have done was question why I was suddenly needing more ph up. I rationalized that it must be the summer weather and heat causing the well water my property has to become more acidic (normally it's 6.5 out of the tap but lately I was getting more like 5.2. I never tested it though and I just took for granted the meter was right. Now I've had the meter a couple of years and never changed the batteries yet never did I question the batteries. It couldn't be that, it just had to be something was changing the water. Well finally I dug out my old testing method with the drops and according to it the water from the tap was 6.5 and the water ph adjusted to 6.5 according to the meter, was 8.0 when tested with the drops. Turns out it was the batteries getting low and had I not been so sure it couldn't be that, I might have spared my plants some of the harm that running too high a ph caused.

Anyway back to your problem, it's really hard to say what's going on without knowing a more complete history of what kind of care you've been giving the plants, what lights, what's the temp like, what's the humidity like, what's the grow space like? How often are you feeding them and how much per plant of the food/water mix are you giving them?

You said you flushed them but it's only been a little over a day since you got that advice, it's way too soon to be seeing any noticable improvement. The flushing may have fixed them but it'll take time to tell (couple of days) and if you ph adjusted the flush water with vinegar you may have actually just made the problem worse. If you haven't stopped using vinegar, stop, go get yourself some proper ph up and ph down meant for plants.

 

[shakeyatl]

Okay well first let me say, I'm a soil guy and know very little about hydro setups. This is why I hope so IC old farts show up and join the party. Definately looking for some of you water jockeys out there. I do have some understanding, and in your case it's really more about basic plant behavior.

First of all I think you got your terminology a bit wrong, I think you mean cotyledons, not calyxes.

The cotyledons (seed leaves) are slightly unequal in size, narrowed to the base and rounded or blunt to the tip.

The calyx is part of the female flower and is the pear shaped growth that the pistils emerge from. Basically you could say a calyx is the female flower's womb as this is where the seed grows when a flower becomes pollinated.

The cotyledons do contain enough nutrients to get plants started and this is likely why hydro growers wait for them to die off before feeding. Basically you feed when the plant needs it. In soil this might not be for 3 weeks to a month because usually the soils people use contain nutrients. This is not the case with hydro and so nutrients are introduced sooner. I would encourage you to seek out a hydro grower to get more specific info on what to look for and when to do things.

If you want a good basic description of cannabis anatomy and the basic cycle of a cannabis plant you can check out this link which is where I got the definition of cotyledons from.

http://www.mellowgold.com/grow/mjbotany-removed/marijuanabotany1.html

Here's a link to a hydro store that has hydro feeding schedules available in .pdf form for several of the popular brands of hydro ferts.

http://www.gthydro.com/nutrientfeedingschedulesandcharts.html

Wierd I had my calx shrival after about six weeks in flower still not sure why but I think I shocked them while over pruning one day (bush league i know) they seem to be recovering now though

 

[shakeyatl]

SO here is my question I just received some super lemon haze from E.D.I.T. .com (great service took 10 days to arrive and 3 day to germ and pop up out of the soil. They even threw in some free roadrunner seeds. There inlies the question

Do you go about cloning auto flowers the same as photo-period

Also since clones somewhat start their lives out about where there motheres where at will they(the clones) take less time to mature.

I now the answer is probably easy but humor me

 

[HempKat]

SO here is my question I just received some super lemon haze from E.D.I.T. .com (great service took 10 days to arrive and 3 day to germ and pop up out of the soil. They even threw in some free roadrunner seeds. There inlies the question

Do you go about cloning auto flowers the same as photo-period

Also since clones somewhat start their lives out about where there motheres where at will they(the clones) take less time to mature.

I now the answer is probably easy but humor me

I've never grown any autoflowering strains so I don't know, I guess the process would be the same but usually with regular plants you want to wait until they're mature enough to flower. With autos if you wait that long they probably already are flowering and cloning a plant in flower is more difficult and I don't think autos would revert to veg like other plants do.

As for clones and maturity, yes the clone starts out already as mature as the mother. Remember you're not really creating a new life that needs to mature, you're taking an existing bit of life and seperating it into two or more pieces so that they can be grown in seperate locations. All you really need to wait on for clones is for them to establish a solid root system and maybe put on some size.

 

[Billy Burroughs]

what exactally is super cropping and it'd be nice if someone had some before and after pics of this technique i dont know what people mean by super cropping one bit

 

[HempKat]

what exactally is super cropping and it'd be nice if someone had some before and after pics of this technique i dont know what people mean by super cropping one bit

To be honest I'm not entirely sure because super cropping seems to mean different things to different people. Many people seem to feel it isn't one specific process but any trainning method that improves the yield of a crop by creating a more even canopy to get better exposure of light to more budsites. Others feel it's a specific method that is pretty much LST that uses bending and pinching to shape the plant.

Here's a tutorial with pictures of one person's view of supercropping:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/growfaq/1245.htm

 

[*mistress*]

clones from fan leaves?

clones from fan leaves?

any gardeners make clones from fan leaves?

technically....
1. snipping off healthy leaf at leaf base,
2. inserting base & petiole into water/medium, &
3. apical meristem formed from leaf blade(s)

 

[Billy Burroughs]

any gardeners make clones from fan leaves?

technically....
1. snipping off healthy leaf at leaf base,
2. inserting base & petiole into water/medium, &
3. apical meristem formed from leaf blade(s)

i'm going to gladly go out on a limb here and say no it will not root just a water leaf by itself no way if you got one with roots get the pictures a posted

 

[Billy Burroughs]

and i finally figureds out what super cropping is it's where instead of topping the plant you just bend it breaking the inners up and then a large woody ball appears there and makes like a superhighway for nutes i'm sure alot of you have seen these knots in places where you tied a plant down and maybe forgot about it you get them big bulges wel super cropping is receating this but at the top of the plant instead of loosing the top you end up with 3 tops is how i understand it but it seems to me that all this bending over of the stems would significantly stunt the plants growth

 

[HempKat]

any gardeners make clones from fan leaves?

technically....
1. snipping off healthy leaf at leaf base,
2. inserting base & petiole into water/medium, &
3. apical meristem formed from leaf blade(s)

I've heard people claim to have done so but I myself have never tried it. I figure if you got a health plant with fan leaves going then there's no reason to not wait for a good grow tip to use as a clone like people normally do.

 

[HempKat]

and i finally figureds out what super cropping is it's where instead of topping the plant you just bend it breaking the inners up and then a large woody ball appears there and makes like a superhighway for nutes i'm sure alot of you have seen these knots in places where you tied a plant down and maybe forgot about it you get them big bulges wel super cropping is receating this but at the top of the plant instead of loosing the top you end up with 3 tops is how i understand it but it seems to me that all this bending over of the stems would significantly stunt the plants growth

Well that's generally the idea, as plants grown indoors often times get too tall if just allowed to grow with no trainning. Plus you can also create alot more budsites thru trainning and thereby enhanced your yield vs a non trained plant.

 

[shakeyatl]

My setup is pretty hot so I run my lights at night when it is naturally cooler. So here is my question Is it possible that my plants somehow know. Meaning that they are getting light at night dark during the day. I know this may sound dumb but i am 8 weeks into flowering with a familiar strain that matures in 10weeks. I have absolutely no buds just little calyxs with the two hairs. It's in a mylar tent in a dark corner of the attic no windows.

 

[shakeyatl]

12\12 light cycle