400w sunpulse, blumat, herihaze (herijuana x O Haze) and more

[Mantra]

So I'm just beginning a new run!

This is an exciting one for me, as it's my first grow in a few years and it's my first time ever using blumats. I love coco, and these seem to be a good compliment to it. I used to hand water. The pros of that were that I learned to read my plants a little. The cons were I made some mistakes and it felt imprecise.

I'm very inspired by people like Sunnydog and Desert Hydro. Such great grows.

So blumats, I'm hoping, will compensate for some of my clumsiness. I consider myself a beginner grower.

Because this is a test and shake-off-the-rust grow, I'm using my own seeds from hybrids I have plenty of seeds from.*

The goal of the grow: I am aiming for three good plants, one of each of the following (I am germinating 10 seeds of each hoping for one good female):

Strain #1: 'Herihaze': Here we have ******s Herijuana x Sam the skunkman's original Haze. These are such specific indicas and sativas respectively. I'm hoping for the body slam of the heri with that perfect pure celestial sati high of the skunkman's legendary strain. These heri mother here had a bit of purple to her so I'm interested to see if that carries through.*

Strain #2: 'love potion number 9': this has some good sati notes from Arjans haze 3. I've spent a bit of time in Laos, and love a Laotian sativa. The daddy was ******s Blue Hammer which is a nice touchy-feely stone. Anyway, these are seeds from a hermied plant that I'm hoping to get a non-hermi-ing female from. Because this was the best weed ever for having sex on. Just this intense, lively, physically intense and responsive smoke. So I'm willing to work with seeds from a hermi.

Strain #3: 'Queen Kong': NYCD x DNA Genetics Pure Afghan. A good workhorse smoke, I am hoping.*

Strains #1 and #3 this will be my first time growing. In both cases I took pollen from the best male and pollinated specific buds on the best females from their respective batches. Love Potion #9 was a previous, successful, experiment.

I made these seeds in 2010. They're getting old now. As such, I have no idea what my germination rates will be. These used to be very viable, and I have stored them in airtight Mylar packages, heat sealed, packed in a Tupperware container with dessicant, stored in the chiller drawer of my fridge for almost three years. In theory, I've stored them carefully. But who knows how they fared? I worry it may have run a little dry for this length of time.

Due to age etc, I scuffed them in a rolled up cylinder of 400 grit sandpaper held between thumb and forefinger. I then*soaked for 24 hours in tap water,manually sinking them after 12 hours. 4 of the 10 herihaze have cracked. That's it. No movement from the others. *I've popped them all in jiffy peat pellets. Next time I will go for coco pellets.

That's it. It's day two, and I've just amused myself by putting a clone tent together. I will be germinating in this*under 6400 cfl. I will veg and flower them in a 60cmx120cm grow tent. 400w sun pulse with digital ballast.*

Still deciding if I want to add perlite to the coco mix.

It will be interesting. So many variables here.*

Right now I'm worried about the seed viability, and educating myself all I can on blumats and coco.

 

[Mantra]

No idea what is up with all the asterisks. Is '******s' a verboten word? Heh.

 

[Mantra]

Looks like it! DNA genetics and Arjan are ok to mention, but not s.a.n.n.i.e.? Hmm. Anyway, on with the grow.

 

[Mantra]

Waiting to pop.

 

[Mantra]

So, five days after soaking we have some movement starting. Nine of the 24 plugs have sprouted. More to come tomorrow for sure. Looks like my seed storage works ok and the seeds are viable.

 

[Mantra]

So I will be keeping detailed notes here for my own info. 23 of the 24 have now sprouted, so I'm happy with that, given the age of the seeds. Love Potion #9 is 7/8, the others 8/8. All strains seemed to germ at more or less the same rate.

I ended up running with 8 of each, due to my seeding tray having 24 plugs not 30. Ha.

Queen Kong - with 5 of the 8, the cotyledons are gummed together by the inner husk of the seed casing. Hmm. The seeds did seem thick-walled. I may need to manually snip these free if they don't struggle out on their own in the next day, although obviously seedlings are usually best left to their own devices when shrugging off the husk, my gut is telling me an intervention might be required here.

 

[Mantra]

Note: Plant A4 (herihaze) is notably more advanced than the others. Very leggy - looking like a sati seedling, with a long white leggy stem rather than the short red stems of the King Kong. $50 says A4 will be a male.

 

[indiematth]

Excited to see your grow! Keep up the good work!

 

[g0vnaa]

Man that HeriHaze sounds killer.
Good luck (;

 

[Mantra]

.

 

[Mantra]

Hey indiematth and G0vnaa! Thanks for stopping by. Surprised to have visitors so early in, but you are very welcome here

I had a minor panic yesterday when I thought I saw a gnat. I was cursing jiffy pellets until I realized that, with only a week since popping, the life cycle of hatching eggs didn't add up. Lol. Stoner. Threw a sticky trap in to see if it would catch anything but its clean as a whistle.

So I'm about ready to pot up now. Plants are showing vigorous root development for a week and a day from seed:

 

[Reg Dixon]

View Image

Note: Plant A4 (herihaze) is notably more advanced than the others. Very leggy - looking like a sati seedling, with a long white leggy stem rather than the short red stems of the King Kong. $50 says A4 will be a male.

Decent bet The last male I grew looked that way. Very vigorous. Knew it all the way but didn't have the heart to chop until he showed me his tackle!

Enjoying following your action as it progresses....

 

[Mantra]

In this case, it was the right thing to do to cut the queen kong out of the husks. So anyway, a week in and I've had to pot up. I won't pot up again until they are sexed and I've picked my final 3. So I've whittled out a couple of slowpokes and gone with 20 seedlings - 8 herihaze and 6 each of the others. I don't like potting up this early but it's the plants' call. Watered them in with roots excel only. Too early to feed. I will now move from 24/0 to 18/6 tonight.

On a sad note, I had to buy some more roots excel for today, as my half bottle from 3 years ago just won't cut it now, I don't think

Hey Reg! Welcome aboard. Yeah, that is my thinking exactly.

 

[Mantra]

Not much to update on, but I will stick with weekly updates even when things are slow.

So another week in and the plants are growing ok. I'm just feeding them tap water and roots excel, by bottom feeding via the trays. I tip about 3 litres into each tray and let the coco wick it up. I will start running drip clean soon as well, but these guys don't need nutes yet. They're happy ticking along with what nature gave them. I've bottom fed them water twice now, and made an error with the first feed. Lazy me didn't check the PH of the water (I was in a hurry and didn't have time to calibrate my pen after 2 years of no use) and I noticed some slight twisting of the leaves as a result. When I PH'd the mix for the second watering it was at 7.2. Yeah, that'll do it. They are growing a tiny bit slower than I'd like as a result. Ha. Told you I'm rusty!

So a pic of the growth over the week:

And I did a roots check on two and they are filling the pots very nicely - diving down deep to the bottom and starting to head back up. Lots of fine hairs. Roots excel really is great stuff. The buried stems are shooting nicely too (I forgot to mention, but I put a tiny bit of clonex gel on the stems when burying them, partly to prevent rot and partly to stimulate roots there).

Other than that I'm just sterilizing the tent where they will veg and flower, and have ordered a couple of fire extinguisher balls from dealextreme - the kind that automatically burst and chuck powder all over the room should a fire happen.

 

[Finn McCool]

Hey Mantra looking good so far. i am a total beginner myself on my first grow. really want to use coco so will be interested in seeing how you go i have also invested in Blumats haven't used them yet will wait until next round as i will be doing 4 only doing 2 this first run, see how i fare. Looks like i will be able to learn a lot from hangin about here if you don't mind

 

[Mantra]

Hey Finn! Yeah, welcome aboard! Be sure to start your own grow diary here too so we can all help eachother out when things go pear shaped!

 

[mordecai]

Hey Mantra just checkin in on your shizz cos you were nice enough to stop in my thread and say hi. Your little babies look great! You seem like you're invested in this grow, and you've done your research so I think you'll be successful. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

 

[Mantra]

So im posting earlier than a week because I've had my first disaster. Two of the seedlings have been decimated by a pest attack.

I opened the little cab to take one plant out to photograph some discoloration under the microscope to better see what was going on.

I had the cab open for all of five minutes maybe. When I got back, the two effected plants were looking much sicker. The pest had struck suddenly and without mercy. One was entirely topped down to the first node, and the other lost one entire side.

Diagnosis: matrimonius felinium. My wife's #%^*ing cat.

This is not the first time it has done this. Stealthy little thing. If anyone knows of a treatment that would be effective please let me know. I'm thinking a shovel.

Had to share

Hey Mordecai!

Great community here. I used to be quite active on another board, but it's a regional one and I figured it's too high risk as the authorities must surely be watching it. I'm glad to have landed here.

 

[Reg Dixon]

So im posting earlier than a week because I've had my first disaster. Two of the seedlings have been decimated by a pest attack.

I opened the little cab to take one plant out to photograph some discoloration under the microscope to better see what was going on.

I had the cab open for all of five minutes maybe. When I got back, the two effected plants were looking much sicker. The pest had struck suddenly and without mercy. One was entirely topped down to the first node, and the other lost one entire side.

Diagnosis: matrimonius felinium. My wife's #%^*ing cat.

This is not the first time it has done this. Stealthy little thing. If anyone knows of a treatment that would be effective please let me know. I'm thinking a shovel.

Had to share

Hey Mordecai!

Great community here. I used to be quite active on another board, but it's a regional one and I figured it's too high risk as the authorities must surely be watching it. I'm glad to have landed here.

There is a possible solution. Someone else may know a bit more but if you were to collect some tom cat piss and smear it around the entrance to your grow area it may discourage your wife's cat.

After all now it has a taste it might be back for more!

 

[MadeInGermany]

... if you were to collect some tom cat piss and smear it around the entrance to your grow area it may discourage your wife's cat.

I think the plan was to discourage the cat from entering the grow room but keeping his wife in the process


Doing my second run with blumats and my first with blumats on coco right now. Going well so far.
Good luck with your grow! I'll be watching.