The Doctor, White Widow, Super Bud and Purple Maroc (Coco)

[Synthesis]

Cheers D-RingBinder I look forward to seeing how you go with the doctor too. Be sure to post up a link for me to check out some time!


Day 34 -


I found out something cool I have been experimenting with lately.

You can manipulate your plants metabolism by using higher temperatures. In other words, speed up how fast they eat and grow by supplying a higher temp. The trick to this is by supplying adequate Co2 and heat making sure the light levels are decent and they should explode. If you are going to give them a higher heat, lower the humidity to 50-60% to encourage them to transpire.
I found that temperatures in the higher ranges 28-30 degrees celsius (82.4 - 86 degrees fahrenheit) to be most ideal.

Some plants might not like 30 degrees celsius so try to keep an eye on the upper most leaves and they will tell you if they're ok with it. If they show signs of stress, supplement more Co2 and they will handle it fine. If you don't have access to Co2 adequate ventilation would work also.

Here they are today this morning before being fed.

Fed with:

14ml Vitalink grow
2ml Calimagic
2ml Budlink
PH 5.8 / PPM 720

This feed should last about 2-3 days. I've been slowly amping up their feed rate to see how much they can tolerate before burning.

Temp: 20 degrees (winter has fully kicked in)
RH @ 60%

 

[KidKId]

How do you use your intake ports at the bottom? do you keep them open, or do you have some other way for air intake?

I keep two flaps open at the bottom, but I am nervous of little bugs getting in through the mesh.

 

[Synthesis]

For the passive intake flaps on the sides (in my tent there are 3) I have sealed them off completely because they create light leaks - definately not good for plants since they will cause hermies.

The other intake port is an 8 inch hole - from the outside I have covered it with an 8 inch bug screen I found on ebay. The bug screen has a screen and a carbon filter insert that can trap dander/hair/dust and insects from entering the tent.
On the inside of that port *within the tent* I have hooked up a 12cm adjustable fan with a panty hose covered over it for double protection from dust and bugs.
Just a tip: If you use a carbon filter set up inside your tent - having an adjustable intake fan will allow you to tweak the air intake so you can always create negative pressure. This maximizes the effectiveness of your carbon filter as positive pressure will mean smell leaks. Alternatively using a passive intake will also create negative pressure in a sealed environment so long as you have an extraction fan.

This set up is quite effective and so far there is minimal dust inside and 0 insects. Not even fungus gnats have been able to enter in (touch wood!) haha I do have some yellow sticky traps inside just to be sure.

 

[Synthesis]

Day 35 -

No signs of preflowers still. Hopefully in a week or two they should show some signs.

Here they are this morning.

I'd really like to flip them to 12/12 soon but I only have 3 x 11L air pots and I'm trying to figure out if any of these are males before I use the air pots on them

I might have to go get a couple more. I think for these sized plants even the 8L pots will do and would probably work better.

 

[Synthesis]

Day 36


I seem to have underestimated how quickly these plants are growing and may have to flip the switch on them soon anyway to account for size/space and lighting etc. I will transplant them into slightly larger pots and then let them settle in and then flip them into 12/12 this week at some time.

Here they are today.


EDIT: In the afternoon I transplanted all of the plants into 8 litre regular pots. I think that the 11 litre air pots would be overkill and felt that 8L pots are more than enough.

Here's a pic of some root porn - you can see the root development and they are looking quite healthy. I fed them with 14ml Vitalink Grow and 1/4 teaspoon of AN Piranha. Will try to dry them slightly to encourage the roots to take up home in their new space

 

[D-RingBinder]

Nice one dude. They're really starting to kick off in the last couple of days, ey. Good stuff. Keep it up.

 

[Synthesis]

12/12 SWITCH OVER STARTS TODAY

12/12 SWITCH OVER STARTS TODAY

Day 38 -

Day 38 marks the beginning of the switch over to 12/12. Here you can see them this morning before feeding.

Later on I will give them the highest feed dose they will have ever had to get them prepped for the bloom phase.

18ml Vitalink grow
2ml Budlink
1/2 tsp Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate

Temperatures are @ 8 degrees celsius and I may run into some problems during the bloom phase - but I'll do my best with our cold winter conditions.

The MH bulb will be kept on for another 2 weeks to help control stretching. Afterwards I will change the bulb over to HPS. I will also continue to use Grow nutes until the first signs of flowers appear.

 

[bluemountains]

Loving the journal so far, your plants look great

Your co2 maker is ingenious i think i will steal it, is it easy to make/maintain ?

 

[Synthesis]

Hello bluemountains and thanks for stopping by

Yes the co2 generator is very simple to make. It requires:

* 2 x bottles (one slightly larger than the other is good)
* air tubing (the non corroding, water resistant extra strength ones are good)
* sealant (i used silicone, but you're better off using a glue gun)
* active/brewer's yeast
* sugar
* something to make a hole with (preferably a power drill)


Start by drilling 2 holes in 1 cap and 1 hole in the other cap. Enough to be able to feed through the tubing.

The first bottle only requires 1 tube (in this first bottle you mix your yeast and sugar to ferment for co2 generation). This tube gets fed into the second bottle which must get filtered through plain water. The idea behind this second bottle is that the plain water will filter any alcohol off before it gets spread around your room. The by product of co2 generation with this method is also alcohol production (hence the need for bottle 2).

The 2nd tube from bottle 2 then goes to the back of your oscillating fan. The bottle generates co2 -> filters out alcohol with bottle #2 -> clear co2 then gets fed to your oscillating fan -> which then spreads over your plants to supplement their co2.

Make sure you seal off the caps where the tubing flows through for an air tight seal. Without an air tight seal this system becomes ineffective.

Doing this requires that you reduce your exhaust levels from the room to increase the PPM of co2 available to the plants. It is believed that plants can take in up to 1500 PPM of co2 and urban co2 levels are much lower than that - so that is why this system brings results.

In comparison with a proper tank co2 with a regulator, this setup is sub par but still does bring noticeable results I only needed to use it for a short while and I could tell the difference it made. My only issue with it is due to having the grow tent in my bedroom I would experience sharp headaches which suggests to me that the co2 levels were becoming too concentrated so I stopped using it after a while. So your mileage may vary.

If you don't have it in your personal bedroom or space then you should be fine. Keep an eye out on your humidity levels too if you use this because reducing exhaust also means an increase in humidity (unless you have a dehumidifier in your grow room)

Good luck!

 

[Synthesis]

Day 39 - Day 1 Flower

Here they are this morning. The Purple Maroc under the LED lighting stretched really badly overnight. I forgot to turn on the flowering switch for the LED and I wonder if that had a lot to do with it?

Anyway, the bloom switch on the LED panel was activated this morning.

I'm also seeing preflower development on one of the Doctor plants. It seems like a pointy looking baby calyx but I can't tell at the moment since it's still a bit early. Really hope for at least 4/5 females but we'll see how it goes!

My buddy also tells me not to use the MH bulb for the transitional flowering phase in winter since it will really delay the flowering process so I might switch over to the HPS soon. He also mentioned that indica doms don't stretch much anyway (around 25-50% max)

 

[Synthesis]

Day 40 (Day 2 Flowering)

Here they are this morning.

I have spotted female preflowers on 2 plants so far (The Doctor and a White Widow) Hopefully the others start showing sex within the next week or so.

Since preflowers are appearing I have also switched over to the Bloom formula.

Fed today with:

Vitalink Bloom 20ml / 9 litres
2ml Budlink
20mg Carbo Max
1/4 tsp Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate
1/4 top up dose of Advanced Nutrients Piranha

Starting from next week I will change the feeding schedule to Monday and Thursday are feed days. Sunday will be plain PH 5.8 water with only carbo max and budlink.

I have an air cooled hood coming in today so I will also change the light over from MH to HPS to speed up the initial bloom phase.

 

[Synthesis]

Day 41 (Day 3 Flower)


Here they are this morning.

I changed the lights over to HPS yesterday. The bad news though was my air cooled hood came with the glass completely shattered. In any case, HPS isn't really that hot so I'm not so worried for now. They'll send me a replacement of some sort.

You can see some cheeky roots coming through the bottom of these new pots already.

Like a jungle of worms out 'ere

We've been having some wet weather as of late and I'm waiting for my dehumidifer to arrive... I hope it gets here soon because the humidity in the tent at the moment is at 80%..

 

[Synthesis]

Day 42 - (Day 4 Flower)

Here they are this morning.

It's really cold over where I am with temps reaching 8 degrees celsius. I'm pretty sure the plants are suffering mild shock. I know that I am - Because I'm wearing 2 jumpers

Anyways - apologies about the photos. HPS lighting and photos just don't mix very well.

 

[D-RingBinder]

Sweet mate. Really filling out that space nicely.

And I hear ya re the cold temps. Now that's its winter, I have to have a small heater on in the room the tent is in during lights off.

And I call your 2 jumpers, and raise it to 4 jumpers,and two pairs of jeans. Lol. Im pretty skinny so the cold gets to me.

And yep, hps is a bitch when it comes to photography. I don't even bother anymore. I just take them out to be photographed. If I had a large number of plants though, I probably wouldn't bother.

 

[Synthesis]

Thanks D-RingBinder, they're appear to be filling the space out a bit more horizontal than vertical which is very cool. I really like the topping effect on these indica dom plants!

Here they are on:

Day 43 - (Day 5 Flower)

Fed them this morning with 700 PPM:

30ml Vitalink Bloom
2ml Budlink (this stuff seems to make stems and branches really tough! really good if you're doing any sort of training LST/Scrog etc)
2ml Calmag (last week of using cal mag)
20mg Carbo Max (to feed the benes and to boost up carbohydrates for the plants)
PH @ 5.8

The grow tent smells like spices and coffee. I like the aroma they put out and I find that I keep opening up the tent... sitting there and taking in the nice aromas hahaha I can't wait to see how they go.

 

[Synthesis]

Day 44 (Day 6 Flower)

Instead of giving you the standard group shot I thought I would pull out my 2 favourites from the grow tent.

White Widow from Female Seeds have been my favourite of the bunch as they display vigorous growth and excellent resistance to heat and cold. Both of these plants are also female - easily identified from their pre-flowering pistils.

White Widow #1:

White Widow #2:

Here's a close up of the area where I topped them:

I wish I had the room to keep them in this LST'd position but I don't so I only trained them for a short while and chopped the chains.

 

[Synthesis]

Checking on the plants today I notice a couple of the leaves had this:

It looks like some form of brown rust fungus or possibly phosphorus deficiency? It's appearing on the upper leaves mainly. Unsure exactly what it was so I flushed the plants with plain water + magnesium @ PH 5.8 and hit them with my portable UV machine and increased the air intake for better air circulation.

If it is fungus I'm hoping the UV device will kill the spores. Here's to hoping! =.=
I will feed them tomorrow after inspecting them again.

 

[IslandGrown]

Great job training them man!!
I'm always too scared to top or fim but you did a great job with it

 

[Synthesis]

Hi IslandGrown - thanks for popping in after this exercise I don't think I'll ever be scared of topping or fimming anymore. It really helps to keep the plants short and squat. I encourage you to experiment with it and I'm sure you'll be quite pleased with the results.

Maintaining the standard apical dominance for plants is preferred if you have high wattage and ample lighting. But for the smaller and lower wattage lights it's good to top/fim and train (usually people prefer to scrog with weaker lights but I wanted to see how it would go without scrogging to establish some sort of base line to compare with)

Here they are today:

Day 46 (Day 8 Flower)

I'm going to start trying to feed them every second day and on sunday feed them with the plan ph'd water. Hopefully this will give them the much needed boost to begin true flowering.

Fed this morning with:
27ml Vitalink Bloom
1/2 tsp Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate
20mg Carbo Max
PH 5.8

I'm pretty sure the Purple Maroc is female as it's starting to show that pointy pre-flower looking baby calyx but I'm not 100% sure. The other 4 plants have all got pistils though so that's a good sign

Really need my humidifier to get here soon as I want to start dropping the humidity levels to prevent mold/fungus as our winter is very cold, the temperatures averaging under 10 degrees celsius at night.

 

[Synthesis]

Day 47 (Day 9 Flower)

I received a very cool tip from a growing buddy and he mentioned that you can take better photos under HPS lighting by putting a pair of sunglasses in front of the lens as you're taking the photo.

I tried it this morning with awesome results. The colours appear much more natural (I did have to modify slightly in photoshop but I think it came out fantastic)

Here they are this morning. There are a lot more pistil formations happening at the moment.

The purple maroc I can't seem to tell if it's female or male now since the preflower is looking rounder than the others... I hope it's female but it's a bit too early to tell at the moment... here's to hoping !

I also got my dehumidifiers yesterday and have put them into the room. They're keeping the room nice and snug @ 27 degrees celsius with an RH of 74% atm which is still a bit high but mainly due to our wet winter weather.