my whatever I've got growing thread

[growbig789]

2014, happy new year!

Well I open up the cab every couple days and sure enough everythings still growing. Still having problems with leaf curl, mainly the top leaves and its not strain dependent, just about all the plants are doing this to some degree. This one is a c99 x headband.

So I figured its about time to try to get this figured out.. I had some time and went through and up-potted just about all of them to 1g or close to 1g pots. The starter pots were pretty small and I just don't think the moisture retention with the mix was enough. Combined with the t-5s and I think maybe the leaves just weren't able to suck up enough moisture.

Also fired up a pair of shop lights in the bottom flower cab and moved as many as I could down there to see if that environment suits the plants to get them feeling a little better. Plan is to sex them out as I can, take cuts, and eventually get the hps turned on.

 

[growbig789]

Hmm the leaf curl thing is starting to bug me a bit I do think its getting slowly better on the plants I put under the shop lights vs t5s. Weird.. I even checked the ph runoff of one of my pots! I haven't really had any ph problems since going organic/living soil. But it was at about 6.25 to 6.5 so I don't think thats an issue. If anyone who checks this knows something, please let me know what you think!

 

[wildgrow]

Have you eliminated the possibility of bugs? Whats your rh in there - since you thought the air was too dry?

 

[growbig789]

Rh is 25 to 50% most of the time.. and I can't say I've taken the loupe to the affected leaves looking for bugs but I haven't noticed any typical signs of bugs.

 

[wildgrow]

Got room for a shallow dish of water?

 

[growbig789]

Got room for a shallow dish of water?

thanks for the suggestion man.. I gave it a try in my upper cab and I did notice it seemed a bit more moist (I don't have an rh meter in there tho). Not a miracle cure it seems but I don't think it hurts

Well at this point I feel like it must have to be something in or some property of the mix thats prompting the leaf curl and problems getting moisture to the new growth leaves. No bugs... I've just been thinking they are gonna grow out of it pretty soon, but its not really happening. Some worse than others and some not too bad and seem to be getting better.

So lets see... so far I have run several times through with my recycled soil and have done fine indoors and out. So this time I took my base reycled mix and added some fresh peat moss (which I haven't done before), perlite, compost, and a few other organic ammendments measured in at reasonable amounts. So the peat was the only new addition and I wouldn't think that would cause any problems, it should make things better? The consistency of the soil seems good and when I transplanted the starts to 1g the roots looked fine and seemed developed about normal.

Ok so maybe the soil is a bit too hot? Don't see any burning on tips or anything, other than the curl the plants look good. Haven't had any problems with any of my ammendments before. PH seemed good, runoff a little on the acidic side (6.25-6.5) but from what I understand that should be fine? Hmm.. just kinda stumping me. If I really want to figure it out I should probably get the mix tested and see if theres like some glaring imbalance or deficiency or something.

This is a side by side of one looking pretty good vs one of more affected plants (girl by the way!)

Yah I was able to go through and start sexing... pretty good female ratio so far! close to 1/2 seem female, 1/4 male, and 1/4 can't tell yet. So I'm excited about having a nice little pool to pull from! Yah Wild I'm with you on the growing from seed thing. You just know you are gonna find that one special lady some day, always nice to be working with something fresh too. Clones too though, especially clones of YOUR mommas

 

[wildgrow]

Does the new growth start curled? Theyre crinkled as well, so it could be a genetic thing. Almost looks like theyre reacting to a high heat source from below. Overall growth doesn't seem affected. Im stumped too - but that's not too hard to do.

 

[growbig789]

Yah its mostly in the tops and the newer growth starts curling small and then grows out and gets bigger but stays curled on the edges to varying degrees. Many of the lower branches look fine after having some curl when they were younger. So I don't know... Well I'll just keep working with them and maybe try to root cuttings and put some in a different mix. Its all good

 

[growbig789]

No bugs... yah thats what I said above a couple times. Let me rephrase, no bugs that I've had the experience of dealing with before.

Ok so I'm not 100% sure yet that its bugs but it might be. So I've read in various threads here and there and heard about broad mites being a problem, especially out here in CA during this last outdoor season. The symptoms and indications of damage from broad mites includes leaf curl and focuses on tops and new growth from what I understand. I've seen pics of plants in several threads that look eerily similar to what I've got going on. It would make sense that if my mix had the critters in there somehow that they could have taken hold on just about all the plants.

Only problem is that I haven't been able to verify it yet. If it is broad mites, they are very hard to see. Tiny, and even with breaking out the 30x loupe I can't say for sure that I even see anything. I cut off an affected top from a male plant and really tried to check it out but nothing conclusive. I ordered a somewhat cheap usb microscope that supposedly goes up to 200x digital so when that comes hopefully I can know for sure! plus maybe I can take some cool close up pics of some buds with it

Anyways in the meantime just in case that is the issue I broke out the hot shot no pest strip, shut down ventilation, and let the cabs get a good exposure to that noxious poison. Yah since I've gone more green it does make me cringe a bit using the strips, but... they're all vegging and I just leave them in till the job is done and then take them out. Plus I've read that the dicholorvos breaks down in a relatively short period of time. I've had results getting rid of thrips and spider mites with them and in the right application they seem to be a nice tool for pest control.

If its broad mites, I'll probably start neem apps too in order to get things under control. I almost kinda hope thats what it is just so I can diagnose the problem and get it under control. If thats not what it is, then I guess I'm back to being stumped! happy and healthy growing to everyone...

 

[growbig789]

Got my USB microscope, checked out some leaves... It was still difficult to see any broad mites, and I still am not sure if I saw any. I know they are small but I came to the conclusion that the little white bumps on the leaves were young trichs or plant structure. I saw a few different things that looked like maybe they were broad mites but its not like the leaves were covered with them or anything. Then again I had the no pest strips hanging alternating between cabs for a couple days already so maybe they died? Heres a pic I took

So I don't know... just seems like its a good possibility its broad mites from the way the plants look. I culled a few males and looked at the roots and everything underneath looked fine. So I also did a neem with lavendar and dish soap spray and also watered all the plants with aspirin diluted in the water. Will plan to spray again in 3 to 5 days. Picked this idea up here on icmag from this thread

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=246324

So we'll see if this does anything to help out! Also read (again here) that safer garden fungicide with wettable sulfur is a good option for the broad mites. Working through the kinks here

 

[growbig789]

Well its been a couple weeks and time just seems to fly by... Hopefully ALL my loyal followers haven't given up on me hah Hey its not about the number of views and I don't have to get a bunch of comments but its just nice to put it out there to share with similar minded people, people that love the herb! But thanks people for checking out what I have going, thx wildgrow for always sayin hi. BTW I am trying out your upside down rapid rooter style for a recent round of cuts...

So yah I've been pretty busy off and on and really recently getting things back on track, and thankfully so far its looking good! I kept up the three prong approach of using the no pest strip occasionally, along with neem/lavendar sprays and aspirin in the water a few times. Plants are looking better, and I hope they stay that way. The crinkling and slow growth has got significantly better on almost all the plants. So I'm crossing my fingers, I think it must have been broad mites... just seems the most likely thing. I'll prob keep that regimen up for another week or two and then adjust as FLOWERING kicks in.

Yah thats right, going 12/12 in a couple days! Got the plants whittled down to 9, up-potted to 2 gal containers, cut back a bit and ready to go. Compost tea soil drench and foliar and up-potted into soil with some organic flowering ammendments and they should be good to go. HPS up and running, bye bye shop lights!

This whole plant issue messed up my plans a bit and the plants are a little bigger than I would have liked with that many! Its gonna be a tight squeeze but I'm gonna go for it. I can prune alot if I need to.. Selection is priority over yield for sure. Although if I need room I'm thinking about trying to flower a few under the 200w of the t5s... might be cool to try!

So for now this is the lineup under the hps.

Green Love Potion x1
Cotton Candy Kush x1
Mosca C99 x Maui Waui 1 - x3
Mosca C99 x Maui Waui 2 - x2
GN C99 x Headband - x2

I'm excited... and high right now so you know how it is, but yah it feels good to get things looking better and on track to be checking out some new flowers! So thats pretty much caught up to where I'm at, I'm gonna post some pics of the individual plants for the record in another post... Happy growing to everyone, happy bday Mr Marley i'm enjoying some of his work tngt

 

[OakyJoe]

Quite nice Sir!

 

[growbig789]

Thanks OakyJoe...

Alright so now that I got things narrowed down here's a closer look. These are Mosca C99 x Maui Waui 1, and I have 3 of them. The Maui mother had more of a stony component to the high than #2 and different smells, not as fruity a little bit more skunky. Real unique looking plant while flowering, many long white hairs.

Mosca C99 x Maui Waui 2... The mom Maui of these was my favorite that I had intended on keeping, so I'm hoping one of these is a gem. We'll see!

These are GN C99 x Headband (clone from Blue Sky Oakland). I can't remember which actual cut it was, it had some area code number after the headband but I don't remember which one... whatevs But what I do remember is that the mom grew with some intense vigor and just about outgrew my cab. So I had to trim these back a bit and I do see the headband in them.

Last we have the Green Love Potion (left) and Cotton Candy Kush (right). I have no idea about either of these or what to expect but they were fem freebies so we'll see!

 

[OakyJoe]

Very nice Maui you got!

 

[wildgrow]

Damn man! Got yourself geared up Cant wait for the final act.

 

[growbig789]

Very nice Maui you got!

Thx, hope she keeps looking better and better!

Damn man! Got yourself geared up Cant wait for the final act.

Thx wild, yah me too I can't wait... the anticipation of sticky flowers never gets old!

Well its been about 11 days since my last pics, technically I guess this is the 10th day of 12/12. Things are poppin... and I'm rapidly running out of room. I'm gonna have to get creative quick plus realistically prob gonna have to do some selective trimming, cuz its a jungle in there! That HPS, compost tea, up-pot, are all helping to get the ladies looking really nice. They are teasing starting to pop more pistils here and there and just starting to show the first signs of flower.

Sprayed again neem/lavendar/soap just for preventative, no more probs yet everything is just really looking great. Also did give them all a haircut, cleaning up lowers and some small shoots. All my cuts rooted this time, gotta say so far the rapid rooters seemed to work pretty handy!

Just for a comp, these are the c99 x maui 1 11 days after previous pics

And a future c99 x Headband top

 

[OakyJoe]

the c99 x maui are really fast

 

[growbig789]

Things are going pretty good overall... plants are looking real healthy, but space is a real challenge. This run has got me missing LST... thought I could start them small enough that training wouldn't be needed, but that schedule got interrupted. Oh well, they look great and they have like tripled in size in just over 2 weeks.

I haven't been able to bring myself to cutting any tops off yet but I think I'll be forced to take off a few more branches and still cut them back some. For now I've tried to stake/tie them back away from the light a bit and route them up towards the top of the cab. It could work if they can slow on the vertical growth soon. We'll see.. but this is prob the last pic of them all out of the cab together. I don't know how they all fit in there, well they don't really but hey I want to be accomodating

This one is a little blurry but kinda shows how the early flowers are forming.

 

[silver hawaiian]

 

[growbig789]

Yah I really did have some doubts about being able to flower 9 pretty vigorous, from seed, untrained, 2g plants in that small of a cab. And depsite that I tried anyways Well after another week its obvious i had to adjust something. The canopy was getting so dense around the lights that light penetration to the rest of the cab and esp the corners was not very good. And the leaves/flowers closest to the light were too close and being impacted. So all around it was just not working out to be able to give each plant a fair shot to see what stands out.

So I either had to cut them back drastically, which would mean taking prime tops off, or get them out of the cab. I just cringe at the idea of having to chop these back now, so outside it is... The sun angle is starting to get better and my makeshift greenhouse is getting several hours of morning sun, and more every day. Its not prime full sun, but I think it will work out pretty well considering the alternative. I had some time this weekend to get it back in working shape outside, but still have a bit of things to do. One thing is I'm gonna try and light dep it to offset the lengthening days. Plan is to just tarp it around 5 or 6 in the evening, remove it before i go to bed.

Anyways heres how it looks now... and a C99 x Headband bud, most of the plants flowers seem to be on track and pretty similar in development so far...

Rooting cuts of these plants went well, 100% rooted and i took 2x each just in case. Transplanted the 1 set of each to have for any keepers, but still have the other extras in rapid rooters. When I have the time, hopefully soon, figured damn might as well throw these in 1g and then into the flower cab... thats more likely to give me the size I can handle inside! So all in all i'm feeling good about whats going on

So I'm kinda pushing the limits of what my little setup can contain, but hey its fun and its nice to be able to have a little flexibility cuz I love growing in and out. These days it just seems more and more of my time just needs to be in other places, but I'm glad I still get the time to squeeze this in. Happy growing....