Beginner CFL growlog.. feedback appreciated!

Hey everyone.. I just thought I would start a little log to keep track of this plant that I have had vegging for 38 days. This is my first ever grow and I'm just looking for advice, suggestions, comments.. whatever anyone feels is necessary to keep this baby alive!! lol : This is an unknown bagseed. Wanted to get some experience for free, before I buy seeds online.

I started with 4 seeds, 3 of them didn't germ/sprout.. sooo here's my one and only. 'We' had a couple problems right before the transplant with some deficiencies around the 25 day mark, and they have cleared up now I think.. except for what I'm guessing is definitely Magnesium. def, and maybe a Phos? As I said, I'm a complete no0b to growing, although I've done tons of reading and research over the last year. So I'm thinking I will water with some Epsom salt next time.. what is a good amount? A teaspoon to a gal?

I was thinking about flipping her to 12/12 soon just because of my limited height. I have around 15 inches from the top of the pot to my lights. She's around 5 inches tall now with the bondage, 9 inches across, and you can see I've been LSTing her since Day 17. She's under 6 - 26 watt CFLs (6500K), for 156 watts.

Her first soil was a seedling starter mix/perlite, no nutes. Had her in a 2 liter bottle, but she quickly outgrew that and I transplanted her about 10 days ago. Right before transplant, she was in BAD shape, as you can see in the pic. She went into a 2 gal. pot of Scott's Premium Soil (7-4-3), I added Bone and Blood meal, with Perlite. I fed her with some Fish Emulsion and a couple drops of Superthrive. I think it kind of shocked her because growth stopped for about 5-6 days.. is that normal? But she seems to have perked up and has greened up and is producing new nodes and growing. I've only fed her twice pretty lightly, once after transplant and then again a couple days ago.

She's shown a little purpling on the leaf edges, especially on newer growth. The yellowing of older leaves has stopped, but I'm seeing leaf margins curling up so that's why I think it's a Mag. def. Or am I way off? lol.
Any advice for what was going on with those brown/yellow leaves? Like I said, that has stopped spreading and it hasn't effected any new growth as of now.. but I'd still like to know for future reference!

Here are a few specs, if any seem outta whack.. lemme know!

Temps: 83 day/75 night
Humidity: 45-55%.
PH is almost 7.8 outta the tap, so I have to lower if watering with plain water. When I added the nutes, it drops PH considerably to around 6.2. I tested the runoff last watering and it was around a 6.8, which i've read is optimal. Does the plant look like it was/is having a PH problem?
I water by the pot's weight.. I've been very careful to not overwater at any point.

Also, does this look Sativa to you guys? I know indicas have fatter leaves, so I was just wondering.. I can't really tell. Thanks everyone for any comments or advice, I appreciate it!!

Here's some pics:
Day 17, start of LST.


Day 29, Bad shape before transplant


The rest are from today, Day 38.

Great Start If you plan on flowering it you should get some red spectrum bulbs, (2700). I use 42 Watt CfL.

Uhm, are you sure it's a female, you may have a 38 day old dud. At least you've only spend 156 watts on it, compared t0 600 watts. If you don;t know what the sex is, you should change the light cycle ASAP so you can find out what you have. If you know it's a female, then you can veg for as long as you like without wasting time and money.

I've always started flowering after 2 weeks with success everytime, and only started vegging for 4 weeks recently when I was shut down. If I ever get out of here, my next grow will be 4 weeks veg. 2 weeks 24/0, and 2 weeks 20/4. I read somewhere that the plant prefers a few hours of dark and tends to grow a little taler/faster.

Canadian Thanks! Yeah, I already have 6 - 42 watt red spectrum bulbs ready for when I wanna switch to 12/12.

Facelift: No.. I don't know the sex of it yet.. hoping for a girl after I flip the lights. I guess I have a habit of saying 'her and she'...sending good karma its way. The only thing I'm worried about is this thing stretching way too much and outgrowing my cab, so I will switch to 12/12 soon.

I didn't have any set time on how long I wanted to keep it in Veg. Was kinda going by the size, because after this one small grow, I will only have time for one more full grow before I have to move out of my apt.. that's why the veg time didn't matter a whole lot for this one. But it's been a little over 4 weeks, so I thought of flipping it to 12/12 on Monday so I can finally find out if it's a boy or a girl.

I also read that plants like tons of light when younger, esp. the first 2 weeks.. will you just go straight from 20/4 to 12/12? I keep seeing people who taper down the light times gradually before totally going into flower.. like, 24 hrs of light, then 20, then 18, and then 16. I don't know what, if any, advantage this has, other than kind of following nature's own way ?? Thanks for the comments, I appreciate it!

no need to adjust, it works just as well to just switch it to 12/12 the day you want to start flowering

That's ok. You can't really determine the sex until they are old enough anyways. If you are having seed issues and are not too expensive, next time maybe you should start 2-3 times as many. Like I've said here or elsewhere. I have fresh seeds and have a 100% germ rate over the last few grows.

Good Luck. Hope it's a girl!

UPDATE.
And i think your plants getting burnt pull those CFL's a few inches back.. dont want those bitches to get burnt do you?

i dont know it looks like a great start to me. CFL's have to be close you know? i cant wait for an update, new pics. lets find out if its a girl. i shall be watching her!

Way to keep it alive man. Looks like you started your bagseed CFL grow just a few weeks ahead of mine. I'll be keeping an eye on your thread.

I hope you end up with a female.

Good luck

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I truly do appreciate it. BTW, I'm a chick.

Gruvy: Yeah, I thought I lost it there for a while.. the plant was looking horrible!!

I flipped the lights over to 12/12 today, so it was in veg for 42 days. Who knows how long it will take to flower, since it's unknown bagseed and looking sativa. From now on, I'll just be giving updates from the day I went to 12/12. Soooo... Day 1 of flower!! Now the excitement starts! Hopefully this baby turns out to be female!

I've got a Magnesium deficiency, I'm almost positive, so I'll be feeding her some Epsom salts tonight along with some veg nutes.

I don't think the plant was getting burnt by the CFLs, they stay pretty cool at the canopy and I've done the 'hand test'. I did have an incident the first couple weeks of this plants life of the CFL burning a couple leaves, but the bulb was actually touching the plant. So I've been making sure to keep the CFLs as close as possible without burning, cause I know CFLs don't have great light penetration. Those brown leaves in my first post, I never really figured out what caused that, although it's stopped after the second feeding.. it was only on 2 lower/mid fan leaves.

Next time I plan to germ/start with a lot more seeds, which was kind of my plan for this grow.. but the 4 I started, this is the only survivor. I can fit probably 6-7 LST'd vegging plants in my cab, 3 flowering girls, at most. And I'm out of bagseed (I never kept seeds, silly me), so next grow I will be ordering online. Anyone have suggestions on a good beginner strain that's pretty resilient? I was thinking NL..

There really isn't a lot of change in the plant as of today, except a little more outward growth, so no pics.

Just a few questions I have, if anyone can give me some answers, that'd be great!

1.) Do you continue to feed your veg nutes about 2 weeks into flower, then switch over to bloom nutes? I think I read that somewhere..
2.) How long after flipping to 12/12 will sex show? 1-2 weeks?
3.) LST can be continued right thru flower, up until harvest, right?

Well, that's all I got for tonight.. I'll update again in a couple days with some pics. Thanks again everyone! Rock on!

Hey seaside,

I think you might be over feeding a little bit.First you added nitrogen and phos to an already amended soil. Then you started using ferts right away. When growing in soil you need to remember that less is more. If it was me Id just give them plain water for a while and she will tell you when she's hungry.
As far as your first question, veg ferts should be used durring the streching phase of the flower cycle. then swich to flower ferts when budding starts. Pre flowers are strain and pheno type specific. After the strech lst is not nessesary because your plants wont get much taller.

Hey everyone.. Day 4 of flowering.. Just a little update.

I think I might have a GIRL on my hands!!!

Of course I'm a no0b.. I may be wrong, and before I get overly excited, can I get any confirmation on this? Those sure do look like female preflowers to me.. I noticed them when I was adjusting the bondage on the 'top' of the plant. They're the only preflowers I've found so far on the plant, newest growth at the top. What do you all think?

floroscroger: Thanks!! I took your advice and only fed with plain water last night and it seems she enjoyed it just fine. Should I feed her once more with some veg ferts next watering, before switching to bloom? I know you said less is more, but I just want to stay on top of any deficiencies before they happen.. as you can see in my first post, I waited too long to feed her and transplant.. I don't want that to happen again.

Not a whole lot has changed, I noticed after switching to 12/12, she's stretching a little bit. I've been tucking some of the larger leaves under to let some new nodes grow up and get some light. Fed her with just plain water last night when the lights came on. It's getting pretty bushy and is staying short, which is great cause I don't have a lot of height to work with.

I will probably untie her bondage in 2-3 weeks when she stops stretching, and plus I'm using this twine crap that gets all these lil strands/hairs in the plant's leaves and stuff. Don't want that getting in the way of the buds.. that is, if this is a girl. But then again, would keeping her LST'd throughout flower help the light penetration for any lower buds?

Will update again in a few days, hopefully with more preflowers showing!!

Here are the pics!!





Do you see what I see?

That sure looks like a gal to me seaside, have youu thought about a really good flushing? Im not much of a dirt dude so im not sure my advice is spound but at this point a flush sure seems like it would me like it would do her a world of good, maybe some one will chime in to explaing the best way to do that or just tell me im an idoit!!! Either way is fine with me i just wanna see her explode into a pot fullof buds for you. Wooooooooooooooooo Hooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


peace

bonz








~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nam myoho renge kyo!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes I see!!!! Congrats on the female.

If I were you I would still hold off on the ferts for awhile. If you feel like you just have to give them something you can add a tbls of molasses per gal of water This will ad potasium and lots of micro nutes. You could also ad any type of kelp product you can find. Humic and fulvic acidsare also good additives. They are completely organic and help the roots uptake the nutrients from the soil.Just stay away from the nitrogen for awhile and you'll do fine.

if i were you i dont know if i would add any nitrogen from here on out. That soil ur using probably has enough to keep it healthy. i run into that problem being all organic and using a grow bed i can just use water for weeks without signs of defficiancy.

peace

nitrogen will promote leaf/vegatative growth.

From here on out use nutes that are low in nitrogen

Hello again,

I've been meaning to tell you, (but I keep forgetting) ( It's a stoner thing) that I dont think your girl is a sativa. It's probably a hybrid but it looks to me to be growing more like an indica.Sativas are usually mor strechy looking even after lst.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates.. but this past week has been a lil hectic. Anyways, my girl is still a girl and I've named her Jade. lol

Day 11 of flower. Things have been goin fine with the plant so far.. I'm seeing more and more pistils developing all over. Getting bushier. I haven't fed her anymore (other than some Epsom salts) since she began flowering, as per the advice of some of you guys. I knew that I didn't want to overdo the Nitrogen, and you guys just confirmed that for me! Seems like she's still doing well.. however, I have noticed a couple things that maybe you all could help me out with.

First, the new growth seems like it's coming in a little 'claw' shaped. I don't know if this is normal or not; take a look at the pics. That was kind of happening earlier in her life, but it seems she always straightens out.

Second, the newer growth on the top of the plant, the leaves are curled a little under (check pic). My temps have been running a little high in the cab, getting up to 85-88 max, so is this heat related or something else? I just ordered a new fan that should be here next week, so temps will soon be under control.

Was thinking about feeding her the next watering (prolly in 3 days).. the only bloom food I have is Shultz Plant Food Plus, at 10-15-10.. it has micronutes. Is this an alright solution, or should I find something else?

Thanks for all the advice, guys! Every little bit helps! I was still kind of wondering if this was a sativa, but you're right, Floro, I knew sativas usually stretched a lot more. Who knows.. all I'm hoping for is to keep her happy and healthy, and she will repay me in the end!!

BTW, anyone have suggestions on some indica seeds? I'm planning on ordering from SB.. but I want a pretty resilient and hardy plant so I won't fark it up too much!

Pics:


Claw? Normal growth?

Leaves are curling under a lil bit

Hey girl nice to here from you,

Tell me a little more about your grow and I'll try to help you out.

1. What type of water are you using?

2. When you mixed the blood and bone meals to the soil, did you use it right away or did you let it compost?

3. Do you have any way to test ph?

4. How often do you water?

I still wouldn't give her any ferts yet, she wont need the bloom ferts until after the strech.You could give her some molases, they sell it in the grocery store where they have the pan cake syrup.

Here is a closeup of some bag seed I'm growing right now.

Hey they look good