AF-AK-47 beginner grow

[OPT]

Lower the light to around 20 inches above the top of the plants.....put your hand there, and hold it there for a min. If your hand gets uncomfortably hot, then it's too hot for the plants.

Plants that are burnt will ...look burnt. Tissue will start to die...and there maybe some cuppleing of the leaves. You should be able to tell.

OPT

 

[coredump]

I lowered the lights to 18 inches turned the fan up a notch and opened the window so the cold Midwest air could pour in. Temps are at 82. Per recommendation from a friend over at bubblebag.com, I picked up Big Bloom from Fox Farms. I mixed a 1/2 cup with a gallon of water and watered them last night. Right after that, I shut off the lights for 4 hours. The flowers seem to have grown at least a half inch since I last checked them. The fan leaves finally perked back up. The smaller 5-set leaves on each side of the flowers are pointing down now. I braced up the potters so they are all the same canvas height.

 

[OPT]

As long as your not adding more light, the temp in the grow room itself should not raise at all. It sounds like your are taking the temps right undernetith the light itself?

Basically plants can handle as much heat as we can, that's why I suggested that hand test, if it's not burning your skin, it won't burn theres, I use a 400 and can keep it at a foot if i wanted without burning. I guess there is always a possiblitly that your lamp runs hotter at the point of the bulb then mine, but just fuck around with it a little. By all means, if your plants start to burn, then put it back up, some bud is better then zero bud!

OPT

 

[livewire420]

i got a buddy running auto diesel/rider 20 on 4 off with great success.

 

[arcticsun]

hiya there, healthy looking plants you have there, you are doing great. you got some talent i can tell.


pot size looks fine, they arent going to get much bigger. mostly they will just put on weight from now on. expect them to want more water and more food as you enter the next weeks because they will put on much weight. you may have to water every second day, which is normal with healthy rapid growing plants. dont worry if they drink alot, it just means they are healthy and growing. keep the pots nice and moist all the time from now on, dont let them run so dry that the leaves start hanging. but dont water so often that the plant cant drink up in between feedings. you want the pot to go light, but not dry if you know what i mean.

oh and watch out for giving too much light, no need what so ever to BBQ your plants. if you can feel the radiation heat with your hand its too hot! if the leaves turn yellow and look bleeched, its too much. my 400w delivers enough light and then some at a good 2 feet from the canopy. 10k lumen is optimum, after that you risk damage to your plants and your electric bill. im now switching from 2x600w to 4x250w due to the radiation heat and bleeching damage ive seen from my 600w's.

peace n pot, merry christmas!!

 

[coredump]

-=day 44=-

-=day 44=-

Lights at 18 inches. Lower fans cut off due to major yellowing and drying up. The upper fans are so fat. I think they just weren't getting the light they needed. Waterring is taking place every other day.

Nutes Using Fox Farms Big Bloom. Dumped a 1/2 cup into a gallon of water a few days back. (in accordance with the instructions on the label.) I had the wife pick it up from Brew and Grow. A 32oz bottle was around 17$ and I was happy with the price. I'm planning on using the fertilizer once a week. 2 tbsp to a gallon of water. What do u think?

Below are a few pics of the lusciousness, the very purpose of my endeavor. While the hairs are downright gorgeous, I'm a bit saddened by the lack of trics. When do these start taking shape? The only snow I see is when I look out the window. :-(

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Thanks for all the feedback on this grow guys. It's all highly appreciated.

 

[coredump]

UPDATE: *lint removed from that bud with forceps.... sorry yall

 

[coredump]

I figure I have roughly 30 days left til harvest. So I am starting my second grow in the same room. I will start a second grow diary in the "grow diaries" forum once they pop their little heads up. These seeds were freebies from the Attitude Seedbank.

DNA Lemon Skunk fem'd
DNA Hash Haze fem'd

one each

My setup for germinating is as shown below. I got a 100% germ rate with it on the current grow, so I'm doing it the same way again.


The white thing under the bowl is a waterproof heating pad.

I put my huge ass popcorn bowl over the whole thing and cover that with a few bath towels to keep out the lights ffrom the plants next to them. I'll remove the towels and transplant them once they pop.

Back to playing the waiting game. . . lol

 

[arcticsun]

expect trichs around 3-4 weeks after you see the first hairs.: D patience.. patience hehehehe. they will come if you have faith and care for it

Id need to see the whole plant again in order to determine if loosing the leafs are caused by any type of deficiency or other type of damage. Usually its not a good sign when you start loosing them. But it happens really fast if the pot runs dry for example, seems the plant starts sucking moisture out of the fanleafs first to stay alive.

You may want to consider giving some night hours from now on if you havent allready or they may suffer from saturation of the photosynthetic cells and ultimately stunted growth. This will display as bleeched looking plants at first and ultimately in the death of fanleaves. This is due to a process called leaf senescence where cells in the leaves which are overexposed to light die off and the plants starts using resources to replace these cells with new and better ones. Kind of a plant intelligence in my eyes. The plant is not reproducing fanleaves in the late flowering stages, and thus the process leads to much energy loss both in the process of reprogramming itself and also because the cells that died off would have provided a greater potential for energy capture. Any such damage will also cause adaptations in potential offspring. In short tho, fanleaves=good

This is merely a headsup tho, because i cannot see that any such bleeching damage is present in the pictures you have shown. It looks quite ok to me.

Reason why i adviced against repotting by the way is that autos are known to be particularly sensitive to repottings. Exactly why this is, I dont know, but so ive heard. Once flowering is initiated the stretch and root reproduction slows down alot as all available resources is directed towards the reproductive flowers. This is why its important to try to maintain the rootmass one has aquired throughout the flowering cycle. Not letting the small fragile roots die off due to drought is key to high yields and succulent buds.

Please someone arrest me here if im wrong about things.

peacenpot

 

[coredump]

Took a couple shots of a few of the plants under a regular bulb. House is a mess. Pardon my slop. The grow room is far cleaner, I promise.

another.

A close up of a fan leaf. I wouldn't pull this leaf off as it is still functional. The ones I pulled off were all the way on the bottom and have dried up, half yellow.

The potters are on the light side and are about to be watered. I examined the bottom of the potters and have seen no signs of roots popping through, so I have no current wish to transplant them. I prefer not to anyways.

 

[arcticsun]

They look healthy to me m8, they have that nice shine to the leaves.
What tiny damage is done to those lower leaves in the pics could be from anything. Running alittle dry is the most common thing i guess. For now i dont see anything worth worrying too much about. Id leave the fanleaves on for as long as possible. The plant stores nutes in the fanleaves which can be transported around and used if needed.

If anything they look to have the correct ph and appear to me as healthy. Maybe a tiny bit hungry or thirsty?

You should normally be giving steadily increasing amounts of flowering nutes for the first 4-5 weeks after you see the first hairs. In the stage you are in, a healthy plant should demand more and more water and nutes every day. Try to keep up, but dont overdo it. max EC of no more then 1,7. Give ph'd water w/no nutes regularly.

hope this helps m8, you are doing great for a first-timer. peacenpot -Arcticsun

 

[data]

looking really nice i will be following this one.

 

[dkmonk]

They look like they might not be getting all the micronutes. They don't look bad at all, but I think you were talking about the discoloration.

 

[coredump]

Lower, older fan leaves are turning severely yellow from the generators. The veins are bleached badly. After researching this issue, it appears I have a magnesium deficiency. http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=75 I am picking this up today in hopes that it will fix the problem.

 

[coredump]

All fan leaves are neon yellow now. I think I may have been wrong about the Mg shortage. I may have over-fertilized it. :-( I flushed it with 2 gallons of pure water this morning and plan to do the same thing again later this evening before I shut off the lights. I hope this improves its condition. I have lost several crucial fan leaves. It's an AF so every single fan is of the utmost importance. My poor girl. What did I do to u?

The other plants are doing just fine and are starting to get a shimmer to them. I'll post pictures of them within a day or two.

 

[arcticsun]

ohnoes, best thing to do in a situation like this is to keep cool. Dont try too many remedies until you know what is causing it. Dont panic m8

I am not accustomed to the nute product line you are using, but my guess is that if it is a designated cannabis product that it contains sufficient magnesium. If it is not a designated cannabis product then I would reccomend purchasing such a product. IF you use a cannabis product i suspect the cause of the problem may lie elsewhere. If i may contribute with some descriptions of common problems related to mag deficiency and what causes it, I hope it could help alittle atleast.

Magnesium lockouts occur in soil PH values below 5,6 and above 6,5 (roughly). PH lockout of magnesium is one of the more common reasons for mag def in plants.

In cases of over-fertilization its common that unexploited salts build up in the medium and cause acidic soil. IF in such cases one chooses to flush hard with water one may cause the built up salts to release from the soil and causing even more acidic soil.

In cases with PH lockouts its common for the gardener to try to treat the symptom which is magnesium deficiency by adding more magnesium. The cause however of the problem remains untreated and it leads to a further build up of nutes in the medium which the plant cannot utilize.

My suggestion would be, given that I really think your flower nute product has sufficient mag to avoid such damage you are describing. If you think the problem is caused by over-fertilizing initially, that you give enzyme and water and monitor your runoff EC and PH carefully.

PH is your most important variable to monitor for mag, it should be around 6,2 in soil grows. This is very important as the plant is very sensitive to PH.

 

[coredump]

-=update=-

-=update=-

My problem child. . .

the other side of it..

However, check out the bud. Same plant. It doesn't seem to be suffering.....yet. Will it?

Here is the entire grow. My hash-haze and the lemon skunk popped up. Since they aren't AF's, I transplanted them directly into 3 gallon pots.

I appreciate all the feedback I'm getting. I'm trying to learn from this all and become better at it.

Nutes used as-to-date:
I have given http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=188 <------That twice during the entire grow. First time I diluted 1/4 cup into a gallon of water, second time I fed them, the mixture was 2 tsp into a gallon of pure water.

The Cal-Mag product http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=75 was used once. I used 1 tsp into a gallon of water.

 

[arcticsun]

ahh.. great pictures and descriptions mate. Now I dont think its general mag def. Its perhaps general underfeeding actually. They look nitrogen deprived aswell.

Did I understand you correctly if you said you have only fed them the Big Bloom Foxfarm nutes twice?

ingredients that offer a full, balanced range of nutrients. Norwegian kelp improves nutrient uptake and increases yields

Its a full nute product which should have all the needed nutes. I think you just have to simply feed more often. Love the Norwegian kelp ingredient btw hehe, since im from Norway hehehe.

Do you have an EC-meter or ppm-meter? You should be feeding them 2 out of 3 times you give water. At the current stage of growth you are in you should be giving in the range of 1-1,5 EC or around 500-800ish ppm 2/3 or 3/4 feedings. If the plants are growing rapidly and look healthy, then one gives additives like cal/mag in addition. One should not be giving additives to unhealthy plants imho..

peacenpot

 

[coredump]

Yes, I have fed them that twice since they began flowerring. They have been in this stage for approximately two weeks. During veg state, I fed them this. http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=707 due to the higher nitrogen content.

I'm not sure what a EC meter is. So I'm gonna guess I dono't have one. Tools I'm using are a digital thermometer and humidity gauge, and a "PH Rapitester" stick. Both these items are sitting on the soil of one of the three gallon pots in the picture above.

One should not be giving additives to unhealthy plants imho..I'm not sure what a EC meter is. So I'm gonna guess I dono't have one. Tools I'm using are a digital thermometer and humidity gauge, and a "PH Rapitester" stick. Both these items are sitting on the soil of one of the three gallon pots in the picture above.

One should not be giving additives to unhealthy plants imho..

So no cal-mag ur saying? That means the flush I did this morning was actually counter-productive. crap. :-( lesson learned... So start slowly feeding them the Big Bloom then? Will the larger fans "green" up again or is this plant too far gone? I have just under 30 days til harvest.

My family came from Norway. We even have a section of land named for us up in the hills. ;-)

 

[arcticsun]

First things first, I always enjoy hearing about Norwegian heritage people abroad 98% of the country is mountains tho so up in the hills didnt reveal too much hehehehe Im sure you have some of that Norwegian patience too in your genes so growing should come naturally.

EC refers to electric conductivity, when you have salts in the water it leads electricity better and one can measure the salt content with such a EC-meter. Its usually a hand held pen-like meter with a digital display which cost around pff i think 35 dollars or so. Ppm is a different measuring system, ppm refers to parts per million. Im not sure exactly what parts they are referring to because ive always used an EC device. You can manage without a meter by sticking to the product information on the flask, but my honest experience is that the reccomendations of amount of product written on the flasks are often inflated to make you use more and run out of product.


Feedingwize .. the flush shouldnt have done any particular damage, it may have removed some stored nutes. But no biggie. Im not sure if they will regain the color in the fanleaves at this stage anymore, it seems once the plant has initiated flowering it doesnt store nutes as much in the fanleaves as it did during veg. It doesnt put that big of an effort into restoring them it seems.

I would start feeding every watering from now on, give ph'd water every 3-4 time or so depending if you think they look hungry or not. Just to give the plant a chance to utilize built up nutes. Then once you see it starts to regain rapid growth pattern again, you could give alittle cal/mag in addition. Most important i think is for another coupple of weeks to give plenty of full nute product as they will gain much weight from now on. Cal/mag, I would lay off it until i see that explosive budding starting.

Your girls look alittle starved is my guess, have you started giving any night hours yet?