First Time Grow - 2 x Nirvana Freebies - 1 x White Widow - 1 x Pineapple Punch

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pH Control:

I've added peat moss to my soil when I repotted to 3 gallons, its probably around 65% potting mix, 15% perlite, 10% peat moss. Peat Moss should have a pH of 4ish, I think, and should help lower the pH of my soil. I'll measure the pH of my next watering run-off.

EPIC FAIL super soil attempt:

If you're doing the math, the % don't add up to 100. The other 10% consisted of random mix of crap. There were Bone Meal (8 8 1), something that claims to be Bat Guano (0 18 0) and Fish Meal (9 3 0). Didn't look at the NPK until after I randomly mixed it into my soil, and THERE IS NO K! I'm going to have to go find some potash ferts asap....

So far, the plants seem to be healthy, although the bigger leaves seem to have turned a little darker shade of green. Does this indicate any deficiency? It is currently day 15 since sprout, and the plants haven't stretched at ALL! Even before LSTing, the biggest plant was no more than 2.5 inches tall. The internodes are super tight though. I'll post some pics of them in a few days when I next water them.

MORE SEEDS!!! (also EPIC FAIL)

I'm also trying to add a few more seeds, but I have failed miserably with 4 seeds. They have all rotted in the soil due to overwatering/overheating I think... Germinating 3 more seeds now, no more fancy heat source/too much care. This time it will be a water soak until crack, then transplant to plastic cup with a light/moderate misting of the upper layer of soil, then IGNORE them for 24 hours at a time and let nature do its work.

Smells and Exhaust fans:

For new stealth growers out there who are worried about smell (I was one of them), none of my plants smell at 15 days, only a nice fresh plant smell if you put your nose close. My tomato plant leaves smell more than these guys. I'll be sure to keep updating the smells of the plants as they grow, hopefully someone would find this information useful!

My current exhaust fan is a 14 watt 4 inch fan, moving 62 cfm of air, which is taped directly to my filter with the outtake sticking out of the tent (no bends or ducting at all for maximum efficiency). The tent is less than 30 cf, so the air is changed 1-2 times per minute (after using those multiplier factors). My reasoning is that this lower powered fan is much more quiet, and might as well save a bit on electricity (these things tend to add up over time).

I have a more powerful 4 inch centrifugal fan that uses 75 watts, moving 168 cfm, which I plan to use during flowering, to create more negative air pressure to ensure odors do NOT escape. This fan is MUCH louder, and I'll be hooking it up to a speed controller to get the best balance between sound level and odor control.

Lighting situation:

My 200w LEDs have been sitting about 4 ft above my very short canopy for about a week now. I initially used the adjustable strap things that came with the gorilla tent to keep my lights around 2 ft above the canopy at seedling stage, but as there were only 2 straps, I had to use them to hold up the carbon filter. The LEDs are now hanging on the support cross bars at the top of the tent. I had ordered the adjustable rope things and timed it to arrive with my tent, but after 3 weeks, the seller never shipped it and refunded the money. Re-ordered somewhere else, and it should be arriving within the week.

One thing that surprised me was that during the week, even though the LEDs were sitting far above the recommended height (18-28 inches) my plants never stretched! I assumed that plants not getting enough light tend to stretch and grow tall and weak to get closer to the lights. I'm wondering if genetics got something to do with it, or whether the LEDs are pretty efficient even at double the recommended height. The White Widow should be sativa dominant, so I expected this to have stretched, but it stayed as short and wide like the indica dominant pineapple punch.

Looking ahead:
Growing is super fun, and I am already looking forward to the next grow! My next grow will be non-autoflowers, with at least 4 different strains. One of them is going to be the Girl Scout Cookies from Cali Connection. Can't wait for 3 months to harvest the current batch! LOL.

 

[Tomula]

I've had 100% germination success with cotton pads and rockwool cube. Ph of my tapwater is 7.0. My friend told me soil is the best and threw away 6 out of 10 seeds. So I guess not. Also the bigger leaves will be darker shade of green because the new growth is lighter. You are doing great, no worries. Keep calm and enjoy the life with all its up and downs.

 

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As I had some epic germination fails, I decided to do an experiment with 8 nirvana freebies. I wanted to test different germination methods to see which gives me a reliable and fast germ.

I used 3 methods and will observe how the seeds react.

1) Straight to soil (2 seeds):
I made a hole 1/4 inch deep, place seed, cover gently without pressing down, lightly mist to ensure it is moist.
After 30 hours, no visible sprouts, as expected, will continue to observe.

2) Water cup (2 seeds):
These seeds will stay in the water cup forever, I will see how long it takes for taproot to come out, and how long it takes before it "drowns". After 30 hours of soak, the seeds have cracked and the tiniest nub of a tap root is showing for both seeds.

3) Straight to paper towel (4 seeds):
I used two paper towels, wet but not dripping, and placed 4 seeds in between. The paper towels sit between 2 plastic plates to retain moisture. After 24 hours, the sprouts have ALL cracked and tap roots showing. The smallest was about 2mm long, the longest was 5mm long. After 31 hours, all 4 tap roots were over 5mm long, and are already ready for transplant. I will leave them there for another 16 hours and see how much bigger they get.
I think next time I will be using this method instead of water soak. I feel that the availability of air in the paper towel greatly enhances the growth of the tap root when it cracks. I'll toss some pictures of this experiment along with my plants in 16 hours =) Peace

 

[Tomula]

As I had some epic germination fails, I decided to do an experiment with 8 nirvana freebies. I wanted to test different germination methods to see which gives me a reliable and fast germ.

I used 3 methods and will observe how the seeds react.

1) Straight to soil (2 seeds):
I made a hole 1/4 inch deep, place seed, cover gently without pressing down, lightly mist to ensure it is moist.
After 30 hours, no visible sprouts, as expected, will continue to observe.

2) Water cup (2 seeds):
These seeds will stay in the water cup forever, I will see how long it takes for taproot to come out, and how long it takes before it "drowns". After 30 hours of soak, the seeds have cracked and the tiniest nub of a tap root is showing for both seeds.

3) Straight to paper towel (4 seeds):
I used two paper towels, wet but not dripping, and placed 4 seeds in between. The paper towels sit between 2 plastic plates to retain moisture. After 24 hours, the sprouts have ALL cracked and tap roots showing. The smallest was about 2mm long, the longest was 5mm long. After 31 hours, all 4 tap roots were over 5mm long, and are already ready for transplant. I will leave them there for another 16 hours and see how much bigger they get.
I think next time I will be using this method instead of water soak. I feel that the availability of air in the paper towel greatly enhances the growth of the tap root when it cracks. I'll toss some pictures of this experiment along with my plants in 16 hours =) Peace

That's great little experiment. Thank you. I sprout seed to eat, I place them in a jar, let them soak overnight, then flush and let them drain 2 times a day. Just an insight. Have a good one!

 

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with the lst zip tie girl ,i would top her then tie the 2 branches down at 90deg .

 

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Update time!

Pineapple Punch:
Day 18, looking healthy

White Widow:
Day 16, healthy

White Widow #2:
Day 16, same age as the other white widow, but smaller due to early stunting and maybe the smaller pot size.

Updates to germination experiment:

Straight to soil x2 seeds:
After 48 hours, I could see both seeds already at the surface of the soil about to poke out. After 72 hours, both have sprouted and stretched FAST! Nearly an inch within 24 hours. It's like half the height of my day 16 white widows lol.

Water Germ to soil x2 seeds:
This was a 60 hour water soak, the seeds cracked after 24 hours, the taproot showed, but it never grew. I have potted them into soil and no sign of them as of them after a few hours. I feel that taproots don't grow if left soaking in water.

If using water cup, I think it would be best to transfer to paper towel after a few hours (when the seed sinks), but I don't see the point of this extra step because...

Paper Towel x4 seeds (THE ABSOLUTE BEST for me):
All 4 seeds showed taproot by 24 hours, easily 1/2 inch to an inch by 48 hours. Planted in soil at 48 hours, and sprouted by 72 hours. I think this method is as good as straight to soil. Perhaps overall, soil is the best, as there is no shock to the delicate seedlings from transplanting. However, I will prefer paper towel method from now on, because it feels much more assuring to me to SEE the taproot sprouting and growing before I drop it into soil. With soil, you're left wondering whether the seeds really popped, creating unneeded anxiety when days go by with nothing popping out.

Here you can see all 4 sprout lings after 24 hours in the soil.

My advice for paper towel method is to check the moisture at least twice a day, mine actually dried out after 24 hours even though I misted it 12 hours ago. Evaporation is still pretty strong even with another plate covering the top.

 

[Tomula]

Great, man I like this. Paper towel FTW! Some people even swipe the seeds on a fine sandpaper, to let the seed soak up the moisture faster and crack sooner. I haven't done it but it sounds like an idea for another experiment.

 

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with the lst zip tie girl ,i would top her then tie the 2 branches down at 90deg .

I didn't want to do any high stress things to the autoflowers, if it were a photo-period strain, I would definitely have topped young and tried your method.

Actually, the auto White Widow #2 was accidentally topped when it was a sprout (while trying to remove the seed casing and one of the pair of first true leaves never appeared), and now seem to have 3 main branches. It is being LST-ed using a nail with a hook, kinda like using copper wire training. You can barely maybe see it in the picture.

 

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MORE SEEDS!!! (also EPIC FAIL)

I'm also trying to add a few more seeds, but I have failed miserably with 4 seeds. They have all rotted in the soil due to overwatering/overheating I think... Germinating 3 more seeds now, no more fancy heat source/too much care. This time it will be a water soak until crack, then transplant to plastic cup with a light/moderate misting of the upper layer of soil, then IGNORE them for 24 hours at a time and let nature do its work.

Ok, so basically I screwed up these 3 seeds too by the stupid water soak (this was right before my experiment) then paper towel.

I added 2 more seeds using just the paper towel method as it showed so much promise from my experiment.

From the picture you can clearly see which seeds were water soaked, and which were straight to paper towel. The 2 sprouted ones are the newly added seeds which were started 36 hours AFTER the 3 water soaked ones. Clearly the soak was not beneficial at all, perhaps waiting for them to crack in water cup does more harm than good.

The 2 sprouts are auto Northern Light and auto Dark Devil, the tiny taproot ones from top to bottom are Ice Cool, Northern Light and another Dark Devil.

 

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interesting i always used to pre soak prior to making my oown seeds now i go paper towel or straight into the medium i stopped the soaking too.

 

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hows this was a damaged soaked seed at the start it came good more pics of her in sig below bro

 

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Quick update:

Pineapple Punch (day 22 since sprout):
I believe I'm getting some pre-flowers? I am not 100% sure, since this is my first grow. WOOOHOOO!!!

There is still currently no smell from my plants. It is abouut 6 inches tall and bushy as hell.

Oh, the leaf with 2 holes, I think it's just damaged by my hands and not bugs. Let me know if you suspect otherwise!

Current tent:
There are 2 Northern Light and 1 Dark Devil seedlings, The large Pineapple Punch, and 2 White Widows.

 

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Update!

Pineapple Punch (Day 30 from sprout)
Pineapple Punch healthy and flowering and starting to stretch a bit, about a foot tall now. It's leaves are MUCH smaller than the white widow's. It's got a billion tops now, and I'm not sure if i want to prune some of them off?

White Widow #1 (Day 28 from sprout)
White Widow on the right is also as about a foot tall now, and preflower are showing. It seems to have less tops as I didn't LST it as much as my PP.

White Widow #2 (Day 28 from sprout)
White Widow #2 on the bottom right, transplant from a small pot to a 1 gal plastic pot really stunted this guy, it's probably 4 inches tall even though it's the same age as the other White Widow. It is also flowering. It got topped really young, and LSTed it so the stem went from a Y shape to a n shape.

Dark Devil (Day 10 from sprout)
New addition, healthy looking, but tent too small lol. Got transplanted on day 4 from a small pot to a 3 gallon.

Northern Lights (Day 10 from sprout)
Same as Dark Devil, healthy looking with short internodes.

 

[Tomula]

Very nice, how far are the lights?

 

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The lights are around 24 inches off the top of my highest plant, the White Widow and Pineapple Punch.

The plants really explode in growth around day 21, and I had to do some serious pruning of the lower branches and smaller buds.

I'll see if I can get some side view pics of the plants to show the results of my LST experiments.

There may be another 2 plants added soon, lol, making a total of 8 plants in a 2x2.5 is just a bad idea. Next time I'll probably only have 5 plants max per grow.

 

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Sorry for the long silence, was away for a week. Luckily my plants survived 6 whole days without watering, though a few were at the brink of serious damage.

White Widow (Day 42 since sprout, Day 20 flowering):
The main cola has stretched quite a bit since I've been gone, it is currently a bit over 2.5 ft tall. It is the plant to the right in the picture.

Here's a closer pic of the top cola

White Widow #2 (Day 42 since sprout, Day 20 flowering):
This girl was grown in a smaller pot, I'd say around 1-1.5g and it is noticeably smaller. It's fan leaves are much smaller compared to the other WW, and is more than half a foot shorter (hence elevated with an empty pot). It is the second to the right in the pic.

Pineapple Punch (Day 44 since sprout, Day 22 flowering):
Early LST has really done wonders. There are so many colas, but they are all individually pretty small. I've pruned off the bottom half foot of the plant, including some of the little buds. I wanted to get more aggressive with the pruning but decided to leave it like this for this grow. The top leaves get starting to get a tiny bit frosty!

A top down look of the PP in the grow tent.

Other Plants:
I've also managed to shove 5 more other auto fem plants in the tent.

Dark Devil (Day 26 since sprout, Day 2 flowering):
No pic for this one at the moment, but it is around a bit over a foot tall now and just began to flower. It was grown in a 3 gallon. It's inter-nodes are spaced pretty far apart. I actually attempted to germ 3 of these, but 2 of them failed =(

Northern Lights (Day 26 since sprout, not flowering):
This is also grown in a 3 gallon. A little shorter than a foot, it has got tight inter-nodes and looks pretty healthy. No sign of preflowers yet and didn't get a pic today.

Northern Lights #2(Day 25 since sprout, not flowering):
Germed the same day as the other NL, but planted in a 1 gallon for comparison. It is absolutely tiny, about 3-4 inches tall. You can see this plant in the group pic at the left top corner.

Easy Ryder and Afgan Kush Ryder(Day 19 since sprout, not flowering):
The 2 other small plants at the left side, they are probably around 2-3 inches tall, and might be developing much slower due to shade from other plant's leaves. Their leaves look a little weird, it's rounded at the tips rather than being pointy. I'll get a closer pic of these guys when I water them in a couple days.

Anyways, that's all for now! Peace

 

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Been a bit since the last update!

From oldest to youngest:

Pineapple Punch 3 gallon (Day 58, day 36 of flowering):
My most beautiful lady, the colas are fattening up!

White Widow 3 gallon (Day 56, day 34 of flowering):
I accidentally snapped the top cola about a week ago, but it managed to hold itself up without flopping over, seems ok at the moment.

White Widow #2 1 gallon (Day 56, day 34 of flowering):

Northern Lights 3 gallon (Day 40, day 14 of flowering):
Did some LST a week ago while it was in first week of flowering, tied down the main cola by 180 degrees.

Dark Devil 3 gallon (day 40, day 16 of flowering):
This lady stretched like crazy, with huge gaps between nodes. I had to do some serious LST last week, and snapped the main cola accidentally. There are some black spots at the bud area, I'm guessing its due to its genetics, not sure if the pics will shot it.

And finally, the 1 gallon experiments (Afgan Kush Ryder day 33, day 8 flower, Easy Ryder day 33, day 5 flower, and another Northern Lights day 40, day 5 flower):
I will probably never use 1 gallon in the future, the ryders are ridiculously small and flowering.

I think a couple weeks and I'll be starting to harvest the WW and PP!

 

[Tomula]

They are all somewhat stretchy but they look great! Nice to hear from you again, man those buds on that PP, hmmm. The widow looks great too! You can get the fan leaves out the way of light if they shade the lower buds! Great job on your plants! Get yourself some 60x magnifying device so you can check the color of trichomes! Determining Harvest Time Happy growing man!

 

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They are probably stretchy because the tent is only 2x2.5 lol, I had to take out the easy ryder and afghan kush ryder due to insufficient room. Even with 6 plants, it's really really crowded in there. I had a 30x loupe, but the magnification wasn't enough, and my 60x loupe just arrived from ebay and works amazingly.

Just had a look at the trichs yesterday on my white widows and pineapple punch, they were still mostly clear. They are on day 44 flowering, and 68 since sprout. I plan to harvest them when they are half amber half cloudy. I read that flushing them for about 2 weeks is a good way to improve the taste. Would starting flushing now be a good idea or still a little early?

My smaller white widow in a 1.5g surprisingly are fattening up so much, although the colas are shorter, they are FAT. The stems are barely able to support them, swaying dangerously when I take them out for watering lol.

Also, I'm getting a lot of tiny buds forming at the trimmed lower parts of my plants, I trim them off when I take them out to water. Will that overly stress the plant and affect my harvest negatively? I don't want the plant to waste energy on these buds when it should be focusing on the top colas!

Anyways, more photos coming up in a couple days when I next water them, till then, peace!

 

[Tomula]

You can cut the suckers, dry them and use in butter, oil or tincture. Or make a tea with with them pop some leaves in too. Look up the flushing on the forums, there are many threads about that! Cheers! Have a good one!