Golfer420 - Soil - NL Auto - 2015

[Whitty08]

Grow looks good! Ladies look to be pretty happy! As far as your watering question, it doesn't matter all that much in my very limited experience. Watering from the top of the soil gets all of the soil wet. Filling the tray underneath the roots will take water when they need it. It's a good way to water when you know you'll be away from your plants for a few days.

 

[HunterHunt]

Personally i would never water from the bottom and wouldn't recommend it. You should be watering and getting a bit of run off so that for: 1) you are flushing your soil out. 2) you should be getting pH and PPM readings on your run off so you know what your soil levels are. I always water from the top and suck out all the extra run off so the plants not sitting in it. Watering from to top ensure your whole soil gets watered and properly flushed. You would be surprised at what gets built up from nutrients.

Glad you are moving your watering schedule up! I think she needs it. Keep a eye on the soil and heaviness of the plant.

 

[golfer420]

Things are going well. Watering around every 36 hours. Just fed them tonight with a mild solution of big bloom and tiger bloom. ph has been looking good. Warm couple of days but they seem fine.

I've been consistently clipping fan leaves that block bud sites. The ladies are shaped like two little pine trees. Next time around I'll make more use of the LST information I've seen people doing.

I am coming up on two weeks of flowering so far. Buds and pistils look great and I'm beginning to see more pronounced trichomes. I get more excited every day as I begin to think that I may actually get to smoke this and it might not be bad!

Thanks for everyone's help! I've read so many posts I no longer read much else!

 

[orangehaze]

Nice photography!

 

[golfer420]

Hello everyone. I was away for a few days and was a bit concerned about the ladies. They seemed to have managed well so far. Here we are at day 46 and what I'm thinking is the start of week 3 of flowering.

They had not been fed since last Tuesday so I gave them a feeding today of BB(4ml), BG(1ml) and TB(1ml) in the 500ml water bottle.

Plant 1 looks good. Leaves are looking lively and the bud sites are growing well too.

Plant 2 doesn't look as good. Slightly more droopy. The leafs seem to be very narrow. The bud sites don't seems as robust and healthy. Some of the growth brownish/reddish at the tips. Just looks darker than plant 1 and not as much white pistils.

Overall they seem to keep chugging along. Took some close ups of them tonight.

Welcome any feedback!

Both plants from the side

Both plants from the top

Bud on plant 1

Bud on plant 1

Bud on plant 1

Bud on plant 2

 

[HunterHunt]

Yea the left one is really droopy. The main thing to cause that is either over watering, under watering, or root issues. Whats the pH off your run off after waterings?

 

[golfer420]

The ph seems ok on both - maybe slightly low. After feeding last night, I would estimate the run off was about 6. Now that I'm back home and can check every day I will be paying close attention.

 

[golfer420]

I'm leaning towards under watering. I was gone for 4 days and someone watered but maybe not with the same attention I would have given. The smaller one has a bit more perlite in the bottom so it could be that it dries out much quicker.

I will check them later and if they can use watering again, I might flush them (my way). Basically pour two 500ml water bottles through each of them. I then will test the ph of the run off.

 

[golfer420]

I did end up flushing them both. The ph from the run off was fine at about 6.5. The next day I covered the soil with a layer of sand to help eliminate the little gnats that were flying around. I think I have that under control now.

So far we're just chugging along. They look full into flowering. Some of the fan leaves have yellowed and I've snipped quite a few of the fan leaves off of both plants. Both plants seems solid but plant 1 is doing much better. The sugar leaves off the main cola on plant 1 stick out straight and up toward the light. Leaves on plant 2 all hang low. I'm thinking there is some kind of deficiency, but I'm not sure what it is.


I took some close ups. I don't see too many trichomes developing yet. I'm assuming I have about 4-5 more weeks of flowering. Feels like I'm in the home stretch. Some of the pistils are starting to brown, thought they're still mostly white.

Just trying to avoid f'ng anything up so I may not give them any more nutes and just ensure they've got barely enough water (don't want to get the gnats back).

I'm preparing for the next grow. I have a small grow tent coming for the garage (very small 30x18x30) but I also got 3 gal fabric pots. I maybe just put 2 plants in the tent in the fabric pots and do more with lst.

I'm still not sure how this LED light is. Still undecided what I will do for lighting the next time. HPS just seems like it will be too hot. Maybe a couple 50wat CFL's.

Thanks for stopping by!

Both side by side

Both from above

cola plant 1

cola plant 1

plant 2

plant 2 cola

close up bud plant 1

close up bud plant 1

both under lights

 

[golfer420]

I was a little concerned by the amount of yellowing so I did a very light feeding with the big bloom (the most nitrogen) as it's been a while since I fed any of that. Only fed 1/2 the usual 500ml water because I'm trying to keep the soil a bit dryer to help with the gnats. They seem to have been taken care of with the sand - but who knows.

I also tried a little build back on the buds by clipping a couple buds on plant 2. She's much smaller and looks less healthy than plant 1 so I figured it could only help improve.

Crossing my fingers they continue flowering and that I actually get stoned one day from this grow.

 

[golfer420]

Hello and hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

The ladies are looking pretty good. They've had some good days and bad days but as the pistils start to brown and we get closer to the end, I'm very happy with how its turning out. Planting in something bigger is a must and I'm not 100% sold on this particular LED. Not sure this is good (I figured it couldn't hurt) but I put them out in the regular sun for about 30-40 minutes today.

I had not watered since Thursday when I fed them with less then 1ml of Tiger Bloom in 500ml of water because I was away but both looked pretty good today and I gave them 500ml of water. Run off tested around 6. Probably two more feedings as I'm thinking they have about 4 weeks left. We're almost at about 5 weeks of flowering and it's claimed to be 8-10 week flowering. I don't see some of those crazy trichomes I've seen on some of these other plants - like Whitty08's Blue Widow - but they are visible in some of these close ups.

I trimmed a lot of yellow leaves off both plants. Probably 20 leaves each plant. They were all smaller fan leaves and what I've read is that yellowing is normal during flowering. While neither plant is perfect, they both look good. Plant 1 is actually a little more yellow than plant 2. Plant 2 has come around a bit and looks a bit happier and greener.

I could see how I could have pulled the branches aside a bit so that each branch would get better light along all the buds.

I was happy today when I smoked a bud I snipped off last week that had dried out pretty well. Very small tiny bud but I did get a little buzz and the smoke wasn't horrible. A little green tasting but not that harsh. Considering we've got 3-5 weeks left of flowering, they can only get better.

On plant 2 I clipped some of the buds right at the very top to try backbuilding. I can't say I can see a big difference at this point but I will continue to take pictures to see if those buds that were clipped look better than the buds on the other side of the plant.

I'm looking at the plants and trying to think about how much they'll yield. I have to read up on weighing protocol but I'm thinking I might get 30-50 grams before it's dry and between 20 - 30 grams dry. Maybe.

Thanks for stopping by

plant 2 and plant 1

plant 2 and plant 1

Plant 1 and plant 2

Plant 2 and plant 1

 

[golfer420]

Here are some of the close ups. Just look a little airy and I have to pin that on the LED. There are 4 CFL's hanging in there too but overall I'm happy. We'll see what the end result turns out to be.

Plant 1 cola

Plant 1 bud

Plant 1 cola

Bud on plant 2

plant 2 close up

plant 2 backbuilding bud

 

[Bearswhowalk]

havent been by lately sorry rl caught up with me but i am back come by my journal and check things out.

 

[HunterHunt]

Yea they look OK.... Im not seeing hardly any actual bud itself, only leaves with trichomes... I would suggest you to only grow one plant under what you have so you can at least get some decent colas. They will be bigger because it would not have to split the wattage you have. I never saw the wattage of your led? Personally I would have ran all 2700k CFL's no need to mix spectrums especially since you had the LED in there. The 5000k +cfl create more leaf as pictured.

You plants have been very droopy the whole grow though... there has been something else other than the LED that has caused you problems. Oh well it happens! Good job on everything.

Also, if you upgrade to a 400 watt HPS you will be blown away at the growth! =)

 

[golfer420]

Thanks, Hunter. I have to say, the truth hurts a bit. No buds but leaves with trichomes - ha! I'm still happy that I've gotten further this time than ever before.

The LED is a 300 watt Mars Hydro - one of the older ones that I got for $70 ebay. The bulbs for the past 4 weeks have been the 2500k spectrum. Two are 23w and two are 46w. I'm pretty sure the really small pots are one of the reason for the less than ideal flowering.

I'm going to germinate 2 more of these NL autos. One to put outside and another to grow in the small tent I got (30x18x30).

I've found these IPOWER hps/mh light set ups. 400watts for about 90 bucks on Ebay. The other option might be a 150w CFL bulb and reflector. Decisions, decisions. I agree that the HPS is the way to go, just not sure I can keep it adequately cooled.

 

[Whitty08]

Hello and hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

The ladies are looking pretty good. They've had some good days and bad days but as the pistils start to brown and we get closer to the end, I'm very happy with how its turning out. Planting in something bigger is a must and I'm not 100% sold on this particular LED. Not sure this is good (I figured it couldn't hurt) but I put them out in the regular sun for about 30-40 minutes today.

I had not watered since Thursday when I fed them with less then 1ml of Tiger Bloom in 500ml of water because I was away but both looked pretty good today and I gave them 500ml of water. Run off tested around 6. Probably two more feedings as I'm thinking they have about 4 weeks left. We're almost at about 5 weeks of flowering and it's claimed to be 8-10 week flowering. I don't see some of those crazy trichomes I've seen on some of these other plants - like Whitty08's Blue Widow - but they are visible in some of these close ups.

I trimmed a lot of yellow leaves off both plants. Probably 20 leaves each plant. They were all smaller fan leaves and what I've read is that yellowing is normal during flowering. While neither plant is perfect, they both look good. Plant 1 is actually a little more yellow than plant 2. Plant 2 has come around a bit and looks a bit happier and greener.

I could see how I could have pulled the branches aside a bit so that each branch would get better light along all the buds.

I was happy today when I smoked a bud I snipped off last week that had dried out pretty well. Very small tiny bud but I did get a little buzz and the smoke wasn't horrible. A little green tasting but not that harsh. Considering we've got 3-5 weeks left of flowering, they can only get better.

On plant 2 I clipped some of the buds right at the very top to try backbuilding. I can't say I can see a big difference at this point but I will continue to take pictures to see if those buds that were clipped look better than the buds on the other side of the plant.

I'm looking at the plants and trying to think about how much they'll yield. I have to read up on weighing protocol but I'm thinking I might get 30-50 grams before it's dry and between 20 - 30 grams dry. Maybe.

Thanks for stopping by

plant 2 and plant 1

plant 2 and plant 1

Plant 1 and plant 2

Plant 2 and plant 1

It might be a bit too late to really see a huge change. But for your next grow might want to try what I did. Are you using the full Fox Farm line up? If so here's what I did. When it called for Tiger Bloom I always put more than they said to by at least 1tsp, I also dropped the other nutes by the same quantity. Also when it comes to the soluble nutes especially ChaChing I added an extra 1/4tsp so that I was adding 1/2tsp every time. ChaChing main purpose is to increase essential oil production.

 

[golfer420]

Thanks, Whitty. I'm just using Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. Because my pots are so tiny, I've been putting very little nutes in the water for fear of over-doing it. I will look into the other Fox Farm items, especially the ChaChing.

Thanks for the support!

 

[Whitty08]

Thanks, Whitty. I'm just using Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. Because my pots are so tiny, I've been putting very little nutes in the water for fear of over-doing it. I will look into the other Fox Farm items, especially the ChaChing.

Thanks for the support!

It's probably different for autos, but for the normal photoperiod plants once you get them use to nutes you can increase the strength of the notes. However not all plants like or want nutes. Make sure you look into Fox Farm's soluble line of Open Sesame, Beastie Bloomz, and Cha Ching, all great products and pretty much used during the flowering phase.

 

[golfer420]

I figured I would take a shot at curing so I clipped one of the smallest branches off of plant two. Trimmed the full leaves off and it's hanging in a closet. Based on what I read it's four to seven days to dry. This might be close to 4 days because it is so small. Then it's into a mason jar.

Both plants are doing ok. Into the home stretch

 

[golfer420]

Trimmed quite a few yellowed and dying leaves off both girls. Looked under the loupe and some tiny trichomes near the buds on top of plant 1. Not so much under plant 2.

I was going to give them a very light feeding but I'm beginning to think they're as close to being done as possible. I will post pics tomorrow night but many of the pistils are browning. I'd say close to 60-80%. Hard to tell if the trichomes have changed any colors.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to keep going much longer with these two. Can't harvest this weekend so most likely the following weekend. They haven't really grown or changed much (besides losing leaves) in the past 2 weeks.

Appreciate the help from those following along. While this isn't the most amazing beginner grow, I am more knowledgeable thanks to this web site.