HappyHippyBeads' Soil Grow From Seeds 2021

[Tokin Roll]

Check some of the links in my signature, your answers there.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

@HappyHippyBeads it looks like you may have stalled in your grow.

Couple things I noticed:

Let the soil dry out completely before watering.

When your leaves start fading to a light green/ yellow it is most often that the plant needs feed.
If not done properly you see the result.

You are addressing the mite, so nothing there.

Are these indoor of outdoor?

I need to go do yard work, so I will get back to you soon.


Tok..

Hi @Tokin Roll Appreciate the help, and yes, it sure feels like it stalled. Sour Diesel's recovered for the most part, I think she's turned the corner. They were okay until day 13.

Some more details, basically summarizing everything b/c I ramble in the journal

Soil grow indoors. goal = move away from bottled nutes and into a combo that will allow a water-only grow.
Initial soil mix before I did the exchange to new soil = Coco fiber, aged forest materials, perlite. Low nute mix for the seedling stage.
Extra pics of in-ground outdoor *surprise* plants that are growing among the sunflowers have been added because they seem to be happy plants, and is not meant to be misleading or confusing
18 hours light using ViparSpectra XS1000 light which replaced a cheepo depot light on day 9. Height = around 16" from the tops of the plants.
**Then** aeration = 450 cfs exhaust fan in the other section of the 4x3x6 (3x3) tent. Velcro separation panel loosely attached so air flowed through the seedling area somewhat, but it was mostly pulling through the access portholes in the flower section. Access Zipper left mostly open. I got lazy and hadn't checked temps in that section because the holding-pattern clones were happy.
**now** aeration = door completely open, fan blowing in the general direction from about 10 feet away. Did a whole re-do of the venting systems/intake systems so they're pulling cold air directly from the HVAC vent register in the room. In the flowering section, this setup gives a nice range of temps. Max = 82 during "daylight" hours, and drops down to 60 during the darkness. the open tent with the fan runs around 74. Humidity is suboptimal in the seedling tent. It's dry here, it's open & the same as the rest of the house, so maybe 40 RH.


Issues that I know I need to fix:
Mites
Fungus gnats (the sundews love the fertilizer LOL)
some weird larval something seen in the soil in one of the replacement seedlings
Soil mix optimization
General Tidiness/sanitation practices. Hard to learn since my veg/flower seedlings aren't quite as particular.

Day 11 I sprayed Azamax liberally on all the plants, using the mildest dilution rate. Brought the clones which were in a holding pattern outside to open up the area. I closed up the tents, headed off to bed and got a call from mom.
Day 12 afk.. erm, away from grow
Day 13 came home to sudden changes. Changes noted: yellowing of lowest true leaves and cotyledons. Soil changed. Very poor root formation noted during soil exchange. I did not note that the stems were hard, but looking back, it seems like they were starting to trend that way.
Day 14 revamped the cooling system. SAW mites with lens. Sprayed with a stronger dilution rate.
Day 15 holding pattern, panama red flower clones in the same tent wilted out in moderately moist soil, so went into compost pile.
Day 16 TwentyFour's green parts were wilted out. Stem hard, like a dried twig up to the cotyledons. other plants stems were noted to be stiff/hard up to cotyledons as well. Chopped off top, placed in cloner puck, then changed mind and put in rockwool in the cloner cup.
Day 17 holding pattern
Day 18 Cloner idea failed 24, tangie hanging in there.
Day 19 Sour Diesel's stem has improved, foliage improved. Still thinnish/harder than it should be, but it shed a layer of skin and fattened up. Remaining plants stems unchanged. Tangie grew a root
Day 20 Tangie's root got longer.
Day 21 will be the next post

Thanks again Tok for your help in diagnosing the issue. I appreciate it greatly.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 21: Stems have some improvement, Sour Diesel's getting better, tangie made more white roots, and the bitty sprout 24 is still a bitty sprout I can just barely see the beginnings of true leaf formation on it.

Cheated the water-only grow principle by adding about 5 ml (1 tsp) dilute nutes-in-water per plant.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 22: Plants are still hanging in there, and the tips of true leaves on the 24 can be seen with the naked eye, so it was Clean up day.

• Cleaned floors of tent where the seedlings were growing. I need the ViparSpectra light so I can get my multicolor bell peppers into shape in the most rapid fashion possible. It's running in the high 90s here, and the seedling area is getting blasted. Safer on the inside.
• Cleaned my daughter's stuff off the plant stand that was my seedling go-to before she claimed it during a 2-week stay and took the emergency blanket out of my backpack and attached it so the venetian plaster on the wall that took forever to get right isn't fubar'd when I mist the plants. And it reflects light. It's like a mirror though, not great for photos. Lights don't look that color to my eyes IRL, but in the photos there seems to be a definite blue cast Bottom row is mostly yarrow with different lights. Yes, I know, that's a ridiculous amount of yarrow. I didn't expect old seed to germinate I read somewhere that yarrow is a great companion plant for cannabis, enhances terp production. Does it? No clue. Never tried it before. They should be ready by the time the clones from the seedlings are ready for veg/flower. Also, it's an area I pass often, so I can dip in there, mist the foliage, and dip out quickly.
• Cleaned up the old-school box in the garage in anticipation of the "make seeds" project
• Opened and installed the lovely new MarsHydro light in the 3x3 flowering tent
• Opened and installed the lovely new BudgetLED light in the "make seeds" project box
• Took cuttings of various plants in the garden

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 23: The more I'm reasearching, the more I'm comparing symptoms with evidence, the more I'm coming to believe that the stress / damage / poopy growth has been caused by fungus gnat larvae. I saw one in the soil a few days ago, so I know they're there. Didn't know what it was at the time. Now I do. Now I know how to fix it. Which goes right along with Emilia 's watering regimen So to combat the wet soil conditions, and burn those beasties alive, the younglings took a daytrip to the sunshine today They're going to come in before it goes over 90 though. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Sour Diesel continues to grow. The most noticeable changes are in the stem. it's thickening and becoming more resiliently pliant. And it's haaapy. Like, you can feel how happy she is now. Vibrant. Julie Andrews singing in the Alps happy.
Jack's still looking around nervously wondering if it's okay to say something. I think she'll find her voice in the next couple of days.
Mostly cotyledon 24 is a blank. She's not vibing hardly at all. Maybe that happens when the first true leaves pop out. IDK.

ah well see you guys tomorrow

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 24: more improvements and we're on Day 2 of operation kill the funging gnat larvae.

There's some weird damage on jack that's making that one set of leaves bend down. If it were in all of the leaves, I'd be more concerned. It's just that one pair, so I am hypothesizing that they were in the formative stages when the "oh crap!" moment happened, leading to basically the same damage at the same spot on the pairs. Kinda like when you have something really bad health-wise happen, and you get a weird bump or oddness in your fingernails at the same spot on each nail.

I left 24 inside today coz she's still a wee lass

Check out Jack's skinny stem though... It's fattening up toward the top, but the bottom's still skinny. Sour Diesel was like that, but she's recovered from it. Her stem is a uniform diameter from the cotyledon site to the soil.

Headed back out to keep digging holes in the bermuda lawn, add chock full o' worms compost to the holes, plant okra on top of it, and keep an eye on the girls Grow food, not lawns

Hope you guys have a lovely Saturday

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 25: Outside today for Sour Diesel and Jack, and once again, 24 was left inside. Cotyledons still green bitty true leaves getting larger but I'm eyeing the "buy x, get x free" pack I've got left of the same seed, and pondering popping another one or two. Learned about soaking in humic/kelp to stimulate better germination last night, but if there isn't sufficient energy in the seed to do it's thing, it may not help to make a decent plant after germination. Saw some outstanding results on the yarrow seedlings using the juice, so I may just do that to move things along. At the rate the current 24's going, she'll be hitting her first up-potting about the time Sour Diesel's ready to harvest.

SD had fully dried out, so it was time for water. I was soaking some vegetables in humic/kelp to help prevent transplant stress, so SD went in the bath too. Saw a thing in the forums here (50+ growers) about covering the top of the soil with fine sand to prevent the fungusing gnats from getting into the soil. Next river outing, I'm coming home with some

Jack got a new pot. No, her root development didn't require it. I just didn't like the look of the stem where it went into the soil. I sat her in the anti-transplant shock mix for a couple of hours while I did some garden work. Overnight would've probably worked better, but this needed to be done today. To repot, I put blended potting mix in the bottom inch, covered it with a thin layer of fish bone meal for P, and then a quarter inch of the blended over that. I then took Jack out of her pot, and the bottom half of the soil wasn't rooted, so it went away. I gently placed her in the new pot, painted her stem with clonex, and then put soil around the stem. Will it work? IDK, but it's giving her the opportunity to develop some new roots above the damaged area, and if her current roots decide to work, they'll hit a nice juicy patch of root-developing goodness. Potting mix was damp enough, so I didn't add any water.

Tangie's root development also continues in the water cloner. I'm going to give it a few more days - it looks like some new roots are forming further up the stem. She looks nute hungry though, and it's making me impatient.

 

[Nev]

Your so busy you’re wearing me out.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Your so busy you’re wearing me out.

Dude- I agree!

my grows, (all three of them LoL) normally go “toss a seed in a pot, water as necessary, feed a bit, switch lights, harvest.” even the Swiss cheese I had outside replanted herself without issue.
But these five seeds... Never have I ever had so much difficulty getting a seed to do what it’s supposed to do. I’m not counting on these seedlings to meet my medicinal needs, so I have the luxury of trying completely random things to see if they work- so when I *have* to make a seedling live, I can.

on the bonus side, it’s making me learn plant physiology, pests, and what I can do to fix problems.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 25: jack got gentle nutes right before this picture, SD's chipper, and 24's still a slow-mo grow. Control plant seen in the background also needed nutes (gold leaf stayed in her pot, didn't get cloner or go outside treatment) but has fewer leaves than either Tangie or Jack.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 26: Lather, rinse, repeat Everything's pretty much unchanged with SD, 24's still a runt beyond all mortal ken, and no ridiculous things done to Jack despite the fact that she's not really happy at all. Here's a class photo of all from this batch:

As you can tell by the seedlings photo-bombing on the left, the "all hope is lost, must replace crop" seeds I popped are doing much better than this batch. The stress of the fungusing gnats was too much for most of these, and 24 was a defective seed. Only concern with those replacement seeds is that they might go auto. Supposed to be just fem, but I tried one a few months back and it went into flower after 3 weeks, even though light was 18/6. I didn't have enough room in the tent with a carbon filter, and I didn't want to fill the house with Eau de ACDC, so it, and the other high CBD fem from the same breeder which ALSO was supposed to be just fem got tossed. Plan for these two = spray one with silver colloidal the second it shows any autoflower traits. That way I'll have enough seed to just grow outside whenever I want them.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

I think I found an answer as to why I'm having so many issues with these seeds... I presoaked, paper toweled, waited until the root was a good 1/4 inch (5mm) long before planting them, mistakenly thinking that a longer tail would result in a better outcome. I ran across this while doing some reading in old books... Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide by Mel Frank c 1988 was where I found this. Not sure if I'm going to roll with the bleach thing he mentions though, and he writes as if he's got lots and lots of seeds to sprout ((envy))

Okay, yeah, some of the info is odd... like how to get more seeds to sprout and be female but I'm gonna go back to my standard "soak 12 then put in soil" rather than try the paper towel thing again.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 27: I put Tangie out of her misery, and I'm retiring Jack and 24 from this grow. SD's still looking good, and intervention-free gold leaf is climbing out of the hole.

Meet the new members: SuzyQ who pushed above soil on 5-16 and a White Widow clone from a revegged mother:

Group shot:

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 28: another group shot

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 29: family foto with my new super-awesome sticker

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 30: The grow is behind where I thought it would be, but it’s moving along now

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 31: I immersed each in water yesterday for 5-10 minutes as a preventative for soil wigglers. Mites came out of the soil
added neem cake to the shopping list.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 32: still progressing

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 33: got some yellowing going on... Gonna ride it out and just continue normal tending. Not going to try a heroic rescue, at least not for a few days anyway. The work week I’m finishing in a few hours has been emotionally and physically exhausting. I’m not up to the effort.

Weed “get it done” planner showed up today so I can start keeping better track of when plants go into flower, get fed, etc. I liked doing this web-based journal so I could see potential causes of the issue that showed up on day 13.

Here's the ladies this afternoon:

The AC/DC popped as a replacement for the fails turned out to be an auto flower- or at least that’s what I’m guessing since it’s showing pre-flowers at four inches tall, three weeks since soil germ. Hella disappointing. Gonna hit half of it with colloidal silver and stick it outside.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 35: Hooray! it's my Saturday Regenerating the batteries by repotting plants while listening to podcasts and creating a post that has more of a blog look to it.

For today's adventure, I'm using that big box store potting mix, and adding an appropriate amount of balanced organic vegetable fertilizer. Miss Sour Diesel's lower leaves are yellowing. I'm suspecting nitrogen deficiency. I took a shot of the leaf itself to better show what's going on with her. A bit more blood meal added to the repotting mix should remedy the issue. The blood meal was an afterthought, so it'll take a bit to work. At least it won't burn new roots

Heavy CBD SuzyQ is coming along, showing off her indica side with wide leaves, and short height. She's supposed to be 50/50, but these are some really wide leaves. SuzyQ has a low level of THC, high CBD, so she's going to provide the main active ingredient for muscle rubs. She seems a little light in color too, so she got a dose of the fertilizer mixed into the topsoil.

Gold Leaf has fully recovered. Now I'm wishing I hadn't done the "fixes" that I did with Tangie and Jack Herer. 24 was a lost cause from the beginning, and the replacement seed was fuxxored too. Maybe when I get into clone zone zen I'll try again and pop a couple, but for now, the 24 breeding project is going on a back burner. I've got a cheese that's supposed to be good for inflammation, so that's what's going to be used for that issue. Too many strains to play with, too little time.

I just sort of giggle when I look at the reveg white widow clone. Really not sure how to train something like this. Branches going off in all directions- and there's so many of them. I'm really excited to see what happens when she gets bigger and goes into flower Her mom's approaching that "do I harvest?" stage. Looks and smells heavenly.


Update on the potential replacements that weren't actually needed. I'm 99% sure that one of the two ACDC CBD's is an auto-flower.

You can see the pistils in this shot. I'm unsure what to do with it. So annoying. I can't clone it, so I have to make it go to seed if I ever want to grow it again. For right now, I'm guessing that autos burn through nutes superfast since they get on with

things in a hurry. I soaked it on 5-2, and it popped soil three days later, so it's what? Three weeks old? So plan = up pot now, and again in two weeks when it's due to go into flower with more P's & K's in the mix. I've got NFC where to put it, can't be anywhere near anything else, polluting my nice light cycle plants gene pool with its ruderalis lineage. ;D On the bonus side, the plant itself is growing very quickly. It's seedmate is about 1/2 its size, and is not showing any signs of preflowering.



Edited for formatting.