Jon's Second Grow, First Grow Journal, Soil Grow Autos & Photoperiod

[Jon]

Awesome Jon looking good. The wait is nerve racing right?

It is although it's so far away at the moment that it's not so bad right now. I get antsy when I start seeing buds and start smelling the love. Lmao.

 

[Michael Hunt]

Right on man Feels good when things start coming together how you want em. I’d imagine they should start taking off very soon. Im not a soil guy though so don't take my word for it haha

 

[Jon]

Right on man Feels good when things start coming together how you want em. I’d imagine they should start taking off very soon. Im not a soil guy though so don't take my word for it haha

Yeah it does! Straight up, in just about 16 hours at 70% instead of 50% they already look greener to my eye. This may just be my hopeful thinking, but I have no problem with what's going on so far.

 

[Jon]

DAY SIX

I try to watch my girls closely, especially in this delicate early stage. I try, and mostly fail, to not be too obsessive. I admit it, I'm a junkie for growing. Anyway, I watch them closely for real because I'm really trying to dial in their environment. Now that it's Day Six and the first set of leaves are well established with the second well coming on, there is enough plant there to actually observe something. Lol.

So I had been keeping them at 81-84 degrees for the most part and down to around 74 at night. And now I've added the humidifier. I can already see they LOVE the humidity. The leaves seem a shade greener. There's a shower of mist falling on them. It's beautiful. Anyway, I'm finding that from around 3 to 7 in the afternoon/evening, the garage gets hot and I have to turn on the AC on low setting for about those four hours. That brings the temperature down to around their overnight temperature, 73-75 degrees. Well I just did it a couple hours ago and now I can observe that all five of these plants prefer the mid-70s to the low 80s. I can see that they perked up as the temperature dropped down to the mid-70s. It sounds like such a small thing but I don't believe it is. What it is to me is strain specific information that I am keeping in separate files. Good stuff to know if you ever want to grow the strain again. I keep reference points like that. When something like seven degrees makes a visible difference (they looked great at 83 degrees, don't get me wrong, lol), it's significant to me.

Below is a photo from just now. This is *I think* a best case scenario going on. These girls are standing at attention, their leaves are consistently green, they are standing straight out, and they appear to be loving life. If anyone can either validate my opinion or tell me why I am incorrect I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for the help! But I *think* this is what I want.

 

[Michael Hunt]

While i cant confirm your theory, it appears you’re on the right track

 

[Backlipslide]

Yes sir! Looking healthy! They’re up and almost “praying” to the light! You’re well on you’re way for a great journey.

 

[Jon]

Yes sir! Looking healthy! They’re up and almost “praying” to the light! You’re well on you’re way for a great journey.

Cool. Thanks!

 

[Jon]

Today turned out to be the day that I decided to get tent number two, the autoflower experiment, off the ground. See picture below. That's the following seeds in between wet paper towels.

3 Dutch Passion Cinderella Jack
1 Barney's Farm Gorilla Zkittlez

There will be one more added in a day or two when it arrives (thought it came the other day, but I was wrong) - the two day difference will be irrelevant and I was ready to get going on it now that I have the photoperiod tent pretty well dialed in.

1 Pineapple Express

I am going to start them in Dixie cups using the exact same soil and methodology as I did for tent one. They will be transplanted to their 3 gallon final homes when their roots tell me to transplant them. Haven't decided yet about topping, that'll be a judgement/feeling/let the universe tell me kinda thing. Since I have three Cinderella Jacks, I was thinking about letting one go with just minor defoliation, one with LST and minor defoliation, and one with topping once, LST, and minor defoliation. That way I would at least learn what the CJ strain likes the best and how it takes to each style. Since Cinderella Jack is one of the highest THC autoflowers that exists, I may well want to grow it again.

I will be using the blurples with the additional corner lights. The blurples have the veg/bloom switch only. The panels are full spectrum. The seedlings will sprout into and live the first two weeks of their lives using the veg only (the blues), then both veg and bloom for the next five/six weeks (full spectrum), then the bloom only (the reds) for the last two weeks or so till the end. I will be using the 20/4 light cycle. I know there's many options there, that's the one I decided on. More of a feeling call than anything else and seems to be the most commonly used light cycle.

Very excited to see what I can get out of these girls and check out the autoflower world. I like the two tent challenge too.

Here we go.

So begins my first try at running two tents at one time, as well as my first stab at autoflowers.

 

[Michael Hunt]

Sounds like a fun challenge man. You've got the space, the gear, and the know-how to make it happen

Every time i window shop for seeds, i find myself with a Gorilla Zkittles in the cart. Every, single, time. Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out

 

[Jon]

Sounds like a fun challenge man. You've got the space, the gear, and the know-how to make it happen

Every time i window shop for seeds, i find myself with a Gorilla Zkittles in the cart. Every, single, tiSheme. Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out

That's so funny. I was the same way! I kept gravitating to it. But I never pulled the trigger - this one was a freebie that came with the Cinderella Jack. Nice freebie. She should look way different than the Cindy Jacks and stand out in the tent. Hope my other seeds come by tomorrow. Don't want the Pineapple Express to be TOO far behind these guys. Just looked at the seeds, and they're swollen and I can see the non--pointy end is getting ready to pop. By tomorrow afternoon these guys will be in soil I think. Yo by the way, from another thread - I got the free Korona app. It turns your cell phone into a light meter. There are others. This one is free at first, but then you have to spend $5 to "unlock" the kind of light you use. Then you simply put a piece of plain paper over your lens to act as a diffuser (the app shows you just how to do this) and viola! The app works very very well and is extremely accurate. It duplicated my par maps for the new light almost note for note. I'm not trying to promote them, there's lots of different ones you can get. But this one works great and I'm super happy I found it.

 

[Jon]

Sounds like a fun challenge man. You've got the space, the gear, and the know-how to make it happen

Every time i window shop for seeds, i find myself with a Gorilla Zkittles in the cart. Every, single, time. Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out

Funny thing is, I have a bunch of feminized Hulkberry photoperiod seeds too. I almost scrapped the autos idea and went with two photoperiods with a second tent full of just the Hulkberry, cuz that strain strikes me the same way as the Gorilla Zkittlez, and I'm fascinated by the supposed GIGANTIC yield. We'll start them around June when a tent opens up. Lol. I might do three of those girls in 7-8 gallon pots. But I would really prefer to keep the photoperiod grow in the new light tent - infinitely better light and infinitely better tent. Plus the AC unit is brand new on that one. Lol.

 

[Michael Hunt]

I've considered using a light meter or downloading an app like that one to get some readings. Might have to check that one out if the need arises. what do you use your app for aside from gauging light distance? We like to keep our light as close as possible before they burn. Our last crop ended up rubbing the diodes on our light by the time it was finished with only very minimal light bleaching.

Next thing you know, you'll have that garage full of tents! haha

 

[Jon]

I've considered using a light meter or downloading an app like that one to get some readings. Might have to check that one out if the need arises. what do you use your app for aside from gauging light distance? We like to keep our light as close as possible before they burn. Our last crop ended up rubbing the diodes on our light by the time it was finished with only very minimal light bleaching.

Next thing you know, you'll have that garage full of tents! haha

I do the same thing you do. I think of it as riding that thin line between bleaching/foxtailing/burnt tips and not. By the time budding happened in the first grow I had the lights completely figured out and knew exactly where that line was to the half inch. I treat veg the same as budding - max light at all times. It's easy enough to figure out just by observation - if you start to get burnt tips raise the light. That'll always be the first sign, long before bleaching or foxtailing, and especially useful in veg. But now with this I can get numerical reference points and KNOW what that "too much" number actually is. In theory it should make it much easier to "ride the thin line." Lmao. I basically want them to have so much light they glow. But yeah, so that's why I tried it and it's free so what the hell. I'm pretty much usually in favor of at least trying anything that reduces guess work and brings me numerical reference points. Like right now I'm using my scale to compare a Dixie cup of my dry soil mix to the seedlings so I know exactly when to water them. I water each of them to the same weight, ie, the same amount of water. That way I can dial in by the numbers exactly how much 24 hours worth of water is cuz ideally when I water them I want it to take them 24 hours to drain the cup. The app is an extension of that approach/philosophy. I was just blown away by the accuracy. So much so that I lowered my lights another 4 inches so now they are at 20" and full power. The par meter says exactly what it's supposed to, at around 500 par. The range for seedlings is "supposed" to be 200-400 ideally they say. THEY. Lol. So I'm pushing to 500 and the greedy little light whores are eating it for breakfast. It's amazing. I'm calling bullshit on that "seedlings can't begin life with full light" theory. They'll take whatever you throw at them as long as you don't kill them with heat. Somewhere in nature, pot seeds pop out of the ground into full sunlight on day one and they do just fine. I mean, within reason, lol. At 6" the heat would be fine but they'd be getting around 1200 par. That's budding territory. They can't process that much light, that's completely ridiculous. (Even though the sun is way higher than that, but it's different when it's the sun) BUT - I researched a bit and spoke to a few people and got a general ideal par range for each part of growth, and basically it's 200-400/seedlings, 400-800/veg, 900-1000/budding, at least as I understand it. Fu-k those pus-y numbers. Lmao. They can take more. And they will.

 

[Michael Hunt]

I do the same thing you do. I think of it as riding that thin line between bleaching/foxtailing/burnt tips and not. By the time budding happened in the first grow I had the lights completely figured out and knew exactly where that line was to the half inch. I treat veg the same as budding - max light at all times. It's easy enough to figure out just by observation - if you start to get burnt tips raise the light. That'll always be the first sign, long before bleaching or foxtailing, and especially useful in veg. But now with this I can get numerical reference points and KNOW what that "too much" number actually is. In theory it should make it much easier to "ride the thin line." Lmao. I basically want them to have so much light they glow. But yeah, so that's why I tried it and it's free so what the hell. I'm pretty much usually in favor of at least trying anything that reduces guess work and brings me numerical reference points. Like right now I'm using my scale to compare a Dixie cup of my dry soil mix to the seedlings so I know exactly when to water them. I water each of them to the same weight, ie, the same amount of water. That way I can dial in by the numbers exactly how much 24 hours worth of water is cuz ideally when I water them I want it to take them 24 hours to drain the cup. The app is an extension of that approach/philosophy. I was just blown away by the accuracy. So much so that I lowered my lights another 4 inches so now they are at 20" and full power. The par meter says exactly what it's supposed to, at around 500 par. The range for seedlings is "supposed" to be 200-400 ideally they say. THEY. Lol. So I'm pushing to 500 and the greedy little light whores are eating it for breakfast. It's amazing. I'm calling bullshit on that "seedlings can't begin life with full light" theory. They'll take whatever you throw at them as long as you don't kill them with heat. Somewhere in nature, pot seeds pop out of the ground into full sunlight on day one and they do just fine. I mean, within reason, lol. At 6" the heat would be fine but they'd be getting around 1200 par. That's budding territory. They can't process that much light, that's completely ridiculous. (Even though the sun is way higher than that, but it's different when it's the sun) BUT - I researched a bit and spoke to a few people and got a general ideal par range for each part of growth, and basically it's 200-400/seedlings, 400-800/veg, 900-1000/budding, at least as I understand it. Fu-k those pus-y numbers. Lmao. They can take more. And they will.

Haha doesn't sound like they're gonna have much choice. I like to look at it as survival of the fittest. We didn't use any drip lines or any help what so ever when we transplanted our clones into our net pots. Brought the water up close to the bottom of each net and made those little ladies work for their first drink. They all made it and i feel are stronger for it

Give em hell man! With love of course

 

[Jon]

Haha doesn't sound like they're gonna have much choice. I like to look at it as survival of the fittest. We didn't use any drip lines or any help what so ever when we transplanted our clones into our net pots. Brought the water up close to the bottom of each net and made those little ladies work for their first drink. They all made it and i feel are stronger for it

Give em hell man! With love of course

That's it! They're kinda like puppies when you're first trying to train them. You gotta let them know who the lead dog is, but you do it with the gentlest kind of love you possibly can. While making sure they understand from the get go that if the lead dog wants them to do something, the wiser course of action is to do it. PUSH THOSE GIRLS.

 

[Jon]

Day Eight

The amount of growth these guys are experiencing daily is crazy. A couple things I take note of in the pictures:

- The Blueberry Muffin and basically both Jelly Ranchers (one's bigger slightly) are all three getting close to clearing the cup edges already. And even more significantly, in all three of those plants I have the tip of the tap root trying to peek out the bottom of the cup. This is unbelievable. I gotta give credit to the Great White, among the rest. That's a new thing for me and MAN does it make your roots explode. There is zero possibility these plants make it to three or four nodes before I have to transplant them, as I had imagined they would. Good problem to have.
- The Pineapple Upside Down Cakes are experiencing what I consider more "normal speed" growth, but significant to me is how identical the two plants look. They even both have that little pinch in the middle of the leaves. This is, I hope and believe, a sign that I got two of the same phenotype, which is obviously ideal. This is maybe not the case with the two Jelly Ranchers, as one came out a bit curled and still is kind of (I call her the Millenium Falcon) and the other looks perfectly symmetrical.
- All the plants are either standing straight out at attention or even praying up to the light a tiny bit. All look nice and appropriately green. Zero signs on any of them that there's "too much light for the seedlings." No bleaching, no burnt tips. I am rapidly getting to the point of calling that often repeated phrase about seedlings only being able to stand a small amount of light a bunch of crap. Seedlings can handle TONS of light as long as you don't burn them with heat or blast them with budding par numbers, at least I think. My girls are getting close to 600 par (conventional wisdom says keep it under 400) and they're eating it for breakfast and laughing at me.
- This is what ZERO STRETCH looks like. I know from my first grow what stretch in seedlings looks like cuz I did exactly that, I stretched the crap out of them due to completely inadequate light source. Stretchy seedlings are the worst for a plethora of reasons. I don't want my plants stretching to reach more light unless I'm doing it intentionally for god knows what reason - maybe if they were insanely bushy and I wanted to induce a little stretch. But for now I want no stretch. Nice tight nodes. It is my opinion that this is entirely a function of the amount of light you give them, and is one of the primary reasons you DO give them tons of light.

CAVEAT: I am no light expert, far from it, and certainly no kind of experienced grower. So although I maybe have a tendency to state things a little definitively, even I take what I say with a grain of salt. Cuz I don't KNOW that I'm right about any of this, but especially the light part. This is what is working for me, that's all.

Anyway, here's the girls from the side and top about 12 hours into their 18 hour day.

 

[lvumlow]

There are some great videos out there discussing light wavelengths and the impact on the architecture of the plant. The results seem pretty conclusive and my interpretation puts the blue spectrum retarding stretch and resulting in tight nodes and red accelerating it with wider nodes but I am sure overall light intensity is a factor as well and don't forget, those spectrums are covered in your lights intensity.

(6:42 starts to discuss light quantity and quality; very informative!)


My plant was so stout that I had a hard time starting LST. It literally looked like a cabbage or something, I was perplexed and my friend told me not to worry as this is generally what you strive for... my light is pretty much a no- name full spectrum white LED so I am not sure what made it so tight and bushy other than intensity. It's nice to have a good problem for once...

Here is pic of mine at the end of week 3 - you can see how tight and compact the nodes are from where I have her bent over for training.

 

[Jon]

There are some great videos out there discussing light wavelengths and the impact on the architecture of the plant. The results seem pretty conclusive and my interpretation puts the blue spectrum retarding stretch and resulting in tight nodes and red accelerating it with wider nodes but I am sure overall light intensity is a factor as well and don't forget, those spectrums are covered in your lights intensity.

Here is a link to a great source of information about the effects of light on plants.
(6:42 starts to discuss light quantity and quality; very informative!)


My plant was so stout that I had a hard time starting LST. It literally looked like a cabbage or something, I was perplexed and my friend told me not to worry as this is generally what you strive for... my light is pretty much a no- name full spectrum white LED so I am not sure what made it so tight and bushy other than intensity. It's nice to have a good problem for once...

Here is pic of mine at the end of week 3 - you can see how tight and compact the nodes are from where I have her bent over for training.

Holy Crap! Never seen a plant like that. Sweet. I see you have it trained down hard. That's like a scrog with one plant and no screen!

 

[Jon]

There are some great videos out there discussing light wavelengths and the impact on the architecture of the plant. The results seem pretty conclusive and my interpretation puts the blue spectrum retarding stretch and resulting in tight nodes and red accelerating it with wider nodes but I am sure overall light intensity is a factor as well and don't forget, those spectrums are covered in your lights intensity.

Here is a link to a great source of information about the effects of light on plants.
(6:42 starts to discuss light quantity and quality; very informative!)


My plant was so stout that I had a hard time starting LST. It literally looked like a cabbage or something, I was perplexed and my friend told me not to worry as this is generally what you strive for... my light is pretty much a no- name full spectrum white LED so I am not sure what made it so tight and bushy other than intensity. It's nice to have a good problem for once...

Here is pic of mine at the end of week 3 - you can see how tight and compact the nodes are from where I have her bent over for training.

Yeah my light is full spectrum white too. It has all the necessary spectrums including a huge spike of blue. I wish I was allowed to show you the spectrum for this light, but I can't. Anyway, thanks for the article. I think it's intensity too.

 

[Jon]

The plot thickens....

Auto grow is off the ground! Went four for four (Now 15 for 15 lifetime, lol) on the seeds and all four popped and had a half inch or so tap root by a couple hours ago. Photos below are of the sprouted seeds. The three are the Cinderella Jacks and the one is the Gorilla Zkittlez. The Pineapple Express did not arrive again today. Ugh. Then I tossed in a shot of my setup/tools I use for putting the seeds in the Dixie cups, ie, tweezers, a wooden thick pick, Great White, bottled water, etc. I used the same soil mix (40% FF Ocean Forest/40% FF Happy Frog/20% Mother Earth Perlite #3), and moistened the soil, poked the hole with my pinky, then took the pick and made a hole within the hole for the tap root. I dust the hole with Great White and drop in the seed then work the tap root very gently into the smaller hole within the hole, so I know my tap root is going straight down and the head is up and not too deep. Gently cover them over. And into the tent they go. I'm starting them with the lights on so they can sprout out into their light. They are 32" beneath the blurples, and I will start with just the VEG switch on, ie, the blue light, plus the four corner UFO full spectrum panels. Probably let them go with the blues for two weeks then switch the BLOOM lights on too and go full spectrum. These autos are going to live a 20/4 light/dark cycle. There's a pic of the seeds covered over and then in their little rig in the tent with the lights on.

As with the photos, Day One of the autos will be the day they break ground.

I tossed in one shot of the photo girls tonight, which is Day Nine of the photo grow. The growth since yesterday is explosive, especially on the two big dogs, those side by side Blueberry Muffin and Jelly Rancher. Those two are showing the others how it's done so far.

So I'm officially a two tent dude. Heh. I guess I better stay on my sh-t.