Max's First Grow - Soil - LED - Painkiller XL

MaxHeadroom said:
Thanks Spart. I'll take extra care with watering now. It never occurred to me to think of the implications of small roots in big pots. I'm still having fun learning and that's what it's all about at the end of the day :-)
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That's a good attitude Max, you're doing fine for your first grow. If this were easy everybody would be doin it :clap:
 
I feel vindicated in my decision to up pot the runt. The new soil all around the seedling has gone very dark as the waterlogged soil leaches into the drier fresh stuff. I'm hoping she gets a growth spurt on and starts catching up soon. 7 days old with only 1 set of one blade true leaves is nothing like the progress of the others.

This one is going to strictly adhere to the dry out/wet cycle.

I should add that I put a little bit of mycorrhiza into the hole before re-potting. Anything to help give the roots a little boost as they reach out past the soil plug they currently occupy. Other than that I'm not going to fidget much until I've researched exactly when to add how much CalMag.
 
Day 17 Ruminations - To Top or Not to Top

That is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous topping,
Or to take arms against a sea of lst,

Gadzooks and forsooth 420's, verily I have a quest afore me and a question before you *goes away to take meds*

I'm finding lots of conflicting information on the whole subject of topping (I'm considering FIM to be a subset of topping for the purpose of this discussion).


The aim is to end up with multiple bud sites and until now I've thought a SCRoG was key in this plan/aspiration/aim/goal. As XL#1 gets bigger it's time to think what she wants to be when she grows up, and the answer is "huge, with a big rack (of buds)". A man can but dream. Soooo, I started thinking of the mechanics of achieving this noble and lofty aspiration.

Things read up on

Mainlining/Fluxing
Topping
LST
SCRoG
Super cropping
Monster cropping

Of these I think several would work well together. Mainlining looks a bit adventurous for a first grow, as do the two techniques ending in 'cropping'. This leaves

Topping
LST
SCRoG

I may yet chicken out of SCRoG and go LST, but I think the real question is on topping. It makes a lot of sense to me.. animal bites a bit off, plant grows bushier where it's been nibbled. Alas there appears to be an even split on this.

Some say

"Yes, do topping for bushier plants" and others say
"No, don't top. The plant is bushier but yield is lower"

Would you like to tell me what camp you occupy and if you've tried both? I won't be fidgetting with the girls until this evening or tomorrow morning, but I am about to gaze upon their beauty.

Probingly
 
Day 17 Progress - pH Down

Today the girls got a watering. I have high hopes for BB#1 (the blue berry) as this one will be using lessons learned along the way. Today the lift test on the small pot showed it to be very dry - 2 days without water. Until now the girls have been getting tap water with a pH of 7.2 It's time to start using the pH Down to get it to 6.5 The smallest splash took the pH to 3.0, eeeek! I basically threw away most of that water and added fresh until I got to the target of 6.5.

I am aware that any additives are put in before attempting a pH adjustment so the sequence was

Add a pinch of Epsom Salts
Add a tiny splash of seaweed extract
Add pH Down

Note that 'fresh water' is water that has stood in the tent for 48 hours to vent off the chlorine and warm up so it doesn't shock the roots. I used nearly 3 pints between all the girls. Some was used to saturate the small pot until there was a bit of run-off. On the bigger pots I dribbled the rest of the water in a circle away from the stem. There's no sign of droop yet so this feels like the right approach for now.

As promised, here is a picture of the runt after being transplanted. Growth has suddenly happened! She is proof that overwatering stunts growth and she was only saved by up potting to dry out the saturated sludge in her smaller pot
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Here's a gratuitous picture of the tent right now
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Here's the star of the show, XL#1, who as best I can tell when comparing to other plants of a similar age, is doing very well and has near perfect growth and development. The nodes are very tight - I read this is good
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Here's BB#1 - She's 13 days old. The leaves are broader than the XL's
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I have had 5ml syringes sat on my desk at work along with the fans since before Christmas. I hope to pick these up on Saturday so I can carefully measure out any additives and pH adjusters.

For fellow noobs following my inane babble - I read it is better to throw away water that is over adjusted with pH. You wouldn't use pH Down then correct it back to your target with pH Up. This is advice I have taken to heart.

Research into topping and LST continues.
 
It's a true struggle when your first figuring out what the plants can take but these are strong plants and can take a beating. I've done both I've lsted autos and pheno and after it leads to some lsting. I've even gone as far as tie my plant down and then use sticks to keep her down and straight. (examples of the stick treatment)
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if you're really worried about topping or lst those aren't the only options there's also tucking and pony tailing.
 
Thanks Spart,


+reps for the timely information. Am I right in thinking those plants with the sticks were topped first to get the extra branches to tie down? I'm unsure why opinion on topping is so polarised. Part of me wants to do it to get those extra stems but part of me is worried to mess too much with the gals. It's getting close to decision time on XL#1 as she has 5 nodes already, but some guides say wait until 5 - 6 inches high. She's probably around 3" tall at the moment. Most plants I see are more stretched at this age but not as busy. I'm enjoying myself greatly but there's so much contradictory information to take in and assess, hence my question for people that have been there, done it, got the T shirt.
 
Morning Max,

FWIW, I topped my PK-XL and was happy with the results, it was still was almost to big to handle.

Something else I did which was fun and educational-- I took some clones off her and grew them out using different methods, "experimenting" to see what worked and what didn't. I really enjoyed this too but I have a lot of time to tinker with them (not only that but I have a nice stash curing because of it.) You'l have 3-4 weeks to decide if want to try this, plenty of time to start reading again :-)
I also think it's good to start getting use to cloning when there is no pressure... it doesn't hurt anything but your EGO if the first one or two don't work out. :thumb:
 
yeah man it took me about 3 weeks before the sticks were applied and yeah I know how stress full it is the first time topping. On that one I waited til it was done the third node then I topped it on the fourth and then cut off the bottom node leaving just the two nodes kinda like a double mainline.
 
Hi Beav,

Great to get some PK-XL advice. I think she's just starting the 5th node and a candidate for the first top. It does sound worth doing. I don't mind a bit longer in veg to let her grow back after a haircut. I'll wait until the morning and decide if I dare wield the scissors then.

Edit: She got a haircut today. She's got another 6 hours of light before her bedtime.

Cheers
 
Day 17 FIM

I decided to go for the FIM flavour of topping and gave XL#1 a half inch haircut.
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After all that worrying I thought "is that it?".

The snip blades were sterilised in a flame from the gas cooker before use. It goes without saying that I wash my hands well before going in the tent.

Note for fellow noobs; FIM is cutting off about 80% of the little new growth (not 80% of the whole plant - that would be silly). There are good articles on FIM on this site if you need to read more.

Fingers crossed she likes her new 'do' and rewards me with up to 4 new branches. Cutting bits off feels brutal but they like a bit of tough love. If I had the facilities I'd clone her at some point, but alas I don't have a second tent and lights.
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Day 17 FIM

I decided to go for the FIM flavour of topping and gave XL#1 a half inch haircut.

After all that worrying I thought "is that it?".

The snip blades were sterilised in a flame from the gas cooker before use. It goes without saying that I wash my hands well before going in the tent.

Note for fellow noobs; FIM is cutting off about 80% of the little new growth (not 80% of the whole plant - that would be silly). There are good articles on FIM on this site if you need to read more.

Fingers crossed she likes her new 'do' and rewards me with up to 4 new branches. Cutting bits off feels brutal but they like a bit of tough love. If I had the facilities I'd clone her at some point, but alas I don't have a second tent and lights.
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You really don't need a second tent Max. I put the clones in a cardboard box with a couple pieces of mylar on the sides and top then cut a hole in the top to shine a 23w CFL bulb (in a trouble light.) That way I could keep them small and let them develop nice roots until I was done flowering. Ever hear that saying: K.I.S.S. ?
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Hi Beav,

I guess I like to over think and over engineer :-) I could look at the box idea (but made out of plywood).

Can I ask what colour temperature should I look for? I know I want cool white for veg, but they come in a range of temps. Does 6,500K sound about right?

Cheers
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I don't have any idea on the details of the bulb, it is one my wife had in a lamp we don't use much... now it's mine :thumb:
It's nothing special.... the way I understand it is that you don't need to get very technical when they are young and developing roots. I kept them in there for 4-5 weeks, and I'm sure they could have gone longer but after harvest I put the room back to veg. My goal was to KEEP THEM SMALL until I was ready for them.. and this box idea worked just fine.
 
Monster cropping is revegging a clone taken during flowering, so it's not really a training technique like the others in your list.

Supper cropping and topping (including fim) are irreversible training techniques, but have definite value.

LST is generally reversible (to a degree) and includes poytailing, tying down, and all the rest of the techniques that can lead to a Scrog if so desired.

All are intended to level the tops so that you can have equal light penetration from an artificial light source like we have in indoor grow setups. Outdoors these techniques are not as valuable because regardless of what you do, you're not going to get anywhere near to halfway closer to the sun.

In our first grow, we did some LST on two, some unintentional topping on one, and a supercrop on one that was just going to be too tall to fit into our tent.

We will never leave a plant untrained again.
 
Cheers guys.

When lining the babies up for a group shot the other day I pinched the main leaf tip on XL#1 between the pots. It looked a bit bruised but as I'm sure these plants suffer more than that in the wild I didn't get too worried. However that leaf tip is now looking bright orange under LED and orangey-brown under flash. Not only that, leaves that I know weren't pinched are getting the orange edge. I found this article which has a similar but more advanced case of whatever it is

https://www.420magazine.com/communi...rispy.192643/?highlight=edge+of+leaves+orange

Unfortunately the actual issue wasn't confirmed. I have noticed that the tent is getting a little warm (temp and RH monitor is still on a slow boat from China so I can't get accurate numbers at the moment.

I've turned the control knob on the fan down a bit to reduce temps.

Here are the leaves in question
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All the other plants are fine. All plants get the same water, light etc. I'm hoping it is nothing to fret about.
 
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