SpaceLulu's - Soil - First Grow - 2015

[SpaceLulu]

Hello everyone,

I bought most of equipment almost 2 months ago, but I didn't start growing until recently. I started on 23rd of November. This is my first grow and I am learning a lot.

Setup is like this:

1. I have a grow tent that is 1x1x1.8m that is 3.2x3.2x5.9ft. I am from Europe, so I will try to translate all measurements.
2. I have a digital dimmable ballast, with settings 250W, 400W, 600W. And I have the same wattage MH lamps for veg, and 600W HPS lamp for flower.
3. Grow medium is soil
4. Seed is 1xWorld Of Seeds Strawberry Blue (SB) and 3 x Strain Hunters Money Maker (MM). All feminized. I might not have made the best choice of seed but it is what it is.

Seed was germanized in a wet towel, germanization was sucessful for all of the seed, it was put into the ground, but one of MM didn't make it.

Right now situacion is like this:
Plant are 20cm (8inch) below the light.
Temperature is around 20-24C (68-75F)
Humidity is around 40-60RH
Lights are 18h on 6h off.

SB and MM#1 are doing fine I think.
MM#2 never made it.
MM#3 had a shell (remains of the seed) when it sprouted. So it looks a bit different but I think it will be fine.
I will post some photos below.



Thank you for your time

 

[Dr Bob]

May I take a seat right here? Love your setup for a startup. Very similar to my first tent grow. I am very curious about that Strawberry Blue as it is likely my next seed to pop!

Welcome to


Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

UPDATE
Let me make an update. I had a problem where brown spots appeared on one plant, and started appearing on another. Then I added a bit nutrients and I think that brown spots stopped. Existing ones are still there, but are not spreading and there are no new ones.
One of the plants is showing signs of too much water (MM1), it was my fault, but still learning and I hope it will make it. (and not become a hermie in the process)
Here are a few photos

So right now I am thinking about LST (I excluded HST because I think they've been thru a lot and I don't feel comfortable doing HST now). But all the journals and videos and texts I have found people usually do TOPing or FIMing, then LST, and then again TOP or FIM. Can someone give me some tips in what to do regarding that?

 

[Dr Bob]

I am an LST fan but have done all combos you can imagine over the years. Really I have just fallen back to just LST now as I can get as many tops as I want. from that. But, how big do you want them to be before you flip?

Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

Hi Dr Bob, thank you for answering.
I am not sure how big I wan't them. Maybe I would not go above 100cm(40inches) in height because my tent is 180cm(70inches). I would just like to make it spread more because I have a wide surface for 3 plants (at least I think so).

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Subbing in Lulu I will sit next to Dr. Bob and light up a joint. Good first grow, you are doing the right thing asking questions. So for 3 plants in a 1m square i would top them when they get to the fifth node. You will get plenty of branches to play with. I see you have already transplanted to the medium pots. What will be your final pot size?

 

[SpaceLulu]

I planned my final pot to be 12liters (not sure what unit of measure are you using for that). I hope that will be big enough.
I am not sure about topping, I would like to do just LST if possible without topping

 

[ShiggityFlip]

It really is up to you. I like to top because it really gets the side growth going and a very even canopy is the result. If you go to my hunger games journal you can see a lot of pics of how I top and train the plants.

 

[SpaceLulu]

OK. I decided to FIM the strongest plant (SB). It is so bushy that I wouldn't even know where to tie it for LST And this is a process of learning so why not try FIM. On others I will probably just use LST because they are a bit taller and there is more space between the nodes. Will see.
Basically I sterilized my scizzors and removed the top by around 80%. I was thinking of topping it (at the red line of pic1), but here is where I cut it if someone can say if that looks OK.



Overrall update. SB is a lot bushier, it looks like the strongest plant. Might be just the strain.
MM1 which was drowning is looking a lot better. And overall since I moved the fan to blow directly at them they are improving. The soil is almost dry, will have to water them in a day or two.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

You did more of a top than a FIM but I think that's great! This is going to be just perfect. You will see great lateral growth as a result. Get ready! Everything happens fast from now on.

 

[SpaceLulu]

This is starting to be weird. The only plant that was not showing signs of brown spots the first time is showing them now. It is the same like 2 other plants, only on lowest 2 sets of leaves.
I didn't take the pic with light off, but it shows like this.



This started showing when the soil was already dry. Maybe it is the lack of nutrients, I just hope that it stops and doesn't spread to other leaves because I am not sure what it might be. I have fed them today with about half the strength of nutrients. Next watering will be clean water if everything turns out okay.

UPDATE
I think I narrowed it down to Mg deficiency. I don't have Cal-Mag right now, so I will get it and hope that will solve the problem.

 

[SpaceLulu]

Hi all. Sorry for my lack of updates. But here is one.

I had quite a few problems with brown spots on leaves and leaves turning yellow. Still not quite sure if that was due to lack of Cal/Mag or was it something different.
I looked for help all around, and what I managed to narrow it down is maybe overwatering that caused N def. I transplanted the plants and gave a full feeding. Hopefully that will take the problem away.

Plants are now under 600W MH. And are planted in 3.17gal pots. Plants are around 9inch in height. Which if they double is about the recommended size for my size of pots so I should be thinking about flowering I think soon. Or getting bigger pots.

Here are some pics.

 

[Dr Bob]

Hey Lulu! Sorry to have not seen your post with the deficencies. It does look like Cal/Mag vs N though from those pics. How is it going now after the feeding and some time?

Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

Here I am with an update. I switched my plants to 12/12. They are under 600W HPS, temp is around 20-25C and RH is around 35-50.
I think I managed to narrow it more down why bottom leaves were turning yellow, my best guess is that due to low soil PH nurtients (N primarily) was not being properly absorbed). PH of the soil is not around 6.6-6.8

Plant1
This is the plant I "butchered" with my TOP attempt. Maybe this is how FIM looks like, but I think I managed to miss that also. What happened here I have no idea, but here is how it looks light now. This yellow leaf is where I had the problem with yellowing, and spots, and it didn't appear after that one.


Plant2
I TOPed this one nicely. But then I topped it again, and possibly over did it. I think it managed to survive that. BUt then I was thinking about LSTing plants, and was checking for stem elasticity and managed to split it a bit (you can see it on the pic) but I think it survived that also (just hoping it won't turn hermie)


Plant3
I have no idea what is happening with this plant. IT is the same specie as plant1, but from the start it was showing problems. Leaves are different, kinda sick, rolled, I don't know. It had the same, if not better, conditions as other plants. Maybe it is something genetic, maybe I F it up in the start. But it is holding up, even thou it looks like its sick. I TOPped this plant and then did a LST (because the stem was much more elastic). At the last pic you can see how it looked like when it was "younger".

 

[Dr Bob]

Hey Lulu.
Those first two look absolutely fabulous. The 3rd looks like heat stress maybe or even N overdose but that early pic sure doesn't look like too much N.

What is the Temp in there?


Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

Hi Dr. Bob
Temp was always 19-25C (66.2-77F). I am always checking with my hand if they are too close to light. And I was always putting this sick plant even a bit more away from the lamp then the others, because this looks like heat stress.

As its shown on the last pic, the problem started really early, I might have done something at the very start that caused this. I am not sure. All plants received the same treatment, so I don't think that it is something I can fix now. Because it is not getting better or worse for a while now. :/

 

[Dr Bob]

Perfect temps for sure. How does the new growth look? Does everything take on that look over time?

Still looking good though! I bet she still gets some nice bud when she is done.


Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

I don't think that there is a single leaf that looks normal. All leafs look like that, from the point they start growing. It doesn't happen that it grows a normal leaf that then turns weird.

 

[Dr Bob]

Well then that is right out of my experience. I have had individual examples of some plants just come up distorted the whole way through while others from the same batch were fine. Didn't look quite like what you have going on but maybe it is just a bad example of the genetics for that breed.

Have you considered just flushing the heck out of her the next time you water just in case? It is a thought in case the worry is something in the soil that isn't in the other two.


Bob

 

[SpaceLulu]

Hey guys, here are my plants 2 weeks into flower


Also, when I was watering so far, when I would water them water would start coming out of the bottom after I gave them 2l of water. This time it took it a lot more. Does that mean that maybe holes got closed?