First grows are an experiment. It's just bagseed. Do whatever you want. If you get anything outta the deal, great. If you don't, that's fine. At least you'll be more prepared next time.
That really is bad advice.
First off, while the guy who started this thread might be growing from bagseed many, many others first attempt at growing are not made using bagseed.
If you do not research real true facts first and just go at it willy nilly you will make mistakes that you do not need to make. You may say you learn from mistakes but actually someone learns through education, through actual research of facts, not by killing off plants or growing scrub plants and then asking a collection of Beavis & Buttheads what went wrong.
You take the same risks and face the same penalties on your first grow as on any of them so why not do all you can to make the most of it? Unless someone just tosses beans out in the woods or something and then comes back months later to see if there is anything to harvest, they will be taking risks and they will be spending time and putting out effort and spending money on their grow, so why risk that and waste all that on what will likely be a failed attempt if you go into it with the mindset that it is only experimentation? Why not try your best to follow the proven rules of successful growing and have a decent or better chance of ending up with something worthwhile rather than play the crazed mad Dr. Potenstein on a first grow?
Many people think that being a good grower is being able to handle whatever problems occur during a grow. That is not the true definition of a good grower. It is important to know those things, but what makes a grower good is for them to become educated FIRST so they can avoid problems, so they do not occur, so they do not have to be dealt with in the first place, and while learning that they will also learn how to handle them if and when they do by chance still occur.
Trail and error and experimentation is NOT the best way to learn to grow in this day and age. There are too many quality resources out there to rely on that tell you step by step what you need and what to do and how to do it and using all of them that you possibly can BEFORE you order beans or pull them from a bag of seedy pot and pop them and then start asking people what to do next is infinitely better than going into it blindly and just hoping that luck will get you by and if it doesn't just saying, oh well, it was only an experiment .. that I REALLY, REALLY HOPED WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL!
When I began growing in 1972 unless you knew someone who was already experienced all you had was trial and error ... and if that is all you had you hoped you would get lucky enough to meet someone with real experience who could teach you. Well this is 2010 and there are high quality growing resources out the butt available to one and all so why in the wide, wide world of sports would anyone chose to jump into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and go back to the 60's and 70's and try to grow like we were forced to back then?
In 1972 I would have damn near blown the Devil in the middle of Time Square at high noon just to get one single high quality book on how to grow cannabis in return, and I would have read it from cover to cover more than once before I made my first attempt at growing.
Someone does not build high-rise buildings by trial and error. Someone does not purchase carpentry tools and equipment and builds houses by trial and error. Someone does not get a job in a restaurant and become a chef by trial and error. Someone does not become a pilot by trial and error. Someone does not become an air traffic controller by trial and error. Someone does not become a cop by trial and error. Someone does not become a nuclear physicist by trail and error. Someone does not become a plumber by trial and error. Someone doesn't just grab a set of car keys and a car and try to head down the road and learn to drive by trial and error. Nothing starts out with trial and error so why intentionally pick that route for growing when it no longer needs to be done that way? In this day and age, in this era, it is irrational too do so.
I tend to believe it happens because most growers are impetuous youth who only think about dreamed of fantastic final results so they order beans or pull them from some seedy pot and then you see them on sites like this asking how to germinate them and then asking why they didn't pop or if they did why are they now falling over and when they should feed them and what should they feed them and how much light of what type for how many hours per day do they need and what is the cause for this problem or that problem and are they ready to be harvested and if not, when will they be ready and then asking how to dry their crop, if they get lucky enough to have a crop to dry in the first place, and then is curing worthwhile and if so, how do you do it .... and about a thousand other questions asked between those VERY commonly asked ones that could all have been avoided, along with the problems that caused them to be asked in the first place, if they just sat down and read a good book and then assembled a quality growing system first, before they ordered and beans and then asked how to pop them or pulled beans from seedy pot and then asked how to pop them, etc., etc., etc.
You grow for success, not for experimentation. You learn infinitely more from reading factual information than from staring at sick or dead plants and scratching your head in wonderment and curiosity and then asking a group of Beavis & Butthead's what in the world went wrong and what the solution for it is, if there still is a solution for it.
It is very simple ..... first the horse and behind it the cart, not the other way around. Even with all the proven knowledge available today, sadly most new growers are already messing around with the cart while the horse is still way out wandering around in a pasture somewhere and has not even been brought into the barn yet let alone placed before the cart.
If someone wants to experiment, purchase a kids chemistry set. If someone wants to grow, first educate yourself with proven facts from valid quality sources of factual information and only then attempt to grow ... that is if you want any chance at all to have any reasonably expectable and acceptable degree of success.
Thus endeth the lesson.
