My First grow

[MetalSmelter]

Sorry i havn't updated in a few days, she's still progressing as it looks, she's to the top of the box so i'm trying to get the other finished, i finished lining the whole thing. need to build a hood and finish the top where the electronics are.

Is there anyway i can cut her and make her shorter? I guess snip a few heads off?

my new box is awesome as far as design goes, she's still just too tall. So many things i would have changed during the grow to make her smaller.......hmm.

 

[bfq]

you can always cut and trim, specially with how undeveloped the buds are still. but i would probably tie her down more.

 

[MetalSmelter]

Yea its getting a bit wierd trying to tie her down, every one of the tertiary growths thats above the screen now are almost 9", and i'd probobly count 20 good ones that are that long, and the other 20 or so are moderately short, all over 4.5".

 

[MetalSmelter]

Well i "finished" the cabinet today, tempertures are on the high side, so i'll have to figure out something different for the top area to vent better. Seems like its liking 86-92F.

Whats the miniumum distance a 150w hps should be at for best effects?

I did some trimming to fit her in, i cut some of her smaller heads off, and tried to thin her canopy some, took off the 2nd lvl scrog and she fits in the cabinet, but i'm going to have to raise the top shelf and figure out another way to cool the cabinet, i feel very little suction on the hood end of the output fan, mabey cause of the turn, but its damn quiet, and theres plenty of air going ino the cabinet, just very littel coming out of the filter. I need to get some trunk latches for the front doors to latch together.

Theres just so damn much plant matter, she should have never gotten this big......I want to get my new scrog built, i know it will work right, and i know what to do differently next time around, either Top her most likely or LST to give me 4-6 main heads similar to how it is now same method, train her around the screen ....then flower to 14hrs dark, and let everything raise above the screen, i know what to do differently now.....just don't want to throw her out until i get a viable clone........More on that attempt later....at bottom.

Neway heres some pictures, notice how damn tight that hood i made is to fit the CFL's.......i've gotta figure out something more to give me better height to work with the HPS, i'm going to take out the top shelf, and rig up the inline fan hanging from the right side, as my output hole is right there. HPS light will be hanging from the top of the box, so i should have a good 6.5" more height.

A couple problems i'm facing right now trying to fit the girl i have already in the space i built for my next grow is that......the scrog is way too high sitting on the pot, the arms are trained on it at that height so i cannot pull it down any to allow more room. The scrog i'm going to build for the box is going to extend all the way across and practically fit the space 2" above the right side shelf.

Question? whats the maximum a plant would grow during flower above a screen, my shit already screwed that up because the timing and all was way off for over a month.......Typically what are we talking 6-7" above a screen or what?

Also tried to take a clone, and she looked good for about 20mins, 3nodes, pulled off 3rd growth to expose, moistened tip, rooting powder, and then into moist soil........good for 20mins then she just loooooks wilted....is this typical of a clone during the first few hrs and day or two, she's been like that for about 3hrs i'd say. I have a desk fan on her and a single 23w blue CFL in the top half of the old rubbermaid box.

Seems like shes soaked with water or on her way out!, but dosent seem to be too much in there........I have plenty of more chances to get one cloned and rooted, then i'll start the new scrog grow and make sure certain things are right......so whats wrong with her?

 

[bfq]

ok, lots of questions... let me try and give my answers in a rational way... wish me luck

first off, i have no experience with small HID's... but from what i have seen you will have plenty of room for 150 watts in there without moving the top shelf... i think

the single HID wont take up as much room as all the CFL's. it will only come down from that top shelf a couple few inches. also, using a ScrOG setup for that cab will give you back a few inches.

how to tell how far the bulb should be? the common wisdom says put your hand on top of the canopy and see how hot it is. if it is too hot for you, it is too hot for your plants and needs to go higher. if you can hold your hand there and have it not feel cooked, it is ok.

i couldnt imagine ScrOGging without topping (i actually prefer fimming) or LST training beforehand... but i am still new to this ScrOG thing myself

my buds were all kept within 4 inches of the screen... the main colas (yes, plural, love that topping!) were over 12 inches long though and ran along the sides of the screen... it turned them into a bunch of smaller buds standing up from that main branch.

the thing with any sort of plant training is the goal is YOU keep the plant where YOU want it to be... fuck what it wants to do twist ties and razors put the game in your control.

basically, the growth you have above your screen is higher than the growth i had over my screen at harvest. and you have WAY more leaf growth than i do! you stem diameter also seems about half what mine was.... and your screen itself is 2-3 times as far away from my soil... i think... pics are hard to tell. i am NOT saying do it my way, i am just giving you data to compare and come up with your own plot.

ventilation... do you have your exhaust fan blowing into the exhaust or sucking from it? regular PC fans sometimes do poorly with a tube behind them that they have to pull through... they spin but dont really move air... so you may want to have it push through the exhaust or go with a larger (CFM, not inches) fan.... mine pulls through my exhaust, but the fan is not mounted to the tube, it is mounted to my light baffle. play with how you have the fan mounted and see what happens... a good way to visually see what a fan is doing is with smoke.... sit in front of the cab, do some bongs and watch where the smoke goes

as for your clone... looks like you shocked her... just did the same thing last week to one of mine... she laid down for like 2 days and i thought for sure she was a gonner... even one of the leaves totally dried up. but i wanted to see what would happen so i kept treating her like the other three clones and she stood back up and looks good now

which brings us to: always take at least 2 clones at a time. you can always cull if they all survive but you will lose days/weeks if you have an accident.

push that soil TIGHT around the stem! that is what kills most clones i think... if the soil doesnt touch the stem the plant cant get any water and dies.

and finally, do NOT over water your clones! i give mine a small shot of water twice a day, just enough to keep the jiffy they are each in moist. wet leads to rot which is death.

if you keep that clone moist and dont cook it with the lights and keep the soil against the stem i would almost bet it will pull through.

the almost comes from you are trying to clone at the hardest time... cloning from flower is skating uphill. takes longer for them to take root. that means rot is more likely to set in. no worries though, cloning still works from flower, it is just harder and more prone to failure.

ok, i think i spouted off my opinion and POV on your last questions... miss any?

 

[MetalSmelter]

Na man hit all the major points, i commend that effort lol.

As far as the screen level goes, it should ideally be 4-5" off the ground not 10-12" where mine is......literally 5" from the top of the main stalk to the bottom of the screen, which leads to the huge height problem. And yea every scrog i've seen not sure on scale but they all look 4-5" long above the screen, nice and compact. Mine seemed to start stretching heavily above the screen when i threw it into flower....(which again it wasn't on 12/12 like i thought so she never turned over, again more veg time lol), so yea i'm pretty much still in veg as far as i know.....So i can take alot of clones if need be, i just want to make sure i know i have a girl, and that cuts some of the hardest part of waiting out of it, so alot easier.

I'm gonna do the 150 and be happy with it, it should be plenty imo for what i want. A little uvb supplements here and there.

But i did forget to add, temp problems today were 90% due to AC going out yesterday lol, guys came and fixed it today, but it hit fkn 93 in my apt last night.....all night....so ambient temps i'm sure were higher than normal in all rooms.

Clones - I'll take 2 more in the morning when she wakes up, she's really no closer to flower than she was last week, so i'm starting to lean towards trying to get a few clones, and get one going. So how did i possibly shock her, too much water, light, what....

I'm looking into the 150w $70 one at htgsupply i think it is.

 

[bfq]

shock is a hard thing to tell on without obvious signs other than wilting... it may not even be what really happened... it is just what i call it cause it seems to fit best... the one i just had laid down on me i thought at first it had an embolism... and that is why i let it go to see what would happen. i used to be really mean to my clones back in the day and i never had an embolism or even that many die... usually what killed em was, "fuck, have i watered the clones today? this week?!?" but back to this one that laid down, i think i was just not nice to her somehow... maybe i didnt talk sweetly enough to her, maybe i pinched her stem as i was cutting, maybe the blade (or the water) was too cold... or maybe she was just being a moody female

as for those temps, dont worry about them. a couple days in that range isnt going to make or break things. in fact, contrary to what we all keep carrying on like, these plants will grow just fine above 95 degrees with a RH of 80% (think i am wrong? ask a Florida outside grower) it just aint ideal. too cold is a bigger threat to plants.

and you know, IF you are planning on doing some pruning, why not make every viable cutting you can into clones? so what if you only need 1 at a time? doing 50 would be some serious practice.

i think, just for shits and giggles i am going to take a couple big cuttings and see just how long i can store them in the fridge. maybe when i retire a mother i will cut her up into 20 clones, put em in the crisper and then each week see if i can get them to root or if i turned em into lettuce.

when you have a big op clones arent a problem... but in ops our size having a viable mother on hand as much as doubles our grow requirements. (for me, the mother is 1/6 of my whole setup.)

 

[MetalSmelter]

Well i had figured every time i prune i'll try cloning, i just don't want to keep stressing her, as i know she's just going to get bigger and bigger if she keeps light on her....than i can keep her to a decent size and mabey get some buds out of it if no clones even take....then again each cutting i do stresses her.

Seriously man, some of them heads are 14-15" long with 2" alternating nodes, i have them lying down on the scrog crossed over one another like spaghetti....its rather embarrising compared to when i threw her on the scrog and how she was growing at 1 month....beautiful girl....Such a shame....GD timer!

My plans are really to have a single plant for the long haul...only enough for myself, and a scrog should give me that. But i'd just like it 1/2 perpetual and be able to take a clone sometime during early flower, root it, keep it viable for a week or 3 (throw it into a very small veg box like my first one, veg it while mama is maturing, top her as soon as a harvest is done, scrog her over the next 2weeks then throw her into flower, 2-4weeks another clone, and just be able to have a few harvests a year, nothing more. I'd like to be able to do a few runs back to back take a few months off, you know the rutine.....I just need to get a headstash going first lol....lol.

If need be i can build up another small enclosure later similar to the size of my first one......bout 1cf, later down the road for a little veg chamber, to allow it to get better rootbed and some early LST or time to grow after topped if the grows a little longer in the scrog before i fill it up again.

I dunno all hypotheticals.....

 

[MetalSmelter]

Well the clones top leaves are 1/4 crispy.....she's dying.

 

[bfq]

if it was me, i would think about making a second cab like this one after you get it all working... use your Rubbermade for the veg to keep a mother in and alternate each cab

that way you could have the super short veg period for your clones that you really need and can keep things short, plus you will be able to pull enough out of them... it never lasts as long as we hope

BTW, my little laying down clone is doing just fine (just checked) and i expect to see roots shooting out of the jiffy in a couple of days

which brings us to why use the jiffy's or rockwool (better solution) for rooting clones.... how will you know your soil bound clone has rooted? you wont for sure till you see her start to get leggy as Hell cause the lights are so far away when she starts to veg. by then, she has vegged for an unknown period of days. using a Jiffy, when she has rooted, i will see the roots poking out the side. then, i know exactly when she hit veg and when she is ready to have the lights up as close to her as possible to prevent legging up.

it is the same idea as why to germinate seeds instead of just popping them in soil too.

 

[bfq]

Well the clones top leaves are 1/4 crispy.....she's dying.

as i said with mine that laid down, some of the leaves even got crispy... and not just a little... totally bone dry crunchy.

just keep her going till all the leaves are gone, she rots or she pulls through... one way or the other you will learn something and the couple drops of water it will cost is well worth the knowledge.

 

[D3adH3ad]

Get rid of the green clear cup, no clear items allowed as planters!

 

[MetalSmelter]

Egh i always germed in a paper towel, so rooting i dunno really. When i germed i did ppt and then put them in shot glasses and waited till the tap root curling at the bottom, then put them in their pots as they are now thats it really.....i figured it would be the same way, just wait till they show roots breaking through the outside of the ball, also mabey give a little more buffer on the harvesting window and waiting for it, took a week or so to show at the bottom of the shot glass for me when after i planted the taproot....

Clear item will work, i'll line it with some black trash liner like i did the shot glasses. thanks for pointing that out

So same deal, but i just didn't use rockwool.

So do i need rockwool for clones, or can i do it that way?

Yea i plan eventually on a small box for outside of scrog veg time, just to give some time between the clone taking time, and harvest time.

 

[bfq]

rockwool or these: GroWell > Jiffy Propagating Plugs

not an endorsement of that site, just showing the product... i am not a Brit even.

i use the Jiffy's but i would rather use the rockwool... Jiffy's come from Ace, rockwool comes from 3 counties away

 

[MetalSmelter]

Well i checked on the clone this morning and took another. The clone i took seems wilted just like the first one had....the first one seems to be standing back up though, or my eyes are playing tricks! so thats a good sign i hope, as you mentioned bfq. I lined the cup last night is black trash can liner. I just gave her a little water as the top of the soil was dry, so it has either evaporated or been soaked in, hopeflly both.

Left is First clone taken yesterday, right was taken 30mins ago.

Using Take Root Powder.

Now that i have some wiggle time, i can get a proper carbon filter and the hps over the next few weeks.

 

[bfq]

yeah, not the happiest looking clone for sure, but that stem standing up firm is a very good sign

maybe the next clone you cut toss it in a cup of room temperature water for a few minutes before dropping her in the root tone... wild ass guess, so not sure if it will actually help or just give you something to do (it wont hurt though)

 

[MetalSmelter]

Did that with both of them, i let them sit in the cup for a few minutes before dipping into powder.

Reason being? Our water here has had fecal coliform since wed i think (form of Ecoli) So i boiled it the night before then let it sit till the next day in the pot it was boiled in before putting it into a container. ASAIK they've got it taken care of just still boiling my drinking water lol.

She didn't stiffen up till a good 12hrs after i cloned it, so yea its lookin ok, but leaves look BADD, they are under 24/0, 8" desk circular fan blowing on the pair.

I really don't know why the clones are wilting so bad though, alot of peoples clones i see look fine leaves still plush, but fuck, i guess as long as she's growing legs she's good...and can also give me more buffer time.

 

[MetalSmelter]

Just to update a little on mama, i did a bit of cutting today on her, and lowered her overall foilage, just so GD much of it, so i cut out some of the heads that seemed very underdeveloped as far as internodal growth, so that left me with quite a few, so i started with the most obvious heads that were easiest to tie down, and ended up with a nice little spaghetti soup of vines. Hopefully in the next week she can recover and start flowreing, i'd still like to get something from her....it'll take 3-4weeks for theclones to do something and get any moderate size i imagine.

So this is what i've got now with her, a far cry from a month or two ago, such a pity....color, just alot of problems.

And also i took another clone while i was doing the trimming, hell why not i can sell one eventually if they turn out looking good for a few bucks to go towards my hps light.

Anyway the relative time periods since cut, grounded, and the picture taken, the right one is the first one i took yesterday about this time. She looked exactly like the 1hr if not worse than that. The middle 9hr one is the same one i took the picture of this morning that was wilted looking too, so something is happening not sure if its good or bad though, but wilting then standing back up sounds good to me....

 

[bfq]

weird that they all wilt on you like that.... i have no ideas... cept maybe DONT soak them in the water first

yes, it is obvious i am just guessing here

maybe you want to put up a thread asking why they all wilt on you in the plant problems forum?

 

[bfq]

so, seems the consensus in that other thread WAS to add the humidity dome... amazing by my results... for me, throwing the dome out was one of the best things i ever did for my clones. i have had that one clone lay down since i have been doing it this way and it was the first...

anyway, sorry my advice seems to have been bad for you... it was given in good faith and with due diligence though