sunnyblacks
Member
First grow, my experience
Heres a report on my first grow experience. I thought I would share my experience with others out there who are deciding wether or not to take the plunge. Also as a way to organize my thoughts and hopefully share ideas, what worked, what didnt work, etc. This will consist of my previous grow and will have an update to the adjustments Ive made to my current grow. While Im not necessarily new to marijuana, Ive never grown anything whatsoever and am still of course learning and picking up new techniques and such.
After going to Oaksterdam University here in the bay area California, I decided to take the plunge and start growing. Going in to it I was weary. Like I said before Ive never grown anything nothing at all. Of course living in California, Ive heard people talk much about growing and everyone seemed to be doing it. But for some reason it seemed very difficult and time consuming. I would have to buy lights, figure out a way to have a dark cycle, feeding, etc. But one day I woke up and decided I would grow my own. I had had enough. I wanted control over the quality and the choice of strains that I smoked even here in California land of bud.
First lets start with the set up. After reading Seemorebuds how to grow a half a pound of bud for less than a hundred dollars I decided to utilize that set up. So I bought a
5x2x4 grow tent off of Ebay (~100) 10
10 42w CFLs 2700k (19.00 ea. 200 total)
The BioCanna line (~160)
Wood screws etc for the mobile and functional set-up as described in the above
1 Tower fan (70)
2 small square fans (15 ea.)
mentioned book (~30)
Moisture meter ($20)
3 3-gallon pots (12)
Ph/light Tester (19.99)
Miracle Grow 3 month time released potting soil
20lb bag of soil (lightest one in the hydro shop, Black Gold brand maybe)
One bag of perlite
Humidity dome (3)
The BIOCANNA line (150)
Yeah, I know I spent waayyy more than a $100 dollars
Setting up the grow tent was easy enough. It wasnt the most expensive and sturdy, I doubt I would be able to attach inline fans etc, that might probably be to heavy, who knows, but for my small set up, it definitely works.
Time to mix the soil. After reading through at least 10 hours of posts @ different forums and sites, including this one, I decided to stick with the Miracle Grow. Pros being I didnt want to have to worry about when to feed. I figured the time release benefit would outweigh the negative things I heard (nute burn etc). However I never did get to decide for myself whether or not Miracle Grow soil was any good. Upon opening the bag and pouring it out. I noticed insects, what appeared to be fungus gnats in the soil. I thought about it for a minute and decided to take it back. I ended up getting the black gold soil front the hydro shop. I asked them for the soil that had the least amount of fertilizer content. For some reason I though this would be the best way to go at the time. If the plants needed any nutrients I thought it would be best to add them myself. Since then Ive decided this was a mistake. I now look for soil that has sufficient nutrients in it. Im currently using Roots Organic soil and am pleased with it so far. Next grow Im going to try to make my own soil. Ive seen what seems to be a very good recipe by Subcool posted in the how to grow book by Hobbes a member on this forum. Only thing Im not sure If I have the space and open air that it takes to mix it, well see Ive also noticed that Uncle Ben another member whos thread and information Ive spent a great amount of time studying apply this method.
Seeds
I bought master kush seeds from Nirvana. That didnt work out so well. I must give credit to the hardiness and ease of growth, but quality the plant had absolutely no scent while growing NONE! The high .not even .lets call it a medium .because Im definitely not high after smoking it. The SkyWalker OG that I added a couple of weeks later .immediate high off the first toke. But anyway I planted 3 seeds in three 3 gallon bucket. Nirvana, does get points for germination however. Not only did ally three germinate, but on my second grow I germinated the other 7, thats 10 for 10. But between overwatering and a lack of knowledge, only one survived. So I had 8 square feet dedicated to just one plant Not ideal, but hey I worked with it.
Watering and PH
I have a ph tester from Home Depot for whatever thats worth. My soil tested around 7.5-8. The tap water 7. After reading most of the forum debated about whether or not ph testing was needed for soil I was left a little unsure about whether or not ph testing was needed. In the end I decided I should play it safe and ph. This raised new questions. Should I ph the water to 6.2? (the recommend ph in soil). But since my soil was more alkaline than acidic I decided that I would follow SeeMoreBuds instructions and make my water acidic in order to counter the soil ..Big mistake! This was the cause of death for one of my seedlings. I poured acidic water (around 4) to water it. Couple days later it was dead. After this encounter I began to heed note of the advice by Uncle Ben. According to him phing was simply a waste of time for soil growers. And that soil acted as a buffer, no need to ph. Well I tried it, once. No water ph, no letting it sit for 24 hrs, straight from the faucet to the pot. I admit, I was apprehensive. Would the plant notice, especially since I fed it phd water @ 6.0 after learning from the ph 4 debacle earlier?.....Nope, no difference in fact since watering my plants directly from the faucet I havent used my ph meter ever since.
Ligthing
I had about 10 42 watt 2700k bulbs. I knew the blue spectrum was better for veg, but I used what I had. In the beginning for seedlings I felt that I had more than enough light. It seemed very bright in there. I had did a lot of reading on the forums Fluorescents vs. HID. The verdict was that the cfls seemed to sacrifice yields slightly, but quality was way better. After buying my cfls I decided that I would grow the prettiest bud ever. I would make all you HID users eat your heart out. I was going to get at least a 4 ounces off my master kush .after all, Nirvana did say they were heavy yielders. What happened? Somewhere during late veg (I vegged for 5 weeks) I began to have doubts about my lighting set up. Initially I had only needed to use more than 4 bulbs during the seedling stage. But after setting up all 10 cfls in the tent, the tent soon soared to 90 degrees. Ambient room temperature here in the bay at that time was somewhere in the 70s- 80's . The so called theory of cfls not emitting heat soon lost its appeal. I did however really liked the flexibility of my setup. It allowed me to move the light up, down, and side to side But by late flowering, it was obvious, I didnt have enough light. I kept on looking at other grows and compared my progress and would wonder, why are my buds so small. So the lighting was definitely not enough, even for just one plant I guess it was a blessing that the other two didnt make it. Theres no way my lighting was enough for 3 mature plants. Things brings me to another point, light distance. If your new to the forums and you look for advice as to how close to hang cfls the general consensus is to hang em 3 to 4 inches, or as close as possible. This consistently got me in trouble. Six to 7 inches, no closer than 5 was perfect for me. Every time I tried to do 3 inches the leaves would start to burn or turn yellow after just a couple days. Im on my second grow now and have bought a 400w hps setup for $187 including ballast, a small reflector, 2 bulbs (one hps with extra blue in the spectrum, and a mh conversion bulb 6500k), and shipping from htg supply. Its funny, this setup is cheaper than the cfl setup and produces the same if not less heat. The production however is on a comletely different level....no more cfl's during flowering for me.
Fertilizers
I got in a lot of trouble with ferts. I had the bio canna line and seemed to work fine in the beginning. But after the first 2 week of feeding in veg my plant became very light green in color. I had read enough of Uncle Bens forums to know that 90% of the ferts sold now do not contain enough nitrogen to sustain nitrogen loving plants (cannabis is such a plant). I decided to get some earth juice grow NPK 2-1-1. Other than the fact that I cant get it to completlely dissolve in my water, I prefer it over the canna veg nute which is very short of N. Not only did it darken up my leaves quickly, but I have yet to burn my plants with it. In my experenciene using the CANNA and EarthJuice, the canna has burned my plants way quicker. On one occasion I decided that I would "trichome out my plant" so to speak. I would day dream of crystally buds that would come after feeding it canna boost, canna catylyst, canna flower, and just a little snowstorm from humboltd nutrients. Keep in mind none of these were giving more than half strength. As you might imagine I burned the hell out of the plant. So now I only give nutes when I think the plant needs them.
Harvest
I clipped the Master Kush at 8.5 weeks (triches were half cloudy and half clear). It could have one maybe a week longer or so. My intial plan was to do a double harvest. So I clipped up to what seemed like the colas of bud in the morning 1 hour prior to lights about to come on. Total height of the plant upon harvest 23 inches. Total diameter, 24 inches. Total weight of the buds clipped after drying 45 grams. From my guestimation I would say I had about another 7 grams that I I could have picked. BTW I was never able to do double harvest. The plant's leaves began to show what looked like rust on the edges and rust spots in the middle of the leaves midway through flower. This progressed throughout flower. By harvest it had spread to some of the smallest buds on the bottom of the plant. After about 2 weeks after taking the first harvest, all the buds looked pretty much rotten and was covered with "rust". After reflecting and looking at pictures of plant problems on forums on the net, the closest thing that comes to what I saw was a Calcium and or Magnesium deficiency.
Drying
After drying for approximately 3or 4 days hanging upside down in a huge cardboard box and a fan, the stems seemed like they reached that point of snapping. I took them out and placed them in a brown paper bag for about a week closed and dumping them out and shaking them around at least once a day. I think I made a mistake keeping it closed because they didn't seem to be drying. After noticing what I thought was a mouldy type of smell I left the bag open for about a week. After that I put the buds in jars opening once a day then once every couple days or so. I had no Idea whaat I was doing so most of it was done on feeling. Keep in mind, up until this point there was no "weed smell" I did get a bushy scent, but a sweet scent did not come upon this bud for at least 4 weeks. And even then it was a sweet scent, exactly the scent I smelled from the root of the plants upon throwing it away. I'm not sure if I got a bad seed from Nirvana or ifts something I did...but no more seeds from Nirvana for hme.
Pests
During this grow I had a serious case of fungus gnats. I did purcase this organic product called GoGnats that is mostly cedar oil. I might have used and harmed my plants with it however. The fungus gnats never really went away. They would die down for a while and then come back. I could see some of them under my 30x scope on the bud,
LST
I did do lots of lst'ing on the mk.......basically thourhg out most of flowering. Good stuff. I did manage to almost break a branch. It rejoined itself in a couple of days time.
SkyWalker OG
Though I did not mention it much I did bring in a skywalker clone in around week 2 or 3 of vegging the master kush. This clone I got from a local dispensary. I topped it as per Uncle Ben's method four 4 colas and it worked without a sinch. I do believe that I may have torn many of its roots when I was popping the rootball to see why it was growing so slowly, it never really took off. But the high...immediate and slightly euphoric.
Master Kush Smoke Report
Like I said before. I'm not sure exactly what happened to this plant. It had exactlly no scent during veg and flower. No weed scent after curing either. No taste. The high...forget about it, I feel that I can smoke an ounce of this in one sitting and still not get that high feeling. It did for some reason make me a little anxious for some reason but not high. I wonder if this is one of those high CBD strains I hear Harboside always touting. Don't get you high but gives a mediicnal effect. It did however have a very pretty look to it.
To flush or not to flush
I wasnt sure when I would harvest. So on the day that I decided, I realized that I had fed it a full dose of earthjuice grow just the day before. To tell you the truth I was'nt worried at all. I spent lot of time reviewing the debate for hours all over the internet and made up my own mind. I determined that what you feed your plants does not come through in the taste after you cure. If that was the case fish emulstion that you fed your plants would make your plants smell like fish, anyone ever had fish tasting bud? Anyway I decided that since I was not flushing the master kush, I would flush the skywalker. So about two weeks before I clipped the skywalker I flushed it with approx 2 gallons of water twice that week. Also everytime I watered I made sure I watered with a fulll gallon of water. I also gave it 48rs of darkness to see if it would affect trichome production.
In the end I didn't get close to a half a pound of bud. But it was a good experience...glad I took the plunge. For my next grow I'm doing 3 lemong og kush, 3 platinum bubba kush, 1 amnezia, and a purple urkel. I'll be using a blue spectrum mh lamp for veg, an hps for flowering on a 400w ballast and small hood.
Heres a report on my first grow experience. I thought I would share my experience with others out there who are deciding wether or not to take the plunge. Also as a way to organize my thoughts and hopefully share ideas, what worked, what didnt work, etc. This will consist of my previous grow and will have an update to the adjustments Ive made to my current grow. While Im not necessarily new to marijuana, Ive never grown anything whatsoever and am still of course learning and picking up new techniques and such.
After going to Oaksterdam University here in the bay area California, I decided to take the plunge and start growing. Going in to it I was weary. Like I said before Ive never grown anything nothing at all. Of course living in California, Ive heard people talk much about growing and everyone seemed to be doing it. But for some reason it seemed very difficult and time consuming. I would have to buy lights, figure out a way to have a dark cycle, feeding, etc. But one day I woke up and decided I would grow my own. I had had enough. I wanted control over the quality and the choice of strains that I smoked even here in California land of bud.
First lets start with the set up. After reading Seemorebuds how to grow a half a pound of bud for less than a hundred dollars I decided to utilize that set up. So I bought a
5x2x4 grow tent off of Ebay (~100) 10
10 42w CFLs 2700k (19.00 ea. 200 total)
The BioCanna line (~160)
Wood screws etc for the mobile and functional set-up as described in the above
1 Tower fan (70)
2 small square fans (15 ea.)
mentioned book (~30)
Moisture meter ($20)
3 3-gallon pots (12)
Ph/light Tester (19.99)
Miracle Grow 3 month time released potting soil
20lb bag of soil (lightest one in the hydro shop, Black Gold brand maybe)
One bag of perlite
Humidity dome (3)
The BIOCANNA line (150)
Yeah, I know I spent waayyy more than a $100 dollars
Setting up the grow tent was easy enough. It wasnt the most expensive and sturdy, I doubt I would be able to attach inline fans etc, that might probably be to heavy, who knows, but for my small set up, it definitely works.
Time to mix the soil. After reading through at least 10 hours of posts @ different forums and sites, including this one, I decided to stick with the Miracle Grow. Pros being I didnt want to have to worry about when to feed. I figured the time release benefit would outweigh the negative things I heard (nute burn etc). However I never did get to decide for myself whether or not Miracle Grow soil was any good. Upon opening the bag and pouring it out. I noticed insects, what appeared to be fungus gnats in the soil. I thought about it for a minute and decided to take it back. I ended up getting the black gold soil front the hydro shop. I asked them for the soil that had the least amount of fertilizer content. For some reason I though this would be the best way to go at the time. If the plants needed any nutrients I thought it would be best to add them myself. Since then Ive decided this was a mistake. I now look for soil that has sufficient nutrients in it. Im currently using Roots Organic soil and am pleased with it so far. Next grow Im going to try to make my own soil. Ive seen what seems to be a very good recipe by Subcool posted in the how to grow book by Hobbes a member on this forum. Only thing Im not sure If I have the space and open air that it takes to mix it, well see Ive also noticed that Uncle Ben another member whos thread and information Ive spent a great amount of time studying apply this method.
Seeds
I bought master kush seeds from Nirvana. That didnt work out so well. I must give credit to the hardiness and ease of growth, but quality the plant had absolutely no scent while growing NONE! The high .not even .lets call it a medium .because Im definitely not high after smoking it. The SkyWalker OG that I added a couple of weeks later .immediate high off the first toke. But anyway I planted 3 seeds in three 3 gallon bucket. Nirvana, does get points for germination however. Not only did ally three germinate, but on my second grow I germinated the other 7, thats 10 for 10. But between overwatering and a lack of knowledge, only one survived. So I had 8 square feet dedicated to just one plant Not ideal, but hey I worked with it.
Watering and PH
I have a ph tester from Home Depot for whatever thats worth. My soil tested around 7.5-8. The tap water 7. After reading most of the forum debated about whether or not ph testing was needed for soil I was left a little unsure about whether or not ph testing was needed. In the end I decided I should play it safe and ph. This raised new questions. Should I ph the water to 6.2? (the recommend ph in soil). But since my soil was more alkaline than acidic I decided that I would follow SeeMoreBuds instructions and make my water acidic in order to counter the soil ..Big mistake! This was the cause of death for one of my seedlings. I poured acidic water (around 4) to water it. Couple days later it was dead. After this encounter I began to heed note of the advice by Uncle Ben. According to him phing was simply a waste of time for soil growers. And that soil acted as a buffer, no need to ph. Well I tried it, once. No water ph, no letting it sit for 24 hrs, straight from the faucet to the pot. I admit, I was apprehensive. Would the plant notice, especially since I fed it phd water @ 6.0 after learning from the ph 4 debacle earlier?.....Nope, no difference in fact since watering my plants directly from the faucet I havent used my ph meter ever since.
Ligthing
I had about 10 42 watt 2700k bulbs. I knew the blue spectrum was better for veg, but I used what I had. In the beginning for seedlings I felt that I had more than enough light. It seemed very bright in there. I had did a lot of reading on the forums Fluorescents vs. HID. The verdict was that the cfls seemed to sacrifice yields slightly, but quality was way better. After buying my cfls I decided that I would grow the prettiest bud ever. I would make all you HID users eat your heart out. I was going to get at least a 4 ounces off my master kush .after all, Nirvana did say they were heavy yielders. What happened? Somewhere during late veg (I vegged for 5 weeks) I began to have doubts about my lighting set up. Initially I had only needed to use more than 4 bulbs during the seedling stage. But after setting up all 10 cfls in the tent, the tent soon soared to 90 degrees. Ambient room temperature here in the bay at that time was somewhere in the 70s- 80's . The so called theory of cfls not emitting heat soon lost its appeal. I did however really liked the flexibility of my setup. It allowed me to move the light up, down, and side to side But by late flowering, it was obvious, I didnt have enough light. I kept on looking at other grows and compared my progress and would wonder, why are my buds so small. So the lighting was definitely not enough, even for just one plant I guess it was a blessing that the other two didnt make it. Theres no way my lighting was enough for 3 mature plants. Things brings me to another point, light distance. If your new to the forums and you look for advice as to how close to hang cfls the general consensus is to hang em 3 to 4 inches, or as close as possible. This consistently got me in trouble. Six to 7 inches, no closer than 5 was perfect for me. Every time I tried to do 3 inches the leaves would start to burn or turn yellow after just a couple days. Im on my second grow now and have bought a 400w hps setup for $187 including ballast, a small reflector, 2 bulbs (one hps with extra blue in the spectrum, and a mh conversion bulb 6500k), and shipping from htg supply. Its funny, this setup is cheaper than the cfl setup and produces the same if not less heat. The production however is on a comletely different level....no more cfl's during flowering for me.
Fertilizers
I got in a lot of trouble with ferts. I had the bio canna line and seemed to work fine in the beginning. But after the first 2 week of feeding in veg my plant became very light green in color. I had read enough of Uncle Bens forums to know that 90% of the ferts sold now do not contain enough nitrogen to sustain nitrogen loving plants (cannabis is such a plant). I decided to get some earth juice grow NPK 2-1-1. Other than the fact that I cant get it to completlely dissolve in my water, I prefer it over the canna veg nute which is very short of N. Not only did it darken up my leaves quickly, but I have yet to burn my plants with it. In my experenciene using the CANNA and EarthJuice, the canna has burned my plants way quicker. On one occasion I decided that I would "trichome out my plant" so to speak. I would day dream of crystally buds that would come after feeding it canna boost, canna catylyst, canna flower, and just a little snowstorm from humboltd nutrients. Keep in mind none of these were giving more than half strength. As you might imagine I burned the hell out of the plant. So now I only give nutes when I think the plant needs them.
Harvest
I clipped the Master Kush at 8.5 weeks (triches were half cloudy and half clear). It could have one maybe a week longer or so. My intial plan was to do a double harvest. So I clipped up to what seemed like the colas of bud in the morning 1 hour prior to lights about to come on. Total height of the plant upon harvest 23 inches. Total diameter, 24 inches. Total weight of the buds clipped after drying 45 grams. From my guestimation I would say I had about another 7 grams that I I could have picked. BTW I was never able to do double harvest. The plant's leaves began to show what looked like rust on the edges and rust spots in the middle of the leaves midway through flower. This progressed throughout flower. By harvest it had spread to some of the smallest buds on the bottom of the plant. After about 2 weeks after taking the first harvest, all the buds looked pretty much rotten and was covered with "rust". After reflecting and looking at pictures of plant problems on forums on the net, the closest thing that comes to what I saw was a Calcium and or Magnesium deficiency.
Drying
After drying for approximately 3or 4 days hanging upside down in a huge cardboard box and a fan, the stems seemed like they reached that point of snapping. I took them out and placed them in a brown paper bag for about a week closed and dumping them out and shaking them around at least once a day. I think I made a mistake keeping it closed because they didn't seem to be drying. After noticing what I thought was a mouldy type of smell I left the bag open for about a week. After that I put the buds in jars opening once a day then once every couple days or so. I had no Idea whaat I was doing so most of it was done on feeling. Keep in mind, up until this point there was no "weed smell" I did get a bushy scent, but a sweet scent did not come upon this bud for at least 4 weeks. And even then it was a sweet scent, exactly the scent I smelled from the root of the plants upon throwing it away. I'm not sure if I got a bad seed from Nirvana or ifts something I did...but no more seeds from Nirvana for hme.
Pests
During this grow I had a serious case of fungus gnats. I did purcase this organic product called GoGnats that is mostly cedar oil. I might have used and harmed my plants with it however. The fungus gnats never really went away. They would die down for a while and then come back. I could see some of them under my 30x scope on the bud,
LST
I did do lots of lst'ing on the mk.......basically thourhg out most of flowering. Good stuff. I did manage to almost break a branch. It rejoined itself in a couple of days time.
SkyWalker OG
Though I did not mention it much I did bring in a skywalker clone in around week 2 or 3 of vegging the master kush. This clone I got from a local dispensary. I topped it as per Uncle Ben's method four 4 colas and it worked without a sinch. I do believe that I may have torn many of its roots when I was popping the rootball to see why it was growing so slowly, it never really took off. But the high...immediate and slightly euphoric.
Master Kush Smoke Report
Like I said before. I'm not sure exactly what happened to this plant. It had exactlly no scent during veg and flower. No weed scent after curing either. No taste. The high...forget about it, I feel that I can smoke an ounce of this in one sitting and still not get that high feeling. It did for some reason make me a little anxious for some reason but not high. I wonder if this is one of those high CBD strains I hear Harboside always touting. Don't get you high but gives a mediicnal effect. It did however have a very pretty look to it.
To flush or not to flush
I wasnt sure when I would harvest. So on the day that I decided, I realized that I had fed it a full dose of earthjuice grow just the day before. To tell you the truth I was'nt worried at all. I spent lot of time reviewing the debate for hours all over the internet and made up my own mind. I determined that what you feed your plants does not come through in the taste after you cure. If that was the case fish emulstion that you fed your plants would make your plants smell like fish, anyone ever had fish tasting bud? Anyway I decided that since I was not flushing the master kush, I would flush the skywalker. So about two weeks before I clipped the skywalker I flushed it with approx 2 gallons of water twice that week. Also everytime I watered I made sure I watered with a fulll gallon of water. I also gave it 48rs of darkness to see if it would affect trichome production.
In the end I didn't get close to a half a pound of bud. But it was a good experience...glad I took the plunge. For my next grow I'm doing 3 lemong og kush, 3 platinum bubba kush, 1 amnezia, and a purple urkel. I'll be using a blue spectrum mh lamp for veg, an hps for flowering on a 400w ballast and small hood.
