Lockedin's 4X4 First(ish) Grow

I'm finishing a proof of concept micro-grow. I figured if that worked, I'd start investing. (it worked)

48" x 48" x 80" Viparspectra tent - no light leaks noted, easy setup - somehow larger than I thought even though it fits the tape outline...
Lights are Chinese boards:
1 - Viparspectra VA 1200 (dimming knobs, not switches - light temperatures are tunable) currently around 6000-6500K
2 - 300w white boxes - replaced fans on one, says Morsen on power supplies.

Genetics are unknown Hybrid Indica from a friend's garden.

7 seeds in small pots for now - planning to finish in 5 gal fabric
Lighting is at 18/6 - about 6000-6500k (but still a bit peachy since there are no green diodes)
Watered lightly

Goals for this grow are simple:
1 Get a feel for the tent and light
2 Seed to smoke - nothing fancy. This will give me a good baseline to reference when changing variables.

That's it for now. I'll post pics when they start to poke their heads out.

I'm going to try to keep a habit of posting pics on Saturday nights so that I can see weekly progress.
Goal: Seed to smoke. Keeping it as simple as possible - just FFOF & maybe some food in flower - I want a baseline before I start trying new things.
All comments welcome.

All 7 babies are 1.5 inch tall and have their first true leaves.
Light was set 100% on both dimmers, hung 28" from top of pots.
18/6 schedule.
FFOF soil.

Fighting with high temp & low humidity a bit - 85f / 41%rh
Reconfigured current ventilation and that helped, but I need to get at least one more fan and some duct.
I think the rh will fix itself as the babies grow.

Small update:

Babies were stretching a bit.

Light lowered to 20", they seem much happier - more than 2X the size in the pic above.
2nd leaf sets are coming in.

Heat and humidity have mostly stabilized at 85f / 41rh; but exterior conditions and an open window (humid pre-dawn) caused a spike to 71rh after watering.

Looking forward - Would transplanting when the last plant touches the side make sense?

Following! I get a bunch of humidity in the morning time too.

Have fun! That tent will get packed, do you plan to run all of them through flower?

When you have time, read about VPD here

visajoe1 said:

Have fun! That tent will get packed, do you plan to run all of them through flower?

When you have time, read about VPD here.

The Ultimate Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) Guide

"Why devote an entire guide to VPD?" you might ask. The answer is that the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is extremely important for growing plants. VPD helps you identify the correct range of temperature and humidity to aim for in your grow space. With VPD you can achieve the best results while...

pulsegrow.com

Click to expand...

I'm hoping to run all 7 through flower, but I'm running enough that I won't cry over a casualty or two.

I started that article - there's some meat in there. Thanks!

Rearranged my fans:
4" inline routs out the ceiling port to 4 feet of 6" duct (didn't have 4" laying around). Duct is aimed into unused felt pot to mitigate light leaks.
6" Duct routed out lower port for passive intake with an unused felt pot loosely on either side for light leaks.
6" Clip fans on interior for ventilation and flow.
Tent walls still suck in a bit - another fan on a lower intake will fix this, but my babies aren't exactly crowding the tent - yet.

Temps are 79-84f - 41-50%rh.
I'm expecting temps & rh to rise along with biomass.

I'm not much into baby shots, but here's one:

1 week old:


One of the babies looks weak and rough - I'm giving it until transplant to recover; about a week to a 1 1/2 weeks.
The one on the top right looks pretty rough too - strange looking 1st set, but 2nd seem better.

Pretty sure my rough looking babes are just being over watered - I'd fire the help, but I'm a solo operation!

I did this on my first grow and thought I'd learned. This time I've been watering with a spray bottle - thought that would mitigate the issue.
Apparently not.

Started marking my watering times on a piece of tape so that I have another way to keep my hands off the bottle...

Happy Saturday!
Updates:
Raised the lights to 20" & turned dimmers to 100% (the VA 1200 is mostly white, but with a "cool peach" tone - if that makes sense...)
Repotted to 5 gal felt pots on Wed. Filled to 4ish gal FFOF each, fluffed soil, dug hole, sprayed hole to "wet" & planted
6 of 7 seem happy at watering today.
Appx 8 oz ea. today and a spray bottle damping the soil (mostly for humidity until there's more vegetation & water)
Added the two "300w" blurples. - they work.
Filtered my intake (dog hair).

Question (see ind. plant shots) - do I count the first single finger serrated leaves as node #1?

Repotting was a bit of a reality check - @themda - how did you manage "crowd control" so well?

Here's baby pics - group photo, the strong & the weak - the other 5 are mostly looking strong.

yea id count the first serrated leaves as node one, if you look in the corner between the stem of leaf and main shoot stem, and you see the tiny veg growth that over time will be you first main branch.

Have you been able to ID sex yet? you may have 2 or 3 be male if the seeds are not feminized which will free you up some room, should be visible between weeks 4-6 of veg.

right now they are still small, i wouldnt worry much, when the time comes to it id leave the center pot in the center and push the other pots out towards the corners. then i removed a majority of the lower branches, and lollipopped the rest of the branches to keep airflow room as well as room for watering that way youre not putting energy into branches that end up being flimsy later on. You've still got time, do you plan on doing any topping/Fimming? also when the branches get taller, a couple weeks prior to flip i would take my main branches, and gently crease them and bend them into a direction that they would fall over into - its high stress training but they recover after a week.

themda said:

yea id count the first serrated leaves as node one, if you look in the corner between the stem of leaf and main shoot stem, and you see the tiny veg growth that over time will be you first main branch.

Click to expand...

Thanks - I'm new enough that I still want to confirm things like that before taking out the shears!

Trimming
As soon as I see node 6 on the smallest plant; I'll be taking node 5&6 from all 7.
Removing nodes 1 & 2 a few days later - once growth is back...
...leaving nodes 3 & 4 in an X pattern. Those will be trained until they each have 2-3 nodes, then flip.

I've seen it done on other grows - very easy maintenance as almost all colas receive direct light, and lower nodes are removed in veg.
In theory all energy goes to the remaining colas.
I tried it on my first grow - but didn't train it, and then dropped a light on it and cut it in half. --- got my 3 heaviest nugs from that plant...

themda said:

Have you been able to ID sex yet? you may have 2 or 3 be male if the seeds are not feminized which will free you up some room, should be visible between weeks 4-6 of veg.

Click to expand...

Sex - They're still small, but I'm hoping to see some "crossed legs" soon. I'm sure I'll post more than my share of boy / girl photos...

That is one of the reasons I went with 7:
1. You provided I nice grow journal - so I know 7 is a lot but can be done.
2. Seven is also enough that I won't feel too bad culling a couple if necessary.

Genetics - feminized from a growing friend, "to get me started"; but he warned me to make sure the tent is sealed as one of the strains tends to herm. Hybrid Indica (all he grows) of some sort. - I'm diggin' the first batch!

Lockedin said:

Thanks - I'm new enough that I still want to confirm things like that before taking out the shears!

Trimming
As soon as I see node 6 on the smallest plant; I'll be taking node 5&6 from all 7.
Removing nodes 1 & 2 a few days later - once growth is back...
...leaving nodes 3 & 4 in an X pattern. Those will be trained until they each have 2-3 nodes, then flip.

I've seen it done on other grows - very easy maintenance as almost all colas receive direct light, and lower nodes are removed in veg.
In theory all energy goes to the remaining colas.
I tried it on my first grow - but didn't train it, and then dropped a light on it and cut it in half. --- got my 3 heaviest nugs from that plant...




Sex - They're still small, but I'm hoping to see some "crossed legs" soon. I'm sure I'll post more than my share of boy / girl photos...

That is one of the reasons I went with 7:
1. You provided I nice grow journal - so I know 7 is a lot but can be done.
2. Seven is also enough that I won't feel too bad culling a couple if necessary.

Genetics - feminized from a growing friend, "to get me started"; but he warned me to make sure the tent is sealed as one of the strains tends to herm. Hybrid Indica (all he grows) of some sort. - I'm diggin' the first batch!

Click to expand...

wait how did he make fem seeds? could be hermie seeds unless he chemically stressed to make fem seeds or let the bud ripen weeks past harvest to possibly make fem seeds.

Hermie will show sex at preflower stage too. Just keep a close eye, post pics in a couple weeks up close at the stalk/branch junction, people will chime in on ID of sex

oh - so not fem seeds. Education continues...

Last run was 4 plants, all were girls. Hoping for the same this run. I was given a gram container full of seeds - two diff. strains.


I'll post up node shots in a couple weeks as you suggest - or earlier when I panic over nothing.

Well, all 7 plants transplanted very well and, were all topped (nodes 5 & 6 removed).

I've read that some recovery time is needed; but all 7 plants look happy and are growing nicely after 36 hours so I removed nodes 1 & 2 to create a quadline. Nodes 1 & 2 were already mostly shaded and won't produce much in the end anyway, so I'm not too concerned about slowing them down.
Soil will be top dressed to the first node in a few days - they've been through enough for now.

Plan is to LST, but leave a small upward slope in the main branches while allowing the lower branches catch up to even apical dominance.

After that,
Last branch to the edge triggers 12/12 flip - or 4 branch nodes; whatever the plants think...

Topside, side shot to come

I think i understand your plan correctly, but bottom line you arent topping anymore and flowering soon, correct? If so, i like it, they will explode so your tent will still still be manageable.

when you water/feed is there runoff? if so, what are you doing with it?

keep in mind it will be much more difficult to move them by week 3 in flower, if not already in the larger 5g pots. so plan ahead for how you can accomplish whatever it is you're trying to do. just a heads up

bamboo is popular for support, and very cost effective

visajoe1 said:

I think i understand your plan correctly, but bottom line you arent topping anymore and flowering soon, correct? If so, i like it, they will explode so your tent will still still be manageable.

Click to expand...

No more topping, and very little pruning. Mostly bending leaves away from growth sites, and pruning when bending fails.

visajoe1 said:

when you water/feed is there runoff? if so, what are you doing with it?

Click to expand...

No runoff yet - they're in their final 5 gal homes; but they're growing fast, so I'll be dealing with that this week. - trays and stands until I get a better setup.

visajoe1 said:

keep in mind it will be much more difficult to move them by week 3 in flower, if not already in the larger 5g pots. so plan ahead for how you can accomplish whatever it is you're trying to do. just a heads up

bamboo is popular for support, and very cost effective

Click to expand...

I'm considering a scrog, bamboo or tomato cages for training.

I'm as new as they come - so all suggestions and comments are welcome.

Saturday update.

I think I should have waited to remove the lower nodes - growth slowed for a few days as they've recovered.
They seem like they are back to business now.

Also I noticed that some of my leaves only have 2 or 3 lobes - they're growing fine, so I'm not too worried.

Top dressed soil up to cotelydons - the top layer dries quickly, but about 2 knuckles down the soil is damp.
Watering to runoff tonight.

Planning to flip next week or the week following when there are more pre-flowers.

Not much else - here's a baby pic

Saturday Monday update:

Family issues prevented me from taking photos on Saturday, so I took some shots last night.

I'm having some issues with small branches on a few of the plants - not sure if I screwed something up, or if that "just happens"

I defoliated heavier than I intended, seemed like a lot of flower sites were getting shaded. You can see before and after defol.

I think I'll flip em somewhere between Wednesday and Saturday - any opinions?

Dark Day - 33 hours of dark before flipping to 12/12 (33 hours - lights off is currently 10am - lights on will be at 7pm 06/24 = 33 hours)

I was planning to wait till Wed, but defol didn't seem to slow them down at all. If anything, the pre-flowers exploded and branches are thick and almost all have grown to the edge of their 5gal fabric pots.
NOTE - I was a bit nervous after starting defol - I couldn't see the lower canopy well, so I started up top and ended up with a bit of a reverse lollipop.
There are almost no stemmed leaves shading the upper canopy - or leaves at all. Seeing this, I left the big lower fan leaves to help fuel new growth / avoid slowing them down.
Oops - but given the explosive growth I might do this again...


Sexing - forgot to snap pics, but most of the "legs" are crossed at the main growth tips. I'll wait for big balls during flower before culling any plants anyway, so I don't look at this too much.

Height - tallest pre-flower is appx. 14", shortest is appx. 10" - all secondaries (inner ring) are noticeably taller and have mostly caught up to primaries.

Misc. Fixed a couple of light leaks - power strips, intake fan, window facing zipper (precautionary, no leak noted - just in case...)

Starting 12/12 at 7pm tomorrow.
Pics show canopy level, stem shot, overhead before and after defol shot (36hr period between shots)
edit - just realized the before and after are two diff. plants lol

WEEK 1 - 12/12 Day 1

Flipped to 12/12 today!
BUT, I put the tent into darkness yesterday at 10am, and turned the lights back on at 5:30 5:00pm today. (31 hours)

The growth tips are neon green! Did I screw up?