My beans are here!!! ...I'm scared.

Okay, I have been lurking and reading and gathering information and reading and studying Ed Rosenthal's book and other books and magazines (HT)...

I have a bubbleponics system ready to go and I have my nutes and medium.

And today, my order from Attitude came with the following:
DinaFem Critical Jack (Autoflower) (Freebie)
DinaFem Amnesia (Freebie)
Female Seeds X-Line Bubblegummer
Nirvana Kaya Gold
Sweet Seeds Flash Back #2
Barney's Farm Vanilla Kush
Barney's Farm Red Cherry Berry
G13 Labs Hypnotic

Any suggestions on where to start (by where to start, I mean which two strains might be easiest on a newbie)? I don't have any access to free seeds (i.e. bagseeds) since everything available around here is dank and seedless, so anything I grow, I'm gonna have to start from seed until I get a good mother going.

Thanks everyone for ALL the info I've been able to gather on this site. This is the most amazing collection of information!

First, calm down. You must always be calm especially around your plants. Just remeber there are thousands of people all around you quietly doing the same thing your about to do, proceed with confidence.
You've got yourself a nice collection of seeds. since its your first time I would start with the easiest of them to grow indoors. Your in maine so its cold out there now so heat should not be a problem. (funny thing my wife flew to maine today for a wedding). Look at the genetics of what you picked out and I would start with a heavy indica. that will be easy to grow indoors.

Get your room and your system up and running with no bugs or leaks or whatever BEFORE you crack seeds.
Once you have system assembled in a good room, crack your seeds by "crack" I mean put them between two pieces of paper towel until the hulls have cracked and a small little white tap root is sticking out, the scientific word for that is "germinate".
once germinated place your seed in a rockwool cube or jiffy cube or coco starter or whatever. if your grwoing hydro give them 1/4 strength (250-350 ppm) nutes from the begining, without nutrition and hormones, etc. the plants will not grow. Once the seedling have reached the third true leave about the begining of the second week of life they will begin to determine sex. To get more female it is imperative that conditions be perfect at this stage. To get more females you want to keep it around 65 to 70 degrees and give them a high level of blue light at this stage. Also you want to have your light cycle on 15/9 lite/dark. do those three things and you'll get mostly females from your regular seeds. I would hold off on growing the feminized seeds since they can have problems. That should get your started.

First of all, if you put them into a cup of water for 24 hours and THEN into a damp paper towel, they will crack in 2 days instead of 5 days+. It doesn't matter if you're in hydro or soil, start them at 1/4th dosage or 1/2 dosage. All this stuff about females is a myth. Like humans the seed is either female or male, it doesn't change EVER once it's been germinated. Seriously, when you were born did YOU change sexes randomly? I hope not. Seeds are all stored together, its pretty random. Sometimes you get a shitload of males, sometimes you get a shitload of females. Use 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness. You can go less but 18 hours is the standard. To flower you put the lights to 12/12.

Any suggestions on where to start (by where to start, I mean which two strains might be easiest on a newbie)?

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I don't know any of the strains you listed but I would select a bushy indica to start with if you have one. A fast indica autoflower is best IMO. You get some dope fairly soon; You dont have to worry about when to flower and light schedules; The faster it grows the better the odds of the plant finishing before you manage to kill it

zvuv said:

I don't know any of the strains you listed but I would select a bushy indica to start with if you have one. A fast indica autoflower is best IMO. You get some dope fairly soon; You dont have to worry about when to flower and light schedules; The faster it grows the better the odds of the plant finishing before you manage to kill it

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Good advice with some free sarcasm thrown in.
I can vouch for critical jack. It's a winner.

dannyboy602 said:

Good advice with some free sarcasm thrown in.
I can vouch for critical jack. It's a winner.

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Thanks for the note. Do you have any pics of Critical Jack? It's a autoflower, so I'm waiting till I have a few autos and then run them all together. I currently that that one and one more (forgot what right now).

I ended up running with Red Cherry Berry, Vanilla Kush, and Kaya Gold for my first "official grow". Someone gifted me some Northern Lights X Blueberry clones too so I have those in the grow room as well.
And, I harvested my first little plant yesterday!

Here's Alice post harvest:


And here's the clones, the Vanilla Kush, and the Red Cherry Berry.


The Kaya Gold just popped out of the soil this morning so I don't have any pictures of her yet.

Don't worry about the M/F thing. Just do your best for the seeds and they will do their best for you.

It's true that no cultivation technique can alter the genetic makeup of an MJ plant, but, as I understand it, it's not clear whether sex in MJ plants is determined solely by genetics.

Humans actually can change sex while the fetus is forming in the uterus. It's not that rare for a geneticaly female fetus to develop as a male due to a surge of testosterone in the womb.

This argument isn't really helpful to the OP but I will point out the facts and then answer your questions op."environmental factors start influencing sex the moment the seedling has 3 pairs of leaves. Environmental factors include but are not limited to increased nitrogen to make female plants, lowering potassium, low temperatures, high humidity, more blue spectrum light, and 14 hours of daylight." Jorge Cervantes

IMO vanilla kush would be best to start. That is the bushy indica every ody else mentioned.they're pretty easy to start with. If I were you, I'd start 4 seeds if you want 2 plants. Sucks to throw them away if all 4 make it tho!

Destillat said:

...
IMO vanilla kush would be best to start. That is the bushy indica every ody else mentioned.they're pretty easy to start with. If I were you, I'd start 4 seeds if you want 2 plants. Sucks to throw them away if all 4 make it tho!

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I start mine in 3" pots. If I get to many fems, I put two to a pot when I transplant to a larger container.

Oh, guess I failed to mention that all my seeds were feminized so the M/F thing was never my issue. I'm glad there some chatter in this thread finally cuz after I started it, I went off elsewhere on RIU and forgot about this one. I'm glad to hear that VK is an easy one to start with because I did choose that for my beginning lineup.

As for starting with 4 to end up with 2, I agree with that theory when working with regular seeds and I appreciate the input. Since I began a mere two months ago (it seems like a lifetime! I've learned SO much), I've acquired 39 regular seeds from various bag sources and I have 10 fem seeds which I've purchased. I've also learned to clone! My success rate so far is 14 for 14.

Right now in my grow room, for my first "official" grow (I finished up a tiny little plant that someone else started), I have the Vanilla Kush, a Red Cherry Berry, a Kaya Gold (just popped up today), and 13 Northern Lights X Blueberry (rooting clones).

I have northern lights x big bud and I love it! Are you going to try to grow out purple phenotypes with the blueberry? I'm curious to see if you can get some!

Nm, noticed they're clones. Still you never know, they might turn colors

Destillat said:

Nm, noticed they're clones. Still you never know, they might turn colors

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From what I understand about colors, if they are in the pheno, cooler temps will bring them out. My grow room happens to be located in the room furthest from the furnace and has historically been the coldest room in the house. I'm sure a lot of that will be offset by my lights, but maybe it will get cool enough in there to bring out some purple. I would SO LOVE THAT!

Ya you need like 50 degrees at night. If you give it a shot, I'd love to see a grow journal of it. The problem is yo only have one phenotype more than likely. Odds are slim.

True, since they are all clones, they are of the same phenotype as the mother. However, I *do* know that this particular plant that they were cloned from is the blueberry leaning cross so there might be some potential for color. I didn't see any purple in the pics of the grow they came from, but temp might have been a factor. With winter coming on, and me living in the northeast (where nor'easters come from!), the possibility of cold temps in that back room is pretty good. We shall see!

I'll keep this thread going with pics of the grow once they get rooted and potted.

Bluejeans said:

Thanks for the note. Do you have any pics of Critical Jack?

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Nope, sorry. It wasn't a particularly interesting plant. Very frosty though. Tasty too.

put the seeds in pots and grow them scared of what ur house getten a raid by the police ur mad

dannyboy602 said:

Nope, sorry. It wasn't a particularly interesting plant. Very frosty though. Tasty too.

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Well, that's good to know. It was a freebie so I'm holding it till I have a few more autos to do all at once.

Mine was a freebie also...and I have another just waiting for me to plant it.

subbed up and some rep for ya

im also a Maine grower

looks like your off to a good start so far, looking foward to updates.