New Grow Room, First Grow

Forgot to mention this, but the female is starting to smell now. Very sour with a hint of fruit. I can't WAIT to smoke it!

Sounds good to me. Part of growing is learning and adapting. A while back I took a couple "practice clones" from a dying plant, 4 in total. After about 2 weeks they all had rooted, using a rooting powder I got at Home Depot, and 2 are now growing in a super small DWC setup. I've since grown another plant, and taken 12 cuttings, dipped into Clonex, from it before putting it into flower. They have been in a dome for almost 2 weeks, and only 3 of them show any sort of resistence when I give the stems a gentle tug. I think I'm having a harder time getting them to root this time because temps in my garage have been a lot lower due to the changing seasons, lower temps retard root growth and hinder the humidity levels. I'm going to stop and pick up a heat mat in hopes it will give these little girls a more proper start in life. They aren't droopy or yellowing at all, so I know at least part of the process is working.

How often do you mist yours? and how long do you leave your cover on? I try to spray 3-4 times a day and start venting my dome a very little bit about a week in. I also have been leaving my light right on top of the dome helping it will help generate some warmth inside.

I've been misting about 3 times a day on average, and the temps in there are actually around 85 or so, so I don't think it's temperature related. I honestly think it's because I planted them into the rapid rooter plugs instead of rockwool. Next time I'm just going to stick to rock wool and see if it works better. For now, I'm just going to completely leave em alone and see if anything happens. The smallest one was completely dead as of today so I just pulled it. Of the other 2, one looks to be just about dead and the other isn't too far behind. Just gonna leave em alone and see if anything improves.

Good luck, I hope your little ones pull through, but if not at least you learned that the plugs don't work for you. I've also learned that you have to make sure the stems are packed in nicely, as to not invite mold or rot. A couple of mine pulled right out of the rockwool with a light tug because I didn't have them in soundly enough, and the bottoms of the stems were brown and rotten looking. I've also recently read to be careful not to get air into the stem when taking the cuttings. Hopefully we'll both have some healthy clones soon!

DAY 22 FLOWER




She's looking great, and seems to be right on schedule to harvest around 8-9 weeks. There is still almost no smell unless I touch or disturb the flowers, then it is a skunky, sour smell that is really awesome. I have a feeling she's going to be a great producer... at least I hope so. I've decided I'm going to do some research on foliar feeding and possibly start doing that soon. A buddy of mine who grows foliar feeds, and his weed is very potent and very dense.

DAY 13 FLOWER



Nothin much to update. Still no pre-flowers, but they should be coming any day. I've LST'd both plants to work on my lower/side branches and it's working great. They're still small, but picking up speed now.

VEG ROOM



My 2 big clones are just about ready to have clones taken again from them. This time I will be putting them in rockwool. I also planted a couple seeds, and 1 out of 2 sprouted (had my first dud in rapid rooters from seed).

Not sure why I'm still updating this when it's pretty clear no one cares but me lol... oh well, at least I'll be able to look back on it and have some reference. Anyways, here's an update of just my flower room.

DAY 29, 20 FLOWER



3/3 on females. I've got 2 my 2 mother plants growing nicely in my Veg room as well as another thc bomb... might take a couple clones off the flowering thc bombs in a couple days just so I know they are female.

witelightnin said:

Not sure why I'm still updating this when it's pretty clear no one cares but me lol... oh well, at least I'll be able to look back on it and have some reference. Anyways, here's an update of just my flower room.

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I know how you feel, but like you said, at least it gives you info to reference back to/learn from. Looking good!

I can't believe this is working. I was skeptical when I first saw it, but your are making it work! I once grew a plant in a 55gallon trash can with just a couple of CFL's at the top so I know it can be done on the cheap, but damn, a homeless guys box?

Great work, I want to see how this turns out.

Well to be fair, this is now my third actual grow and I'm always reading up on growing so I'm at least a LITTLE experienced... and this ghetto setup is because my old grow room is in a really damp basement and I was having big time mold issues so I had to make this on the cheap. But yeah, so far it's workin like a charm.

I'm sure I could get a better yield with a better lighting system and air filtration system and hydroponics and all that... but I'm not looking to be a professional grower. I'm doing this for myself as a hobby on the side to save money and never again be "the guy without weed". Someday I'm sure I'll get better facilities when I have the money, but for now I'm able to grow some pretty dank lookin bud on a budget of probably 50 bucks (already had nutes and soil from last grow), and very little change in my electric bill. =D

laserbrn said:

a homeless guys box?

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You should donate this box to a homeless guy when you're done with it, it would make someone a wonderful Christmas gift.

But seriously, I agree with your reasons for growing. I'm ready to both save money and stop having to go through a "salesman," but I also enjoying the hobby side of it. Much like someone else might enjoy flower or vegetable gardening. With the money I will potentially save, I can slowly modify my set-up, which will improve my yield, save me more money, so on and so on. All I want to achieve is some self-sufficiency, just grow enough for my household and maybe a few close friends if the harvest is kind. Screw all that commercial growing business. I like the "No Smell, No Sell, No Tell" rule, however it goes.

I think I can help you with your cloning. I get 100% cloning success every time and haven't found it that difficult. I actually just started the process today. It sounds to me like you are misting too often. 3x a day is an insane amount of misting. Are these clones sitting under a dome?

I generally take my cuttings exactly as you described, drop them in rapid rooters or rockwool (that part has never made any difference). I spray the plants one time on the leaves for good measure, I spray the dome pretty heavily with water so it's dripping wet and put it on the tray. From then on I just make sure that the dome stays lightly misted and that it's in a warm enough location. A heating mat is useful if it's currently outside, but I prefer just putting the tray/dome somewhere warm. After about 5-6 days I'll open the vent on the dome and then it's pretty much a daily spray to the dome.

You want the plants to moist and humid enough to stay alive, but thirsty enough to grow roots. If you are foliar watering constantly it retards the process and the little buggers tend to wilt.

GL

~Laserbrn

I think my problem personally is a combination of over misting and temps too low. I guess I'll find out when I finally get my heat mat, and attempt another round of cloning.

laserbrn said:

I think I can help you with your cloning. I get 100% cloning success every time and haven't found it that difficult. I actually just started the process today. It sounds to me like you are misting too often. 3x a day is an insane amount of misting. Are these clones sitting under a dome?

I generally take my cuttings exactly as you described, drop them in rapid rooters or rockwool (that part has never made any difference). I spray the plants one time on the leaves for good measure, I spray the dome pretty heavily with water so it's dripping wet and put it on the tray. From then on I just make sure that the dome stays lightly misted and that it's in a warm enough location. A heating mat is useful if it's currently outside, but I prefer just putting the tray/dome somewhere warm. After about 5-6 days I'll open the vent on the dome and then it's pretty much a daily spray to the dome.

You want the plants to moist and humid enough to stay alive, but thirsty enough to grow roots. If you are foliar watering constantly it retards the process and the little buggers tend to wilt.

GL

~Laserbrn

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Yeah, I might have over-misted a tad... although I usually only tried to mist the dome and not the plants often. Question about rapid rooters. Do you pre-soak them in water before planting them? Also, how deep do you put the clone into the rooter?

DAY 43, 34 FLOWER



I've had a couple problems with nute burn, low temperatures, and overwatering but hopefully it's all sorted out now. I did some foliar feeding and it didn't really do much besides cause nute burn, so I'm back to plain old watering for a bit. As you can see, the 1 plant is very stretched and not looking so good. The other 2 are coming along nicely.

GROW ROOM



All but 1 of my clones is looking good, and all of them are females. My mothers are doing fine and starting to grow back where I cut the clones. I also have another thc bomb plant that I started LST training, and probably in another 2 weeks I'll throw it into flower.

witelightnin said:

Yeah, next time I'm actually going to invest a bit more into my grow room and will be a bit more professional, but for the moment this is working. I didn't realize just paint was that much more reflective, so that will be good to know for the future.

As for cloning, I'm using Clonex rooting gel. I cut just below a node at an angle, strip the bottom couple leaves for extra root spots, then dip in Clonex thoroughly and plant directly into rapid rooter plugs. I think next time I'll try planting into rockwool and just use my plugs for seeds as that seems to be FAR more effective. The problem is, after planting into the plugs the clones almost immediately drooped all the way over and it's been about 5 days since and they haven't recovered and most of the leaves have wilted. I don't want to disturb the roots if they are forming, so I'm just going to leave em alone in my humidity dome and see how it goes.

I cloned my last batch of plants like 2 weeks before I harvested and put them into rockwool. It took almost a full month for them to start growing, but 2/4 survived and are now thriving so I think I'll just do that next time.

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If your clones are still wilted after five days they probably suffered an air embolism or they don't get enough water. It is somewhat normal for a clone to wilt the first day, beyond that then there is a problem. When you take the cuttings for the clones you need to put them in water immediately until you get them in there final media. if you don't air can enter the hole at the stem and then you are screwed and nothing you can do will fix it.

Yeah, I seem to have solved the problem. It seems that the rapid rooters were drying out far too quickly, and it was causing the clones to wither and die. So now I'm planting the rapid rooters into soil, which seems to be keeping them much more moist and keeping the clones happy.

all subbed up having wilty clones myself. but the roots look solid so i'm not stressin.

DAY 50



There's no way this plant is going to be done in 2 weeks or so. I'm thinking at least 4 more. It's developing nicely, but I want to wait until I get some more trichrome development. I'm feeding nutes every other watering still, and I think my next feeding will be very strong. Of the 2 other plants, one is still doing great and recovering nicely from the nute burn (too much foliar feeding). The other plant still looks god awful. Wispy, clawed leaves and sparse bud. It's also super long, whereas both my other 2 are short and fat. Oh well, I'm not too worried about that one.

Nothin much to report in the veg room, clones are all doing well and developing LOTS of roots. I'm going to be transplanting them sometime this week, possibly even today, into bigger pots. I'm also going to move one of my mother plants into flower (I really only need 1 for clones). I'll update with pics of new setup once it's all done.

nice lookin buds man! well on two of the girls lol. that one looks awful.

heh, thanks. Yeah, the runt is a bit frustrating, but oh well. I've got more plants waiting to replace it. I'm going to take it through to the end though, seems a bit late to just give up now.