What does Growing Skill mean?

Hey guys

so i've been researching how to grow for quite awhile but wasn't able to safely start it until recently. From my research i've seen a lot of people write about a growers skill and how that affects yield.

What skills are they referring too?

aside from pruning and changing your resevoir tank once a week (or repotting if youre growing in soil), what kind of skills do i possibly need to grow like a pro?

I plan on dropping a lot of money into my setup so i thought that my investment would just pay off with little effort (pruning and changing resevoir). so what else do i need to know!

You can read all you want but nothing compares to the actual experience of growing. Its better to go in researching first, it definitely gives you an. edge over someone who hasn't. One skill would be keeping it healthy and identifying and knowing what to do if your plant say, is sick.

I do prune my plants, but i do not change the res, i top up with water and add nutes through the grow
it shouldn't take you too long to gain enough experience of whatever system you use, so that you are able to grow healthy plants from start to finish

i would suggest you keep things as simple as possible since this is all that is required to grow healthy plants anyway
spending lots of money on expensive equipment and all the various additives available will not help a beginner, if anything it will complicate things unnecessarily

speak to folk directly that use the same system as you, take on board their information, along with what you read etc
and go with what you feel is right, be prepared to make the odd mistake here and there and learn from it

no reason why you cant grow plants just as well as anyone else who has been doing it much longer
after you have had 3 or 4 runs of the system this should be enough time to iron out any bugs
if your plants are healthy from start to finish and you are satisfied with them, they are as good as anyone's

peace

No substitute for practical, hands on experience.

Plant the seed in some nice potting soil intended for seedlings or clones. 4"x4" pots. Avoid MiricleGro. (that might start a fight)

Water with Ph 6.5 water only, no nutes! room temp water always. Don't saturate the soil.

Once it sprouts, make sure you get it into some light. Don't play around with CFLs for more than a couple weeks, you're not getting a med harvest with CFL I don't care how many you have.

Water only as needed. You'll learn to judge when to water by sight, time and by the weight of the thing.

After about 2 or 3 weeks, you should have several sets of nodes. The little round leaves should dry up. Fertilize 1/4 or 1/3 strength, don't over water.

At this time, you can start topping and LST if you wish.

Transplant to 1 gallon.

At 7 nodes, I'll top, and bend the plant right over 90*. Any leaf tips that are touching the ground get trimmed up a little bit.

When the plant needs nutes, it will tell you.

After a week, I'll bend anything over and stake any branch that are growing vertically, and will top anything that has more than 2 nodes since the last cut.

Let it grow 2 weeks then repeat. Bend, top, stake. By now, you'll have a nice little bush growing. A week later, you will have a whole bunch of tops growing on a healthy thick little bush. (assuming you have met lighting and nutritional requirements.

Transplant to 7.5 gallon.

Let grow a week, then flower it. No more topping!

After about 1 week in flower, bend all the tops 90* and stake them.

Two weeks later, do the same thing, Bend all tops 90*, stake.

Leave them alone. Just let them grow, feed/water as needed only. Watch your light cycle very closely.

You'll prolly feed every third watering.


It's a rough guide off the top of my head, but it will work.

If you can learn basic plant biology, and basic botany, and some basic soil science, (pH and fertilizers and how they relate) you will be well on your way to success.