Brummyhead
New Member
Firstly, Thanks for all the information in these journals and all the time everyone must spend giving advice. I'm learning loads, in fact I'm totally hooked on my new 'hobby'.
My first grow is well underway, I've made loads of mistakes, but I have some reasonable plants that seem to be thriving. I'll try and get some photos organised soon. The grow was started on a crappy budget, totally broke at the time, but keen to get going.
Seeds were planted for germination directly in soil on 28th July, ignored warnings to test out whether the method would be successful, and it was a disaster, 2 seedlings from 15 seeds!! Bought more seeds, 5 out of 15 this time, better, but still crap. Strains growing are :-
Expert Seeds - Jack Herer Auto fem x 1
Expert Seeds - Critical AK Auto fem x 2
Short Seeds - Blue Himalaya Auto fem x 3
Unknown Auto Fem x 1 (lost label)
Seedlings left under Floro strips (2 x 60w) for 4 weeks. Potted on 4 plants into 15 litre pots, 3 into 1 litre pots at 2 weeks into Canna Terra and started using Canna Flores at half strength. The 4 in larger pots grew slowly, the 3 left in small pots hardly grew at all.
Bought 600w HPS at 4 weeks into grow and finally potted on the remaining 3 plants into 15 litre pots. That's when things started to happen. Grow room got hot (too hot) and really humid, but plants grew rapidly and all (bar 1 Critical AK) started to flower. Added Canna Boost to feed.
Since then I have tortured the plants every way I could think of. I was SO keen to get a big crop, and had read all about the many ways to enhance the grow, so I tried them all. I've topped, LST'd, supercropped, topped again, pruned, scorched them accidentally, let them dry out accidentally. After a couple of weeks of this I realised that with Auto's there really isn't much of a window of opportunity to do all this, and the stuff I had read only really applied to regs, so then I relaxed and stopped torturing them.
At 6 weeks I bought another 600w HPS and a 125mm extractor. I moved the ballasts outside the room, covered the walls in mylar, and now I think I've got a decent environment. Temps are around 75f, lamps running 20/4. Since then I have just pruned the lower branches off, particularly ones that were totally crowded out of the light. Where possible I left fan leaves on. The canopies have developed fairly level on most plants, god knows how.
Current status of the individual plants:-
Jack Herer - The most advanced plant, really heavily budded, very sticky and smelly. Looks terrible, leaves very pale green/yellow with very dense growth. This didn't really stretch, buds just got fatter. Bases of buds really enlarging now. Plant 60cm/23" tall. 9 weeks into what should be 12/13 week grow.
Blue Himalaya #1 - Gorgeous looking plant, very white long pistils against dark green leaves, look like rosettes. Developing really well, leaves all look healthy, kholas filling out into complete mass, but not very dense. Plant 60cm/23" tall
Unknown - Looks and behaves like the Critical AK #1 below. 67cm/26"
Critical AK#1 - Sparse looking plant with narrow, light green/yellow leaves. 5 flowering tips stretched about 10cm/4" from week 7 to now, but starting to fill out into complete kholas. Buds more loose and flowery than Jack Herer.
Critical AK #2 - This is a strange one, an Autofem that has only now begun to flower, 8 weeks into it's grow. It's a great looking plant, very full growth (and on Canna Flores and Boost nutes), started to flower a few days ago. 60cm/23". Anybody else seen this, or any ideas?
Blue Him 2 & 3 - Totally different from Blue Him #1. Very wide, dark blue/green leaves. often only 3 leaflets, standing very upright, same white flowers but much denser. Plants are dwarves, only 30cm/12" and 40cm/16".
What is amazing is how different all the plants are, even ones that are supposed to be the same strain.
Also, for the craic I tried to clone the Jack Herer and the Critical AK #1. I now have 4 of each in perfect working order after 2 weeks cloning in John Innes and perlite 50/50, just potted on into Canna Terra and fed Canna start. I'm happy with that, probably the subject of grow 2. Are they likely to develop the same way as their mother?
My first grow is well underway, I've made loads of mistakes, but I have some reasonable plants that seem to be thriving. I'll try and get some photos organised soon. The grow was started on a crappy budget, totally broke at the time, but keen to get going.
Seeds were planted for germination directly in soil on 28th July, ignored warnings to test out whether the method would be successful, and it was a disaster, 2 seedlings from 15 seeds!! Bought more seeds, 5 out of 15 this time, better, but still crap. Strains growing are :-
Expert Seeds - Jack Herer Auto fem x 1
Expert Seeds - Critical AK Auto fem x 2
Short Seeds - Blue Himalaya Auto fem x 3
Unknown Auto Fem x 1 (lost label)
Seedlings left under Floro strips (2 x 60w) for 4 weeks. Potted on 4 plants into 15 litre pots, 3 into 1 litre pots at 2 weeks into Canna Terra and started using Canna Flores at half strength. The 4 in larger pots grew slowly, the 3 left in small pots hardly grew at all.
Bought 600w HPS at 4 weeks into grow and finally potted on the remaining 3 plants into 15 litre pots. That's when things started to happen. Grow room got hot (too hot) and really humid, but plants grew rapidly and all (bar 1 Critical AK) started to flower. Added Canna Boost to feed.
Since then I have tortured the plants every way I could think of. I was SO keen to get a big crop, and had read all about the many ways to enhance the grow, so I tried them all. I've topped, LST'd, supercropped, topped again, pruned, scorched them accidentally, let them dry out accidentally. After a couple of weeks of this I realised that with Auto's there really isn't much of a window of opportunity to do all this, and the stuff I had read only really applied to regs, so then I relaxed and stopped torturing them.
At 6 weeks I bought another 600w HPS and a 125mm extractor. I moved the ballasts outside the room, covered the walls in mylar, and now I think I've got a decent environment. Temps are around 75f, lamps running 20/4. Since then I have just pruned the lower branches off, particularly ones that were totally crowded out of the light. Where possible I left fan leaves on. The canopies have developed fairly level on most plants, god knows how.
Current status of the individual plants:-
Jack Herer - The most advanced plant, really heavily budded, very sticky and smelly. Looks terrible, leaves very pale green/yellow with very dense growth. This didn't really stretch, buds just got fatter. Bases of buds really enlarging now. Plant 60cm/23" tall. 9 weeks into what should be 12/13 week grow.
Blue Himalaya #1 - Gorgeous looking plant, very white long pistils against dark green leaves, look like rosettes. Developing really well, leaves all look healthy, kholas filling out into complete mass, but not very dense. Plant 60cm/23" tall
Unknown - Looks and behaves like the Critical AK #1 below. 67cm/26"
Critical AK#1 - Sparse looking plant with narrow, light green/yellow leaves. 5 flowering tips stretched about 10cm/4" from week 7 to now, but starting to fill out into complete kholas. Buds more loose and flowery than Jack Herer.
Critical AK #2 - This is a strange one, an Autofem that has only now begun to flower, 8 weeks into it's grow. It's a great looking plant, very full growth (and on Canna Flores and Boost nutes), started to flower a few days ago. 60cm/23". Anybody else seen this, or any ideas?
Blue Him 2 & 3 - Totally different from Blue Him #1. Very wide, dark blue/green leaves. often only 3 leaflets, standing very upright, same white flowers but much denser. Plants are dwarves, only 30cm/12" and 40cm/16".
What is amazing is how different all the plants are, even ones that are supposed to be the same strain.
Also, for the craic I tried to clone the Jack Herer and the Critical AK #1. I now have 4 of each in perfect working order after 2 weeks cloning in John Innes and perlite 50/50, just potted on into Canna Terra and fed Canna start. I'm happy with that, probably the subject of grow 2. Are they likely to develop the same way as their mother?
. With all the different sorts your going to have to become quite an expert in judging ripeness, just harvesting when you feel like is very risky. If your too early harvesting you could lose half your hard earned buds. I suggest reading up on 420 magazine for all the tell tale signs, use the search under forums in the top left of the page. It is quite tricky, but with experience you will become an expert. What light addict said, you will need a loop or magnifier to check on trich colour. I found a 100x jeweller loop on fleabay for 5euro with a built in led that works a treat, but if you got a couple of bob the usb digital endoscopes are the b*llocks. Not the end of the world if you crop early anyway cause I know how exciting it is, but when you get your next crop you should be still ok for smoke and not in such a rush to chop em and then you will see the difference the last weeks makes
your one of us now
. Gonna be a massive yield
