Dales White Widow Max 1st Ever Grow - Indoor - Check It Out

[DaleDenton]

Wow your ph is too low man. Soil should have a runoff of 6.3-6.5. The soil tends to lower whats going in a bit too. Check the run off water and see where its at. You should probably be adding your solution in a 6.5 -7.0 depending on how acidic your soil already is.

Some of the leaves look like ph inflicted nute lockout and/ or where nutes were spilled on the leaves. I had leaf damage like that when I had a low pH problem.

Flush the plants pH check the runoff and adjust as needed.

In regards to LST there is no real science to it. Just tie them as you are doing and open the plant up to let light inside. What I try to do when I LST is to make the canopy an even top. So I tie some this way and some that way and I leave them that way. During their stretch you may want to make adjustments to pull em down and away some more or just leave em be. If you check my grow out in my sig those plants were lst'd.

Wait I just realized.. are you growing in a cedar closet? That must make for an interesting smell..

Damn, PH nute lockout?? I wouldn't have guessed that.... Definitely makes me want to get a soil PH tester. Are you saying that I should really soak the plants including nutes and/or a higher PH solution. Or should I use pure water? In all of my readings I can't believe I never saw anyone mention watering with a more basic PH.

The cedar is only part of the veg room and the power of the budding plants totally overpowers any other smell, I should probably coat the walls with something reflective, thinking maybe extra glossy wrapping paper.

 

[Cherma]

So what do you think about these leaves in the flower room?

If that is all there is on your plants that is shown, Pull them off. The yellow leaves at the bottom of the stock occur naturally. Mostly because of lower light to the bottom branches, worry starts when the whole plant goes like that o'night. BUD ON.. nice full ones coming into view in the bud room. What Ferts again are being used in bud?

 

[DaleDenton]

If that is all there is on your plants that is shown, Pull them off. The yellow leaves at the bottom of the stock occur naturally. Mostly because of lower light to the bottom branches, worry starts when the whole plant goes like that o'night. BUD ON.. nice full ones coming into view in the bud room. What Ferts again are being used in bud?

Tomorrow morning will be our first feeding with only the Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Bloom Soil Formula 1.5-4-5, up until now we've been weening them off the Advanced Nutrients Mother Earth Blended Natural Super Tea 4.8-1.8-4.3 by adding just a table spoon to the mixture. Here is a shot which shows a lot of the stuff the plants have been fed.

Obviously not everything on the shelf is meant for plants and the miracle grow bag you see is not full of soil, the resealable bag was just convenient to store peralite.

 

[Cherma]

OK, good step forward on the Bud fertilizers going to work tomorrow and earning their keep. Day 11 and counting with ya.

 

[flyfishinrock]

I got the same impression of nute lockout. I think I would sacrafice the light reflection for the natural pest resistance of the cedar, IE I wouldnt do anything to it.

 

[McBudz]

Damn, PH nute lockout?? I wouldn't have guessed that.... Definitely makes me want to get a soil PH tester. Are you saying that I should really soak the plants including nutes and/or a higher PH solution. Or should I use pure water? In all of my readings I can't believe I never saw anyone mention watering with a more basic PH.

The cedar is only part of the veg room and the power of the budding plants totally overpowers any other smell, I should probably coat the walls with something reflective, thinking maybe extra glossy wrapping paper.

6.0 is low for SOIL but high for HYDRO I beleive. I'm not a hydro guy.. yet

Don't get a soil ph tester just get a digital pen type pH tester. Milwaukee makes a very nice and affordable one that I use. called ph 600. Damn I wish I were making commission on this thing.

Not sure what you mean by "soak" but what you need to make sure in the end is that your runoff ( the water that comes out the bottom of the pot when you water) measures at around 6.3-6.5. "Most" soils tend to lower the pH of the solution going in so you may add a solution slightly higher then 6.5. It all depends on your mix though and how many times its been watered. Every time you water your soil it breaks down a bit and the pH can slide up or down on you. I usually see it go down.

I agree with flyfish can't hurt to have a natural bug deterrent.

 

[DaleDenton]

Cherma, McBudz & flyfishinrock as always thanks for the tips.

I'll take your advice and leave the veg closet as is. (plus it's cheaper!)

So now for a little update.

I was already on the way to the Hyrdo store before I saw your post McBudz, so I bought a cheap soil PH tester which the cool clerk explained probably isn't needed, but nice to have. The meter measures moisture, light and PH - and it was only $13 so no big deal really anyway.

When i explained the situation to him, he thought it could be a many things but likely:

1.) Leaves not getting enough light - he doesn't have the luxury of seeing the pictures so he only gets a verbal description.
2.) He told me that i should not be adding nutrients every time i water the plants, that if I am feeding twice a week I should only water w/ nutes every other time. He seemed to think this was a big mistake, and since he runs a grow store I trust him

The lights won't be on till later and I've got plans so I won't be able to measure the PH until lights on tomorrow. Thanks for the tips again guys - I'll be sure to keep you up to date on the garden!

The coolest part of the entire trip was picking up the extra bud nutes. He gave me a 'sweet' deal on the botanicare & advanced nutrients bud nutes.

Basically I bought the Botanicare Sweet 1qt bottle and he gave me a free bottle of Advanced Nutrients Overdrive and Big Bud. The big bud and overdrive were not in the right jugs though, so I am guessing a jug broke in the back of the shop and he just salvaged what he could because he can't really sell it. Freebies are a good way to make repeat customers!

He said to mix sweet in through the entire growth veg - the last flush before harvest.

Then on my handwritten white bottles it says: Big Bud 0 - 2 - 4 , 1 tbl per gallon wks 1-5. The other says Overdrive 1-5-4, 2 tsp per gallon wks 6-7.

I didn't ask about the plain bottles, can't look a gift horse in the mouth! So all of that, including the tester set me back exactly $40.

And now, what a better way to kick off day 1 of a 4 day weekend with a little

 

[McBudz]

Cherma, McBudz & flyfishinrock as always thanks for the tips.

I'll take your advice and leave the veg closet as is. (plus it's cheaper!)

So now for a little update.

I was already on the way to the Hyrdo store before I saw your post McBudz, so I bought a cheap soil PH tester which the cool clerk explained probably isn't needed, but nice to have. The meter measures moisture, light and PH - and it was only $13 so no big deal really anyway.

When i explained the situation to him, he thought it could be a many things but likely:

1.) Leaves not getting enough light - he doesn't have the luxury of seeing the pictures so he only gets a verbal description.
2.) He told me that i should not be adding nutrients every time i water the plants, that if I am feeding twice a week I should only water w/ nutes every other time. He seemed to think this was a big mistake, and since he runs a grow store I trust him

The coolest part of the entire trip was picking up the extra bud nutes. He gave me a 'sweet' deal on the botanicare & advanced nutrients bud nutes.

Basically I bought the Botanicare Sweet 1qt bottle and he gave me a free bottle of Advanced Nutrients Overdrive and Big Bud. The big bud and overdrive were not in the right jugs though, so I am guessing a jug broke in the back of the shop and he just salvaged what he could because he can't really sell it. Freebies are a good way to make repeat customers!

He said to mix sweet in through the entire growth veg - the last flush before harvest.

Then on my handwritten white bottles it says: Big Bud 0 - 2 - 4 , 1 tbl per gallon wks 1-5. The other says Overdrive 1-5-4, 2 tsp per gallon wks 6-7.

I didn't ask about the plain bottles, can't look a gift horse in the mouth! So all of that, including the tester set me back exactly $40.

And now, what a better way to kick off day 1 of a 4 day weekend with a little

Good deal man. Just don't trust the pH reading on that thing until you measure some control calibration solutions with it. I'd still go with the 20 dollar meter I mentioned above for a real accurate ph meter thats light on the wallet. The Big Bud has no N and it is better to have some N especially when transitioning into flower form veg. So you may want to go half and half veg / bloom nute for the transition until sex is determined. Mago brought this up in another post which makes great sense to me so I'm going to regurgitate it here . Just don't over nute.

 

[DaleDenton]

Good deal man. Just don't trust the pH reading on that thing until you measure some control calibration solutions with it. I'd still go with the 20 dollar meter I mentioned above for a real accurate ph meter thats light on the wallet. The Big Bud has no N and it is better to have some N especially when transitioning into flower form veg. So you may want to go half and half veg / bloom nute for the transition until sex is determined. Mago brought this up in another post which makes great sense to me so I'm going to regurgitate it here . Just don't over nute.

Well the digital meters at the store were quite a bit more expensive so I'm probably gonna have to shop online. Nervous about using a CC to pay for this kind of stuff.

They are all females in the flower room. And in the veg closet there are 3 growing females, 3 surviving female clones from taken the day before switched to 12/12, and most likely 2 males that will have to go in the next day or so. For some reason every single one of these white widow max seeds has shown sex in veg.

The guy at the shop said to use the bud nutes in addition to the Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Bloom Soil Formula which is 1.5 - 4 - 5 - Just to make sure I don't use it every watering. He noted there is a difference between feeding and watering. It's all part of learning though I guess!

 

[McBudz]

Well the digital meters at the store were quite a bit more expensive so I'm probably gonna have to shop online. Nervous about using a CC to pay for this kind of stuff.

They are all females in the flower room. And in the veg closet there are 3 growing females, 3 surviving female clones from taken the day before switched to 12/12, and most likely 2 males that I'll have to get rid of in the next day or so. For some reason every single one of these white widow max seeds has shown sex in veg.

The guy at the shop said to use the bud nutes in addition to the Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Bloom Soil Formula which is 1.5 - 4 - 5 - Just to make sure I don't use it every watering. He noted there is a difference between feeding and watering. It's all part of learning though I guess!

Dont sweat buying a meter. people buy them for fish tank, swimming pools, hot tubs etc.

 

[Bee23]

McBudz: I bought that meter you suggested the 600 or somthing. The three way meter I have is good too. It cost only $10.00 at the garden store.

 

[DaleDenton]

Dont sweat buying a meter. people buy them for fish tank, swimming pools, hot tubs etc.

See it on ebay just like you said $21 plus 3 bucks shipping. Not gonna pull the trigger today but that is definitely on the horizon - because I anticipate experimenting with a small hyrdo batch to grow along side my soil probably on the third batch, I want see see if it's more feasible to get one of the testers (albeit much more expensive) that also test ph, temp, ec, ppm etc.

Milwalkee should definitely put you on the payroll!

McBudz: I bought that meter you suggested the 600 or somthing. The three way meter I have is good too. It cost only $10.00 at the garden store.

Bee, on the instructions on teh back on my 3-way meter it says to test PH i have to pull out soil 2" deep and make it muddy in a seperate container and test in that.... Well, that will be a huge pain in the ass to do on regular basis, plus I would imagine that will eat up soil in the long run. Do you go to these lengths to test your soil PH, or do you just stick it in the soil after a thorough watering?

 

[McBudz]

See it on ebay just like you said $21 plus 3 bucks shipping. Not gonna pull the trigger today but that is definitely on the horizon - because I anticipate experimenting with a small hyrdo batch to grow along side my soil probably on the third batch, I want see see if it's more feasible to get one of the testers (albeit much more expensive) that also test ph, temp, ec, ppm etc.

Milwalkee should definitely put you on the payroll!



Bee, on the instructions on teh back on my 3-way meter it says to test PH i have to pull out soil 2" deep and make it muddy in a seperate container and test in that.... Well, that will be a huge pain in the ass to do on regular basis, plus I would imagine that will eat up soil in the long run. Do you go to these lengths to test your soil PH, or do you just stick it in the soil after a thorough watering?

Don't bother too much with making muddy water. Collect the water the runs out the bottom of the pot and measure that. Same thing. Much easier

 

[four20friend]

Once you get that ph in line they should finish real nice. nice node space I bet the fill in with fat colas.

 

[DaleDenton]

McBudz, four20friend, flyfishinrock, Cherma - Thanks for the comments.

Day 14 Flowering Update

Ok, so we tested the soil runoff, and it was low, in the 5's. What an enormous pain it was mixing a solution that put the PH in a balance when measuring the run off. I really needed McBudz ph600 - the drops are a pain in the ass and I don't trust the 3 way meter i bought, because it never matched up with the drops.

If there are different methods of changing soil PH I'd love to read about them, so far this was the most unenjoyable part of the entire experience.

We watered slightly higher than PH 7 and it seemed to work out. I guess the plants will let us know. A syringe or an eye dropper would have really helped, it was such a pain to get the PH just right.

The clones in the veg room are looking great, and 3 out 4 of the females plants in there also look great. One of them has spots on it, which I'll post below, but I think that may be from being rootbound and it's just recovering.

Overall the bud room looks phenomenal, and the veg room is coming along nicely as well.

I'll start out with the good pictures and work my way to the troubled leave shots near the end

A shot of the bud room. Everything looks great, I can't imagine how much better it might look if we finally sorted out the soil PH.

A close up of a random bud, how is this for day 14?

Here is a shot of one of the plants. You can see bud sites everywhere.

Here is the LST'd plant. I think it's looks great.

Here are two more random bud shots:

Here are the 3 clones. We need to remove one of them that are sharing the same pot. I honestly didn't expect any to survive, but these weeds are resilient!

Ok and now for the trouble pics (it's hard to believe these leaves are on the same plants pictured above):

As you can see it's not every leaf, but many of them are affected. There is even one fan leaf on one plant that looks like this and it's probably just shy of half way up the plant, yet the bottom of that plant doesn't have much. Most of the other plants this is happening only on the bottom parts of the plant.

This is the worst looking leaf on all of the plants. You can see in the backgroup of this pic there are a few more of terrible looking smaller leaves like this. None of the other plants seem to be affected this bad. I am crossing my fingers that what i attempted to do to raise the soil PH worked.

Even if i did correct the soil PH, i should not expect this leave to recover right?

Here is a pic of one of the plants in the veg room. It seems to be growing fine, i hope this is a result of being rootbound which I believe I have already corrected. Let me know what you think.

If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.

Thanks once again for helping with the grow!

 

[McBudz]

McBudz, four20friend, flyfishinrock, Cherma - Thanks for the comments.

Day 14 Flowering Update

Ok, so we tested the soil runoff, and it was low, in the 5's. What an enormous pain it was mixing a solution that put the PH in a balance when measuring the run off. I really needed McBudz ph600 - the drops are a pain in the ass and I don't trust the 3 way meter i bought, because it never matched up with the drops.

If there are different methods of changing soil PH I'd love to read about them, so far this was the most unenjoyable part of the entire experience.

We watered slightly higher than PH 7 and it seemed to work out. I guess the plants will let us know. A syringe or an eye dropper would have really helped, it was such a pain to get the PH just right.

The clones in the veg room are looking great, and 3 out 4 of the females plants in there also look great. One of them has spots on it, which I'll post below, but I think that may be from being rootbound and it's just recovering.

Overall the bud room looks phenomenal, and the veg room is coming along nicely as well.

I'll start out with the good pictures and work my way to the troubled leave shots near the end

A shot of the bud room. Everything looks great, I can't imagine how much better it might look if we finally sorted out the soil PH.

A close up of a random bud, how is this for day 14?

Here is a shot of one of the plants. You can see bud sites everywhere.

Here is the LST'd plant. I think it's looks great.

Here are two more random bud shots:

Here are the 3 clones. We need to remove one of them that are sharing the same pot. I honestly didn't expect any to survive, but these weeds are resilient!

Ok and now for the trouble pics (it's hard to believe these leaves are on the same plants pictured above):

As you can see it's not every leaf, but many of them are affected. There is even one fan leaf on one plant that looks like this and it's probably just shy of half way up the plant, yet the bottom of that plant doesn't have much. Most of the other plants this is happening only on the bottom parts of the plant.

This is the worst looking leaf on all of the plants. You can see in the backgroup of this pic there are a few more of terrible looking smaller leaves like this. None of the other plants seem to be affected this bad. I am crossing my fingers that what i attempted to do to raise the soil PH worked.

Even if i did correct the soil PH, i should not expect this leave to recover right?

Here is a pic of one of the plants in the veg room. It seems to be growing fine, i hope this is a result of being rootbound which I believe I have already corrected. Let me know what you think.

If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.

Thanks once again for helping with the grow!

Yeah you are locking out nutes with that pH. Just get the digital meter and it will be a lot easier for you.

"so far this was the most unenjoyable part of the entire experience." - Once you find the sweet spot you'll be on easy street. Just takes a little time and practice with your nutes and ph adjusters. Just remember test everything going in and coming out every time and adjust as needed, your plants will thank you. They look pretty good considering they are locked out.

 

[DaleDenton]

No journal is complete until the gardener reveals all of the tools that make his garden run successfully!

This doesn't come around very often where I live so I figured I'd share it with my fellow connoisseurs. This is supposedly a Sour Diesel x Haze mix but I have no way to verify that so take it for what it's worth. But the one thing I can attest to is it's incredible smoke! How sweet it is to take a break from the beasters!

I wish I were a better photographer so I could really capture how good these buds look.... oh and the smell, Mmmmm Earthy and strong, delicious!

 

[flyfishinrock]

good advice mcbudz, all the way around They do look nice for such a low ph, cant wait to see what happens now.

 

[DaleDenton]

Day 18 Flowering

Tonight was another feeding. The feeding was PH 7.5 aproximately (still no digital meter) w/ a run off of about 6.2.

We fed a normal dose of Beneficial Bacteria, Pro Bloom Flower Soil Formula, Sweet and Big Bud. This will be their first feeding with Sweet and Big Bud included.

After their feeding this morning, they already seem to have recovered a great deal from the PH nute lockout.

The Veg room is looking fantastic. Better than ever actually - All plants are thriving, and the previously stressed out rootbound female is having a lot of regrowth in the lower damaged branches. The clones are still not growing convincingly, but one thing is certain - they aren't dying either. These plants received their first feeding with Sweet as well as the normal low Dose of bacteria and a normal dose of the Super Sea Tea.

Now for the pictures.
Flowering

Here is a shot of the plants blooming. I can't believe those used to be seeds!!!! Incredible!

The little seedy.... All grownz'd up. It brings a tear to my eye

4 Plants - absolutely dominating every bit of free space in this closet.

Just Lovely.



Vegging

Vegging plants are looking pretty good!

This is the worst looking clone. Hopes are high she's gonna pull through.

This is the best looking clone. I think this one is well on it's way.

This plant was root bound pretty bad, but look at the new growth. That is definitely a good sign. She's gonna make it.


The plants definitely seem to be turning around. Thanks a lot for recognizing the low PH - who knows how the crop would have went without your sound advice!

 

[flyfishinrock]

are you putting any dolomite lime in your soil? use the kind that is crushed to a fine powder about an ounce for each gallon mix VERY well, this will sweeten the soil so your closer to 7. Whats the soil make up? ph is tough to remedy if the soil isnt right to begin with.