First Grow-Cab Grow-Nirvana White Castle

[biffboy]

Hi all! this is my first grow. After putting a cab together, i have received my seeds and planted them straight in soil yesterday morning 5/21/2010.

What strain is it? White Castle
Nirvana's White Castle is an F1 marijuana hybrid of two absolute winners. With a White Widow mother and our award-winning Ice for a father, White Castle marijuana seeds are as outrageous as one would expect. The sturdier, denser structure of Ice really thickens up the often light and wispy White Widow buds. White Widow's flavour, strength, and social high remain very present in this cannabis strain. Medical marijuana users are extremely fond of White Castle for its pain-killing properties.

Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Seedling
If soil... what is in your mix? miracle gro potting mix
If soil... What size pot? 1 gallon
Size of light? 250w HPS
Is it aircooled? makeshift vented
Temp of Room/cab? with lights out, 76F and at 50% humidity

After receiving the seeds, I got my pots ready, flushed them with some tap water as the miracle gro had been sitting and people keep scaring me with stories of miracle gro (FF seems like it is preferred, but also costs some $$. I then gave them a good soaking with distilled water and in went the seeds.

Of course, I was a bit overzealous earlier today and gently scooped up the soil around the seed to take a peek, and a brilliant white taproot showed itself, so I gently put it back in. It's the bottom right one.

So, here I am. I'm not quite sure how far to put the lights from the plant once they sprout, from reading it seems if my hand wont get burnt, then the plants hsould be ok so I plan on going by that rule. I would like to get a couple CFLs to supplement, but am on a tight budget so not sure if I will be able to. The CFL tutorial here is great.

I was going to run a 20/4 cycle with the HPS lights, will start as soon as I get the girls protuding form the soil.

I have limited time for posting, as I am trying to take all precautions I can. Only me and my wife know about the grow attempt. The cab is in an office away from where anyone but us would go.

Anyways, here I am, I can hopefully post some pics once I get some something besides dirt to take pictures of all comments welcome, I love reading the boards at coffee shops.

Peace!

P.S. what happened to the 420 girls?

 

[Jah7918]

I'd like to follow this as I'm a first time grower this year too! White Castle looks like a good strain and I'm curious how well it will grow! Keep us updated with some pictures once something happens

 

[biffboy]

Hey Jimbob!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope everything works out on your grow too!

5/24

My seeds have sprouted! I checked the cab this morning and one of the babies sprouted, with leaves. Upon further examination several more stems could be seen through the dirt. I sprayed the topsoil with 3-4 sprays then hit the lights and went off to work. Now all 8 have sprouted with their round little baby leaves.

All was not well, however. The wifey had turned the AC off, and the leaves looks somewhat wilty and "hot" is what they looked like. My temp was at around 87F. I fixed that, and while working on the cab (got a personal fan for inside) I could already see them looking more vibrant. The first sprouter, Abbey (wife named her) is already protruding 1" from soil.

Now that they have sprouted, I want to make sure they're at the optimum height. Currently the bulb is 15" above soil, and I don't know if thats too high or not high enough. Testing on my hand, I didn't really feel discomfort until 4-5" from the bulb(250HPS). I think I'll see how they look tomorrow morning before making a judgement.

Also, while I have been spraying the topsoil to keep seeds moist, I don't know if I should continue spraying mildly or wait for pot to get fully dry.

I'll get some pics tomorrow and update. Hopefully I'll get to do some research tomorrow as well.

Peace.

 

[biffboy]

Here are a couple pics. The color is bad because of the lighting. Will take them out for next pics. Temp is holding at 81F, and I lowered the light a couple inches as well. I'll be waiting a couple days before watering them again. The leaves still arent looking that vibrant, they still look "hot." I don't know if this is because of the temp or soil or what. I will wait and see how the next few days go.

Peace.

 

[biffboy]

5/26/2010

Nothing real new to report. Temp in cab is holding at 82. higher than I'd like, but not much I can do about it I guess. All the plants have sprouted their first pair of serrated leaves. Pot is still damn 2-3 inches deep so I will wait another day or two before watering. The Humidity seems to hover around 30-40%. I hope this isnt too low.

 

[Reefa Cheefa]

Looks like a good setup you have there! HPS lights can get pretty hot maybe try and get a fan blowing up at the light to cool it off a bit. It seems to help for me a bit.

The stage you are at is the worst, a ton of waiting and waiting... It's well worth it, once they get a little bigger they will have a big growth spurt.

Are gonna be using any nutes?

 

[biffboy]

5/31/2010 (Day 10 from seed)

Well, good and bad news, I suppose. on the 28th, I watered with distilled water, and some seem to be taking off. Some seem to be still real small, so there is a lot of differentiation there.

My problem now is that the kiddos seem to be lighter in color than they were, and their leaves look off. Temp still around same, RH at around 35%. I don't have a PH meter yet (I know, need a paycheck or two), and when I watered them it was distilled, but I'm wondering if I could be having too alkaline of a PH?

Some pics of some of the girls:

I plan on using nutes (probably MG), but wanted to wait a couple weeks and see how the MG mix was going.

 

[biffboy]

Quick update, pics to follow tomorrow. Growth seems to have slowed down a lot, and their color save for the bigger ones is really light green. Reminds of of the "metallica pea" truckster from Vacation, maybe a bit mroe yellow. I've raised the lights and temp is always less than 85, though I'm still working on getting around 78 in there, depending on the time of day. Humidity is really low, around 30%, so I'm working on getting the humidity up. While I havent gotten a digital PH meter yet, I did have the liquid based ones, and it seems to me the soil is around 7, though it can be hard to tell via those solutions, so hopefully will have a PH meter soon. I'm wondering if the MiracleGro soil is to blame, or low humidity. I should have the humidity up to 50-60 I hope.

I'm pretty worried about the kiddos. I think they had heat stress/light bleaching, or that was part of the problem, which is corrected, but still the growth seems stunted, so I'm thinking there's another problem. I will try to post pics shortly.

 

[biffboy]

So I got some pics. The pictures were hard to take because the color never seems to match the naked eye. I played with ISO settings on camera but it was still hard, so the wife took some good ones. I still think the naked eye doesn't do them justice. I will try and post on the problems thread, but will post some pics of 3-4 (some with circled areas!) here as well.

I dont think humidity is the problem, or the main one, PH I think less, but maybe nute burn from using miracle gro? We'll see what others think.

Hard to tell, they look yellower to the naked eye. The symptoms began with serrated edges curling up while tips curled down, and lightening of color. Seemed to go with what I found on heat stress, so raised the light, added cooling to cab. Its been 4 days since I watered them, letting about 10% run out. The leaves are looking yellow, still, teh cotyledons first. New growth is slow, and seems to come out the same lightened color than the rest of the plants. only the bigger kids seem to be taking it in stride and have much deeper color. As of today, I'm seeing some yellow/brown spotting. PH seems around 7 (really can't get more accurate than that atm), humidity low but would it cause that kind of stress this fast?

From the research done, I am thinking nutes, humidity, or mag deficiency. I think the plants are a lot more sensitive to the soil (miracle gro) than I would have expected, and I am too inexperienced (all the pictures in the world don't really help till you see and solve a problem on your own) to know what causes this, or how I could fix it.

 

[Reefa Cheefa]

Hey biff I think they will be alright! I don't grow in soil but from what I have heard miracle gro is no good. I'm not really sure what's wrong with the girls. I would definitely get a digital pH meter and check your run-off too. If you want to get your humidity up maybe put a bucket of water in there or some wet towels.

 

[Jah7918]

Hey man, don't worry about those spots. One of the biggest problems a first time grower has is the fact that they worry too much. This is my first year growing and I had the same thing happen to me on the first set of leaves. I just left them alone and they are extremely healthy plants. Also Reefa is right, don't use Miracle grow for a number of reasons. Go and pick up some organic based fish fertilizer for the nitrogen needed during the veg stage. Just make sure you don't over fertilize them!

 

[The Butcher]

Is this grow still alive?
If so, please update us with some pictures and info.

If you need any help with posting photos, please read the photo gallery tutorial
Photo Gallery Guide - How to Resize, Upload & Post Photos

I am moving this to abandoned journals until we get updates.

Thanks and hope all is well in your world!

Love and respect from all of us here at 420 Magazine!