First Time Grower - Strain - White Dwarf

[Jimmy C]

I was thinking of putting my plants into 12/12 lighting schedule to determine the sex, does anyone think that would be a good idea? or should I wait a week or 2 until they get a bit bigger?

Here's a few updated pictures....
This is the BigBud#2

and here's the White Dwarf..

 

[donpaul.p]

the more you wait the more bud you will end up with, have you ever thought about the gas lantern routine, using that lighting schedule you get rapid growth and plants show sex around 2 weeks of age, plus using glr means it keeps the electric bills down.
glr method is this
12 hours of lights on
5.5 hours of lights off
1 hour of light on
5.5 hours of light off
then start again, an old analogue timer is easier to set up for this than digital,

so glr is basically this, 12-12. but in the 12 hour of dark you give it one hour of light, this stops the plant flowering, but doing this method it makes the plant think its going into flower so starts rapid growth but by giving it the one hour of light during the dark period it stops the plant flowering, it will show sex and show pistils showing its female but it wont enter full flower, then when you flip the lights to 12-12 it starts flowering a lot sooner and your not waiting to find out whats female

so glr 12 hours of light,
5.5 dark
1 light
5.5 dark then start again so 12+5.5+1+5.5= 24hours

 

[Jimmy C]

Ah wicked mate, cool. I will start that method with my next grow, I just want to get these couple of plants done and out of the way and get on to my next lot and use my bpn, Which I wanted to ask you about. I'm not sure on how much of each I should be using as I use a 1.5ltr bottle of water to water my plants.
On the bpn table chart it says ml/gallon
so if it is 2.5ml to put into a gallon of water to dilate how much of the nute do I put into my 1.5ltr bottle of water?

and here's a picture of my White Dwarf I just want someone to confirm with me that it is in deed a male plant?

 

[donpaul.p]

with bpn i got the 3 part plus bloom booster, and the bottles are all a quart or just under a litre, ok, so the feedings schedule will say add 2.5ml per gallon, well i only mix up 2 litres at a time, so their are 4 litres per gallon, so if it says add 5ml per gallon for example then this means you need to add only half of this to 2 litres of liquid.

so for instance their are just over 4 litre to a gallon,
im on the last of the bloom feeding schedule, if you go to blue planet nutrients web site you can download the feeding guide,
so for example it will say this
add 5ml of grow to 1gallon
add 5ml of micro to 1 gallon
add 5ml of bloom to 1 gallon
add 5lm of bloom booster to 1 gallon.
so if you buy the 3 part plus bloom booster you will get 4 bottles of bpn, you get a grow, micro, bloom and bloom booster, each of my bottles are a quart or just under a litre of nutrients per bottle and its lasted me over a year and im not even half way through each bottle yet so it does go along way.

now when i mix my water and bpn up i only mix up a 2ltr pop bottle of water, so i dont mix up a whole gallon, so in the example above i said 5ml per gallon of each, well as a gallon is just over 4 litres and i am only mixing up 2 litres, so this means i just half the dose, so i fill my 2 litre pop bottle with 2 litres of water, so then as this works out to half a gallon this means i half the amounts needed, so i just add 2.5ml of each nutrient, once you get the hang of it its pretty easy, its ok if you are mixing up a whole gallon cuz you can just follow the guide you download, but as i dont need a gallon of water/nute mix i only need 2litres so i just use half of what it says.
hope you can understand what im saying.

the feeding schedule covers every stage of growth, so it tells you exactly how much to add for seedling stage, then how much for the first week of veg, then 2nd week of veg, etc etc it covers agresive growth, then bloom and then monster bloom, theirs about 6 or 7 different schedules depending on how old the plant is or what stage of growth the plant is at, you can use it at the strength stated in the guide so no need to start at a low strength as its all ready worked out perfectly,

so to start off with say for seedling stage it says add 2.5 ml of each to 1 gallon of water, well as i only mix up 2 litres i add only half od what it says, so i add 1.25ml per 2litres, so its pretty easy to do once you work out a set guide to use, i always mix up 2 litres at a time as thats how much my pop bottle holds and thats all i need to use for my plants, so it works perfect for me.

say the schedule says add 10ml of each to 1 gallon of water,
so 10ml of grow
10 ml of micro
10ml of bloom
10 ml bloom booster,
this is just an exampls, so all the above needs to be added to 1 gallon of water, but say you only wanted to mix up 1 litre of water and nutes, well we know their are just over 4 litres to a gallon, so all we do is devide the dose by 4, so for 1 litre of water you would add 2.5ml of each bottle, or for 2litres of liquid which is half a gallon you would add half the amount needed so it would be 5ml of each to 2litres of water.

i have not had any problems with it, use the online guide and not the guide on the back of the bottles, the guide on the bottles is the guide for plants you eat, corey he runs bpn has made a feeding schedule just for these plants so follow the feeding guide that you download, i use the 3 part plus bloom booster which is 4 bottles of nutrients, but bloom booster is something you can do without if you didnt want to buy it, but bpn is cheaper than other brands and it lasts a whole lot longer so its worth looking into.

for the gas lantern routine id have a read and see what you think, it works great and the plants grow like crazy and look really healthy, 24-0 is good for growing and i found it was the best method for me, but then i came across glr and decided to try it, i didnt think it would work as well as it does, but it really does, i wont use anything else now for veg cycle, glr produces great results, so have a read about it and decide if its for you or not, for me it kept the electric bill down and meant the lights was on less so temps wasnt an issue, just go with what ever you want to do, all lighting schedules work, some say 24-0 is the best, some say it needs some dark and it has been proven that roots grow more when the plant is given some night time, so night time is a good thing, thats why i think glr works so well.

here is why glr works so well, when you flip the lights to 12-12 to start flowering the plants stretch and grow like crazy for the 1st 2 weeks of 12-12, this is because the plant is trying to be bigger than all the other plants around it so it can get pollenated, so thats how 12-12 works, so what glr does is makes the plant think its starting to flower, so it enters this rapid growth stage, but by giving the plant 1 hour of light in the middle of the dark period stops the plant going into full flower, it will show sex quicker, from seed mine show sex around 2 weeks using glr, usually 4 weeks under normal light schedules, but under glr i could sex my plants after just 2 weeks from seed, plus it means the veg time is shorter due to the plants growing quicker, then when you are happy with the size of the plants and you flip the lights to 12-12, the plants then start to flower a lot quicker,

have a good read and see whats best for you, i use it to keep costs down, but people who try it will then normally stick with it due to the results, others prefer 24-0, its just depends what works for you

 

[Jimmy C]

I already have the 3 part nutes with the bloom booster, I just wanted to get these plants out the way before using it.
I think I might give that GLR method a go, sounds really interesting.
Yea I think I might just use my 2ltr coke bottle as it'll just make it easier for me, cheers for the info man I really appreciate.

As soon as these 2 plants are done and dusted I am going to start a new thread & grow using the bpn and possibly using the glr method you have mentioned
I have some lovely seeds I really want to get going with

 

[Jimmy C]

Don I want your advice to whether this is a good idea or not...
I have been reading on the GLR method you've told me, and some people have said that when it's time to flower decrease your 12/12 by 30 minutes each week or something and then when you get to 9/15 you stop till budding is done. BUT others have said that it is pointless to do that and to just stick with 12/12 for flowering, what do you think would be best?

 

[donpaul.p]

hi, hows the grow going, i have also been reading up on that, basically you use glr for veg and the other your talking about is called deminishing light schedule, basically what it does is replicate the natural cycle of the soon, so the closer to winter you get the shorted the days are and the longer the nights, its something i have not tried, i have read good things and bad things about it, like you say some say its pointless, others use it and say it produces more frosty buds, but this is strain dependant, a lot of testing would need to be done to see if it actually improved things at all, say someone used the deminishing light schedule and loved the results, but the problem is if they grew the plant under 12-12 would they get the same results. its just to hard to say without testing them methods side by side with clones, but then everything would be need to be kept the same, such as type of light, distance from the light, nutes and water amounts and temps etc etc, so it would be hard to do a fare test.

now their is another method i have been looking into and it gets good results, when the plant has finished flowering and is ready for hearvest then for the last 2 days give it 48 hours of dark then harvest, this is meant to give more crystals and make the bud stronger, but again this has not been tested, some growers will give their plants 24 hours of dark before harvest and some 48, how ever some dont do anything and just go 12-12 till harvest and they get good results also, its something i have not tried myself, but this time round i might give the 48 hours of dark a try, it will stress the plants and this is what makes it produce more trichomes.
the question is, does it actually change anything, again without testing it would be hard to say, i think the deminishing light routine is hard to get right, it would need constant changing of the timer, with my last grow i was more than happy with the results i got going 12-12 till finish, it was better than the bud i buy on the streets so im happy with the 12-12 till finish,

at the moment i have got 2 clones that are well in flower now, so i am going to try harvesting the one plant as normal with no dark period at the end, and the other ill give 48 hours of dark before harvest, then when the buds are dry and curred i can check what the difference is, some growers say it makes no difference, a test was done and the results where the same, the bud was exactly the same no matter when they harvested it, basically it said when the plant is ready for harvest then its ready for harvest, if you let it stay in flower to long then the plant and its trichomes start to die and you lose the potency, but i have got 2 plants in my flower room that was clones from the same plant and both are the same size, so ill harvest the one as i did last time, basically when the trichomes are turning amber then i harvest so when the plants are at this stage ill harvest the one and give the other 48 hours of dark then harvest,

i dont think the difference will be noticable though so im not expecting anything amazing to happen, a plant is ready when i plant is ready, giving it the 48 hours of dark is meant to make the plant go into over drive so im giving this a try this time round

 

[Jimmy C]

Hmm...I think I will stick with 12/12 for flowering and with the next one I shall try diminishing light and see what I prefer, and also giving a day or two of darkness I will have to try out in future grows, I guess it's one of those things how people like to grow and what suits them so I'll have to try it my self and see what I like & prefer.

The grow is another bogus my white dwarf is male so I threw that away this morning and I believe my Big Bud#2 is also male :/

But never mind I have planted 3 seeds today, 1 Feminised Cheese(Greenhouse Seeds), 1 Feminised Original Skunk No.1(Seedsman) and 1 regular California Skunk Haze(Seedsman). So I can guarantee I will have 2 females - providing the grow turns out well

 

[donpaul.p]

thats the problem with regular seeds, i planted all my regular seeds a couple of weeks ago just to get them out the way, i base it on 50/50 mix of male to female, but i have been reading that instead of soaking the seeds its best to plant them strait in soil, using the paper towel method causes the microscopic hairs to become damaged on the tap root when you move the seed or transplant it to the pots, this stress causes a higher male to female ratio, so this time i planted all my seeds strait into small pots and all sprouted, but i also noticed that seeds that normally took 5 days to sprout now sprouted and grew out the soil within 48 hours, so it seems the seeds grow quicker when in the soil, maybe its the nutrients in the soil that make it grow and develop quicker, i just dont know, but they did grow quicker than soaking them.
as for the male to female ratio i have not found out sex yet so wont know, but out of 7 ak47 cross uk cherry cheese i only had 1 female using paper towel method, so the 3 that i had left have been planted strait in soil and are now growing, 2 are in my small veg room and the other is hidden out doors so i can try an outdoor grow where i am, the problem is the weather has been real crappy, its meant to be the middle of summer but its more like the middle of winter.

ill let you know once i know the sex of these plants, but if what i read was true then i should see more female than male plants, but growing a male is not all that bad, you could always collect some pollen and make your own strain and have a load of seeds, problem is risking the other plants turning to seeds so the male would need to be grown elsewhere, its just not worth the risk, but something i will try in the future.

herbies has now changed his free seeds so you dont get 2 x big bud#2 anymore, he has got some new strains he is giving away, should be better than the big bud#2 though so worth checking out.

let me know how things go mate

 

[Jimmy C]

Yea I prefer to plonk the seeds straight into the soil, I've tried the paper towel method but I don't trust my self enough to remember what I did with the seeds(I can be ever so forgetful lol).

I have started a new journal if you want to check it out the seeds haven't sprouted yet but I'm thinking within the next 5 days I should see them pop through the soil
Jimmy C's GLR Grow With A 250W CFL

 

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