My First Grow Journal - By Mcloadie

[mcloadie]

Well, here we go. This will be my third indoor grow. I just aborted my second indoor grow due to diseased plants, my fault, soil didn't have enough drainage, couldn't get them dried out before the fungus gnats took over and they were stunted and my time is better spent on new plants that i'll keep healthy with some changes. I've got 1 ch9 pow33 fem, 1og rascal white urkle fem, 1 northern light x big bud fem . I'm going to grow 6 plants using the dr. earth method. I will be filling any gaps in numbers with a selective breeding I did on a bag seed mexican female that is some of the best I've grown to this point. The mexican I pollinated was 4 feet tall, very vigorous, and produced chewy, delicious, skunky, chunky, and real stony bud. The male was a nice kush plant that resulted from an accidental pollination that ruined a freinds crop. The female from the accident was bubblegum kush. I have my own theory as to how this happened as all of the seeds ( at least 100 ) that I started from the accident were females except 1 herm. The results of my breeding will be called mexikush. By the way, the bag seed plants went in the ground outside on july 7, and were harvested october 1. That seems to be an incredibly short period of time, however, that is one of the reasons i chose this plant for my cross. I will end up with approx. 100 seeds from the 3 buds I pollinated with a qtip. I still have 1 bag seed plant ( the runt ) still in the ground outdoors, waiting to see if it puts on any weight. Everything looks and smells great, it's turning purple and still growing, just so slowly. This is simply an introduction to this grow and I will elaborate on everything as I go.

 

[mcloadie]

I will describe the conditions and equipment I'll be using for this grow. First of all I live in the southwest, low humidity in the winter, fairly high for a good portion of the summer during monsoon season. The growspace is 2 feet by 6 feet, bypass doors, a closet in a bathroom. Ventilation is acheived by the evaporative cooler pushing air through the room and out the window, on low vent setting. Light will be provided per 1 indigro 420 pro induction light. I'll be using 6, 5 gallon felt pots ( grow bags ). The felt pots will be resting on wire plant stands, leaving about 1-1/2 inches airspace underneath. I utilize 3 fans, 2-10 inch, moving the foliage, at either end of the closet, and 1- 3 inch fan that sits on the floor moving air underneath the pots. The walls are lined with mylar survival blankets ( a dollar apiece, compare with growstore mylar ) tacked to the walls. I'll be using 2- homemade 2 litre co2 generators, positioned at the top of the space at either end. Floor is covered with visquine ( spelling? ). The space will be bug bombed and sterilized with bleach prior to setup.

 

[mcloadie]

Getting ready to grow, I don't know about anyone else but this is an exciting time for me. I am thinking about how to vent this closet when lights are off. When lights are on doors are open......no prob. When lights are off I slide the doors closed and put bath towels in the ends and the opening where the doors come together to block ambient light, thus sealing the space. I propose to add a board at one end and mount a small fan in it and leave a little space at the top where the doors come together, with the fan directed to the outside of the space, thus drawing air through the space where I left an opening at the top with the bath towels. My fans run continuously inside the closet. Anybody have any opinions about my proposed modification?

 

[CanMan]

Mcloadie, I'm new too this, actually just in flower of my first grow, but I wonder why you're looking for a way to vent when the light is off. I use a 3x3 grow tent and my fans are on the same timer as my lights as such I run no ventilation when the lights are off, other than the open flaps in the tent. I've had no issues, guess I should say noticeable issues, running this way. I'm into my second week of flower and things look very promising. All the best. (I would add a photo if I could figure out how from my iPad)

Can't believe I had to break out my laptop.

 

[mcloadie]

Lookin good bro, the problem is that to seal off the ambient light from my bathroom I have to seal the space. It's only 2x6 feet....6 plants. The evaporation from the pots creates alot of moisture, inhibiting drying of the soil. I also noticed some tub dehumidifiers on the net....those little electric closet dehumidifiers don't look like they could do the job.

 

[CanMan]

Ah, that makes sense. Good luck, wish I had the knowledge to give you the answer.

 

[mcloadie]

Today I began germinating seeds. The lineup is as follows:
1- OG Raskal x White Urkle
1- Northern Lights x Big Bud
5- Mexican Bag seed x Bubblegum Kush
I know it's a little crazy trying those last 5, buth if you knew the parents of these seeds you might give em a shot too!
Standard germination, paper towell, wet ( to start ), in shallow glass container with saran wrap covering it. I will vent it every couple of days to let some of the moisture evaporate. They usually sprout in less than a week, and I will add water before they dry out. I have had seeds that took as long as 10 days, and as little as 2. I take great care in identification or I'll lose any research value ( for what its worth ). I'm working to harvest in 120 days. I'll try to includw a photo, if it's not here it'll be on my photos. Yey......progress!

 

[mcloadie]

OG raskal x white urkle, northern lights x big bud, and a mexikush were germinated this morning. They went into moist happy frog with 20-25% perlite. I'm a little paranoid about the moisture situation in my growspace, therefore the perlite. They are now tented with saran wrap at about 53 " below indagrow 420 light. They are in black plastic trays and I'll water them from below until they go into the 5 gallon felt pots. I have placed an expanded metal deck, supported by coffee cans.....a little extra ventilation. I've decided to grow 8 plants rather than 6. The exanded metal rig will go when I go to 5 gallon pots and I use wire plant stands that give about 2" airspace for ventilation and I'll run a 4" fan blowing under the pots. I'll start a 6" fan as soon as first seedling breaks soil surface.

 

[mcloadie]

og rasckal x white urkle broke the soil. I didn't need that perlite in the happy frog soil, the seedlings are drying out a little faster than i'd like, but i'd rather be watering than fighting with a soil that won't dry out fast enough. I installed the fans, I have a 6 inch blowing very gently across the top of the seedlings and a 8 inch blowing ( on low ) straight up on the opposite side of the space. I know I'm going into alot of detail in my journal, I would rather be overinformative than under. I hope you guys know how much information from this site has gone to form my knowlege base to grow weed. Thanks! I have had a certain degree of success and a fat sack of weed to tide me over til this grow comes to fruition. I went from 180 norcos ( hydrocodone ) to an ounce of goodness. I deal with pain differently on the weed, but i've grown ( no pun intended ) acustomed to it........Later

 

[mcloadie]

Five remaining mexikush went into soil. I scarified some more seeds and soaked them in tepid water til enough of them popped so I could fill the remaining pots. The OG raskal x white urkle is having issues getting started. The seed hull was slow to come off ( I helped it a little after 3 days ), and I'm sure it's at least stunted. One of the mexikush is also having a problem as the water leaves, or what should be the water leaves, appear to be two white filiments, that look like pistils. This is probably some kind of genetic mishap and I predict it won't survive. In any case I have more seeds soaking to germinate to replace any seedlings I decide to cull.

 

[mcloadie]

Og raskal x white urkle is probably not going to make it. I removed one of the cotyledon ( which was not green ) to expose the green one under it, maybe a waste of time. I ended up scarifying some more seeds to make sure that I get it all going soon! The seedling with the white filaments for water leaves is doing better, it looks like those filaments are starting to turn green and turn into leaves. Oldest seedlings are coming out with true leaves, light is at 48".

 

[mcloadie]

Things are looking up, I've got 5 mexikush coming through the soil, and low and behold, og raskalxwhite urkle IS going to live! The doomed seedling is now growing and has two well formed water leaves. I had almost given up on it, but kept it moist, and my rescue plan worked. I'm real happy about the recovery, that seed cost me 25 bucks! I hope to clone the most vigorous plants so I can have some starts on hand should someone need a few. I have the light at about 4 feet. That light is so bright it feels liike I'm getting a suntan when I'm working under it.......later

 

[mcloadie]

Something worth mentioning, out of 10 seeds ( the seeds I grew outside, mexikush ) I have 2 that seem to have genetic issues. One of them had little white leaves that appeared to be lacking chlorophyl, the other has another seedling growing out of its stem. The white portion of those leaves shriveled and disappeared, and the plant is doing well with its little rounded leaves. I'm wondering if anyone has experienced these anomalies. I have an idea that My seeds would have done better had I wintered them. When growing japanese maples I would put my seeds in a jar with some soil and put them in the frig for about a month. They have a much higher survival rate than non-wintered seeds. Just my thoughts, if I had the resources to have the required number of subjects for study, my data would be much more valuable and conclusive. It's cool though, someday I'll have my lab and I can get to the bottom of some questions about this plant that are eluding me.

 

[mcloadie]

Well, OG Raskal x White urkle is toast. The plant just couldn't shed that little embryonic sac like membrane, and by the time I intervened it had used all it's stored energy trying to shed it. Everything else is just fine, 4 plants are smaller becaus I had to germ more seeds to get 10 plants. I had 1 seed that didn't germinate and the one that died. I just hope the females dominate the numbers, and I'll clone the best plants to stay at 8 plants in 5 gallon grow bags. Still don't know how to post photos on a thread, but I am posting photos on my photos....I decided that dr. earths soil was'nt too hot for my seedlings and put them it, theyre doing fine , some showing explosive growth, and the others will soon.....later

 

[mcloadie]

Everything is good. I recharged co2 generators today. I sure wish I could figure out how to post photos, can anyone help?

 

[mcloadie]

Everything is good. I recharged co2 generators today. I sure wish I could figure out how to post photos, can anyone help? [/QUOTE]

I feel a whole lot more like I do now than I did then

 

[mcloadie]

All is well, 6 " tallest plant. I'm going to take the 4th set of leaves to top. I wish I had more room, I would leave a couple to grow nat style. I have had a few that produced alot of scaffolds without topping, and, in their natural form they are so nice and lovely. About an hour ago I tried cannabutter for the first time, it's starting to work, but I hope it gets way better than this. It didn't taste too bad, I put a half pound of leaves into a lb of butter. I'm testing it for the batch of cookies I'm makin this afternoon. Oh, no nute burn on seedlings going into dr earth, I figured that would be the case.....later

 

[mcloadie]

2 days out of town, everything is good. One mexikush was on it's side, I propped it up with soil and we're back to the races. I run my fan that blows over the plants at a pretty good clip, so the plants are blown in a breezy fashion, sometimes they're moving alot, sometimes barely. I would rather have sturdy stems to minimize a bunch of string and sticks in my way. I will stabilize flowers, but not weak ass plants. The oldest plants are all starting to branch. My question is this; do I need to top a plant that is making a branch at every single node? I know that when I top a plant it's growth will " stall " so to speak. I don't want to slow any growth down, at least while I think i'm going to have enough height under my light to finish. Just ate 2 cookies out of my first batch of weed butter. I put a half pound of leaves into 4 cubes of butter, It's pretty strong shit. I already had it on toast to test it, then ate 3 more cookies, very different than I expected. I was definately not stoned, way too high for that description. It took away my back pain for a whole day. Later

 

[Sense Amelia]

Hi Mcloadie - Very much looking forward to seeing pics

 

[rdooski3]

Hey Mcloadie! I was just reading your journal and wanted to say hi! You remind me of myself, its amazing the knowledge that can be gained here. First off here is a couple of links to help with the photos Photo Tutorial and Tips Photo Gallery Guide: How to Resize, Upload & Post Photos . With topping I would recommend it if you have the space and are wanting a large plant, the only thing that really stalls is the spot at which you cut. But you only have 2ft of width so im not sure I would. Im excited to see how your ''mexikush'' turns out! I live near the border also and Im growing a strain that I bet is similar to yours.