OlderStoner - Indoor/Outdoor Grow

[OlderStoner]

Day 46 of this grow and it's moving on. The White Widow X's are growing at a fast clip. The last two nights I've had to raise the lights by at least 1" because the top leaves of these plants are growing right up into the bulbs. The White Widow feminized plants are still recovering from the transplant and topping operations which happened last weekend. But I did notice some growth in them over the last 48 hours. The pots are drying out well but still soaking wet from the flushing I gave them on Sunday. The clones taken from the tops are all doing nicely including the two which I took from the X's and placed into soil. But I can say that I am very impressed with how the clones which I placed in the grow blocks are doing. I waited 72 hours before giving them a little more water and this water was 6.5 ph with only about 1/4 strength of the Fox Farm nutes. I mist them each night very lightly and the inside of the plastic dome is always covered with condensation so the humidity is up there. The two fluoros lighting these up 24 hours is producing more heat than I thought they would but the clones seem to love it.

I ordered a 600 watt light kit from Access Hydroponics and it's on its way and should be here by next week. When they arrives, I will build some kind of tent and the X's will move into 12/12. As soon as I recover from this financial hit for the light I'm going to order a 60"x60" grow tent. Still have to rig up the ventilation system, but I have that covered with a exhaust fan, some clamps and 6" flex hose.

This weekend I'll move the plants outside again for maintenance, watering, etc...and maybe one more good dose of sunshine before I put them into the tent permanently.

 

[OlderStoner]

The weekend is here and now at day 48 of the grow. It's very mild outside with some sunshine and very humid so to make sure I get a good look at all the plants I moved them outside for a while. The X's are growing almost 1" everyday. Part of the supplies for my light kit arrived today but the reflector, ballast and bulbs are still on the road, even though the supplier told me they would ship it all together. One way or another I've got to move these X's into flowering or they will out grow the height of this room.

The White Widow feminized plants seem to be in shock from being transplanted last weekend. It does appear they are growing but only at a snails pace. I also topped them last weekend and I'm sure they are recovering from that as well. The trouble with this is the pots I transplanted these into are filled with what I thought was going to be a great medium. But I can clearly state that something in that soil is way alkaline. The water coming right out of the hose and faucets here in my house is reading 9.1 ph. I am using ph Down concentrate to lower it to 5.5 and even lower. I poured 6.5 ph water through the X's this morning and the run off was 7.2. So I used even lower ph water 4.6 in the other pots and I was still getting run off in the other one of 7.1. I then ran some 3.6 ph water through them and the run off was still over 7.1. I don't want to change the ph too fast but it appears that trying to change the ph environment of this soil is much harder than I anticipated. I only gave the WW fems a small amount with a very weak Fox Farm fert mix because I flushed these last week. I used about 8 gallons of water to flush each 5 gallon pot but then I read that I should have used at least 15 gallons per pot. In any case the ph runoff in all the pots is still higher than 6.5 and higher than 7.0. So to avoid stressing or shocking them I'm trying to take this easy.

The clones are doing quite well. But the grow blocks are 3" so I'm not seeing any roots yet. There's no doubt they are all taking root and growing. So I've gone from 7 plants to now 14. I have no idea where I will put them all but i'm counting on some plants either being male, or morphing, or just going bad. So far it looks like I will have lots of plants to choose from which will go under the 600 watt light when it arrives. And I promised a friend one of the clones for his house.

Speaking of morphing, I got an e-mail from a friend in another state who is also doing a grow. He said his biggest and most promising plant morphed on him. I'm going to call him today to find out more on how or why it happened so as to hopefully avoid that here. It's going to be a much longer grow than I thought due to cuttings. I and still may take more cuttings from these especially once I sex them.

 

[OlderStoner]

The light kit arrived yesterday. In two different boxes and they forgot to ship me the in-line fan I ordered. I tested the HPS bulb this morning and it works fine. But without that fan, I'm not going to do much with it for the moment. The ballast is an off-brand called SolarLux. I took a chance with this because it comes with a 3 year warranty and the entire kit only set me back $425...once they get the darned fan to me. I still need some more supplied to be able to hang it from the PVC rack I built but outside of that I should have what I need to get these plants spread out a little more. The grow tent will come next, or maybe I'll just DIY it. The price on a 60" x 60" Secret Jardin grow tent from this same supplier makes it a no-brainer when I get a little more time behind me.

This light arrived non too soon because those White Widow X's are getting so much taller than the others that I have to adjust the fluoro frame I built several weeks ago on such an angle to accommodate the different heights. Once I move these over to the new light I'm going to use boxes of some kind to get the shorter plants up to the same height. I'm hoping to spread them out over 60" x 60" floor area instead of the 24" x 48" they are all in now. One week more of veg for the X's and then it's 12/12 to start the flowering stage and I'll be just about at the 8 week mark. Longer than I'd like to have taken but the goal was to first get the clones so all these plants had to recover from early topping.

 

[OlderStoner]

Closing down the weekend with this grow. The plants have all been moved back indoors after major rebuild of the PVC rack to handle the new light reflector and to clean up the area under the fluoros. The plants which were transplanted and topped last week appear to have recovered from their shock. I took a readying on the soil with the test kits again and it showed almost no N, high on P and very little K. That I'm sure was from the flushing which took place two weeks ago. I added 1/2 strength Fox Farm week 3 nute mix. These babes are still in what I consider veg state even though this begins week #8. Having topped the plants I want to give them time to veg some more, especially under the new light.

This is a shot of the plants after the veg. They are getting so big, especially the White Widow X's that I must move them into flowering this week. The White Widow fems I will let veg for a few more weeks. The clones should be ready to come out into the fluro area at that time as well.

Here is the new light kit. Everything arrived with the exception of the fan. I have tested the HPS bulb and it works fine. Will test the MH bulb later. It builds up a lot of heat and without the fan I'm not feeling comfortable running it full time just yet. Once the fan and ducts are hooked up I will turn it on the 12/12 cycle to start looking for these X's to bud out. I can obviously see that I'm going to need another one of these light kits. If this one works out well, I'll get another on when I order my grow tent.

 

[OlderStoner]

The fan arrived and I gave it a whirl just testing it. Everything looks good for deployment but I need to make something sturdy I can mount the fan motor to. Will come up with something tonight.

I placed my hand about 30" below the light and could feel a pretty intense heat from that HPS bulb. So the question becomes exactly how far below the light should I keep the tops of the plants?

 

[AfricanGrower]

Quite a lot of progress has been made Older since the last time I checked up on you! I will try a run through a list of questions you had and also comment on a few of my concerns, as always haha

>>> I've run 10 gallons through each 5 gallon pot of sub 6.0 ph water and the run off is still 7.7 to 7.8. I will let them drain overnight and see how they are doing tomorrow. I read that trying to adjust ph too quickly will stress the plants but since these are in new pots anyway I think I'm screwed. I can't believe this ph thing is so hard to control. The soil mixes I bought all from the same supplier, the same brand and the bags were all on the same pallet in the store. But the run off I'm getting shows this stuff is much higher in ph that was the last batch I used.

Now I know this goes against what I have been telling you up to now, BUT when it comes down to pH and soil, you really don't have to worry as much as the soil buffers the pH anyway. This is what is happening here.

Now I will tell you that knowing exactly what you are mixing your soil with will aid you beyond your grow. I never was an all organic grower when I was in soil, so I did not have alot of amendments to add, but even so I used potting soil that proved to work in other grows endless times. That is your best bet there. I usually stick with a varied mix of compost and perlite, but even a mix of FFOF and perlite has worked for me before.

Now by mixing your soil before hand you now have the advantage of testing the pH. I don't know if other soil growers do this before using their medium, but I like to run water through a sample of my 'final' mix to test the pH and adjust by adding more alkaline or acidic amendments to the overall mix. This has shown me great results in the past, eliminating the need to worry about 'what's in your soil' down the road.

In your case, I am pretty sure you are right by saying there is more alkalinity in your soil than anything. But to make sure, take a picture of the potting soil you are using.

The only way I can suggest to counteract this problem would be to continue to feed with slightly lower adjusted pH so the runoff hits you at that 7.0-7.5 range. It is okay for your runoff to be higher than what you put in due to the soil's buffering effects.

In the future I would recommend mixing your own amendments into the soil before you start popping beans just to get a upper hand on the whole pH thing. It's funny that going into hydro, you have so much more control over your pH because water barely buffers anything, but pH in these setups constitute a make it or break it situation as there is not too much leniency on optimal pH range.

>>> I waited 72 hours before giving them a little more water and this water was 6.5 ph with only about 1/4 strength of the Fox Farm nutes.

When it comes to feeding clones or seedlings, I would HIGHLY suggest not to dose them with any kind of chemical nutrient at that strength, especially FF as it is a VERY HOT fertilizer. Typically seedlings/clones don't need to be feed until the first 2 weeks are reached, but it is safe to use other growth boosters or enhancers like 'Superthrive'. I have experimented with using fertilizer during the first two weeks of development and found that using it in minute quantities (literal droplets of measurements) and found that there is not much difference in growth rate but rather an improvement in the success rate of germination/rooting.

>>>I'm going to call him today to find out more on how or why it happened so as to hopefully avoid that here.

To shine a little more light on hermaphroditism, a plant usually will change sex LATE in flowering or before it is even sexually mature (and in some cases right smack-dab in the middle of flowering). The only TWO reasons that contribute to a plant going 'hermie' on you is STRESS or GENETICS. Genetically speaking, a plant that is grown in the most optimal conditions can show signs of male preflowers anytime during the flowering stage. This is because the 'hermaphrodite gene' is fairly dominate in that strain.

Now this MOSTLY happens to growers who purchase 'feminised' seeds. To make a feminised seed in theory, a grower lets his harvested plant grow past its ripeness date far late into flowering. After a couple of excess weeks of stress flowering, your plant will start to produce female pollen sacs (yes actual female versions of a male plant, but these are completely different from an actual male preflower). It is these female sacs that breeders use to pollinate their plants. This feminsied pollen gives more of female trait in seeds, but know as you have learned, can also pass over hermaphroditism.

The SECOND reason for a plant going 'hermie' on you would be STRESS. And the amount before you reach the brink varies amongst strains. If enough stress is induced during veg, a potential female plant can turn without even showing signs of its former gender. It can even start showing signs of both genitalia when first put into flowering. If the STRESS is induced during flowering, you will start to see pollen sacs form. I know growers have always just 'picked' them off daily to prevent seed production, and others have just completely removed the plant to avoid any risk to their healthy crop.

Now what some of these stressors include are everything and anything that may not be right for you plant. From over/under watering, to over/under fertilizing, to much/to little heat, etc. You could be stressing your plants into becoming male with all the road bumps you have had in the past with this grow, but don't worry about it as you have many plants to choose from and by the looks of things you could use the extra space.

>>>So the question becomes exactly how far below the light should I keep the tops of the plants?

Now for the HPS, I usually set my lights to about 18-24 inches above my canopy and let the plants grow to about 10-15 inches away from the light before readjusting it. So I never put them closer than under a foot away from the plants and no more than 2 feet away. I have had no problems with heat stress with this method.

Well, it looks like you have everything in order Older. The setup is really coming a long and when you get that second HID and the tent, you will be set. What yield goals have you set for yourself? What yield did you get with your previous grows, and what kind of setup?

 

[OlderStoner]

AG...you can say that twice about the clones. Two days ago they were looking so choice and I gave them a weak solution of the ferts. And this morning the look really sick...very faded green in the top leaves. I flushed them with plain water and let the blocks drain good. Run off from the blocks was 7.5. And not the darndest thing. The plastic hood in this setup was filled with condensation, When I turned it upside down all the condensed water ran into a corner. This should be pure water as it condensed out of the air. So I took a ph reading and damn if it wasn't 8.1. There is something very alkaline in the air around here.

The White Widows which I topped and transplanted last week and moving along but slowly. There's no doubt the transplant and topping put stress on them. I see very good growth today and they were under the fluoros all day. The fluoro lights do work but I know to make this flowering stage worth anything it's going to take HID. I rigged up the hoses, fan and light tonight. It's running right now and I will let those big X's sit under it a few more days at 18/6. Then I have to figure out how to get those plants isolated from the fluoros for 12/12. I would just start the others into 12/12 but with them just being topped they need a lot more veg time.

And I'm learning again that Fox Farm nutes are much stronger than what the docs say. I will not touch those clones with anything but plain water for another two weeks. Damn, this is a lot harder than I thought. Those damn ferts always get the best of me even when I try to go lightly.

As for yield, I'm going to all I can get for personal use. I'd like to try an get at least 1/2 lbs. out of all this. Last year I grew one plant and topped it so it had twin colas. It only got about 16" tall and after 4 months I grew it outdoors and ended up with spider mite eggs all over it but got some control using tobacco tea sprayed on the underside of the leaves. I ended up with about 3 oz dried. It wasn't that good, wasn't too bad...but definitely not worth all that time I put into it. I'd also like to get a perpetual grow going so I can keep buds in my home for myself, and a friend or two now and then. But if I don't get this fert thing settled....sheesh. The guy who had the hermie I mentioned told me he water his plants everyday with nutes...maybe why he got a morpho...but he's also quick to reference all his past grows where he ended up with great smoke. I trust the information I'm getting on this forum more than I trust what this guy is saying.

 

[OlderStoner]

Growth...the white widow X's are now both over 24" in height and remember they've been topped and will have twin colas. The four white widow feminized range from 8" to 10" tall and they too have been topped. The cotton candy is about 12" tall and it was also topped last weekend. It has shown the most steady growth. resistance to the ferts and it's nodes are very closely spaced. I want to take more clones of this one when the time is right.

I will have to get the X's in flowering soon. I expect at least another 12" to 18" in growth and the bud sites are not that numerous right now. One way or another, this weekend the 12/12 starts for them even if I have to move the others into another room for a while.

 

[OlderStoner]

The last thing I did tonight was take a walk down the block to see how well I have the window in that room camouflaged to the world. All I can say is you have to know it's there to see it....but, I think an LE officer, and several of them live just around the blocks in this neighborhood, would probably spot this if they got curious about it. There is only the slightest light leaking around a piece of cardboard I'm using to block the window, and that is going to have to be changed out this weekend for something which fits much tighter in that hole and doesn't invite prying eyes.

 

[OlderStoner]

AG, as per your request, here is a photo of the bag from which the potting soil came from. There was another bag of what was called top soil, and I've placed a photo of that bag here as well.

When I germinated the seeds I only used the potting soil mix. Later when I mixed the soils for transplanting I used both and that's where the trouble seemed to happen. I also think that even though I'm being very careful with the nutes, I'm still getting too much into the soil, or too concentrated. I am mixing them up in 1 gallon jugs using only 1/2 the called for amounts. I then check and in my case, I'm always having to lower the ph. I checked the ph of tap water again here at my home and it's 9.0, right out of the faucets.

Here are the clones, which just late last week were doing so well, but then after only a small amount of the water containing the FF ferts, they are indeed showing signs of stress.

 

[AfricanGrower]

>>>When I germinated the seeds I only used the potting soil mix. Later when I mixed the soils for transplanting I used both and that's where the trouble seemed to happen.

Ahh WE HAVE FINALLY FOUND THE CULPRIT!First off the major difference between Top Soil and Potting Soil are that top soil contains almost no type of soil aerator like perlite or vermiculite, but potting soil does. Top soil is more used when growing outdoors, and as it states in its name, it is put on top of the soil around the base of the plant.Now the reason why its put there is usually to give a plant more nutrients during its life, as the top soil contains slow release chemicals. Top soil's main function is to enrich a plant with nutrients when the soil starts loosing nutrients. Potting soil also has slow released nutrients in it as well. Brand Name Top Soil and Potting Soil ARE VERY HOT TOO YOUNG CANNABIS PLANTS.

Too add to that, this could be the problem of your high alkalinity, as the nutrients are continuing to be released in the soil. Your high pH tapwater also could contain a lot of chlorine and calcium which can act as a buffer and raise the pH no matter how many time you try to lower it.I have this problem with my tapwater at a pH of 7.8-8.0, where I have to constantly adjust my pH of my reservoir every few days due to the buffering effects taking place.

I have tried to get do a search of others who have used those brands you have, but I am having a hard time.

Knowing all of this, you should be able to conclude that mixing your potting soil and your top soil is what lead to your problem, as they both contain slow release nutrients. Now you might not have had a problem with just the potting soil at first, but after some time the slow release chemicals will start to show itself in either a lockout or a nute burn.

I don't recommend using slow release potting/top soil as it will cause problems down the road when you try to introduce a chemical line of nutes like Fox Farm. If I was in your situation, I would assume that the top/potting soil mix would last me at least the first month of veg before I even consider adding 1/4 strength nutrients.

Now you have been feeding with half strength Fox Farm at week 3 you should notice a PPM range on that chart. For week 3 it suggests a range between 1750-1890. THIS is way too high of a feeding for a cannabis plant STILL in veg! I never even reach 1500 PPMS late in flower when my plant starts developing a real big appetite. In veg, the highest I go is 600-700 PPMs.

Now since you are feeding at half strength, you should average around 875-945 PPMs, PLUS you also have to account that you are using tap water, WHICH has its own PPM as well. Seeing that your tapwater is highly alkaline, then your PPMs would be very high, at least in the 300 range. My PPM of tapwater is only around 170 so I adjust my final feeding with this number in mind.

So I would guess you are feeding you plant somewhere between 800-900 PPMs, PLUS whatever PPMs are in your tapwater and the slow release nutrients of your soil mix! A plant in veg should never exceed 1000 PPMs or it will show signs of lockouts and deficiencies, etc.

I would recommend that you water your smallest plants with plain water for now, and I would strongly suggest only using the organic potting soil when transplanting/planting clones, as all nutrients in it are natural and less likely to burn you plant, but I wouldn't use topsoil in your mix at all.

I would also REALLY recommend getting PPM meter or even one of them PPM/pH meters in the future to really get a handle on all growing conditions.

PS. I found a brilliant article for you to read about hermies, and what causes them. He is a very experienced and wise grower, so heed his advice

Do I have a Hermie?

 

[OlderStoner]

AG, thanks for this valuable advice. I'm reading and paying attention to all of it. And learning a few hard lessons along the way.

The new light kit and fan are installed and working well. I'm using the HPS light with only the two White Widow X's under it. I have moved them to 12/12 while the others are still on 18/6. The X's are over 24" tall now and showing signs they are filling in near the tops. But I only started them on 12/12 this week so there are no sex signs yet. I hope these are female.

The White Widow feminized seem to be recovering from their shock. There is definite growth showing in the twin colas that the toppings produced. And the red streaks in the stems are fading, especially in the new growth. These four are still under the 400 watts of fluoros and starting to look good. But I cannot afford anymore stress on these as they are feminized and subject to morphing. I'm only going to give them distilled water, no more tap water. These big pots are still soaking wet in their bottom from the giant flush I gave them.

The Cotton Candy is far and away the healthiest looking one of them all. It is lush, green, the nodes are very closely spaced and it's gaining more height all the time but slowly. I will post some pictures this weekend when all my other activities slow down. I have one clone of this plant going too and it also seemed to handle the stress of whatever I did by pouring FF nutes onto them better than the others. You know I read an article on cloning which said to wait but to start pouring nutes into the grow blocks....that seems to have been bad advice. I am going to take at least a couple of more clones from this Cotton Candy plant and pray that it's fem. This one is staying in veg at least a while longer before I move all of them to 12/12.

The clones are growing but still the damage I did to them with the nutes is highly visible. The next set of clones I take will not suffer the same fate. I will move them into some soil, (potting soil only) in about two more weeks.

 

[OlderStoner]

Doing my mid-day check on everything. All is well. There are two very optimistic developments to mention.

1. One of the White Widow X's, the shorter one has what I'm 90% sure are pistils showing at the tops. It's very bushy in there and I think I can credit that to the sunlight as well as the HPS bulb I have them under now. In a few more days there will be more showing up and that will confirm what will be a very good thing.
3. The clones have roots growing out of the bottoms of their grow blocks. Not too many just yet, but they are there. One of them has several of them, kind of longish...so I will transplant that one into potting soil tonight.

The Cotton Candy is so impressive in it's growth. I don't want to move it right now so it will be hard to get a photo of it. But this and all the plants will be moved outside this weekend for another round of maintenance and watering. I am really amazed at how long the X's and the Cotton Candy are getting along without water. I gave them a weak nute feeding and some plain 6.5 ph water 4 days ago. They are not showing any signs of dryness although I just checked them with the probe and once it's deep down in the soil it's showing moisture. So these will wait again until this weekend for watering. The other pots are still soaking wet. The drainage in them is adequate, it's just that they are so big and had such a drenching last weekend, it will take some time for them to dry out.

Made another investment in the grow room in the form of a plywood screen with a 6" dia dryer vent to let the fan cooling the light dump its contents to the outside. I painted it white and you really cannot see it from the outside unless you get right up on it. But at night I can see the light leaks which I must plug. I'd leave this alone except it has the golden HPS glow to it which could be a tell-tale sign to the wrong people.

 

[KingJohnC]

when i take cuttings to clone I use pH adjusted tap water. cuttings do not require nutrients, there is enough nutrients in the tap water for them to grow roots.

 

[OlderStoner]

when i take cuttings to clone I use pH adjusted tap water. cuttings do not require nutrients, there is enough nutrients in the tap water for them to grow roots.

I want to make some more clones. I'm assuming that any location on the plant will produce a clone if it's done properly. For example, the big bushy tops of the White Widow X's will make perfect clones, but since I'm about to go into flowering with them, I don't want to cut those off. There are some smaller, quite spindly branches at the lower part of the plants which don't get too much light and probably won't produce much anyway. So I was thinking of cutting and cloning these. Mostly though, I'm after at least two more clones of that Cotton Candy plant. It's absolutely an adorable plant, perfect shape, perfect node spacing, big broad leaves, the works.... When I get it out into the sunshine and snap a picture of it this weekend you will see what I mean.

I'm also curious about how many times you can clone a clone, of a clone, of a clone. Is it endless or is there some point when you run up again the genetics wall?

I'm picking up some more grow blocks today and plan on making at least a few more to share with a friend. I think I have about all I can use with the space I have available. Now is the time when I wish I could have a big barrel shaped greenhouse out in the country and just grow to my heart's content. Hey, a guy can dream can't he?

 

[AfricanGrower]

From my knowledge on cloning, any branch that consists of a stamina and a shoot has the ability to produce roots independently. And as multiple generational cloning, I have never seen an ill effect come out of it with all perpetual growe3rs out there. I know a grower that always has two plants growing simultaneously, and takes clones of them a week before flower. This process repeats again when the clones are week from flower...and so on, and so on. The genetics of the plant will not change as no breeding is being conducted.

Yea Older, you are right. It is best to take the cutting lower down on the plant than cutting the main stem. This allows the main stem to produce more lanky internodal branches for future cloning. I wouldn't recommend taking cuttings less than a week before you go into flowering, as the plant will focus most of its energy on healing rather than stretching.

 

[OlderStoner]

That's good information. The two White Widow X's are already in 12/12. I tried again this morning to examine the tops...and it's so busy in there, but it does look like I see pistils...but I cannot confirm this yet. I already have one clone from each of these so I will take your advice and not make anymore cuttings from these. The other White Widows and the Cotton Candy are still in veg, maybe another week on the Cotton Candy and at least two more weeks on the WW as they are still recovering from the topping I did two weeks ago. They are growing though at a nice clip and under that 400 watt fluoro apparatus I built. I know some say fluoros are only good for clones and seedlings but what I'm seeing is that the plants respond well to it during this veg time.

 

[AfricanGrower]

>>>I know some say fluoros are only good for clones and seedlings but what I'm seeing is that the plants respond well to it during this veg time.

Oh yea from the beggining of time, T4/T5s have been implemented as the only source of light during veg. Florescent lighting really under-permits stretch at a young age due to the fact you can keep them 4-6 inches away from the tops!

 

[OlderStoner]

Saturday morning, day 54 of this grow. Almost 8 weeks now and I know others would already be deep into flowering. This morning it took the better part of 2 hours just to get a little maintenance done on only three of the plants. I am taking my time to be careful getting the ph of the water just right and that is what took the bulk of the time.

I filled up five 1 gallon jugs with tap water yesterday morning and let them sit for 24 hours to get rid of chlorine. That done, I then moved the two White Widow X's outside for their watering. These plants are talking to me as they say and right now they are telling me they have plenty of food and plenty of water. Still I knew the pots had to be dry as they were light and it's been 6 days since I last gave them any water. These two are also the ones which I have moved into 12/12 and they get a light misting each night just before lights out. But other than that, I did not give them any water this week until this morning. These pots have shown high ph run off in the past so I took some 5.5 ph water and gave X1 about 1/2 gallon. The run off this time was not the usual ruddy brown color, but more of a light green. Run off from X1 was 7.3, which is lower than the 7.8 I got last time. Still it was higher than what I'm shooting for. So I lowered the ph of the next gallon of water down to 4.5 and gave X2 about 1/2 gallon. The run off was again a nice shade of green and the ph measured 6.5. Terrific, this is just what I was after. These two White Widow X's are showing something in their tops which looks very much like pistils, but there is so much new growth from leaves in there that even with a 30x pocket lens I can't tell for sure. Maybe a few more days, a week at the most I will have the confirmation on whether these are female or male.

This is the White Widow X, the biggest of the two which I call X1. It's been in 12/12 for a almost 1 week.

This is a close-up shot of one of the tops of X1. It's hard to confirm but I'm willing to bet that in a few days I will be able to confirm pistils....hopefully.

This is the cotton candy plant. I call her Kim, after one of my favorite lady friends. I'm really hoping this one will turn out female. I took two more clones from it today, from the very lowest branches. This one is still in veg and will be for at least another week or more. I'm waiting on the other White Widow plants to reveg after their topping out two weeks ago. When they get to where I feel good about the yield I will move all of these into flowering.

I put this photo on even though it's not great focus to show the profile of this plant. It's absolutely beautiful in symmetry and fullness. The leaves on it are broader than all the other plants. And this one has shown great resistance to my F-ups with too many ferts. Even the first clone I took from it two weeks ago survived better than the others after my total idiot move of giving ferts to clones in the grow blocks.

A close-up of the leaves on the cotton candy plant.

I took two more clones, one each from X1 and X2 this morning. The one from X2 was a low branch that was damaged when a sheet of plywood I was moving brushed it too hard. I figure what the heck, it's going to go to waste anyway so might as well give it a shot. All of these clones went into 3" Grodan grow blocks which I soaked and then rinsed with a 1/8 strength mix of FF Grow Big. The water I used was 5.5 ph. I should know something about these soon. All the other clones were transplanted last night into soil. And yes, this time I went and bought the FF Ocean Forest potting soil. Paid $24 US for it, compared to $3.95 for the previous potting soil. I believe the $3.95 potting soil was not the culprit in the fiasco I had after transplanting rather it was like AG said, the top soil I mixed in with it. The clones are now in the plastic tray with the hood on it under 160 watts of fluoros in a closet. I will let them have 18/6 along with the others until it's flowering time, then I will have to find another location for the clones.

The new light and fan are working great. Very little heat build up and that HPS really has that golden, Miller Time glow to it. I just switched it out with the MH bulb because I haven't tested it yet. It fired up right away and is nice and bluish like I anticipated it would be. I have it over the veg plants for today while the two X's soak up their water in the sunshine outdoors.

And not to forget the others in this grow. Here are Alexis, Brenda, Cindy and Diane. These are the four White Widow feminized seeds which I started the whole project with. They were topped 2 weeks ago. The clones are doing ok even though I almost killed them with ferts. These are growing under that 400 watt fluoro apparatus I constructed. It must be working because look at the closeness of the nodes. One of them, Alexis is showing a little yellowing. I don't dare water anymore because right now those pots are still moist. Not soaking wet, but still moist. I may try and feed Alexis a little mix of FF and some Epsom salts. But only a little.

All in all I've had some bad breaks with this but with the great advice from this forum, it's holding together. Perhaps in January I will have some great news to report on the quality of the buzz from all this work.

 

[OlderStoner]

Balls...! Another blow to the grow. X2 has balls. X1 still looks like a female but the pistils are still just too small, green and bushy in there to confirm, even with a 30x microscope. I hate this part of a grow.

Now the question becomes what to do with the male. I could certainly use the space and the pot that it's growing in. But then again I think I might transplant it into the ground outside and let it take its chances with the elements. This way I will get the equipment back for other clones and gather some pollen, just in case I decide to force one of these to go to seed for my collection. X2 did not show any signs of superior genes, that I could see, but I'm no expert. It germinated quickly and grew tall with some close node spacing. I count eleven node spaces in a total height of 27".

This photo is not the best focused but I think you can see what I'm talking about in there. There are items which look like pistils, but I don't think this is a hermie. I think it's a male, plain and simple. This is the first day I've seen these on this plant...afaik they weren't there yesterday. I will give it at least a few more days to be 110% sure, but at this point I'm 100% sure this is a male plant and will of no use to me except for pollination. BTW, if I gather the pollen sacks up into a plastic bag, how long will it remain viable?