ScienceGrow's Sativa Dominant Outdoor Bag Seed Grow - 2015

[Cruizer]

Checking out your grow,

 

[ScienceGrow]

Thanks, good to know a couple people are looking, and not finding anything problematic too.

 

[ScienceGrow]

After a lot of thought, and some input from another member here, I decided Alpha needs to be moved inside.

Late October is the earliest Alpha could finish if flowering began today. The average Lows in late October are in the low 40s, upper 30s. Not quite optimal.

I would let her soak up the sun until temps started getting too close to too low, but she'll likely be flowering, and I'd rather not stress her. Plus, my cabinet temps and outdoor temps are about the same right now, so that should make for a less stressful move.

Since Alpha is the only known female so far, and is the furthest along and most likely to yield, Beta and Gamma will just need to go outside until I get another cabinet going. Hopefully they do ok.

I know plants have their rhythm, and messing with it can be stressful. I was hoping to do the lights at night, and dark during the day. But that's a 12 hour shift. I thought maybe doing 36 hours dark might help with the stress of that shift, and help flowering along.

Any thoughts on helping reduce stress?

 

[lazyfish]

Looking good!

Was that light very expensive? I have heard a lot of mixed reviews about LED lights and don't know what think about them.

So, I have always thought that extended darkness would be more stressful than extended light. I have no proof to back this up but I have a thought: if Cannabis responds to darkness to trigger flowering then the darkness would be more important to keep consistent.

I have no indoor lights so I was putting a plant in a dark room at night and I accidentally left it out in the sun too long one day but put it in the dark as soon as possible. I put it in the dark for its 12 hours and then in the light again until the usual time that I put it inside. So the one freak day was 15 hours in the light, 12 hours dark, 9 hours light, then 12 dark, with no (obvious) ill effects. I carried one the 12/12 schedule after that.

There is a big difference in what I did and what you plan on doing. I might make a suggestion though...

It would take 4 days to shift, but it might be less stressful. You could give it its (more important for hormones) nightly 12 hours, then a 15 hour days(less important) until you catch up to the time you want.

If you think about it, with the 12 hour night she still gets her dose of Pfr (or whatever hormone...) and gets a little extra light in the day which I don't think would do any harm.

I don't know what a 36 hour night would do... sounds stressful to me.

Just an idea...

 

[Cruizer]

The hours of darkness should be fine since they are in flower already. It would put them into flower if they were in veg. so you are good to go. I run 11/13 flowering schedule, they don't seem to mind the extra hour of sleep. Lol

 

[ScienceGrow]

Beta grew stamens. Separated him from Gamma and Alpha, but may let him finish up anyway. If Gamma ends up female, I may try my hand at pollinating a single bud site. Cross breeding is a future goal, so may as well practice now.

I do believe Alpha is in early flower. I feel like giving her more than 12 hours light could trigger reveg hormones, while more than 12 dark should only reinforce flower hormones.

Basically, among many other chemicals, you have PR and PFR. PFR is a flower inhibitor. PFR decreases in darkness. Red light, specifically 760-800nm, apears to encourage PFR production. Reintroduction of that spectrum starts PFR levels to rise again. But you can drive the PFR down far enough that it has difficulty recovering, by taking away more light at a longer stretch. Thus why everyone is afraid of light leaks, and red indicator lights.

I'll decide Sunday. I think I'll likely go ahead with my plan of 36 hours darkness, to further induce flowering and get her on the schedule I want.

Thanks for the input guys. We'll see what happens.

 

[ScienceGrow]

Beta and Gamma are outside, Alpha is inside. I switched them out about mid day. Beta and Gamma might get confused, not sure, not too worried. Beta, again, is a boy. Gamma, who knows.

Alpha was under the LEDs for about 4 hours, and has been in the dark since 7pm last night. I'll be turning the lights back on at 7pm tonight. So it's only 24 hours dark, not 36.

Alpha is almost too big for my cabinet, horizontally. So I'll need to do some more severe training to keep her manageable. Plenty of vertical room left, fortunately.

My daytime temps inside are 72-75. Nighttime, 65-68. I've done a lot of reading, and it looks like these temps are about perfect for flowering.

My lights off humidity sits around 60, lights on, it drops to about 52. Also not too shabby. My basement dehumidifier keeps things pretty consistent, so as we go, I'll be dropping humidity to accomodate.

I started feeding all plants with Jacks Classic Bloom Booster at about 50% dose last week. It's a 1/3/2 with a nice balamce of micro nutrients. No burn aside from a couple tips. I'll likely stick with 50% for the next few feedings. I do a combination soil and foliar feeding as suggested, which is working without issue.

Overall, things are looking great. Alpha is definitely in early flower, lots of bunched calyxes and stigmas building. I also still have a number of new bud sites still popping up. I'm hesitant to trim these out, but also feel like they'll just be sucking energy from larger colas, only to produce little popcorn buds. It's early flower, so nows the time. Any suggestions? I'll post pics tonight to show how dense the canopy has become, once lights are back on.

 

[ScienceGrow]

Oh, lazyfish, you asked about the light. No, it was a relatively inexpensive light, $130. Galaxyhydro 300W, the one with three fans.

Despite the low cost, I read hundreds of confirmed buyer reviews, some very detailed and cannabis specific, as well as a number of professional reviews. Overall the light gets great scores.

The biggest complaint was it was underpowered for vegetative phase. I had supplemented with some 6400K CFLS when vegging Beta and Gamma.

I can say beta flowered some enormous pollen sacs under that light, and Gamma grew far better under the LED than the CFLs. I have high hopes for Alpha. This light is slightly overpowered for my space, not in a bad way, just, higher than the minimum recommended Watts/Sq foot of space. I see this as a good thing.

 

[ScienceGrow]

Alright, I've done most of the updates today, so here's some pictures.

Alpha, completely taking up the horizontal space. I tied her down really nice and she's got plenty of vertical room to grow.

Now with flowers!

Looking fantastic, as far as I can tell. This is the first flowering female plant I've actually ever seen.

I noticed my temps had dropped about 3 degrees today so I turned on two of my 2500K CFLs and have them supplementing the front, sides, where the light seems to dim the most. This has brought my temps back up to 75. I may add more as temps continue to decline.

Also, should I bother trimming the new budsites below the canopy? They had more room to breath (get light, actually) before the move, and a lot more light coming from the Sun. Now they're just going to take up extra water and nutrients. I don't want to negatively impact my end product, but if it's all the same, I can wait a few extra recovery days.

Beta and Gamma are both male.

 

[lazyfish]

Cool!
Seeing a plant flower is still amazing to me! Everyday is like Christmas...or whatever holiday...

 

[ScienceGrow]

These are the first I've ever seen first hand, and damn are they cool. I have always wondered what a bud was made of. The only answer I ever got was "flowers". Seeing them early on was what I needed.

Christmas works for me. I'm atheist, but I celebrate the hell out of x-mas.

 

[OldMedUser]

Quite the trip Alpha has been on SG, quite the trip indeed.

You must have a fairly green thumb to get her where she's at but she looks like the perfect size for your grow cab and you'll get a decent amount of smoke for all your efforts. 1 - 2 oz possibly.

Trimming off some of the lower growth will help the top produce better for sure. Maybe try your hand at cloning if you haven't already and have some backup in case the smoke you get off her is killer stuff. I've lost a few good ones over the years because I didn't think to take a couple cuttings.

That soil you are growing her in isn't optimal but I think you already know that. Next round some decent dirt and nutes will get better results. I like soilless with pH Perfect nutes for my pot grown plants. Dead easy with predictable results. Not organic but very productive.

I'm not a fan of LEDs but have seen some decent grows with them. Seen a lot of airy, light buds too from them. Some day I'll likely try one if funds are a bit more plentiful but I already have lots of HIDs and they work great.

Doing a fairly decent job for a first grow and when you smoke your first home-grown budz you'll be inspired to greater things I'm sure.

+rep

All subbed in so on with the show!

L8r

 

[ScienceGrow]

No kidding, Alpha hasn't had the easiest time. I wouldn't be surprised if I forced the other two into being males with my initial seat of my pants method of planning and growing.

My green thumb is a new appendage. Plants used to die by my loving hands. I've killed air plants. But just this first grow has me very into horticulture and I've been soaking up all the information on plants I can find. Plants in general mainly, supplemented by Cannabis info right now.

My luck with Alpha probably had a lot to do with her growing outdoors for veg. Except for watering and LST, I simply left her alone. So now that she's inside, we'll see if my thumb is green, or black.

Took six healthy cuttings; they're working on rooting now. My first try at cloning, hopefully they take. I'm also keeping any pollen I can get from Beta and Gamma, and may pollinate one site on Alpha to get a few seeds.

I'll be using Promix Ultimate and some aeration amendments this time around. Clones are in a seedling/cutting mix.

The LED seems alright. Should get me to harvest at least, but I'm going to stay positive and hope for a nice big yield.

Question. I'm watering Alpha every other day now, shes very hungry since moving inside. The pot is 4 gallons. When I stick my pH probe in, I get resistance a few inches in, almost everywhere I probe. I'm afraid my root system may need room to grow.

Should I repot at this point? Seems dangerous, but don't want to cause problems with too small a pot. I have a 7 gallon tub that should fit without issue.

Yep, I'm more than excited to smoke my own. I brew my own beer, smoke my own meats, and DIY whatever I can. Fruits of one's own labor are the sweetest. Can't wait to smoke my dad up with it, and his friend with stage 4 pancreatic. That's who 4/5s of my crops will be going to, until he doesn't need it anymore.

 

[OldMedUser]

Question. I'm watering Alpha every other day now, shes very hungry since moving inside. The pot is 4 gallons. When I stick my pH probe in, I get resistance a few inches in, almost everywhere I probe. I'm afraid my root system may need room to grow.

Should I repot at this point? Seems dangerous, but don't want to cause problems with too small a pot. I have a 7 gallon tub that should fit without issue.

Yep, I'm more than excited to smoke my own. I brew my own beer, smoke my own meats, and DIY whatever I can. Fruits of one's own labor are the sweetest. Can't wait to smoke my dad up with it, and his friend with stage 4 pancreatic. That's who 4/5s of my crops will be going to, until he doesn't need it anymore.

I think you may be watering wrong if a plant that size is needing water every 2 days. Mine are in 4 gal pots and go 5 days between waterings and have 4x more plant material to use up water in their 4th week of flowering than Alpha does. It takes 4 - 5L to soak them down properly. It's around 78F and 40% RH in there so they transpire water at about the max a plant can. Yours has a longer day and is growing pretty good so that may make a bit of a difference but shouldn't be that much difference.

How much water do you give them each time? Try leaving her until she starts to sag a bit from lack of water then keep track of how much water it takes to saturate her until she won't take any more. Even bottom water until you can feel moisture an inch below the surface. That will will make sure that every little bit of the rootball is soaked. When top watering let her stand in the runoff for a good half hour. If it doesn't suck up the runoff then she is saturated so take the excess out with a turkey baster or big syringe.

Lift the pot when she is sagging a bit to get the feel of her when she's really dry and use that feeling to judge when it's time to water fully again but stop short of letting her sag before watering. She should finish up fine in that size pot.

I used to brew beer and I sometimes brew a sugar/water/hi-test yeast mix in a 6gal glass carboy in my grow room to add extra CO₂. When it's done I distill it 3 times to make my own EverClear. I get over a gallon of free moonshine from it. Good for making tinctures. EverClear is $35/750ml at the store. We have 30 chickens, big veggie garden and if I can't fix something around here it stays broke. Not much stays broke as I'm a pretty handy guy with tons of work experience including 5 years in a small machine shop where I did all the welding, cutting and assembly of portable rebar bending machines. I've been making my own colloidal silver for a while now and fixed a badly infected tooth with it in 2 days so I know it works. Got rid of a toenail fungus with it too.

Sorry to here about your dad's friend. My very best friend since I was about 12 died a couple years ago from that. It's 1000 miles almost to go back home for visits and I could only go once so I flew out to see him and stay with him for a week about 6 months before he died. That was in late Oct 2012 and he died the next March about a week short of his 60th b-day. I missed his wake but mutual friends sent pics. Can't talk to a dead guy and tell him how much he meant to you so I'm glad I went. My dad passed in '87 at 62 and was always opposed to any drug but I smoked a few with him when his cancer was bad and it helped him a lot. Sure wish I knew about RSO and the proper ways to use oil to cure cancer back then.

There's a very good thread here you should look at about the proper ways to fight cancer with diet and oil. I've bookmarked it and some of the links I found in it to make sure I'm doing things right should myself or someone else need such treatment.

A Base Treatment Regimen for Cancer

L8r

 

[Cruizer]

I posted an example of a thirsty plant in flower in my grow journal. I give her a 1/2 liter of water around 3-4 days. She's outside in the sun for 9 hours. I use a moister meter probe and water when it says very dry. I put a saucer under the pot when I water to catch the run off and she sucks that up from the bottom.
Maybe your feeling compacted soil. Don't be afraid to push that probe down, the roots will recover happily.

edit: forgot the pic. lol

 

[ScienceGrow]

OMU, funny you mention the yeast/CO2 idea. My cabinet is disguised as a fermentation locker. "Why the air vent and fan?" some random says. To exhaust the CO2. "Why won't you let me see it?" To keep the light out. "It smells kind of like weed." Hops contain similar terpenoids as weed, which isn't surprising since the plants are related. "Can I have some when it's done?" Sure thing, have two!

Though I will say, the idea of using it to produce extra CO2 for the plants, is just frustratingly obvious. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

As far as my watering issue, I think it was a bit of newbie fear caused by a droopy plant. When I checked on her before lights out this morning, she was drooping a little, looking just like the one you have there Cruizer. So I tried checking the soil with my probe (it does pH, light, and moisture) and couldn't get it very deep. Checked the first inch or so with my fingers and it was dry. Not like a desert, but dry. So I watered and left.

Somehow I got to the idea that the roots had grown so thick, it was preventing the probe going it. With that many roots, water usage would be high. I do have a fan blowing on the canopy at all times, so I added it up and came to my conclusion. That's what you call emotional decision making. Not good science.

But she perked back up by lights on, and looks fine.

Probably a bit of fear at this stage. I'm so close, I can smell it. I don't want anything to go wrong, and there are so many things to go wrong. On top of that I have six cuttings I want to see root.

I hadn't even considered whether my cuttings last night might have stressed her out and caused the droop. Maybe? Aside from that, nothing has changed.

Later all, thanks for the advice.

 

[Cruizer]

I have the same probe. The PH part doesn't work but the light and moisture meter do. I let the moister meter read 3 before I water, I've tried 4 but with my medium it was still too wet. I could probably go down to 2 on some strains I have but, I got in the habit of 3, lol. Try rocking it back and forth a little while pushing down. And I try 3 different places because it could still be wet on the other side of the pot.

Edit: Once you get her down to the number you want to water her at, lift the pot and remember what it feels like, then you will know another way and can double check with your meter. Enjoy

 

[OldMedUser]

Drill a few holes down the side of the pot every couple inches to push it in there and check at deeper levels easy. Just a wee bit bigger than the meter's probe(s).

 

[OldMedUser]

As far as my watering issue, I think it was a bit of newbie fear caused by a droopy plant. When I checked on her before lights out this morning, she was drooping a little, looking just like the one you have there Cruizer. So I tried checking the soil with my probe (it does pH, light, and moisture) and couldn't get it very deep. Checked the first inch or so with my fingers and it was dry. Not like a desert, but dry. So I watered and left.

Somehow I got to the idea that the roots had grown so thick, it was preventing the probe going it. With that many roots, water usage would be high. I do have a fan blowing on the canopy at all times, so I added it up and came to my conclusion. That's what you call emotional decision making. Not good science.

But she perked back up by lights on, and looks fine.

Probably a bit of fear at this stage. I'm so close, I can smell it. I don't want anything to go wrong, and there are so many things to go wrong. On top of that I have six cuttings I want to see root.

I hadn't even considered whether my cuttings last night might have stressed her out and caused the droop. Maybe? Aside from that, nothing has changed.

Later all, thanks for the advice.

STRESS, Stress, stress. I hear so much of that I'm getting stress. Plants don't stress that easy and if they go hermie it's because they have the gene to do so. Stress may force the issue sooner but it will likely happen anyway. Intersexed plants are normal for lots of strains and with all the inbreeding that's been done to pot the last few decades it's no wonder it's so prevalent. All in search of the highest THC levels possible. Now the attention is turning to lower THC and higher CBD.

I have deliberately beat the crap out of plants or neglected them for months like the ones I'm growing now. Should be balls and 'nanners popping up everywhere if stress caused that. Taking a few cuttings is minor to pot plants. They just work harder to replace the missing bits.

Light leaks cause way more stress than pruning as the plant gets confused whether to flower or go back to veg.

I need a toke to reduce my stress.

L8r

 

[lazyfish]

I think lifting the pot (lol) is the best way besides a visual observation to tell a plant is dry. Plants can take a lot of abuse either way, but I lean toward the dry side....
The weight of a (obviously healthy) dry plant will sometimes really surprise you... light as a bag of popcorn....