PotPie's First Grow - Quest for Indoor Gardening Nollij

[PotPie]

Hey Dr! Welcome and thanks for the good news. I'm hoping for a girl too because this is my first plant ever. This one got pretty root bound before I got it out of the keg cup. Its 2 weeks older than the rest of them but she is definitely stacked, squat and bushy. (insert joke here.)

[l8tnightskunk]

cool looks like i have some undergrowth thats why i asked thanks!

[tricome]

Wow! Looks like your "super dome" lights work well.
Plants look dense and healthy.
Good work!

[Harry Red]

Originally Posted by PotPie

I am starting to freak a little about how I am going to handle all these plants. My original plan was to let all of the seedlings get to maturity so I could determine sex and then transplant the girls to 5 gal pots. I plan on keeping it to 6 plants tops for space reasons as well as legal reasons. Now I don't think I can do that because I think they will be way to big and root bound to let it get that far. I am considering starting flowering early to determine sex and then revegging the girls. I think I would still need to go to 2 or 3 gal. containers for this. I need to figure out if this will work for my space limitations. I have also considered just keeping the 6 best looking plants but I really don't want to lower my yield after all this work. I'm also afraid of picking the wrong six and getting nothing but boys.

If anybody has comments or suggestions on this, I sure would appreciate it.

That's a dilemma we all face when growing from seed (and one reason I like growing from clones). My approach is to use a veg pot that's large enough to get me to the point where I see pre-flowers, say 2 gallons. I may have to start 12/12 for a few days while still in the veg pots to get them to show pre-flowers. I really don't want to take the extra time to flower and re-veg but that is just me. I also don't want to veg too long and end up with out of control towers.



Harry

[PotPie]

Originally Posted by Harry Red

That's a dilemma we all face when growing from seed (and one reason I like growing from clones). My approach is to use a veg pot that's large enough to get me to the point where I see pre-flowers, say 2 gallons. I may have to start 12/12 for a few days while still in the veg pots to get them to show pre-flowers. I really don't want to take the extra time to flower and re-veg but that is just me. I also don't want to veg too long and end up with out of control towers.

Thanks Harry. I hear ya. I really don't want to re-veg either. I may have to put everyone in 2 gal pots and put them into 12/12. When they show pre-flowers I can just start tossing the males. I can put the remaining girls in 3-5 gal pots after I recover some closet space and keep them in flower. I don't want the crazy tall towers either. Maybe I'll top or LST to save a little space and still get a decent yield. I was hoping to save that for the next grow but it seems like it might be prudent this time.

Originally Posted by tricome

Wow! Looks like your "super dome" lights work well.
Plants look dense and healthy. Good work!

Welcome tricome and thanks. I'm pretty happy with this set up so far.

[Harry Red]

Originally Posted by PotPie

Thanks Harry. I hear ya. I really don't want to re-veg either. I may have to put everyone in 2 gal pots and put them into 12/12. When they show pre-flowers I can just start tossing the males. I can put the remaining girls in 3-5 gal pots after I recover some closet space and keep them in flower. I don't want the crazy tall towers either.

That sounds like a plan. How tall are you planning on letting them get during the veg phase? I'd say let them grow to around 1/2 your desired final height then flip to 12/12 and wait for pre-flowers (if they haven't already shown themselves). Then move the ladies from the 2 gallon to the 5 gallon pots.

Originally Posted by PotPie

Maybe I'll top or LST to save a little space and still get a decent yield. I was hoping to save that for the next grow but it seems like it might be prudent this time.

LSTing will allow you to keep them in veg longer so they have more time to show sex. The downside is that you add stress, which is said to increase chances of having a higher % of males. Keeping N high during vegging is said to promote a higher % of females.

I'll bet that short bushy one is a female. Although, it may not be the best female in terms of taste, potency or yeild.



Harry

[fineas]

I think your babies look very healthy. Re-vegging puts you back a good deal of time for the plant to recover. You love your plants alot right now and you will be watching for the girlies. On this site there are some cool photos of boy/girl plants... also google boy or girl plants to see all the photos you can. When you first see the "nads" so to speak you will probably figure out quickly which it is when your own present.
Good luck! you may have a forest there. Oh yeah thanks for the photos of the light setup. This is so much more efficient than my creative but troublesome home made growing room. The HPS is great for flowering.. Still watching the lateral lighting area growth.. I think that help with the bushiness too. All those leaves just love the lights, More green leaves = more photosythesis = growth!

[PotPie]

Thanks you guys.

Originally Posted by Harry Red

How tall are you planning on letting them get during the veg phase? I'd say let them grow to around 1/2 your desired final height then flip to 12/12 and wait for pre-flowers (if they haven't already shown themselves). Then move the ladies from the 2 gallon to the 5 gallon pots.

I'm thinking of letting them get to 18" the flip them over to 12/12. The tallest of the bunch is at 9" today. I think you've given me a very good idea about how to proceed.

Originally Posted by Harry Red

I'll bet that short bushy one is a female. Although, it may not be the best female in terms of taste, potency or yeild.

I sure hope its a girl since it was my first baby.

Originally Posted by fineas

Re-vegging puts you back a good deal of time for the plant to recover.

I agree. I'm really not known for my patience so I will probably skip this idea until I have some medicine in the cabinet.

Originally Posted by fineas

Oh yeah thanks for the photos of the light setup.

You're welcome. I know I could have bought a good dedicated fixture with what I spent on all of the adapters, bulbs and reflectors. But I plan on growing for a while. I also know that a lot of this will come in handy for other things as well. I don't think I could have re-purposed a dedicated grow light for working on my car or whatever.

[PotPie]

Today the plants felt a little light so I decided to water them. They were transplanted into 1 gal. pots 3 weeks ago so I decided to start easing them into fertilizer by scratching in some worm casings.

While I was watering I noticed that 2 of the plants had damaged leaves. I assumed that I had somehow damaged them from rough handling or something. However, when I looked closer I realized that there were some ragged edges that looked like they had been chewed on. I remembered finding this bright green little stink bug 2 days ago. A little while later I found a second one. I killed both of them. I checked my grow when I was misting that morning and couldn't find any of them in the closet or see any damage. Today while I was watering I found one plant with moderate damage to several leaves and another plant with milder damage. I shot 2 pictures of the damage and found a picture on the interwebs of the bug I think did the munching.

I would like to know if the bug I found probably did the damage?
How to I prevent the little buggers.

I sprayed w/ Neem oil 6 days ago for gnats but I rinsed it off after 15 minutes per a suggestion I found here. Do you think neem oil will keep them at bay? The bottle, and advice I've found here, say I should only use it every 2-3 weeks.

If anybody can give me a little help on this I would appreciate it.

[Be IRIE]

Were they acting stoned in any way when you caught them??? i have seen them before, just have no idea what they are or eat... they look like a leaf eater though...That sucker would have been hard to spot on a plant...

[PotPie]

Originally Posted by Be IRIE

Were they acting stoned in any way when you caught them???

lmao! Come to think of it, one of them was having a little trouble flying.

Originally Posted by Be IRIE

i have seen them before, just have no idea what they are or eat... they look like a leaf eater though...That sucker would have been hard to spot on a plant...

Hi Be. As near as I can tell they are green stink bugs. I posted this up on the pest forum as well and McBudz thought maybe the damage was from something bigger, like my dog. My first thought was they they were leaf eaters also. McBudz was saying he thought these stink bugs are usually sap suckers and not leaf eaters. I don't think I would have found them on the plants either. They were bright green just like the new undergrowth of my plants. I found both of them outside the closet but in the same room. The first one I heard rather than saw. He crash landed in some papers on my desk and was buzzing around trying to get right side up again.

I trimmed back the damaged leaves and made a close inspection of all the plants again. Ill keep checking closely for the next several days and keep the dog out of the room just in case.

[PotPie]

Week 4 Update

The ladies are now 4 weeks from germination. I added a little more light to the closet this weekend. There are now 10 CFLs under the 3 reflectors. I added 2 more 2700K - 23W lamps to the other end to hopefully even out my grow a little bit. Right now several of the plants are just shy of 12". The shortest is about 7" I am definitely starting to see some different phenotypes emerge. Some are bushy, some are a little wide but thin. Others are long legged and some have wrinkled leaves. I have been watering about every 6-7 days but I think the next watering will be before the weekend because the pots have already lightened up quite a bit. the soil near the top is still damp so I'm OK for now. I am staring to see the the gnats pick up again. I will spray them with neem oil again this weekend. The glue strips have only caught a few adults so far. I need to get my hands on some 2 or 3 gallon pots this weekend because I think they will be more than ready for a little extra leg room. So far, the only nutes I have added are the worm casings this past weekend but I think I will have to start them on some other organic nutes this week because I think the main stalk on the taller plants are not quite stiff enough.

Here's a couple of pics from this morning when I misted them.



I thought it would be interesting to look at the last 3 weeks growth side by side. I know it's a weed but I am still amazed at how quickly it grows.
These are week 2, week 3 and week 4 in order.




Thanks for looking. Feel free to pass along any comments or suggestions.

[notreallyhere]

nice plants! I love the week by week shots- sometimes I don't notice just how fast they grow when I'm in there for an hour a day...

[sonzor]

Great Journal and thanks for the advise on my yellow leave problem. Learned so much great info.

[fineas]

PotPie!!
Hi man, your grow is coming along well. That nasty little crittier is most certainly a stinkbug. He is not nice and he will do damage to your plants. I havent seen one inside but they are outside and they eat up my potaotes squashes and other plants I have growing but they respond to the permetherins that will also kill other leaf eaters like catepillars (they love leaves) and the like.. I really think that is an organic pesticide too.
Here is an article I found about stink bugs. stink bug control, Stink Bug Control, STINK BUG CONTROL, stink bug control, Stink Bug Control, STINK BUG CONTROL, STINKBUG TREATMENT, stinkbug treatment, Stinkbug Treatment, stinkbug spray, Stinkbug Spray, STINKBUG SPRAY
Your plants to me dont look like they are suffering from any stress, the leaves are nice. lots of new growth and the eaten areas dont look buggy..
and the damage I see I dont think is bugs but it could be.. Capture all the bugs you can and put them out or do the dirty deed,, but I do not want critters on my babies...
But to me you got the green thumb...