My First Grow: I Hope This Goes Well!

[Boppa]

PINEAPPLE CHUNK
Genetic Origin-:-Cross of Pineapple x ( Skunk 1 x Cheese )
Seed Types-:-100% Feminized Cannabis Seeds
Flowering / Harvest time-:-60-- 65 days-indoor-and-Outdoor-Harvest late September
Yield-:-High Yield-650 gr m/2
Height-: Short 60cm to 70cm
THC-/-CBD-/ CBN-:--25% THC / 1.1 CBD

NORTHERN LIGHTS X BIG BUDS
Genetics: Auto-Indica
Lineage: Canadian Ruderalis x nlxbb
Yield:-Indoor: 450-600g/m2
Yield:-Outdoor: 55-80 g/plant
Flowering Time: 55 days
Harvest Month: Approximately 80-90 days from seed
THC: 18%

I will be growing outdoor, I currently have the babies planted in:
Premium potting soil 60%
compost mix 10%
perlite 30%

I planted on the 30th of December and things are going slowly. The PC has streached and the NL is very stumpy.

I am currently giving them about 6 hour of sun per day however it has been extremely hot lately. I have been watering when needed and feeding with seasol (A seaweed extract) only a cap full in a spray bottle. I give them a squirt every arfternoon.

 

[Boppa]

 

[cannilingus]

first grows never go the best. trying to do everything right the first time, makes diagnosis, harder. too many variables. sounds like you are keeping it simple. move ahead, with success. i dont think i would spray foliar every day. twice a week, maybe. adding some spray n gro would be great. i have had good success with this. and, add a bit of soap. spray n gro, has "coco wet" for this. also, a nice fert. often, the potting soil is too hot for young plants. this is why i use soiless. it has nothing in it. we decide. two of the biggest newbie failures. over fert. over water. get a moisture probe. i still use mine. only 6. water till drips out of bottom. then, nothing till meter 1/2 inch from bottoming out. use half of whatever it says to use, on the fertilizer, at all stages. fert every third time you water. ounce you see that all is well, raise it a little, if you want. no ferts at all, in final 3 weeks of bloom. then, just flush well with ph water. they really dont need that much doting over. lol. best wishes. keep us informed.

 

[Boppa]

Thanks for the advice

I will get some spray n gro after work tomorrow, I live in Victoria, Australia so not sure if we have that particular product but I will look for it.
I know it has only been 9 days but should they look like this? I have no idea if they are going well or not!

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Hi Boppa. Yep, your link worked.

With full respect to cannilingus, I would strongly recommend that your do not feed or spray for the first 3-4 weeks. The cotyledons (first leaves) have everything that the seedling needs. Nature knows best. I speak from bitter experience and dead seedlings from feeding my first grow.

They also need much more than 6 hours of sunlight a day. At least 10 - 12. But as I said on your introduction thread, keep them out of hot, direct midday sun at this very young stage.

Your soil may be too hot. The seedling mix may have nutes in it (check the bag) and the compost may be too much for them. Next time, mix for seedlings not for veg. stage. Not a lot you can do about that now however.

Keep us updated. I'll be watching and others will be along.

 

[Jedthedog]

Pineapple chunk is one of my top 5 strains. When first starting out I will mist the plant,s with plain water many times during the day if I have time to do so.. No nutes at first,after a week or so start with a product that will help with root development we use Rhizotonic and could not be happier with the results. Growing will certainly teach you patience. Happy Growing..

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Growing will certainly teach you patience. Happy Growing..

So true, Jed.

Don't you think Boppa should be careful about misting outdoors in the hot sun? I made that mistake and got burnt leaves from hundreds of droplets operating like mini-magnifying glasses. Best done at dusk?

 

[Jedthedog]

I have been doing this for years outdoors as well as indoors under a 400 watt HID, good results. We have plenty of rain here during the day during spring and summer so my way of thinking was to mimic nature.. I would suggest not putting those tender little plants in direct heat of the day till they get larger..

 

[Boppa]

Ok day 10

A cold front has now hit us and now its raining, overcast and down to 19 degrees! It is going to stay with us for the weekend so, I called the local hydro shop for help. I walk out the door of the shop with a hop in my step and a grow light under my arm!.

I have brought a timeŕ and set it for 18 hours on.
The soil is slightly wet, and I have stopped spaying Seasol.

I will just water for the next 18 days, when I start feeding what should i use?

Ok lets see how these little babies go now! There is a lot of growth in a day so, using this light should get them going.

 

[Boppa]

 

[Boppa]

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Hi Boppa. Congrats on the light. Your girls look fine.

Concerning nutes:
I did what most new growers do - fed too early and too much and burnt them. Now I've learnt to listen to the girls. They will tell you what they need and like. Depending on the soil, there's no way that cannabis plants have to have nutes. My current three girls were in veg for about 55 days and only had two very, very mild feeds because of my own particular soil mix. In veg stage they need the 3 macro nutes - N,P and K. Do you know what's in your potting compost mix?

Most commercial nutes have a 3 or 4 stage system. Check out the sponsors of 420. Because of where I am I had to order what I could get delivered here on-line. Which was BioBizz Grow/Bloom/TopMax - it's fine and importantly for me, organic. If/when you do start you MUST begin with at most one-quarter strength and build up slowly. And don't make my other mistake - water the girls first before adding the diluted nutes. Otherwise you could burn the roots. Like I did.

One thing I do swear by in veg is organic kelp foliar spray. It's full of micro-nutes which they love and helps them take up the macro nutes in the soil.

Remember that selling cannabis nutes is a big business, and the manufacturers want you to buy and use as much as possible! Which is often not necessary.

Hope that helps. Ask anything else you like.

 

[Boppa]

The compost mix is made up of
- blood and bone
- fish meal
- seaweed
- chicken manure
- feather meal
- bio stimulates

I only added a small amount to start,

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Sounds like a perfect, tasty compost. Next time I personally wouldn't add that to soil for seedlings because they really don't need anything extra. But if we nurse them through 'til they have 4 or 5 sets of leaves the girls will enjoy it.

 

[Boppa]

Ok day 13.

I have had the babies under the grow light for 2 full 18x6 cycles. And they have come along well, a lot of growth!

 

[thspot]

subbed, hey Boppa good luck, Technically im on my first grow also that im documenting. So ill be learning from my mistakes also.

hope all goes well.

what kind of light did you get?

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Looking fine, Boppa, looking fine.

 

[Boppa]

Thanks Mr Teddy, it's nice to see them coming along! Thspot, not quite sure? I will check and get back to you.

I have now changed my mind, Im going to grow under lights. Its easier to control the environment and safer!

My son is a carpenter and im getting him to build me a grow room inside my shud, it should be finished this weekend! Mr Teddy any help in this area will be welcome.
My plan is to get 2 clones off each of these plants, so at anyone time I will have about 6 plants on the go at anyone time.
Will a 4x4 foot room be enough or should it be bigger.
What is the best lighting to use and how many should I get?
Is it better to paint the inside white or use reflective?

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Thanks Mr Teddy, it's nice to see them coming along! Thspot, not quite sure? I will check and get back to you.

I have now changed my mind, Im going to grow under lights. Its easier to control the environment and safer!

My son is a carpenter and im getting him to build me a grow room inside my shud, it should be finished this weekend! Mr Teddy any help in this area will be welcome.
My plan is to get 2 clones off each of these plants, so at anyone time I will have about 6 plants on the go at anyone time.
Will a 4x4 foot room be enough or should it be bigger.
What is the best lighting to use and how many should I get?
Is it better to paint the inside white or use reflective?

G'day Boppa. How great to have a son that does what he's told.

OK - I'll certainly help you as much as I can. Don't forget, I'm on my own first ever indoor grow, so I'm absolutely no expert. I will post the link to your journal on mine and get some more experienced indoor growers over to advise.

Room size - I have a 4ftx4ft tent with 3 girls and it's fairly full now. Come over and take a look. I think you'll need it a bit larger for 6 plants.

Lighting - Partly depends on your budget. CFLs can do a fine job from veg to flower and are the cheapest set-up option. Then you have HPS about which I know nothing except that they are hot but have been the default choice for most for many years. I'm using site sponsors PlatinumLED, one P450. (Other brands are available!) LEDs seem to have come into their own in the last year; the technology now works (in my experience) superbly. Before I purchased them I followed a number of expert grows using them and the results are terrific. Other advantages of LEDs is that they produce very, very little heat and use less power than HPS. If you went the LED route in, say, a 6ftx6ft space (don't forget you'll need a bit of space to work around the girls) I'm guessing you'd need a couple of P450s. (Mark who runs Platinum is very helpful and can give you solid advice).

Walls - I believe you can get by painting the walls white, but the best stuff (most reflective) is Mylar sheeting.

If you search on this site you'll find plenty of advice about setting up grow rooms. Don't forget you'll also need an extractor fan to change the air minute by minute. Maybe an input fan too.

I'll see if I can get some others over here to help.

Pip Pip! Mr Teddy.

 

[OMeWanCannabi]

Hi Boppa,

the wonders of modern technology, one minute I find myself In Greece browsing Mr Teddys journal, I just blink and where am I? Australia, wow!

Just like you, I'm new to cannabis cultivation so I by no means profess to be any kind of - even close to expert on the subject. I do however have several decades of extensive "other crop cultivation" under my belt which I believe will be of some benefit to myself (and others If they so choose)

In regard to grow room help:

If you look around the 420 site you will find any number of solutions to grow spaces = lots of ideas. Also shows that pretty much anything works

I'll jot down what I did (mostly to fill out this post), why, and some of what I learned. Feel free to ignore

I chose to build my grow-box out of stuff I had at home (grow journal link below). Any carpenter (or otherwise) could easily make something similar at next to no cost in materials.

My box is 1.2m x 1.2m so juuuust shy of 4'x 4'. My first grow is 5 autos which are supposed to be small plants. Although I deem the grow to be a smashing success, it did turn out to be quite cramped. In future I'll probably not put more than two or three plants in this space. If you're planning for six plants, I definitely suggest a larger space unless you plan on doing small force-flowered photos.

My grow box is built from a frame using roof battening with Styrofoam sheets as wall material. I live in a @ winter time cold climate. This material has wonderful insulating properties that allow me to use the heat from my lighting as sole heating source. It also helps mask the IR heat signature of the box from prying people with IR equipment.

I work in an industry where lighting property is very important, so I have done lots of measurements on various reflective materials and surfaces. If on a budget, "brilliant white" matte paint (not glossy) will work very well as a light reflector/diffuser.
Pretty much can't beat Mylar for reflective properties though so that's the path I took.

For lighting I chose to use (again stuff I had laying around) six T5 54W full spectrum florescent lights; for seedling & general "surround" lighting.
For lighting from above, I use a 60W LED grow light (from a non 420 sponsor so won't give you the brand).
This has given the plants, from what I can tell, great overall light coverage using relatively little power.
Looks like I will be harvesting far more than I expected.

Temperature control & ventilation is achieved running the exhaust fan with an Omron PWM temp ctlr module. This will run the fan at just the necessary speed to maintain the set temperature. Great for a number of reasons I think; very low noise, low power consumption, no need to worry about temp fluctuations, multiple set-points so you can have pre-set day/night temps without needing to manually switch. Low controlled constant airflow helps create a stable micro-climate in the box. I also expect the carbon filter to have a longer service life due to the low general air flow.

You will want a water resistant, easy to clean floor in your grow room.
As luck would have it I did not at first, but managed to spill most of a watering pot in the room while the little ladies were just seedlings. Take out - rebuild floor - put back in, much better

I don't control humidity but do monitor it. Dry climate at winter time here so not terribly concerned over too high humidity (mold).

You will be handling water in close vicinity to electrical equipment. Do make sure everything is earthed/grounded. A ground fault breaker is cheap life insurance! Fire extinguisher within easy reach is not a bad thing.

Well, that's pretty much my two bits. I'm sure your grow room project will turn out just great as will those two cute little seedlings of yours
Anything I can do to help, just holler.

Vis vobiscum.