Lil Neutrino's Bagseed CFL Poor Man's Grow 2009 - First Attempt

[luxx]

i dont know if it will help, but i remember seeing this on another pic,


ozone damage


from this link,

Marijuana Plants Problems - Yellow Leaves, brown spots, nutrient shortage etc.

hope this helps you start your diagnosis!

[Lil Neutrino]

Originally Posted by CharlieMopps

idk, i've never seen a leaf that close up. If you're woried it might be fungus there are many fixes out there, i'm drunk and can't think of any atm.
Otherwise the plants seem to be responding well to the lst.

I might be able to get a closer pic! lol...I'm working on the drunk state myself but I usually wind up getting bored and passing out before then.

Originally Posted by luxx

i dont know if it will help, but i remember seeing this on another pic,

ozone damage

from this link,

Marijuana Plants Problems - Yellow Leaves, brown spots, nutrient shortage etc.

hope this helps you start your diagnosis!

Thanks luxx but that doesn't really match what I was seeing on my plants. Now that they appear to be getting better I "fear" I may never know exactly what went wrong but I won't complain. Wish I had the experience to help you out with your problem, I'm quite sure you've read and reread the same threads I have trying to figure it out though.

[luxx]

yes sir, as long as they are getting better! good job, going to lst my babys next week, your plant convinced me that thats the better way to get a good yield from a smaller plant.

thanks, keep it up +rep

[Lil Neutrino]

Glad I could influence you luxx lol...and hopefully for the better, I had a bad habit in college of influencing people in a bad way :P. thanks for the rep points!

Probably my final post for tonight, almost out of beer...and nothing herbal to ingest...*sigh*

I am wanting to begin flowering pretty soon, preferably by the middle of next week. With that in mind I am positive the plants will need larger pots by the time harvest is ready so I want to transplant them this week. How long after transplanting should I give them? I'm thinking if I transplant by Wednesday I should give them a week to get over any shock and settle in to their new homes. Does that sound ok? From what I have read in this thread it appears that I should wait for preflowers to emerge before switching to 12/12 to reduce the risk of hermies. Tuesday the plants will be 4 weeks old, I should be seeing preflowers soon, correct? Since this is bagseed I have no way of knowing what strain these are other than their indica/sativa tendencies...and again I'm practically positive that Ms. Robinson is a majority indica hybrid if not a pure indica judging by the leaves, Freja looks to be a cross between the two, and Lilly...well, her leaves are even narrower than Freja's but her seeds came from the same sack as one of the other two, probably Freja's. Blah blah blah :)

Also, today marked 21 days of being in the FFOF soil...after transplanting and putting them in to flower mode when should I start feeding nutes? This is my biggest concern as I am quite inexperienced with fertilizers but am probably going to go the FF Big Bloom route since so many here seem experienced with it if I need help I'll have a good resource of people to fall back on. I think there's another one people use in conjunction with the BB but I forget the name atm.

Thanks!

[McBudz]

Move that PC power supply looking thing outside the cabinet. No need to have any unneeded sources of heat in the cabinet.

Originally Posted by Lil Neutrino

As promised...my cabinet, but this is still a work in progress. Just trying to rig it up right now to reduce light leaks and such. Hope to have it refined by the time I go to flowering, shouldn't be a problem.

Nothing fancy, plan to either paint it with some graphics or just cover it and make it look like some kind of "normal" room furniture. Excuse the mess...I'm in about 1/3 of the living area as I was a short while back.

Closed


Open...I still need to tidy up the wiring and stuff but it works for now. You can see one of the two fans I mentioned plus a couple of the intakes (there is a third intake behind the plant on the far left). I mounted the computer PSU with some plumbing strap I've had for a while. I'm quite happy with the noise level, the fans can barely be heard when closed up. Walls are painted white with primer. Temps are holding steady between 78F and 83F with lights on and home A/C set to 78-79F. Need to add some more lights as I mentioned, the plants are starting to bush out enough that I'm having to rotate them once a day to keep the light absorption evened out. Still debating some reflectors, probably will wind up going with some improvised soda cans but I don't have any way to dimple them. Although at this point I think anything is better than nothing.



Thoughts? Suggestions? Constructive criticism?

[Lil Neutrino]

Thanks McBudz, I really had not considered that as a noticeable source of heat but I think I'll try it, wouldn't hurt. I put it inside this time for stealth reasons, kind of odd to have a metal contraption with a bunch of wires just hanging out and powered up in your home. I had it outside of the original cabinet and never felt anything remotely close to warm air coming out of it, it actually felt very close if not indiscernible from ambient temp; although, admittedly I never put a thermometer on it. That and since it is mounted so high up the exhaust fan is also sending the warmer air from the PSU straight over to one of the cabinet exhaust fans. The fan facing the door of the cabinet is actually an intake. There is a passive exhaust on the left side but anything coming out of there should be pulled out by the other cabinet exhaust fan before it can circulate back down to the bottom of the cabinet.

If I get really bored I could use some smoke to track airflow in certain points, sounds interesting actually but I'd have to sit in the cabinet with the door closed and that would screw up the true circulation of the air down low.

Since I am using less than 1A of power at 12VDC there is minimal energy coupling between the isolation transformers (1:1 ratio), converting the AC current and voltage to DC through the rectifier bridge, filtering through the capacitors/inductors, and general all-around circuit losses it is not going to put off much heat at all. Now, if it were hooked up in a computer powering the motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard drives, and so on it would be a different story.

[Lil Neutrino]

I measured the air at the intake fan on the PSU and then on the exhaust fan coming out of the PSU while it was in the cabinet:

Intake: 82.5F
Exhaust: 85F

2.5F, probably why I couldn't really tell with just my fan. I couldn't get anything to work to trace air patterns with smoke but with the above info I mind I moved it to the exterior of the rear wall per McBudz's recommendation. Results (ambient temp at intake - 77F, measured) were measured even with the top of the plant canopy, maybe slightly lower:

PSU Inside - Interior temp with A/C set at 77 and just finished chill cycle: 82.5F

PSU Outside - Same settings, 77F A/C, finished chill cycle: 82

Very slight difference however I will keep an eye on the temps through tomorrow morning and see how it averages out. It tends to be pretty warm by the time I really wake up around 8AM, usually sitting at 85F depending on how much sun heats the home in the morning. Will post more on this later this evening when the lights turn back on. Thanks for the idea McBudz.

[fuuji0019]

Sounding great Lil Neutrino - Not much i can say, continue this way and they should turn out beauitfully

[Lil Neutrino]

I am hoping so...still no signs of sex, thought I saw one set of branches on one of the LST shoots that was starting to alternate but could not say for sure as the nodes were pretty close although not directly across from each other. I'm expecting it to start alternating relatively soon since today they are officially four weeks old and from what I gather somewhere between 4-6 weeks for most strains is where preflowers may become visible, or is this only with plants grown from seed with 12/12??? The length of the main stems on both are are 5-5 1/4" but I know a lot of the growth over the last four to five days has been on the side shoots from the main branch due to the LST so I don't know how tall they would be if I had left them.

Admittedly I'm still a bit confused about preflower timelines and the flowering cycle but I started reading more last night. Up until now I had been focused on germination and vegging for the most part but I figure I better read up now and get a head start.

What music should I play for them that would influence them to stay female? Maybe some feminist speeches? Almost driving me nuts not knowing if I have even one female in the bunch...

I watched the temps last night and this morning and did not really notice a difference, they were at 84F this morning around 7:30AM which is pretty close to normal. But even if it is only half or a whole degree cooler I'll take it as my temps are on the warm side anyway.

And now picture time! I thought I found a spider mite on one of them while taking the pics and nearly spazzed out. I watched it and it never moved so I took a macro shot of it and quickly dl'd it to inspect. Turns out it was just a piece of trash/debris/lint/whatever. Phew! lol

One shot of Lilly...still lagging behind but growing. Kind of wish I had topped the other two when they were this young but I was somewhat afraid to mess with them.



Freja...nothing special to report here. I raised her CFL chandelier an inch or two yesterday and am seeing much less cupping of her leaves.



Other side


Ms. Robinson...same deal, nothing special but lots of growth! If I were to see her or Freja while out walking I'd probably almost walk right by them thinking they were a shrub if it weren't for the slight smell they are putting off.



Other side


LST working its magic


And a pic of some root hairs/micro-roots that were sticking out of the bottom of one of the pots, I THINK it's Freja's but not positive.

[luxx]

wow nice keep up the good work! what are you using to lst ?

[Lil Neutrino]

Tie wraps and some green plastic-like stuff that my gf gave me...a little thicker than scotch tape, I don't like it but it works (hard to tie in a knot when you're trying to get in/under/around leaves and stems). Tie wraps are attached to a metal clip and the other to a paper clip, the green stuff is tied to some eye hooks that I screwed in to the sides of the plastic pots. To lower/raise the end of the main stem I just tighten or loosen the eye hook, pretty nifty in hind-sight lol.

I mentioned the possible alternating branches in my last post so I took some pics just now...one definitely looks like it is alternating, the other two are so close I'm not sure if it's because it is reaching maturity or if it is due to the LST'ing.

These two I'm not sure on...anyone with more experience want to take a guses? These are the same spot on Ms. Robinson but different angles.




And this one definitely looks like it is alternating, this one is Freja.

[LiveTour]

Nice work Lil Neutrino! Now I think if I saw those walking I'd be like "Supreme, there's some cool wild bud plants!!" The Chubby indica dominant leaves give it away for me

[luxx]

what is the significants of alternating branches? and where exactly are you talking about alternating?

from what you wrote, i can tell that its a sign that the plant is matured and ready for harvest, right?

[Lil Neutrino]

Originally Posted by DeadTour09

Nice work Lil Neutrino! Now I think if I saw those walking I'd be like "Supreme, there's some cool wild bud plants!!" The Chubby indica dominant leaves give it away for me

Thanks dead...the leaves would probably catch my eye too but I wouldn't be expecting a shrub lol

Originally Posted by luxx

what is the significants of alternating branches? and where exactly are you talking about alternating?

Indicates plant is ready for flowering aka sexual maturity. Look at where the stems meet the main branch. On an immature plant they are directly across from each other on opposite sides of the branch. On a mature plant they begin to alternate in that instead of both stems coming off of the branch at the same point there will be one at one point, then a little farther up there will be another....but not two directly together. I had to dig around for some photos before I really understood it.

from what you wrote, i can tell that its a sign that the plant is matured and ready for harvest, right?

Ready to be flowered actually.

[luxx]

ahh i see, thanks for clearing that up for me!