1st Indoor Grow - 400w Lumatek - Soil - September 11th Memorial Bud

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

OK, week 3 is here!

I transplanted my top 3 little ones into 3 gal smart pots and lft the rest in the solo cups after looking at the roots of the transplanted 3. The roots have just really started to get into the space of the small cups so I will give them another week to build a better root base before transplanting into 1 gal grow bags for sexing and another month of vegging.

Not much to update in the journal as I have already given the week 3 updates in the posts yesterday and the day before. I named the 3 that were transplanted Red, White and Blue. I do this for a couple of reasons. An old military custom is calling the 3 platoons of a company Red, White and Blue platoons. And I also am doing it with these ones because they are the 9/11 memorial bud...I have the light dimmed down to 250w still and after remodeling, I kept the height at 18". Anyone think I should lower this???

So with out furthur procastinating, here are thhe photos...

First up is "RED"

"WHITE"

"BLUE"

"Right Side"

"Left Side"

My NM Hatch peppers

Closet View after some remodeling

My average Weather data...I have been holding steady with these numbers for the last 2 weeks. I put a humidifier in the tent for a week to bring everything "up" to the RH I wanted and I haven't turned it on for a couple days so I removed it and am still keeping RH around 55%.

Thanks for stopping by...

 

[gittergreen]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

Sounds like a plan. I think you should turn that baby up to 400 and keep it at 18 inches. Just remember you have no guide that comes with bagseeds. They could triple in size when flowering is induced. Most of the time thats not the case but since you dont know for sure you should believe they will double their size. Doing this will allow you to make plans for height restrictions. Just my two cents.

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

Ok, you talked me into it...real hard I know, The light goes to 400 tonight before it turns on at 6...

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

Looking good and follow the good advice....

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

400 watts of beautiful Hortilux metal halide lumens are now washing over my babies...week 4 has begun!

 

[urmom]

Everyone has been trasplanted into a stable home for at least the next month. The 3 that went into the 3 gal smart pots took off and doubled in size in 2 days. So after those results, everyone got a bigger home. I talked things over with my partner and we decided that next week the lights go to 12/12. I will pull all the males and pick the best, stockiest healthiest girl and remove her. She will go back into veg as soon as I have sexed them all (1 week give or take) and she will be allowed to get nice and healthy and big.

The remaining girls just stay in flower and finish in 7-9 weeks (hopefully) allowing me to close the tent down for the hollidays. Mom, in the meantime, has been getting nice and branchy because we may have suppercropped her a few dozen times by the new year...well she gives up about a dozen clones and they all get flowered starting with the new year for our New Year's Memorial Bud journal...stay tuned for that one...but I digress...Mom goes outside in the spring, maybe after giving up another batch of clones in February, and she gets put into the ground as a donation to the growing gods and all that is good with the world. I may copy the MGRS coordinates and have a scavenger hunt/geocache type of contest for the final coordinates for some lucky person(s)...who knows...

Anyway, like I have stated before, pictures will only be once a week unless something crazy happens or we are in the last 2 weeks of flower, then we will have pictures every other day...thans for stopping by...

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Sounds good!

 

[urmom]

So, I couldn't help myself...I have the 3 biggest ones in the 3 gal smart pots and one is taller than the other 2 so I topped it right at the 5th node...I attempted to FIM it...not sure if it will come out correct but the way I understand the method, if you mess up, you still get a traditional "topped" plant. So thats what happened this morning...They have another few hours under the light before a 6 hr nap...I update tomorrow and get some pics this weekend...

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

Week 4 update is here...

So it has been an exciting week for us. I FIM'd a plant for sh!ts and giggles and made a "new" "final" decision on the indoor garden. All of the 1 gal pots (r1, w1, b1, r2, w2, b2) are going to be put under 12/12 starting tonight. I also will flower White and Blue at this time. The new cycle will go on at 6 pm tonight and will go off at 8 am for 1 week. I will then turn it down to 8 pm-8 am, this will allow me access to the garden early morning and again at night before it gets too late. I will take the Red plant (FIM'd) out of the tent every morning at 7:45 to go outside for the day or in the window if it is bad weather. She will then go right back under the lights for the night. I will repeat this process until January or when I see signs of male flowers forming and the whole thing gets made into a batch of butter and compost...

The remaining plants will be sexed within 2 weeks and we will pick another "back-up" mother incase Red is a dude. The top choice is r2 right now because it is my wife's plant and she really likes the idea of her plant being the "mom" of our strain for the next few years. Her plant was transplanted well (by her) and is nice and stocky with serious vigor and big leaves, short internodal space...everything that makes a good mommy...if r2 shows male, then we will take the next best looking female for a mom to back up Red.

The remaining 7 plants will get sexed, males cut and composted, females centered under the 400w MH for the first 4 weeks of flower then switching to my HPS bulb for 4-5 weeks (or until finished). I have heard about switching back to MH to finish the flowers off for the last 1-2 weeks. Has anyone else heard of this? Better yet, has anyone tried this and if so, how were your results? I am hoping that I get 3-5 females out of the 7 possibles.

So here are the pictures...

Overall tent view with the new layout...this will be changed around after we have picked our Mom(s)

Red, 3 days after the FIM

White, starting to get big

Blue

w2 (the biggest in 1 gal containers) shown next to r1 (the smallest, weakest in 1 gals)

w2, possible future Mom

Thanks for stopping by...have some advice or pointers for a new comer and virgin indoor gardener, please let me know...

 

[BeemerBill]

you have really nice babies there. Here's some good vibs to all beautiful ladies. I've tried to fim and haven't got it down yet but I will one of these years. Here's to a great grow.

 

[UndoGrow]

all good advice and seems you have it down so far, just keep up the good work and your meds will be hella worth it! keep on keeping on and ill be locked in! -Undo

 

[gittergreen]

Looking great In here, urmom!

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

So, just a quick update...
Anyone else out there have a "silent" partner that is not so silent? So the light cycle went to 12/12 as of "tonight". My night is really the day for 2 reasons. #1, the heat dissipates easier and the house is naturally cooler at night so I use the indoor sun at night. #2, this allows me to use the natural daylight to continue to veg plants from the closet. So now every morning at 7:55 I empty the tent of 5 plants and leave 4 in there to begin their journey to sexual maturation...I hope they are girls...

So, Red, White and Blue (3 gal smart pots) along with w2 and r2, go outside everyday for some natural light and this will allow them to have appx 22 hrs of light with 2 hrs of darkness/dusk. I think this should let them continue to grow and will toughen them up a bit and get them producing some maturity hormones because of the cooler autumn temps. And every night they will go back inside under the lights.

I plan on sticking with the MH for the first month of flower as they stretch out and I want to give the other veg plants plenty of the blue spectrum as the fall light will be so full of reds outside...it should make for a nice mix of indoor MH and outdoor fall "red" light. I am crossing my fingers that I get at least 1/4 females in the tent and 2-3/5 that are vegging right now...only time will tell.

I will continue to veg most of the 5 outside pots until I see sex and then decide if I want to populate the flower tent with them as they mature. I know that at least 2 females will continue to veg at least until January when the tent is empty and the vegging plants have grown to at least 36" tall. I will attempt to clone the 2 mother plants throughout November to try to have some clones to flower December-February of maybe just veg them until the spring for some MASSIVE outdoor giants...the growing season here lasts from mid-March through November...so some clones from November would be 1 full year old at harvest...can you imagine? It will be epic...

Have a nice day...

 

[urmom]

you have really nice babies there. Here's some good vibs to all beautiful ladies. I've tried to fim and haven't got it down yet but I will one of these years. Here's to a great grow.

Beemer, I definitely did not get them FIM right. I didn't pull the right set of top fans back...I cut them, leaving me with a seriously deformed and lacking fan leaves top...I am sure that I will eventually get some flower producing branches on the top shoots but I am not holding my breath for 4 main top branches like you are supposed to get. Oh well, you live and learn right?

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

quick pictures of the possible mothers outside for a field trip...these are all staying in veg...I'll get some shots of the flowering choices tonight...

 

[donpaul.p]

hi mate, everything looks great, the only thing id be a bit cautious of is taking the plants outside then taking them inside, as your growing them inside they will have no bugs, but by taking them outside you will soon have fungus gnats, spider mites etc etc, theirs so much outside that can ruin a whole room full of plants, if its really sunny then i place mine on a window sill so they get the sun, but taking them outside is taking a huge risk, spider mites are tiny and they spread real quick, id hate to see you have a bug problem after the plants are doing so well,
some reps coming your way for the nice healthy plants, well done mate,

 

[urmom]

I understand the threat of pests but I am in an area where I get limited sunlight in my windows due to all the shade trees around us. I do have a spot in my backyard that gets full sun for like 10 hrs a day so thats where they go. I will worry about the pests if and when they happen...however, with the good vibes being sent my way from my forum friends and the shining light of the grow gods, I am trusting I will be ok...

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

We got you bro. Keep up the good work. I just started my nutes today on the GDP. Fingers are crossed it is a girl.

 

[urmom]

Tactical, I'll be swinging by your op later on today...I'm interested in the auto you have...I am thinking about getting a couple seeds for my next winter indoor grow. I like the idea of starting 2 auto's while the rest veg...when all your traditional veg plants are ready for flower, the auto is just finishing up and you have some medicine to hold you over.

And now on to the journal update...
The week of outdoor sun has really treated the garden good. I do not have any pics of my 4 in flower...nothing really to see. 2 of them stretched out a few inches and are starting to develop some small branches for flowering and I have at least 2 showing premature flowers...pretty sure they are both male but I was hurting this morning when I pulled my veg plants for their daily field trip and only had a few minutes before the lights went out so the priority was removing the plants and getting those 4 sealed up for their darkness...

On to the vegging plants. A quick reminder for those who are forgetful and an update for those who don't want to read the old posts...we have 4 plants being flowered in a 2'x4' tent under a 400w lumatek ballast w/ a hortilux EYE MH lamp right now. The lamp will change out to a HPS EYE at the 4 week mark...5 more plants are vegging in the same tent and just get pulled every morning before the lights go out and the spend the day either outside on the porch or inside in a bay window. Our 4 inside are labeled r1, w1, b1, b2...the vegging plants are labeled red, white, blue, r2 and w2. I will be keeping on of these for a mother and flowering the rest as space becomes available in the tent (males etc) or in January..99% sure about waiting until after the new year for some BIG monster harvests...

I topped red, white and blue this past week and am ecit t se the growth on white and blue especially. There was so much growth that I supper cropped them both between the 4th and 5th nodes and pushed the weakened tops over, I expect heavy branching on these in the next week and I am looking at about 10 tops in my canopies on all 3 of these plants (r,w,b).

w2 and r2 both got bent 180 degrees and should also get some more branch development out of this procedure. w2 has been doing great and r2 is a different phenotype, with less branching. I have noticed that these seeds are pretty sold on geneic, with just one small variation, the branching development is more pronounced in some plants. The 3 I grew outdoors just got harvested and I have almost identical flower structure, color and scent. I am convinced I have good genetics, or at least a almost pure strain...maybe nt good but the smoke report should let us know...but go to the outdoor journal for that info...on to the pictures...

White

w2

Red

r2

Blue

Enjoy, thanks for stopping by...

 

[urmom]

Re: 1st Indoor Grow, 400w Lumatek, Soil, September 11th Memorial Bud

"Houston, we have a problem"

Famous last words...my wife thinks our neighbors may be getting nosy looking over the fence and through the bushes at the outdoor vegging plants during the day. Due to the high level of paranoia and the fact that we want to move in the spring, I have decided to just go ahead and flower everything right now. I will pull the shortest female of the remaining w2, r2, red, white and blue and let it slow veg in my window sill for the day while everyone else flowers. The first 4 that started on 12/12 back on the 6th produced 2 solid girls and 1 heavy female hemie and 1 solid male. The female hemie has 1-3 small male flowers at the base of the leaf spur but is producing female flowers (miniature ones) on the flowering sites...not sure what this means and if she will decide what she wants to do but in the meantime she lives in the window on the opposite side of the house from the flowering tent. I will try to get some pictures up soon. I have to build a screen for the tent tonight. I will use the height of the other 2 females that have been flowering for 2 weeks to judge my stretch height and build it at the current highest canopy level and everything should either get supported by this level or just get pulled underneath as it grows through it.
have a nice day...