Aspen's White Widow In Soil - 2022

[AspenCultivator]

Hi 420Magazine! It's been several years since my first, and last, grow (blue dream in signature, which was a frankenstien fucking nightmare) and I'm finally...FINALLY ready to get something started again! I've been lurking the past few weeks and gathering information from a lot of different excellent grow journals, and now that I'm in a spot to pop some seeds, it's time to make the journal!

So, what do we have? Two years ago I made a seed order and received a bunch of freebies and stuff. Time passed by and I didn't get the chance to grow them until now. Two days ago I put 3 white widow seeds in a shot glass of water, covered it with foil, and put it in my grow tent on top of a seedling heat mat and waited 24 hours. Yesterday I poured the seeds on to a paper towel and noticed one was cracked already! Closed it up, put it in a small bag, and back on top of the heat mat, covered with foil (to maintain darkness).

This morning checked in and I'm seeing three tap roots, with one clearly bigger than the other.

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 16, 2022

I put them back in the bag and will check on them again tonight to see how long the tap root is. I'm looking for about half an inch before I pot them, which I suspect could be tomorrow morning.

Light: HLG100V2 3000k
Tent: Vivosun 36" x 36" x 72" (Usable grow area about 20" x 30" x 72" due to shelf inside the tent)
Exhaust Fan: Vivosun 4" fan with carbon filter
Lasko tower fan with 5 speeds
Generic humidifier with 1 gallon tank (I think anyway?)
3 gallon AC Infinity fabric pots
Nutes: Fox Farms Dirty Dozen
Soil:
Fox Farms Happy Frog (plus 20% perlite) in nursery cup for seedling
Fox Farms Ocean Forest (+20% perlite) in bottom 2/3 of 3 gallon fabric pot, Happy Frog (+20% perlite) in top 1/3.

I currently have a shelf rack in the tent for veggie seedlings, herbs, lettuce, etc. In front of the shelf I have about 20" x 30" of empty space where I'm going to grow the white widow in a 3 gallon fabric pot. For my first question, would you grow one plant in that spot, or two? I'm planning on LST and possibly scrog, but I'm just not sure if I should try to fit 2 plants there or just 1 and veg it out a bit to fill the space?

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 16, 2022

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 16, 2022

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 16, 2022

1. Dash1.png

• AspenCultivator
• Nov 16, 2022

Technical Details:
This grow I have a lot more control over the tent environment, so I've done a ton of reading on humidity, temp, and VPD. I'm using my Home Assistant server to monitor those things and built a dashboard that I'm still tweaking (last pic above). The humidity and temp sensor is a custom built sensor box with a D1 Mini inside broadcasting metrics over MQTT every 5 minutes, which will live at canopy level as the plant(s) grow. This dashboard is also available on an 8" tablet I can view and interact with inside the tent.

The humidifier isn't "smart" or anything so it's hooked up to a wifi plug and all the logic is being driven by Node Red flows. As an example, if the humidifier turns on it'll check to make sure the humidity is actually rising. If it doesn't, I get a message on my phone that tells me it needs more water. I made sure the humidifier has an auto-off feature when low on water as well, safety first! Additionally if the humidifier is on and the plug becomes unavailable and won't turn off for some reason, I get a notification as well so I can manually turn it off and figure out the problem.

I can select what cycle the plant is in (seedling, veg, or flower) and it automatically adjusts the lighting schedule and humidity range it needs to try and keep, while tracking the amount of days in each phase. It also tracks how many days I last watered, and when I last gave nutes. Once the seeds germinate and sprout, I'll reset the plant counters to day 0 to track everything.

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And I believe that brings us up to date! A note on the light: I originally bought it to supplement an HLG135 during flower. I ended up selling the 135 to move across the country and kept the hlg100. There are some differing opinions on whether the hlg100 can adequately get a plant in a 2x2 space through an entire grow, so if I get to a point where a second light (or different one altogether) would be better, I could possibly purchase something. But for now, this is what I've got. I'll be using the Photon app to measure PPFD and making sure I stay within range during the different phases.

I'm super excited to get back into cannabis cultivation again, and I can't wait to meet all the new members (and catch up with the old) as I journey forward with these white widows! Thank you for stopping by!

 

[845Kingjames]

I think you could fit two plants in that spot with 3gal pots. You have a great setup your tent looks amazing!

 

[AspenCultivator]

Thanks! It'll be a bit cramped, but I'm thinking two plants with a short LST veg to even out the tops could yield more than a single plant, but I don't have much experience either. It'll be interesting to see how these three get going and I'll select the best looking ones to continue on with.

 

[AspenCultivator]

Not too much of an update right now, but I did go ahead and plant all three seeds in 3" nursery cups 3 days ago. I mixed Fox Farms Happy Frog (4 cups) and 1 cup of perlite, for a 20% perlite media. Put a bit of mycorrhizae in each hole then the seed.

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 21, 2022

I also got my 3 gallon pots and stand they're going to go in. I have plastic round drainage trays but decided I didn't want to mess with the runoff and swapping trays so they don't sit in water. This particular tray has wheels, with a pullout drawer so I can empty the runoff and/or test it, etc. Because of the size of the tray, I'm going to only grow one plant in this space and do some sort of LST or SCROG, just haven't decided yet.

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• AspenCultivator
• Nov 21, 2022

Inside the tray is a "plant elevator" to keep the pot raised off of the tray, so I should get some good airflow around the bottom of the pot.

I was using plastic sandwich baggies to cover the 3" cups for the last few days, and noticed plenty of humidity inside the bag. However, I also noticed the bags were creating a seal around the cups so there wasn't an exchange of air around the top of the soil. So I removed the bags this morning to let everything breathe, and since I'm keeping a range of 75-85 humidity in the tent anyway I don't think they're required. Besides, the famous @Emilya Green said:

Plants in nature don't need humidity domes so don't make your plants weak by using one.

For any soil growers out there, how long can I expect to wait before they pop? The tap roots were about a quarter of an inch long on two of the seeds, the third seemed to have some trouble but I planted them 1/2 down. They've been in soil for 3 days now, so I'm really hoping these come up within the next few days. I read somewhere that 10 days in soil after the wet paper towel method, if nothing pops, they're old/bad seeds. Is that about right?

 

[Emilya Green]

looks like you have it pretty much dialed in!

 

[AspenCultivator]

Well everyone, this might be a super short journal unfortunately. As a reminder I'm dealing with 2+ year old seed, and who knows how long it sat at the bank before I bought it. I started reading about old seed and getting back to the basics of germination. One thing I learned is if the seed is in the water soaking for too long it can drown, and the same goes for in the paper towel/bag as well. Once I saw the taproot I believe I should have planted them directly, but I waited an additional 24 hours (in a soaked wet paper towel/baggie) with not much tap root growth and planted them.

This brings me to today, where I decided (good idea or bad, you tell me) to very, very lightly brush the soil away to see if I can see the seeds. I saw all 3 seeds, and not one of them had a taproot. They're all cracked, but the two that had taproots no longer do. I'm going to leave them in their cups for now, but I also dropped in 3 feminized Alaskan Purple seeds in a shotglass of water. I don't have any more white widow seeds, so unless something happens with the widow seeds I won't be updating this journal.

I'll come back in a few days and report this post as needing to be deleted/moved or whatever if that's the case. If the Alaskan Purple does do something, I'll start a new journal after they've popped in soil so as not to waste the mods time in the future!

 

[lootznbootz]

Well everyone, this might be a super short journal unfortunately. As a reminder I'm dealing with 2+ year old seed, and who knows how long it sat at the bank before I bought it. I started reading about old seed and getting back to the basics of germination. One thing I learned is if the seed is in the water soaking for too long it can drown, and the same goes for in the paper towel/bag as well. Once I saw the taproot I believe I should have planted them directly, but I waited an additional 24 hours (in a soaked wet paper towel/baggie) with not much tap root growth and planted them.

This brings me to today, where I decided (good idea or bad, you tell me) to very, very lightly brush the soil away to see if I can see the seeds. I saw all 3 seeds, and not one of them had a taproot. They're all cracked, but the two that had taproots no longer do. I'm going to leave them in their cups for now, but I also dropped in 3 feminized Alaskan Purple seeds in a shotglass of water. I don't have any more white widow seeds, so unless something happens with the widow seeds I won't be updating this journal.

I'll come back in a few days and report this post as needing to be deleted/moved or whatever if that's the case. If the Alaskan Purple does do something, I'll start a new journal after they've popped in soil so as not to waste the mods time in the future!

Wow this is unfortunate to hear. It's actually crazy as I'm dealing with this same issue myself.

My seeds were way older than yours 5+ years at least.

I'm bringing it back to the basics as well. I started by trying a new seed company, grabbing me a pack of rapid rooters humidity dome and heat mat.
I think that may have been my problem as well too much exposure soaked in water, although I feel as if your seeds should have been fine in the paper towel for as long as they were.

In the past I popped a crazy ton of bag seed in a paper towel and had a ton of them pop. Not only did they pop at different times some grew significant tap roots while others were just barely popping.
I kept the best ones and the ended up growing fine.
Not to say yours couldn't have been stunted in some way just throwing ideas.
Maybe soil was too hot?

Anyway I hope you get it figured out give them time and try not to tinker too much.
Ill be watching this one or the next.

 

[lootznbootz]

Also, this setup is pretty dialed in when something does get started, you're going to have some pretty happy plants in there for sure!

 

[AspenCultivator]

Hey Lootz, thanks for coming in. Yeah I'm thinking some fresh seeds could be the ticket here, but I'm going to try and germ all that I have before I make an order. It's not much, maybe 12 more seeds of various strains.

I do have some bagseed from the last week from the dispensary. I could always try and grow those, I'm just weary on the male aspect because I don't have a ton of space. I have a run of lettuce and herbs on the shelves right now...so if germinating something takes too long I'm not opposed to removing the shelf when the veggies are done and doing more than one plant to sex them out. Plenty of options!

 

[lootznbootz]

Nice yea I popped a bag seed I found in my smoke bag as well recently well see how it goes but for now, I'm focused on my new seeds from greenpoint they have a crazy sale, so I grabbed a ton of new exciting stuff.

I feel you on the male aspect. I have 3 tents tho, so I have space to weed them out at the moment.
later on in my perpetual cycle I wont

 

[AspenCultivator]

This journal is officially done (I hate it when this happens haha). The seeds never showed and when I peeked through the substrate I found the husks of the seed so I'm assuming they were just really old seeds and may have drowned in the wet paper towel.

No matter, it happens. I've got a new journal going now with some Alaskan Purple seeds that are already above ground, so away we go!

Aspen's Alaskan Purple In Soil - 2022

Hello everyone! Last week I posted a new journal starting some White Widow seeds, which unfortunately were too old to pop. I made a seed order in 2020 and never used them, so I'm dealing with what I have. This time I waited to start the journal until I actually had something above the ground...

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