First CFL Grow: AK-47 automatic and Cheese

[dionysius]

This is going to be my first grow. I brought some seeds from Amsterdam: 3 AK-47 and some my friend brought from Spain: 2 AK-47 feminized, 1 feminized Cheese, . I didn't want to give myself away with a high heat consumption or electrical consumption, that's why I'm going with CFL's. Since I like my food to be organic, I'm going to treat these ladies with Biobizz nutes as well. Don't like the idea of chemicals in my smoke.

 

[dionysius]

I planted the 2 auto-flowering AK-47 and the Cheese on June 30th. Since I didn't have any grow equipment, I started the grow in pots outdoor. I was hoping that MJ plants would be discreet while young and growing outside in the summer sunlight might be more beneficial than artificial light

 

[dionysius]

For lack of anything better I used Organic MiracleGro and covered the top with sphagnum.

 

[dionysius]

1 week later my plants sprouted. I must have mixed up the seeds, because what I thought here to be the 2 ak47 autoflowering turned to be the cheese and 1 autoflowering. The single little plant is another autoflowering. I also planted the 3 non-feminized ak47 when I was getting impatient with the cheese not coming up. Unfortunately some stupid animal overnight turned over the earth in that tray and apparently ate the seeds or something, because they never sprouted. The other possibility is that I got ripped off at Amsterdam, so who knows...

 

[dionysius]

I went for a week to the Catskills with some buddies to eat some Peruvian Torch cactus. When I came back, my babies were this size. I also got my 2'x2' grow tent, a 250w cool spectrum CFL for veg, a batwing reflector and a thermometer/hygrometer.

 

[Strain Hunter]

Well hows tricks m8, you should be plesently supprised with the cheese, its a very hardy plant with basic care and attention you should get some great results, good luck on your adventure m8

 

[dionysius]

5 weeks into veg, one of my ak47 started to grow some hair. The other one remains stunted. The cheese to the right has good vegetative grow, but no signs of pistils.

 

[dionysius]

So far, no nutes. Just water and whatever was in the soil mixture.

 

[Strain Hunter]

Oh yea, i know its a wile of yet but when your flowering the cheese lady try and support the side branching, when i was growing cheese some branches had to be tied up due to the weight them colas can get heavy im sure your glad to hear lol

 

[Strain Hunter]

So far, no nutes. Just water and whatever was in the soil mixture.

They are lookin very healthy m8

 

[dionysius]

Well hows tricks m8, you should be plesently supprised with the cheese, its a very hardy plant with basic care and attention you should get some great results, good luck on your adventure m8

Thanks, Strain Hunter, that turned out to be true: Cheese showed vigorous grow and formed plenty of big sticky buds. I haven't harvested it yet, but smoked it at grower friend's place, I recall it being a stony high. I'm looking forward to get more quality seed on my next trip to Amsterdam, maybe some G-13 Haze, Amnesia Haze, Morning Glory or Laughing Buddha from Barney's. I'll also try to bring back some equipment to make ice-o-lator hash.

 

[dionysius]

Oh yea, i know its a wile of yet but when your flowering the cheese lady try and support the side branching, when i was growing cheese some branches had to be tied up due to the weight them colas can get heavy im sure your glad to hear lol

I wish I knew that before, mate. One of the branches of my Cheese broke and splintered off with the weigh and I didn't realize it until I got back home. I tried to salvage what I could by cloning some parts of it, but it was mostly unsuccessful. Now I have several girls that look like bonsai versions of MJ plants.

 

[Strain Hunter]

I wish I knew that before, mate. One of the branches of my Cheese broke and splintered off with the weigh and I didn't realize it until I got back home. I tried to salvage what I could by cloning some parts of it, but it was mostly unsuccessful. Now I have several girls that look like bonsai versions of MJ plants.

Yea m8 i see what your saying about heavy stoned, i done 49 cheese on my first atempt so i had a supply for ages and to be honest i cant remember a thing about that year lol.

Maybe you should think about setting up a small cloneing station it would save you a bundle on the seeds m8.

Maybe keeping a few mothers also, if ya got the space that is.

Id love to see some picks of them girls at the stage your at now

 

[dionysius]

This are some Aug 12th pictures, about 6th week of veg. I decided to try some stressing techniques, so I did a SCROG.

In this picture I was worried this plant wasn't sexing (I still thought at this time this was one of the autoflowering.) I knew this was a feminized plant, but still I was worried it might be a hermaphrodite because of any stress it might have endured. I was constantly checking to see if there were any male sacks appearing, I didn't want my smoke to turn to seed.

 

[dionysius]

I was noticing the MiracleGro soil I was using didn't drain that well and I didn't like those fertilizing pellets it had, so I spent a long time visiting all the nurseries around trying to get my hands on some Fox Farm Ocean Forest. The only place that had it was a hydro store really far away from my place, the best thing I found was some Smith & Hawken premium potting soil at some Smith & Hawken that was closing. The Smith & Hawken soil is a dark brown color, compared to most black colored soils I've used before. It has good drainage and no fertilizing pellets which was good. In the bag it said it fed plants up to 3 or 6 months, can't remember. In the meantime I decided to order some nutes. I was undecided between Botanicare Pure Blend Pro (Grow & Bloom) + Fox Farm Big Bloom or the line of Biobizz nutes. After reading the thread here about organic nutrients, I went for Botanicare + Fox Farm and I ordered them on North Coast Hydroponics. Waited for 3 weeks and nothing was shipped, I kept calling them and messaging but nothing got delivered. Decided then to go Biobizz and bought them at Cheap Hydroponics. In less than one week I got my nutes. I also started to LST the autoflowering AK47 and bought 3 more 25W grow CFL's

 

[dionysius]

I was still freaking out about this plant not showing sex (recall I still thought it was an autoflowering). I was a hairbreadth away from throwing this plant away. Luckily, curiosity got the best of me and I decided that in any case, I could practice cloning with this plant.

These are my first 3 clones. They're sitting on top of the 250W light and I used some Superthrive on them. They later grew to be very strong healthy plants.

 

[dionysius]

Yea m8 i see what your saying about heavy stoned, i done 49 cheese on my first atempt so i had a supply for ages and to be honest i cant remember a thing about that year lol.

Maybe you should think about setting up a small cloneing station it would save you a bundle on the seeds m8.

Maybe keeping a few mothers also, if ya got the space that is.

Id love to see some picks of them girls at the stage your at now

Actually, I'm collecting seeds to have different strains and consequently different highs. Also I want some backup in case some disease attacks my plants. As you'll see later on, I set up an improvised cloning and veg station in my closet.

 

[dionysius]

I actually might have found what was wrong with this little guy. Some of the roots got caught in the sphagnum I had before, so I cleaned them and planted this one in a new, clean pot with clean soil. I also got some clay aggregate to put on the top so the roots can come closer to the surface and have more air. I grew a little wary of sphagnum after seeing some insects thrive on it outdoors. So far I've kept my grow clean and insect free. I'm also avoiding using fish meal or bone meal so I don't have to smell that stuff in my grow, and hoping not to attract any animal that likes that kind of stuff. Only vegetarian meals for my ladies.

 

[dionysius]

I also got a new Airking small fan. Temperatures here were getting insanely hot, between 90-100 degrees, sometimes a little over that too. It was the middle of the summer and it was very hot and humid. Surely the reflecting coating of my space and 325W of light on these plants didn't help. I tried using some CO2 to see if they did better. I could notice a lot of grow everytime I got home and lots of moisture inside of the grow tent.

 

[dionysius]

This is Aug 30th, about 9th week of veg. I just got my new 125W warm CFL. I decided to go down on the wattage because it was getting to hot in my grow room. I also got some Fox Farm Ocean Forest, so I repotted my plants in this soil. The LST worked really weird on the autoflowering AK47. It's not growing any bigger, it just curled around a bit and it's densely packed with buds. I wonder why this happened. A lot of the fan leaves turned yellow and fell, I thought this was lack of nutrients, so I tried powering up the doses to 4ml/l of Biobizz grow, bloom, topmax and alg-a-mic. I also tried getting 4 of those soft white 40W CFLs from Home Depot that were for sale. I switched to 12/12 using the warm CFL's you can see the difference in color.