marcoochie10
New Member
oh my.
you better be making some beautiful hash with the trimmings lol
you better be making some beautiful hash with the trimmings lol
First Grow: Organic, CFLs, in 2.4 Sq Ft Box
- Thread starter gangalicious
- Start date
Sonzor
New Member
Those pics don't even look real. Those ladies are so darn sparkly. Great job....
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- #43
gangalicious
New Member
Thanks. I'll be putting up a post that kinda explains what I did with LST and cropping later tonight I think.
great job just wait 'till you get a real light
HPS perhaps? Hmmm. I wonder about the heat though . . . have to look into it. Thanks for stopping by.
Trimmings? Beautiful hash? Marcoochie, I like the way you think.
Imagine my situation! Until now, I've never even seen a live cannabis plant in full flower right before my eyes. Sure, I've seen lots of killer buds and some clones and a couple of plants in veg and stuff at dispensaries, but nothing like this. Thx for stopping by again.
ultrasonic
Well-Known Member
I find myself coming back to stare at your buds quite frequently.
I want to touch your buds.
Is that wrong?
no!
It feels so right!
I want to touch your buds.
Is that wrong?
no!
It feels so right!
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- #45
gangalicious
New Member
LMAO. Too funny. Sometimes I sit transfixed in front of the cabinet with the doors wide open and just stare at those buds, inspecting every one, making sure everyone's happy and so on. I have, however, barely been able to resist the temptation to give just one of those crystal-coated nuggets a little squeeze, just a lil caress, you know, just to see what she's made of. Is THAT the kind of touching you're talking about?
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- #46
gangalicious
New Member
Day 57 of 12/12
Trichome Update: i'm estimating that both plants are averaging about 70% cloudy trichomes now. Millions and millions of beautiful trichomes.
Trichome Update: i'm estimating that both plants are averaging about 70% cloudy trichomes now. Millions and millions of beautiful trichomes.
- Thread starter
- #48
gangalicious
New Member
Hello everyone. Okay, so I also wanted to give a little more detail about how I started both of these plants, LST, cropping etc. I got them as clones rooted in this spongy, dark plug stuff and I planted them in my soil mix the following day (day 1), kept them covered with a misted DIY humidity dome made from a 2 liter soda bottle for a couple of days, and then they were off like mad.
Here are the plants on day 6 in soil (the lines in the first photo indicate the approximate relative location where I cropped two days later. They were much taller then, even just two days later, but I don't have photos for that day)Day 6:
On day 8, I cropped both plants. Many of the things I did with this grow I saw first somewhere, either here or somewhere else on the internet and there are videos available if you look. Here's what I did: Once I selected the location, I just took the stalk between my thumb and forefinger and squeezed until I could feel a slight crushing of the fibers. At that weakened point, still using my thumb and forefinger, I began to gently bend the top back and forth, a little more each time. After a few seconds I could easily nudge the tops down. The tops were hanging down, literally. It was a crazy sight to behold. I had just made acute angles out of both my plants. I don't have any photos to show it, probably because I dared not document the awful deeds I had just done . . .
I got a roll of twist tie wire from lowes (garden section) and used that for the LST. It's been really handy having that stuff around. At first I was using it along with some tape because the branches were so strong, but eventually I got pretty good at just kinda folding it snugly under the rim of the pot.
With the LST, I was pretty much just trying to keep the branches horizontal and spread-out to maximize light exposure. It took quite a bit of experimentation. As I continued the process, I remember pinching/cropping a couple more branches on each of the plants to control vertical growth. The plants responded by getting bushier and bushier. From time to time I'd trim leaves, old ones and especially the larger and lower leaves, to make sure air was always circulating. I also eventually ended up trimming all the leaves that had burned from being too close to the light.
Anyway, by day 15, just a week after cropping, you can see what happened:
Day 18, ten days after cropping:
Hazards of Being a Noob:You may have noticed that plant B seemed to lose some size relative to plant A. On day 10, I accidentally broke the top 2-3 nodes from plant B during some wicked LST. So, I guess she got cropped, and then topped. The piece had snapped nearly completely off, it was hangin by a thread, so I pulled it the rest of the way off, trimmed the end at a 45 degree angle and, just by luck had one of those tiny, sample sized jars of rooting gel that I got at the hydro store "just in case" I ever decided to clone, stuffed it in some perlite, stuck a dome over it, then prayed. . .
A couple of days after that I snapped yet another branch on the same plant but was able to splint it back. The splinting actually worked! I used a piece of copper wire, some twist tie, and a bamboo skewer. Unfortunately, it put the branch in an awkward position and made cabinet livin' miserable for everyone, so eventually I took that piece for a clone too.
Here you can see the sites of utter destruction. Actually, she still thrived in spite of the, um, "accidents" (Day 21 pics):
Day 30:
And, finally, here's a pic of something interesting (the reddish brown coloration appeared on several leaves):
Questions and comments appreciated!
Here are the plants on day 6 in soil (the lines in the first photo indicate the approximate relative location where I cropped two days later. They were much taller then, even just two days later, but I don't have photos for that day)Day 6:
On day 8, I cropped both plants. Many of the things I did with this grow I saw first somewhere, either here or somewhere else on the internet and there are videos available if you look. Here's what I did: Once I selected the location, I just took the stalk between my thumb and forefinger and squeezed until I could feel a slight crushing of the fibers. At that weakened point, still using my thumb and forefinger, I began to gently bend the top back and forth, a little more each time. After a few seconds I could easily nudge the tops down. The tops were hanging down, literally. It was a crazy sight to behold. I had just made acute angles out of both my plants. I don't have any photos to show it, probably because I dared not document the awful deeds I had just done . . .
I got a roll of twist tie wire from lowes (garden section) and used that for the LST. It's been really handy having that stuff around. At first I was using it along with some tape because the branches were so strong, but eventually I got pretty good at just kinda folding it snugly under the rim of the pot.
With the LST, I was pretty much just trying to keep the branches horizontal and spread-out to maximize light exposure. It took quite a bit of experimentation. As I continued the process, I remember pinching/cropping a couple more branches on each of the plants to control vertical growth. The plants responded by getting bushier and bushier. From time to time I'd trim leaves, old ones and especially the larger and lower leaves, to make sure air was always circulating. I also eventually ended up trimming all the leaves that had burned from being too close to the light.
Anyway, by day 15, just a week after cropping, you can see what happened:
Day 18, ten days after cropping:
Hazards of Being a Noob:You may have noticed that plant B seemed to lose some size relative to plant A. On day 10, I accidentally broke the top 2-3 nodes from plant B during some wicked LST. So, I guess she got cropped, and then topped. The piece had snapped nearly completely off, it was hangin by a thread, so I pulled it the rest of the way off, trimmed the end at a 45 degree angle and, just by luck had one of those tiny, sample sized jars of rooting gel that I got at the hydro store "just in case" I ever decided to clone, stuffed it in some perlite, stuck a dome over it, then prayed. . .
A couple of days after that I snapped yet another branch on the same plant but was able to splint it back. The splinting actually worked! I used a piece of copper wire, some twist tie, and a bamboo skewer. Unfortunately, it put the branch in an awkward position and made cabinet livin' miserable for everyone, so eventually I took that piece for a clone too.
Here you can see the sites of utter destruction. Actually, she still thrived in spite of the, um, "accidents" (Day 21 pics):
Day 30:
And, finally, here's a pic of something interesting (the reddish brown coloration appeared on several leaves):
Questions and comments appreciated!
k1net1k
New Member
you started off with 2 plants ? after breaking them so many times how many do you have now 6 ? LOL
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- #50
gangalicious
New Member
Thanks clayton. Yep, they definitely seemed to respond well to the cropping and LST. Really made them a lot more bushy.
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- #51
gangalicious
New Member
Ha ha. there are actually 4 now.
And, while were on the subject, here's what happened with the two pieces I broke off . . .
Below you can see the top of plant B five days after I broke it off. I put it in about 90/10 perlite to soil. Used rooting gel. She looked pretty sad like this for a good while. I kept her under a homemade humidity dome but there was a good week where I wasn't sure whether she was gonna survive. Foliar sprayed with organic kelp extract (the guy at the local nursery suggested it with a wink-wink of his eye; he said it worked really well for his totally awesome "tomatos", so I had to try it) and added a touch to her water too. The kelp seemed to help a LOT, but the foliar spraying left a brown residue on the leaves once dried. Plants didn't seem to mind tho:
Here's what she looks like now. She's the one on the left. The one on the right is the second piece I broke off from the same plant:
By the time I broke the second branch off, I had already bought some composting plugs, I think Rapid Rooter, so I stuck that second branch into a plug and she did okay with a humidity dome and some light kelp sprays.
Here she is below, cropped just two days ago, but I really wanted to show this picture to better illustrate how I cropped the original two plants.
Above you can also see some trouble with the leaves caused by nitrogen deficiency, I think. The leaves were turning REALLY light-green/yellow last week, so I added some high-nitrogen bat guano and she is looking much, much better. She was also recently transplanted. My guess is that two days from now she's gonna look a lot greener and a lot more bushy.
LST/Cropping Lesson Learned: I think it's important to explain HOW I accidentally broke the plants so that it doesn't happen again to me or anyone else. I failed to account for the fact that the stalk and some of the branches had become more "woody" and brittle, with age, I guess, or maybe the cropping had some effect. Not sure. I just didn't account for this brittleness, because when I had cropped just a few days earlier, the main stalk was really quite flexible and I just pinched it and tipped it over so easily. So, from then on, I took a little extra care when moderately or severely bending during training. No additional breaks so far!
Here's what she looks like now. She's the one on the left. The one on the right is the second piece I broke off from the same plant:
wtf? greaat cloning job
. Are you sure this is your first grow attempt? If so, you've definitly got my vote for rookie of the year, hands down. 
Just a heads up, when you clone clones at a young age, you are going to notice that the potency diminishes from generation to generation. A good way to preserve potency when cloning clones is to make mums outta them first or wait for the plant to develop 9-11 finger leaves.
Sweeeet clone tho, healthy as fudge, how far along is she
nice bro..Sorry I missed the last set up. I'll be watching
- Thread starter
- #54
gangalicious
New Member
wtf? greaat cloning job
Just a heads up, when you clone clones at a young age, you are going to notice that the potency diminishes from generation to generation. A good way to preserve potency when cloning clones is to make mums outta them first or wait for the plant to develop 9-11 finger leaves.
Sweeeet clone tho, healthy as fudge, how far along is she
Hey DroJo. Thx for stopping in. Been checking out your grow, and i'm super excited for you. You gotta nice lush garden and I'm dying to see more pics.
Yeah, it's my first attempt at growing. However, over the Summer before I started this "experiment", I had been reading up on growing, especially organic growing, and I had been reading through lots of the grow journals on this site, especially the grows involving CFLs. Reading through some of these journals is like getting free expert advise, and lots of it. Also got a little advise from the guys at the hydro store and at the nursery. Before I even started the plants, I had already decided what I thought would be the easiest and most likely setup for me to succeed with the given funds: so I went with soil instead of hydro, clones instead of seeds, and CFL instead of HID/HPS.
Soil vs hydro: I'm not going to debate the merits of one vs the other because I know hydro's got some definite benefits (massive benefits, you might say), but soil was pretty easy and fun to work with. It felt like I was really gardening. Organic, baby, all the way! No chemical fertilizers, no heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Also, I had just seen too many hydro threads and journals where people were constantly messing with pH and PPM meters and overfeeding and hassles and such. Soil seemed much safer and more forgiving if I really screwed up and yield was not my priority for this first grow anyway.
Clones vs seeds: I feel like clones were a huge advantage here. By starting from clones, I avoided entirely all the problems that can be associated with germination. As soon as I put those babies into soil, they took off. No joke. And I did not "inherit" any of the previous grower's problems, an often stated disadvantage of cloning. I also don't know for sure the genetics of my beloved ladies. I wish I knew for sure.
CFLs vs HID: It's an enclosed grow cabinet. Heat is the number one enemy. My plan was to go with CFLs from start to finish, and it's looking like I'm not going to be disappointed. I mentioned to the guy at the hydro store that I wanted 'possibly' to switch to HPS and he was like "no way man, way too hot." But, I've been wondering (for the next grow) what the heat output is for say one 250W HPS compared to the TEN CFL bulbs I'm currently using at about 256W. Hmmm.
Strain selection: "Grape Ice"? There was no selecting for me to do. I simply took what was available at the time. Got very lucky, I think. This strain seems to be able to handle anything I can throw at her, heat, breaks, whateva.
Re the larger clone: it's now 49 days since I clumsily snapped her from the top of plant B. I've been trying to slow her growth because I ran out of space. Had to fashion a quick box for her which I'll show later or in another thread. I think I'll make her the mother to maintain potency, like you said. Whadda ya think? Thanks, as always, for the info. I appreciate it.
Hey DroJo. Thx for stopping in. Been checking out your grow, and i'm super excited for you. You gotta nice lush garden and I'm dying to see more pics.
Yeah, it's my first attempt at growing. However, over the Summer before I started this "experiment", I had been reading up on growing, especially organic growing, and I had been reading through lots of the grow journals on this site, especially the grows involving CFLs. Reading through some of these journals is like getting free expert advise, and lots of it. Also got a little advise from the guys at the hydro store and at the nursery. Before I even started the plants, I had already decided what I thought would be the easiest and most likely setup for me to succeed with the given funds: so I went with soil instead of hydro, clones instead of seeds, and CFL instead of HID/HPS.
Soil vs hydro: I'm not going to debate the merits of one vs the other because I know hydro's got some definite benefits (massive benefits, you might say), but soil was pretty easy and fun to work with. It felt like I was really gardening. Organic, baby, all the way! No chemical fertilizers, no heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Also, I had just seen too many hydro threads and journals where people were constantly messing with pH and PPM meters and overfeeding and hassles and such. Soil seemed much safer and more forgiving if I really screwed up and yield was not my priority for this first grow anyway.
Clones vs seeds: I feel like clones were a huge advantage here. By starting from clones, I avoided entirely all the problems that can be associated with germination. As soon as I put those babies into soil, they took off. No joke. And I did not "inherit" any of the previous grower's problems, an often stated disadvantage of cloning. I also don't know for sure the genetics of my beloved ladies. I wish I knew for sure.
CFLs vs HID: It's an enclosed grow cabinet. Heat is the number one enemy. My plan was to go with CFLs from start to finish, and it's looking like I'm not going to be disappointed. I mentioned to the guy at the hydro store that I wanted 'possibly' to switch to HPS and he was like "no way man, way too hot." But, I've been wondering (for the next grow) what the heat output is for say one 250W HPS compared to the TEN CFL bulbs I'm currently using at about 256W. Hmmm.
Strain selection: "Grape Ice"? There was no selecting for me to do. I simply took what was available at the time. Got very lucky, I think. This strain seems to be able to handle anything I can throw at her, heat, breaks, whateva.
Re the larger clone: it's now 49 days since I clumsily snapped her from the top of plant B. I've been trying to slow her growth because I ran out of space. Had to fashion a quick box for her which I'll show later or in another thread. I think I'll make her the mother to maintain potency, like you said. Whadda ya think? Thanks, as always, for the info. I appreciate it.
Well it definitly was an A+ setup. Ya definitly made the right choices interms of the grow space you had, and choosing lighting and growing mediums.
fa sure, if i havent said it enough times. 
You can flower your first generation clone right away if you want to, but if you wanted to take clones from that plant, then i would make her a mom first. Sorry if I confused ya a bit. So when's the tentative "grape ice" harvest? im excited
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- #56
gangalicious
New Member
Thanks for stopping in. I remember in the weeks before I signed up with this site I'd check your grows out (for free expert grow info and and pics of delicious buds, of course). Awesome stuff. Thanks.
- Thread starter
- #57
gangalicious
New Member
You can flower your first generation clone right away if you want to, but if you wanted to take clones from that plant, then i would make her a mom first. Sorry if I confused ya a bit. So when's the tentative "grape ice" harvest? im excited
No worries, DroJo, no confusion. But I guess I need to think about this clone situation. I could just call her mom, but I won't have anything ready to put in the cab after harvest, at least not right away. I guess I should probably take a cutting right away, since I only have the one other clone and I don't think it's gonna be ready by next week. Maybe it will.
Regarding the tentative harvest day, I'm thinking it might happen this weekend, which would put them at 63-64 days of 12/12. I'm really not sure though, and I'm a little nervous about this because I've never done it before, and I really have no feel for the timing, such as how quickly trichomes turn from cloudy to amber or when I should start dousing these beauties with water.
Thanks, man.Hey if you're at 63 days, you could definitly start your flush.
If you cant read tricomes(need a microscope), then your next best indicator is the plant's pistils(hairs), once the hairs are at about 50/50 amber/white then the plant is just about peaking maturity, and that's a great time to flush for 5-10 days and harvest. Have ya taken a look at the hairs gang? what would you say is the ratio of amber to white hairs?
As far as the tricomes go, you can just go to radioshack and ask them for a microscope. Anything above 30x will do but ya kno obviously if you get a 60x or higher you get more up close. I believe it only costs about $12. Or a joulers/jewlers microscope should work as well 2. Not an absolute neccessity, but tricomes are a more accurate indicator of your plants maturity.
If you cant read tricomes(need a microscope), then your next best indicator is the plant's pistils(hairs), once the hairs are at about 50/50 amber/white then the plant is just about peaking maturity, and that's a great time to flush for 5-10 days and harvest. Have ya taken a look at the hairs gang? what would you say is the ratio of amber to white hairs?
As far as the tricomes go, you can just go to radioshack and ask them for a microscope. Anything above 30x will do but ya kno obviously if you get a 60x or higher you get more up close. I believe it only costs about $12. Or a joulers/jewlers microscope should work as well 2. Not an absolute neccessity, but tricomes are a more accurate indicator of your plants maturity.
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- #59
gangalicious
New Member
You're right, Link, I checked it out and I could not hear the 1.0 sone fan above the background noise - practically silent. However . . . I also noticed that practical silence comes at an unpractical price, at least for me. A 2.0, and maybe even a 2.5 sones fan would be quiet enough for my situation, they're still reasonably quiet. Maybe for my next grow. I guess my bathroom fan must be something like 200 sones! Thanks Link.
- Thread starter
- #60
gangalicious
New Member
Hey if you're at 63 days, you could definitly start your flush.
If you cant read tricomes(need a microscope), then your next best indicator is the plant's pistils(hairs), once the hairs are at about 50/50 amber/white then the plant is just about peaking maturity, and that's a great time to flush for 5-10 days and harvest. Have ya taken a look at the hairs gang? what would you say is the ratio of amber to white hairs?
As far as the tricomes go, you can just go to radioshack and ask them for a microscope. Anything above 30x will do but ya kno obviously if you get a 60x or higher you get more up close. I believe it only costs about $12. Or a joulers/jewlers microscope should work as well 2. Not an absolute neccessity, but tricomes are a more accurate indicator of your plants maturity.
Hey DroJo. Today is day 60 and I was thinking about harvesting on day 63-64 this weekend, or later if necessary. Yep, I got that radio shack scope. It's great. Last I checked they had about 80% cloudy trichomes; no amber. I'll check again later today (Wed) at lights on. The hairs seem to be about 50/50 now. Oh yeah, the last couple of days the buds seem to be plumping up a bit. Yes! Peace.
