First Time Grower - 300w CFL - Northern Lights Auto, Royal Cheese Auto

[Kays]

Hey all, welcome to my grow journal! This is my first time growing anything at all so I'll probably need lots of tips along the way.

I finished setting up the grow tent up and just started germinating the seed.

Here's some more info on the setup.

Strain:
Northern Lights Auto (In 80% Ru 20%)
Royal Cheese Auto (Sa 30% In 50% Ru 20%)

Stage:
Just put into germination.

Location:
Indoor, in a 90x90x170cm grow tent.

Medium:
Soil. A universal mix I found at the local store, nothing fancy.

Pot:
20L Pot (~5gal).

Light:
x1 300w CFL bulb.

Ventilation:
x1 fan blowing ~250 m3/h of air out of the tent and a small window to let air in.

Temp:
Around 21.5c (~70f) but I just recently turned on the light so it might rise.

Humidity:
47% without the pot inside. (Will rise probably).

PH:
Unknown. I forgot to buy a ph meter. I'll buy one in the near future.

Nutes:
6-5-5 for veg and 4-6-6 for flowering. Nothing fancy here either, just the ones I found at the local shop.


Currently I'm only planting the Northern Lights Auto, after that gets into flowering I'm planning to plant the Royal Cheese Auto. This way I'm hoping to make mistakes on one plant only, and correct them for the second one.

I'm keeping the germinating seed in the grow tent (my house stays at around 19c while the tent 21c), under the double floor to avoid any light getting in. Is this ok? Should I move it?
Here's a pic but keep in mind the plates are UNDER the double floor and not on top of it like in the picture.

 

[Kays]

Something came out of the soil today!

After germinating it with the method mentioned above for 3 days, I put it in the soil 2 days ago and this morning I woke up to a tiny leaf popping out the ground. In the following hours it straightened out to this. I'm ecstatic!

Kinda hard to see, but It's there.

EDIT: Also got a Ph meter, the tap water tested at 8.5. Lowered it with vinegar for this first time. I'll be getting Ph down soon, I hope the vinegar won't do damage.

 

[Kays]

Morning of day 5.

She's growing well .
The leaves look bigger everytime I check on her. I think she should pop out two more soon enough.

(Probably gonna have to start taking pictures while the lights are off.)

 

[mexi420]

Sweet I'm only 4 days ahead of you I like to grow along with people. Subbed


Sent from my iPhone using 420 Magazine Mobile App

 

[Kays]

Thank you for subbing!

Here's another picture where the light isn't as strong.
In this one you can see what I believe is a new leaf. The same thing is on the left side but it's under the other leaf so you can't really see it.

 

[mexi420]

You'll notice how fast it's growing now by seeing that second set of leaves getting bigger everyday


Sent from my iPhone using 420 Magazine Mobile App

 

[Kays]

Day 10.

She keeps growing well! Since last time the tiny leaves grew quite a bit and she popped out 6 more.
Yesterday I lowered the 300w CFL from 20cm to around 8cm (from 8'' to 3'').
Planning to germinate the Royal Cheese this week as I think I got enough time to correct mistakes in case I screw something up on the first plant.

 

[Kays]

Day 14.

Some serious growth went down over the last 4 days. She's put out 2 sets of three-fingered leaves (I'm still unsure on the definition of "set", might be one) and she's now in the process of growing her first set of five-fingered leaves.

Also started to grow new tiny leaves on the first and second set's stems.

I was thinking it might be time to add 1/4 dose of 6-5-5 nutes aswell as upping the watering from 2 cups every other day to 1-2 liters whenever the soil starts to feel dry.
I'll probably also start LST this week if everything goes well with the nutes and water.

Thoughts? Is it a too early to add nutes or do LST?

I had to scrap the idea of adding the Royal Cheese in the tent unfortunately as light positioning would be bad with the two huge 20L pot I have. Next grow I'll either get a proper 400w HPS or go for smaller pots.
But I will be planting it on my balcony as soon as temps are good.
About that, should I start another journal or keep it in this one?

 

[Kays]

Yesterday I added 1/4 dose of nutes to the water and the plant has responded well to it. The leaves seem to have gotten a darker shade of green.

Although I have a couple of questions.

She's growing really short and bushy, her nodes are less than half an inch long. Should I still do LST or should I just let her grow for the time being?

Like I said, yesterday I added the nutes to the water but I haven't watered her enough to get runoff, as I was afraid of overwatering her considering she's in a 20L (~5gal) pot. Should I start to fully water the pot until I get 20% runoff? Last time I gave her half a gallon.

 

[Kays]

Day 22.

I noticed some white leaf tips around 3 days ago but it's really only limited to those leaves and the white doesn't seem to be getting longer. Hopefully they just got burned a little bit with the nutes.
Also, last watering was 3L, which I think was way too much considering the soil hasn't fully dried out in 6 days now. Next time I'll give her 2L with between 1/4 and 1/2 dose nutes (currently giving her nutes every other watering).

I couldn't bring myself to LST her, I was too afraid of snapping the stem. Hopefully she'll do fine without it, the new branches are already catching up the the main stem, so fingers crossed.

My mistake with the pot size is now coming to bite me in the ass. Clearly the pot was way to big for 20L of soil and now the plant is reaching the edges of it. One leaf is already pushed against the side .

All in all she's still growing really well. She's also grown her first set of leaves with 7 fingers.

Posted the picture of the white leaf tips if anybody can identify the problem.

 

[Kays]

Day 25.

She's doing fine, the soil finally dried yesterday and I watered her with ~2.5L of water with a bit under half a dose of nutes. Hopefully she'll drink it up a little quicker this time, considering she's grown almost double in size.

Bic lighter for size comparison.

 

[PoS5]

Hey all, welcome to my grow journal! This is my first time growing anything at all so I'll probably need lots of tips along the way.

I finished setting up the grow tent up and just started germinating the seed.

Here's some more info on the setup.

Strain:
Northern Lights Auto (In 80% Ru 20%)
Royal Cheese Auto (Sa 30% In 50% Ru 20%)

Stage:
Just put into germination.

Location:
Indoor, in a 90x90x170cm grow tent.

Medium:
Soil. A universal mix I found at the local store, nothing fancy.

Pot:
20L Pot (~5gal).

Light:
x1 300w CFL bulb.

Ventilation:
x1 fan blowing ~250 m3/h of air out of the tent and a small window to let air in.

Temp:
Around 21.5c (~70f) but I just recently turned on the light so it might rise.

Humidity:
47% without the pot inside. (Will rise probably).

PH:
Unknown. I forgot to buy a ph meter. I'll buy one in the near future.

Nutes:
6-5-5 for veg and 4-6-6 for flowering. Nothing fancy here either, just the ones I found at the local shop.


Currently I'm only planting the Northern Lights Auto, after that gets into flowering I'm planning to plant the Royal Cheese Auto. This way I'm hoping to make mistakes on one plant only, and correct them for the second one.

I'm keeping the germinating seed in the grow tent (my house stays at around 19c while the tent 21c), under the double floor to avoid any light getting in. Is this ok? Should I move it?
Here's a pic but keep in mind the plates are UNDER the double floor and not on top of it like in the picture.

Hi Kays! Great work there.
Check mine out and pour in with your help!
Peace
First Time For Personal Use

First Time For Personal Use

 

[Kays]

Day 29.

A whole lot more branches are now reaching the canopy! I have started LST'ing them to maximize the amount of light each leaf gets. I have used chopped up wire coat hangers, so don't worry, she isn't growing spider legs (although that would be kinda cool ).

This time around she's gotten no burnt tips from watering, and the soil is drying already. I'll let it get a bit drier than last time as gnats have started flying around the past week. Sticky cards seem to have killed most of the flying ones, hopefully they didn't lay eggs.

She's now entering pre-flower, as I have spotted 10 calyxes, three of which have popped out a tiiiiny pistil .

I have also put the Royal Cheese to germinate, along with a bunch of veggies and herbs to "camouflage" it, as she'll be on the balcony. I'll be posting another journal for it as soon as something sprouts.

Pics!

 

[Kays]

Day 37.

She's putting out more and more hair and I've notice a definite boost in growth over this week, especially in height. Hopefully this longer than expected veg-time will result in a boost in yield .
More branches keep growing and reaching the canopy, which makes me feel less bad about not training the main stem.

As for the new seed I planted. It sprouted but looks odd. It has only one yellow cotyledon (although it seems to be turning green) and it's crooked. I'll keep caring for it in the hopes it'll make it but I'm not holding my breath. It was most likely the seed that was defective as everything else I germinated sprouted just fine.

Anyways, here are the pics for this week! Some leaves look yellow but it's the light, they are actually all green.

 

[Kays]

Day 43.

Happy Easter!
She's finally starting to bud! the top of the branches are now full of white pistils, and the smell grows stronger by the day. I can smell it from downstairs now .

I stopped all LST as she's getting out of control . She's almost filling up my 3x3ft tent! I would have never expected that when I planted her lol.
And she drinks a whole lot more too. I watered her Wednesday and today she's already asking for more. Gonna keep feeding her once a week as the nutes bottle says, so today's watering will be with plain ph'd water.

The bottom leaves are also starting to die. I think that's normal so I'm not worrying.
All in all she's doing MUCH better than I would have thought she would.

My target dry weight was 1oz. But at this point I might get more?
I'd love to hear someone's rough estimate as it will determine how many more I'm gonna plant on the balcony (I'd like to have around 4oz before august).

Oh and by the way, the other seedling died. I think it failed to come out of the seed properly as upon digging it up I found the other snapped cotyledon, and the root looked cut/pinched in one point and half of it was brown.


Pics (Bic lighter for comparison).

 

[Kays]

Day 52.

Going strong.
I counted around 15 flowering tops today. Hopefully all will grow into nice and fat buds .

Gonna do 50/50 veg/bloom nutes next watering. Also upped the dose by a quarter. Now giving her 3/4 of the recommended dosage. Might try full dose in a couple waterings .

Pics. She looks a bit sad because she about to sleep. The leaves are a lot perkier during the day.

 

[Kays]

Day 85.

I haven't updated this in a while as there wasn't too much going on, mostly just the pistils changing color.
Now she's starting to lose a whole lot of leaves, which I think (and hope) is normal at this point.
Many trichomes are starting to turn cloudy. I think I'll stop feeding her nutes once I see a few amber ones, but there's none yet.
I think she might go for a few more weeks still and will most likely reach 100 days of life. Pretty odd considering it said 10 weeks from seed on the package, but I can't complain, she grew really damn well in my opinion.

The buds have mostly stayed the same size for a while now, but I've read that they start to fatten up the last two weeks, so maybe they'll get bigger.

Pics.

 

[Archiweedies]

Beautiful man, kinda sad I read your whole journal in no time flat cause there hasn't been a ton of attention to this journal.

I found your journal cause I was looking for grows about Northern Lights Autos as that's my next grow. Your grow appeared to go really smooth thus far. Are you flushing yet?

 

[Kays]

Thank you

Yea, everything went well, I just slightly burned her a couple of times. Also had gnats at some point, but by letting the soil dry out more between waterings and adding a sticky card they went away.

Not flushing yet as I think she still has quite a bit of life in her. Most of the trichomes are still clear and there are no amber ones at all. Next Sunday I'll try and take a picture of the trichomes through the microscope.
To be honest I'm not 100% sure when I should start flushing, so far I read that 10% amber trichomes is a good time to stop with the nutes, but I'm guessing the cloudy/clear ratio has to be taken into consideration aswell.

And good luck with your NL grow, I don't know much about other strains but this one just grew herself basically. No training, cheap nutes and soil and she still grew into a decent plant

 

[Archiweedies]

Thank you

Yea, everything went well, I just slightly burned her a couple of times. Also had gnats at some point, but by letting the soil dry out more between waterings and adding a sticky card they went away.

Not flushing yet as I think she still has quite a bit of life in her. Most of the trichomes are still clear and there are no amber ones at all. Next Sunday I'll try and take a picture of the trichomes through the microscope.
To be honest I'm not 100% sure when I should start flushing, so far I read that 10% amber trichomes is a good time to stop with the nutes, but I'm guessing the cloudy/clear ratio has to be taken into consideration aswell.

And good luck with your NL grow, I don't know much about other strains but this one just grew herself basically. No training, cheap nutes and soil and she still grew into a decent plant

Yea right on man! I've read the same, 10% amber. I'm in coco, so my window to flush is a little less stringent as I understand it. I'm following a nutrient schedule from a website that I'm not sure I can mention(pm me if you want to know) but in that schedule, they call for two weeks of flush at the end. I plan to start flushing when I see all cloudy trichomes. But I'm impatient and ready to move on to the next grow haha