My first grow: Big Bud, Durban Poison and some freebies

[McBudz]

go to 12/12 early and determine the sex. Take the males out and put the females back to 18/6 or whatever you are doing for veg.

Or block the light to one branch or bud site for 12 hours a day using a dark black plastic bag. After a week or or two you should see pistols or balls.

Then once you have your females determined work with clones so you don't have to worry about males anymore

Also you may get better utilization of those CFLs if you can get them on their sides. I saw someone make homemade reflectors with soda cans which I though was a great idea. You can redirect the half the light off that bulb back towards the plant. If I find it again I'll come back and post the link for you.

 

[McBudz]

Check out the reflectors by stuntmanmike

When I was germinating my seeds, I used a regular plastic bulb fixture with a pullchain on/off, a Y connector screwed into that, two other Y connectors screwed into the first, and the 4 bulbs screwed into those. No having to use cheap stuff like rubber bands or w/e, worked perfectly for me. I also made reflectors out of coke cans

can't see the base and everything, but you can see how the lights looked

this way you get the most light out of the bulbs onto the plants as possible, since they're more perpendicular to the tops of the plants (as opposed to the one with the power strip, where the light mostly goes to the sides)

 

[Cherma]

I still dont know which ones are females, I was planning to do an early 12/12 light cycle like the ones I saw in some other Journal. What do you guys think about that? I just dont want to waste so much effort and electricity to a male plant.

Judging by the current size of the plants, I'd recommend to keep the current light cycle at 18/6 for another 3-4 weeks at least before hitting a 12/12 cycle to sex out the plants.
As you gain more experience along the way, you will understand the sexing of a plant started from seed, and what, how, & when, you can determine this. To simply turn back the lights today to a 12/12 I think will be a detriment to your current plants, until your experience can guide you to do this and return plants to a veg cycle to grow up more. I think you are wanting to see buds overnight here, and as always patience and tolerance should be exercised.

 

[four20friend]

I think mcbudz needs to change his name to MacGyver. Zip ties,crisco.Now coke cans over cfls. props to stuntmanmike for the idea. they look healthy why not give them a bit more time before flower then yank the males and let them finish.

 

[Aratilis]

Hi peeps! so i decided to keep the 18/6 light cycle for another week or so. Im germinating another 5 big bud seeds I hope they germinate this time. My 5 big bud seeds last time didnt sprout i dont know why, i use the same paper towel method as i did with the durban poisons and the freebies but i dont know why these seeds are so shy, the ones you see in the photos are all durban poison and freebies.

In a few days il try to add reflector hood to the cfls and try to add another 2 more 60 watts. that 400 watt MH and 4 60 watt CFLS.

Just a question regarding feeding, should I put nutes or just water?

Im on day 13 not 15 , my bad. i put day 15 on my entry yesterday sorry bout that peeps!

 

[InSiDeThAvOiD]

When was the last time you watered your plants and/or how often do you water? Be careful not to over water plants especially with high temps. At your point you should have to water your plants at least 4 days. Light wise you have more than me with that 400 watt MH. I'll keep an eye out on your grow and best of luck. I pesonally like doing a 12/12 cycle cause it seems more nautral to the plant and all vegeing does is make the plant bigger so you can get bigger yields IMO. It also saves on the electric bill too.

 

[Cherma]

Just a question regarding feeding, should I put nutes or just water?

In what stage here? If germinating seeds between paper towels just water moistened.
There can be many things atrributed to why seeds" even packaged seeds" do not come up or sprout.

 

[four20friend]

The soil guys will have a better answer for you but I would start with a light 1/4 nute mix after 2 weeks.

 

[Aratilis]

Cherma and insidethevoid, i was referring to my 14 day old plants, i water them every 2-3 days I think i added to much perlite and vermiculite to my mix so after 2 days the top soil is dry already. I give them 1/2 half stregth nutes. Should i lower it down?

four20friend, who are the soil guys?

I have 5 big buds on paper towel only 2 pop open and the others still in the paper towel, its been almost a week since i germinated this new batch of big bud seeds the first batch they all died. It seems so hard to germinate this big seeds! Im crossing my fingers hopefully at least one of them is female.

il be posting some pics tom, i hope you guys still follow this thread

oh, and another thing. i have a very high soil ph 8.5 i think, ho do i lower this ? my soil mix are peat moss, perlite and vermiculte only.

im using vinegar to lower water ph? is this ok?

Cherma, bee23, insidethevoid, four20friend and people who's helping me with this grow much thanks to yall'!

 

[Aratilis]

I dont know if there's still people here follwing this journal...Im on day 18 in this roller coaster growing thing. AS of the moment im feeeding them 1/2 strength solution with hormone vit and plain tap water alternately.

The problem is still my high PH. my soil reads 8.5!!!! thats the reading i get on the run off water. SO I decided to flush it, like i was adviced.

I think this is the cause for my plants to fold its leaves and have yellow spots on it.


room temp 75-85 deg F
humidity 40-80 percent


Here's the pic as of today.

this one has yellow spots on the leaves

this one has curled leaves

and this is the only big bug that spouted out of 10 seeds ! I musta have been stupid or i bought bad seeds, il get form a different suppliers next time just to be safe. all my other seeds are over 2 weeks old now, the ones you see in the pics all of them are freebies and durban poisons. i got 90 percent germination from those seeds but the big bud is a different story. any of you tried big buds? i thought its fairly easy to grow, well... thats what the website said.

and advice will be greatly appreciated!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

 

[Hierba]

1 out of 10? You should contact the seed company and tell em to replace the bad ones.

 

[Aratilis]

its amsterdam marijuana seed, il try to contact them but i doubt if they will replace it.

 

[Aratilis]

yes they were! and my soil is composed of peat moss, perlite and vermiculite only. The seedling potting soil maybe has nutes in it but im using this grow mix now. thanks for dropping by

 

[Hierba]

its amsterdam marijuana seed, il try to contact them but i doubt if they will replace it.

I had the same problem with a spanish seed company,I contacted them and they replaced all bad ones.But dunno..everyones different.

 

[flyfishinrock]

8.5? that dosent seem right at all. your soil mix should be highly acidic from the peat moss and no real buffers, closer to 5-ish. Are you ph-ing the water before you add it? flush the heck out of them.

 

[Aratilis]

i Think I know the problem now... I went to my local gardening store and I found out that the peat moss i bought is not peat moss at all which should be a bit acidic? if im right. But the thing is though the ones in my soil is sphagnum moss, which is highly alkaline. I got the wrong bag! this is my first grow so my stupidity bout this is showing and that was that...I d0nt know how to go about this...so i thought il just transplant two plants into bigger pots put additional soil in it, and this time its going to be the right mix. wait and observe measure the Ph if that does help at all.

any thoughts?

 

[Tony614]

yeah i havent heard a lot of good stuff about that company.

 

[Aratilis]

emailed them twice still no reply, i hope they send me new ones.

 

[tonystarks]

Sorry to hear about the germination issues with the Big Bud Same thing happened to me with some Mr Nice Seeds and Shantibaba hooked me up with a new pack How do you germinate? Do you have any heat under the containers? I usually have a 90-100% germ rate when I use Ph adjusted water and Superthrive. I place my humidity dome on top of my stove and the pilot light warms the soil pretty good. All of my seeds sprout within 48-72 hours. I'm too cheap to buy a heat mat As for the seedlings you have now, I would hold off on giving any chemical nutrients and stick to organics until they are asking for nutes. I use Earth Juice catalyst now and have few issues.

 

[Aratilis]

Sorry to hear about the germination issues with the Big Bud Same thing happened to me with some Mr Nice Seeds and Shantibaba hooked me up with a new pack How do you germinate? Do you have any heat under the containers? I usually have a 90-100% germ rate when I use Ph adjusted water and Superthrive. I place my humidity dome on top of my stove and the pilot light warms the soil pretty good. All of my seeds sprout within 48-72 hours. I'm too cheap to buy a heat mat As for the seedlings you have now, I would hold off on giving any chemical nutrients and stick to organics until they are asking for nutes. I use Earth Juice catalyst now and have few issues.

I use the paper towel method, Ph adjusted water, i even use distilled drinking water if i recall it right, but i havent tried the heating pad thing, does that help?

The seeds that made it are now 24 days and il be posting pics of it in a bit