Regor's Bubba Kush Clone - 1st Grow - Test of Mental Patience

[Regor]

Hi all, Long time reader, been through a LOT of posts, and just now experiencing my first grow.

After a lengthy
"First Aid" post in the "Problems, Pests, and Disease Control", I was finally talked into turning my experience and continuing grow into a Journal.

What started as a Clone, has tested my patients, but I'm bound and determined to see this through.

I'm going to treat this as if I just brought her home, and recreate the running history. Might take me a little bit to get caught up to today.

Started 06-06-2014

SOIL GROW

The plant is appx 12" tall and in an approximately 6 oz cup.

Strain - Indica Bubba Kush
# of Plants - 1
Grow Type - Soil
Grow Stage - Vegetative
Bucket Size - 6 oz cup
Lights - (4) 23 Watt (100w equivalent each) CFL running for 14hrs/direct sun for 4 additional hours
Nutrients - unknown
Soil - unknown
PPM - ?
PH - "distilled water" is at 7.0
RH - 40%
Room Temperature -70 to 82
Solution Temperature - 70
Room Square Footage - 4' x 4'
Pests - None Known as of this time

 

[Regor]

6/12/14 to 6/16/14

My leaves are turning yellow from the bottom up, with some brown, and now some curling.

Symptoms started approximately 6/12/14, and that is when I transplanted to it's current medium. When I did the transplant, it was just a little rootbound, but not bad. The heavier yellowing and the curling just started today 6/16.

The plant was appx 12" when I got it, and is currently at 15".

Bucket Size - 3 Gallon
Lights - (4) 23 Watt (100w equivalent each) CFL running for 14hrs/direct sun for 4 additional hours
Nutrients - Soil - Edna's Best potting soil (70%), worm casing (10%), Perlite (10%), Vermiculite (10%)
PPM - ?
PH - soil is between 6.3-6.5, my "distilled water" is at 7.0
RH - 40%
Room Temperature -70 to 82
Solution Temperature - 70
Room Square Footage - 4' x 4'
Pests - None Known

 

[Regor]

6/18/14 - 6/25/14

6-18 Wed: Flushed with 3 gallons water with PH 6.0. Run-off was 6.5
6-22 Sun: Watered PH 6.5 & Dynagrow (1/4 tsp)
6-23 Mon: Foliar spray PH 6.0 & 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag
6-25 Wed: Foliar spray PH 6.0 & 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag

Soil dries on top fine, but when I go down appx 2-3" it still seems moist. I am trying to not overwater, but wonder if the soil mixture is just holding so much water, or if it always just seems moist but it has really dried out more than I think.

 

[Regor]

6/26/14 - 7/6/14

You'd swear I was trying to kill this plant. I guess It's a great learning tool, and I'm learning a lot, although not sure it's coming together for me yet.

It's looking pretty sad. I've let it go a lot longer between watering, and made sure the soil was dry pretty far down into the soil.

Still have to wonder if I should have gone with a smaller pot when transplanting, then step up again. This soil just seems to hold the moisture forever, and I fear my roots may not be healthy enough to handle the moisture from a 3 Gal pot. I also don't find a lot of reading on folks who have used Edna's Best potting soil. The other gotcha from the larger pot is that I don't seem to be able to control/administer water/nutes more frequently, since it only dries out once a week.

I have attached a lot of pics, to show how my lights are hung now, where she's housed, and detailed the watts, temp, etc...

The black planter is sitting inside a red bucket. This has helped to control the temps of the black planter, since it can get hot when the plant gets the free sun light during the day.

The lights are (4) 6500k 23 watt (100 equivalent). 6 hours off during the middle of the night, and a mixture of the lights and sunlight for the other 18 hours.

Temps with the fan running keep it at appx 70-80 degrees.

Here's what I've been doing lately:

6-26 Thu: Watered PH 6.5 & Dynagrow (1/4 tsp)
6-27 Fri: Foliar spray PH 6.0 & 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag
6-30 Mon: Foliar spray PH 6.0 & 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag
7-02 Wed: Foliar spray PH 6.0 & 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag
7-04 Fri: Watered, distilled PH 6.0-6.5 with 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag (per Gallon), From Watering: 75% absorbed /25% runoff @ 7.0 PH

 

[Regor]

7/7/14 - 7/18/14

Well, she's a tall lanky thing, but I'd have to say she's looking much better since my last post 11 days ago. Here's a description of my actions, and pics below.

7-09 Wed: Replanted in ~1.5 gal yellow planter, FFOF 70%, 30% Perlite. I completely removed my girl from her past planter, washed the roots, and transplanted (as gently as I could). WISH I would have taken a pic of the roots, they were not rotted at all, but did not look very strong for the age of the plant.

After transplant - Watered with plain distilled @ ~6.5ph. Runoff - 7% ph

7-14 Mon: Foliar spray with Dynagrow (1/4 tsp p/Gallon), (was looking to inject her with some immediate meds while I was waiting for the roots to grab hold of the new soil and it's nutes.

7-14 Mon: Watered with 20 oz ~6.5ph - runoff=5, re-watered with 20 oz 7.0ph - runoff=5.5, re-watered with 8.0ph - runoff ~5.5

7-15 Wed: Tested soil, ph=7.0. I was concerned after the CRAZY runoff levels on Monday (7-14), but after doing a soil test and reading about some of the fellow users results, I'm going to let her do her thing and see if she gets happy ☺

7-18: Fri: She's thirsty and will get a watering in the morning. She definitely dried out a LOT faster in her new FFOF compared to her previous soil.

She is thriving and growing a LOT of bulk in the top 1/3, but she's not much for putting on the weight at the bottom.

I don't have a pic of it, but I have moved my lights a bit since my last post. I "had" 4 CFL in a basic X at the top of my plant. I've now moved those 4 lights so that I have 2 lights on each side of the plant, spaced so the whole length of the plant gets light.

I also have been putting her into the outdoor afternoon sun for 4 hours.

 

[Regor]

7/20/14

Although not a journal, I'm learning a LOT from this grow, reading a TON on 420, and listening to so much great advice !! So I do want to share a bit of what I am learning and where I'm going with this grow.

Got a few toys this week to help me look at my learning experience from a digital viewpoint. Ph & PPM meter. I have a basic ph test where you fill the vial and add drops, but the ph meter sure makes life easier and accurate.

So, it was time for a watering and nutes (listening to advice) and going from weight of the plant, time between watering, soil dampness, and history.

I started with 2 gallons of distilled water:
~ 6.8 ph, 009 ppm
~ Added 1/4 tsp Dynagrow (per gal) - 1/2 tsp total
~ Levels were now 5.4 ph, 108ppm
~ Added Ph up until I got 6.3 ph and 114 ppm

Watered with 24 oz of my mixture, 8 oz of runoff. Runoff was 6.0 ph, and 915 ppm.

Dry weight of plant and planter pre-water: 3 lbs 8.6 oz
Wet weight after watering: 4 lbs 7.5 oz
This should give me a better idea as I feel the weight before and after watering.

Home all day today, so she gets a good 8 hours of natural sun

 

[Regor]

7/24/14

WOW, what a wild ride !!

Yeah, once again, this could go in a journal, but really the only reason I'm still updating this thread is cause I've looked for and got help with my issues, and they continue.

Ya know, if I wasn't learning so much, I would've given up a long time ago and started over.

So,,,,, see pics below, she's coming around, and growing SOOOOO busy at the top. Nodes and leaves are on top of each other, I've had to actually comb her with my fingers to sort out what leaf belongs where.

THEN.... last night, I move the planter to find THIS:::

aarrggghhhh



Upon closer look with the 40X, THIS is what I have:

Took the little buggers to my local Hydro shop for show-n-tell, and picked up some commercial bug-be-gone: SNS 203.

Today happened to be watering day (non-nutes), so I mixed up a gallon of water with 3 oz of the SNS. Here's the warning (for me and others out there that may still be learning). Ph BEFORE the SNS was a nice 6.3. AFTER adding the SNS, I was down at 5.7. So I touched up my water till it was 6.5.

 

[Regor]

7/29/14

The initial drenching with SNS 203 definitely slowed down my unwelcome pests, but I was still seeing some remnants under the pot.

Today - I decided to go for the kill.

I loaded up two gallons of water with SNS, got my PH where I wanted it, and loaded my plant and planter into a 5 gallon empty bucket.

I then gave my plant a watering from the top down, until the planter was completely submerged. I left it in there for 7 minutes to try to drown those little buggers, and ensure that the soil had nothing for the pests to eat other than more SNS.

Once I was happy, I made sure she was drained as best as I could. I sprayed my entire grow area with a commercial bug killer, while my baby sat outside and dried out. Later - once the entire grow area was dried up (and any leftover bugs were dead), I then cleaned the entire area with bleach.

 

[Regor]

ALL CAUGHT UP !!!

7/30/14

She looks really happy today. No apparent damage from the soaking, and just overnight, some of the leaves have grown bigger than they've grown (in mass) in a long time. I'm leaving her to be for today, and tomorrow will be picture day.

 

[Antics]

Subscribed.

Next grow, make a journal right away. It'll be easier to track your progress, and keep track of when you water, when you feed nutes, youll have a record when problems start appearing, and a record of what fixed the problem, in case in happens in the future.

 

[Regor]

7/31/14

Never thought I'd be to the point of having to think about some kind of thinning or training, but she's getting pretty thick in the top 10".

Unfortunately, after all my pain and suffering, I'm going on vacation next week (for 7 days), and the best I can have my house-sitter do is water her. Sure, I'll prep the water and quantity, even tell them what day to water based on my watering history, but that's about it. I'll probably even back off the lights a little extra so I don't have to worry about them growing too much.

So ...... I have one week to do what I need to do, to make her as maintenance free as possible.

 

[Radogast]

She's a Beauty!!! Subbed

 

[Regor]

7/31/14

Update #2 for the day.....

Trying to show what happens to pests when you give them a soak in SNS 203. Yes, they may happen to crawl out of your soil after a soaking, but then they are doing the backstroke with all legs up in the air till it's all over.

 

[Regor]

8/2/14

Decisions decisions .....

I've been concentrating so much on my ph, all levels, and pests,,, that I didn't realize my roots are now crawling outside of their home looking for more ground to grow.

I leave in 6 days for an 8 day vacation. So, whatever I do NOW, I must ensure she's good for 2 full weeks (except for the watering that she will get from my house sitter).

My thoughts, although I know it's more stress is to once again remove her from her home, clean ALL remnants of soil and pests off of her, and transplant into a larger planter with fresh soil.

She's in a 1.5 gallon right now, and to tell you the truth, as much of a rough history as she has had, I never thought she'd get this far.

Of course, no clue if all this will be for naught if I've stressed her enough to hermie, but I gotta keep plugging away and learning on this one first grow.

BTW - the pests still crawl out of the planter. They appear to be crawling out and dying, but it's non-stop everyday that I'm cleaning up after them. AND, I just don't trust that within the current soil, there's gonna be a critter thats shielding itself from my blood bath of SNS.

Opinions??? Since this is a first grow learning experience, if she succumbs to the stress, so be it, but I'd like to see her through to harvest if at all possible

BTW - she's been in Veg for apps 60 days now, and is 18" tall.

 

[Antics]

She has some really strong root growth! Get a transplant ASAP, since she isn't in flower yet, she'll love having a little extra space to stretch out when she starts to flower.

I would look for at least a 3 gallon, 5 gallon should be big enough for almost any indoor grow. However, I wouldn't remove soil off the roots, doing so can damage the root hairs and open her up to infection.

Dry out the soil before transplanting, so it stays together in one large piece. If it's too wet it'll fall apart and can damage roots.

How often do you water now?

 

[Regor]

She gets watered every 4-5 days right now.

As risky as it is to even consider doing a root rinse then transplant, I feel it may be the only way to completely eradicate these pests.

This is what I see every morning, the pests that have crawled out of the planter, and what wants me to trash the current medium and start with some fresh stuff (before I do go into flower):

 

[Antics]

Do you see less and less pests coming out each time?

Watering schedule sounds pretty good, how wet/dry is the soil when you water again? Is the top dry? a little moist? What about the visible soil at drainage holes?

 

[Raiven]

SUBBED!!

awesome job so far!!
following to the ends!!!

 

[Regor]

8/16/14

I'm back, after 8 days of vacation ... whew ... all rested.

My baby is looking pretty good, my plant sitter did as instructed and pretty much left her alone except for 1 watering.

Before I left, I set up my grow tent in the garage, and I have an external roof-top vent pulling ~1250 CFM out. I ran a duct up to the roof-vent, so it's getting a lot of air circulating, and the ingoing vents are filtered, so the pest situation is under control.

Did a lot of reading while gone, and now that I've seen her, trying to make my future plans. My clone, a Bubba Kush, was advertised as a SOG. What I was just reading that I didn't know is that alternating nodes = adult and ready to flower at any time. I don't think my clone has ever had any nodes that were not alternating.

What I'm thinking of doing, since she appears to be pretty healthy and could be put into flower at any time, is to grab some clones off of her, give her a week, then flip the switch to 12/12.

 

[Radogast]

When you go into flower is a choice. Considering flowering is often 9-12 weeks, I plan to have at least as much time in veg.
My 8 week in veg, 20"x20" White Widow yielded about 2 oz.
My 12 week in veg, 26"x18" White Widow looks like she will be 3-4 oz.
Planted the same day, that's a big jump for 23 weeks total instead of 18 weeks total time from day seed was planted.

You did say this grow was a test of mental patience - Right? This is a step where I believe patience is amply rewarded