Thirvnrob's 1st TLO Grow: In Progress

[Thirvnrob]

I had intended to get a little experience with TLO and journal my next grow, but I think it'd be a good idea to have some more experienced eyes have a look & hopefully answer a few questions. My last grow was a disaster & the one before that wasn't great either. I'll let you in on what I think caused those problems & corrections I've implemented to correct & avoid those problems in the future. So here we go:

The players:
Girl Scout Cookies, 80/20 Indica dominant, currently on Day 11 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 70 days.
Bruce Banner, 60/40 Sativa dominant, currently on Day 8 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 56 days.
Medium:
True Living Organic as outlined in The Rev's book

Environment:
My space is 10'x11' with 8.5' ceiling - the actual grow area is in a corner & takes up a 4.5'x5' area & I use a 3' wide x 6' tall reflective photography panel to contain as much light as possible.
Vivosun 8" duct fan exhausted to out side
Two Mars Hydro FC3000
Temp is 68 - 70 f at night & 78-80 during the day.
Humidity is a struggle to maintain, but I manage to keep it between 47% & 60% & for the most part stay in the VPD sweet spot.
Bugs: I have 'em. My space is in an outbuilding right at the edge of a wooded area. I've done my best to seal off places of entry for them, but just opening & closing the door is all the opportunity they need. I'm using SNS 203 in a foliar application once weekly 1/2 hour before lights out.

So, if you want to see how this pans out, I'd love to have y'all along for the ride!
@Emilya, @Bill284, @Jon, @013,@Light Addict, @Rexer, @DonkeyDick, @InTheShed, @Skunksta, @Trala, @Mars Hydro,@Sierra Natural Science, @HappyHazmat88, @Phytoplankton, @Sueet, @AdaminCO, @HashFart, @Tokin Roll

Pics are next!

 

[Thirvnrob]

Most of my tags didn't work...

 

[Thirvnrob]

The lights...

You can see how dirty the filter cover is already after only a few weeks in. I regret applying the reflective material - I was able to remove it from the adjacent wall which left it tacky and as you can see if you look closely, bugs stick to it!

One of the questions I have is should I remove any of this lower growth? She's 31" tall (from the top of the soil) & the lights are about 20" above the top. But I don't think they're getting enough light penetration. By the way, the lights are daisy chained & running at 80%.

All I did was top these & see how they grow out since I've never tried just letting them grow. But I'm sure I'll go back to LST next grow...

I have oscillating fans mounted on mic stands.

And the tripod mounted reflective panel. I can move this aside, have a seat & easily reach all the girls for watering.

 

[Thirvnrob]

I became interested in TLO growing through reading one of Emmy's posts wherein referenced this book. What I like best is the concept of putting the plant in charge of feeding it's self. Instead of force feeding the plant with my fingers crossed that I'm doing the right thing, I provide a buffet within the soil, & she can pick & choose what she needs. After all, they did get by for who knows how many years without synthetic intervention. It required a fairly significant cash investment & a fair amount of sweat equity to build this soil, but I can tell you now, I'll never go back. No more measuring fertilizers with my shaky hands & more worrying about PH.

I love the concept of adding spikes after up-potting. These spikes, added near the edge of the pot & outside the root zone are waiting there when the roots reach the outer edges. About two weeks before I flipped the lights, I top dressed them with a high N concoction. Other than that, All I've given them is distilled water. At the time of the top dressing one of the girls was showing signs of deficiencies. two weeks later, all was well again.

 

[Thirvnrob]

These are the GSC. They were 25" & 23" when I flipped, 19 days ago. They are now 31" & 30" at their tallest points. They've been on a 4 day wet/dry cycle, but today is day 3 of that cycle & they are both almost bone dry. I'm hoping they'll take a gallon today. By the way, they're in 5 gallon bags (I think it's more like 4 gal). One thing I've noted abut this soil is I have to water very slowly & give it time to "settle in". If I try to go too fast, the water just runs to the edges & right out the sides of the bags.

 

[Thirvnrob]

For my last several grows, I've been giving my girls their first round of watering and then waiting for 15 minutes or so( & up to two hours if I get distracted) then watering again. The soil seems much more receptive to the water this way. Then I read a concept in The Rev's book that almost exactly matched what I had been doing. I probably got the idea from @Emilya , but it seemed logical to me, so that's the way I did it.
Any way, both the GSC took a whole gallon of water this afternoon with probably less than 1/2 cup of runoff between the two of them. So in two weeks we've gone from a 4 day wet/dry cycle to a 3 day cycle with an additional quart of water. They are still stretching, so I'll probably do a couple more partial waterings to encourage more root growth. Am I planning this correctly?

 

[Emilya Green]

It looks like you are doing an excellent job in reading the situation by monitoring the water usage. I love how you are teasing out additional roots! Keep doing what you are doing!

 

[Emilya Green]

I had intended to get a little experience with TLO and journal my next grow, but I think it'd be a good idea to have some more experienced eyes have a look & hopefully answer a few questions. My last grow was a disaster & the one before that wasn't great either. I'll let you in on what I think caused those problems & corrections I've implemented to correct & avoid those problems in the future. So here we go:

The players:
Girl Scout Cookies, 80/20 Indica dominant, currently on Day 11 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 70 days.
Bruce Banner, 60/40 Sativa dominant, currently on Day 8 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 56 days.
Medium:
True Living Organic as outlined in The Rev's book

Environment:
My space is 10'x11' with 8.5' ceiling - the actual grow area is in a corner & takes up a 4.5'x5' area & I use a 3' wide x 6' tall reflective photography panel to contain as much light as possible.
Vivosun 8" duct fan exhausted to out side
Two Mars Hydro FC3000
Temp is 68 - 70 f at night & 78-80 during the day.
Humidity is a struggle to maintain, but I manage to keep it between 47% & 60% & for the most part stay in the VPD sweet spot.
Bugs: I have 'em. My space is in an outbuilding right at the edge of a wooded area. I've done my best to seal off places of entry for them, but just opening & closing the door is all the opportunity they need. I'm using SNS 203 in a foliar application once weekly 1/2 hour before lights out.

So, if you want to see how this pans out, I'd love to have y'all along for the ride!
@Emilya,@Bill284,@Jon,@013,@Light Addict,@Rexer,@DonkeyDick,@InTheShed,@Skunksta,@trala,@Mars Hydro,@Sierra Natural Science,@HappyHazmat88,@Phytoplankton,@Sueet,@AdaminCO,@HashFart,@Tokin Roll

Pics are next!

something is wrong with your @calls... most of the people listed were not called, myself included

 

[Thirvnrob]

Did you get the tag?

 

[Thirvnrob]

It looks like you are doing an excellent job in reading the situation by monitoring the water usage. I love how you are teasing out additional roots! Keep doing what you are doing!

Thank you sensei! It comes (finally) from following your method of watering. I like method, but it takes practice, eh? The partial waterings were easy to figure out when it took 3 quarts to saturate to runoff. Now I'm gonna have to cipher...

 

[Emilya Green]

Did you get the tag?

I got tagged when you mentioned me later on, but I did not get notified on the original call

 

[Thirvnrob]

Strange - I’m not seeing notifications from other posts I’m following since I made this post. Maybe somehow we’re in an alternate reality where you & I are the only ones growing marijuana. We’re outlaws, rebels in our own minds.
Or it could be some kind of glitch…

 

[Jon]

Ok, I found it! Also caught up! Your plants look great. So in your tags, for whatever reason, you can see some folks turned green and some didn’t. Mine didn’t. Anyone who didn’t go green missed the tag, so thanks for the heads up in messenger. Here now and following.

On your question about removing lower growth. Not sure if you did or not, but I was going to suggest taking a direct overhead picture and use that to target which leaves to take to expose buds. That is in theory the light’s view. I use this method often as seeing on an angle can sometimes make you miss stuff. But you did it! And based on that overhead shot, in my opinion, you have the buds nicely exposed. I’d let it go for now. If anything, you could go on a search and destroy mission for anything way down low that will simply never become anything but flarf and remove that. Then she won’t waste any energy on it and instead put it to good use.

Nice setup. Hope you can control the bugs. Thanks for the tag.

 

[Thirvnrob]

Thanks! I realized tagging people in the post wasn’t working so I used the tag function at the top of the page & that didn’t work either. Sigh…

I like the search & destroy method too. I know I have a good bit of future larf that must go!

 

[Thirvnrob]

I had intended to get a little experience with TLO and journal my next grow, but I think it'd be a good idea to have some more experienced eyes have a look & hopefully answer a few questions. My last grow was a disaster & the one before that wasn't great either. I'll let you in on what I think caused those problems & corrections I've implemented to correct & avoid those problems in the future. So here we go:

The players:
Girl Scout Cookies, 80/20 Indica dominant, currently on Day 11 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 70 days.
Bruce Banner, 60/40 Sativa dominant, currently on Day 8 of flower.
According to the breeder they should finish in 56 days.
Medium:
True Living Organic as outlined in The Rev's book

Environment:
My space is 10'x11' with 8.5' ceiling - the actual grow area is in a corner & takes up a 4.5'x5' area & I use a 3' wide x 6' tall reflective photography panel to contain as much light as possible.
Vivosun 8" duct fan exhausted to out side
Two Mars Hydro FC3000
Temp is 68 - 70 f at night & 78-80 during the day.
Humidity is a struggle to maintain, but I manage to keep it between 47% & 60% & for the most part stay in the VPD sweet spot.
Bugs: I have 'em. My space is in an outbuilding right at the edge of a wooded area. I've done my best to seal off places of entry for them, but just opening & closing the door is all the opportunity they need. I'm using SNS 203 in a foliar application once weekly 1/2 hour before lights out.

So, if you want to see how this pans out, I'd love to have y'all along for the ride!
@Emilya, @Bill284, @Jon, @013,@Light Addict, @Rexer, @DonkeyDick, @InTheShed, @Skunksta, @Trala, @Mars Hydro,@Sierra Natural Science, @HappyHazmat88, @Phytoplankton, @Sueet, @AdaminCO, @HashFart, @Tokin Roll

Pics are next!

I’m gonna try this & see if the tagswill work

 

[Rexer]

Hi @Thirvnrob
looks like you have an excellent start on your grow!

I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much of value I can add. I'm relatively new to growing in soil, I'm currently making my way now through my first soil grow.
That being said, thank you for the tag and I'll be sure to try and swing by when I'm on!

 

[Thirvnrob]

Hi @Thirvnrob
looks like you have an excellent start on your grow!

I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much of value I can add. I'm relatively new to growing in soil, I'm currently making my way now through my first soil grow.
That being said, thank you for the tag and I'll be sure to try and swing by when I'm on!

Thanks for stopping by. Maybe we can learn from each other. If you haven’t already, check out EmilYa’s watering guide. Good luck!

 

[Thirvnrob]

This is the Bruce Banner. I made a couple mistakes with this one. First, I up potted her about a week too early & I didn’t compress the soil enough when I did that. She’s in a 5 gallon bag & has been on a 5 day wet/dry cycle until now. She finally drained her pot in 4 days. She’s been running off at just 3 qts. of water- we’ll see what she takes today…

 

[Thirvnrob]

So, I watered very slowly & she took a gallon with not much runoff at all. I’m going to try tagging some of you mid sentence @InTheShed & see if I can make my tags work…

 

[Thirvnrob]

Ah, it worked @Bill284 & @Skunksta