Watching Grass Grow

[Radogast]

As with humans male cannabis often appear to grow more linear and taller than female plants which appear to grow lower and rounder.

With a seedling in the sunlight, there may be a tendency to stretch taller than a seedling with a flourescent light suspended close above the leaves. This stretch may appear more male than female. This would be an illusion

 

[nagganaggaren]

As with humans male cannabis often appear to grow more linear and taller than female plants which appear to grow lower and rounder.

With a seedling in the sunlight, there may be a tendency to stretch taller than a seedling with a flourescent light suspended close above the leaves. This stretch may appear more male than female. This would be an illusion

Thanks for that Radogast, interesting and informative points you make and more thanks for the info on Nagga, I live in a land famous for Dragons and come from a land of Dragons so that extra connection with my new moniker pleases me more.

 

[nagganaggaren]

Been reading a fair bit lately, a tutorial on how to post higher definition photographs which I hope I have succeeded with and journals from heirloom, radogast, smokeater, a new one that started a few hours ago from noobie-something or other (i will get the name right, just a tad stoned) and have now managed to set about writing the next paragraph.
During the course of the day (lucky me, another day off) I've sat and watched the grass grow and thought and looked and thought and read and looked some more.
A wet, dull cloudy day 24 degrees 70% humidity
I remember Heirloom saying
"It gives you something to play with and learn. You could top it, bend it...basically do anything without fear of messing it up"
and looking at it I get to thinking that if I opened-up the leaves then that would allow more light to penetrate.

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The leaves seemed sort of clustered and I thought what if. . . . . . .

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This was my first effort, i found an old roll of solder wire which seems to be made for what I had in mind.

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This is how it looks after I stopped messing with it, before anything went wrong!
As I type this it looks like it'll need a little adjustment as its grown since I took the picture, transferred it, uploaded it, read a bit, got a bit more stoned . . . . . .hey, it's my day off, don't judge

View image in gallery​

With my reading I've noticed that I'm spending it mainly reading the journals of those contributors that have taken the time to comment on my progress. Which of course I appreciate but in doing so I'm also getting to know them a little, which is cool. At the same time I realise that as I write this, not only am I stoned (as you may be too) but you are also getting to know me a little. Thats a little weird or maybe its the weed, but I don't think its a bad thing..
2 more things before I make that adjustment; if this goes pear-shaped, I wont blame Heirloom for his comment! and I answered my second thing myself, something about taking hours to create your post. Thanks for continuing support and good luck to all whatever your circumstances. Positive is good.

 

[Radogast]

If you want to spread your leaves, check out this Tip Spreading thread by Light Addict
LA's really quick guide to tip spreading for node stacking!

Light Addict is very knowledgeable and creative in training his girls. He has started several other training threads and grown prose winning plants

- - -

I used to use two ends of wire in the dirt, wicket and staple shapes, like you have posted above.

Lately I have switched to one end of wire in the dirt, cane shapes. I find the cane shape allows me to more precisely position the branch I am training.

 

[Radogast]

To help future friends find your grow journal, I suggest you add a link in your signature.

I sent you a private message with a sample looking like this Watching Grass Grow



I know you won't be able to reply to the private message yet, so no worries.
New members have to post 50 times before sending private messages.
It's a rule (and I think it's a good idea)

 

[Heirloom]

Good day Nagga!

While it's too early to worry about light penetration, good on you for playing with the techniques. Ultimately you will gain confidence in what you are doing. It's not very likely that you will hurt it too bad. Just make sure your gentle. Don't damage, kink or split the stalk. It's still veeeery tender and can snap like a crisp lettuce leaf vein.

Rado pointed you to arguably the best plant trainer I know of. Light Addict is amazing.

I'm going to have to do a topiary canna plant one of these days. Maybe a giant panda topiary, or a dragon.

 

[nagganaggaren]

Radogast, i have viewed the thread about training, thanks for the suggestion and the link about posting a signature thingy, didn't quite manage the signature but liked the thread about training the plant. Managed to get up to date with your journal last night, good luck on the move and hope you have a speedy return to your cultivation once you have settled.
Heirloom, your idea of a topiary style plant has my head whizzing thinking of the possibilities. I will as you so rightly said, be gentle with my little friend when experimenting. A dragon-shaped plant may be beyond me, a stick-man perhaps more achievable, I'll try to keep my ideas simple i think! (for the time being, i can still dream . .)

Edit. it appears i did succeed with the signature!

 

[nagganaggaren]

The first proper day of sunshine today, a summers day, 28.5 degrees and 69% humidity, a bit dull early on but bright all afternoon through till sunset.
Taken at around 6pm, an hour before sunset.

 

[Radogast]

Congrats on the signature !

 

[nagganaggaren]

Another cloudy day, 25.4 degrees, 74% humidity. nothing added/taken away.
No pics, I'm knackered. Friday tomorrow. . . . ah, the weekend. . .

 

[nagganaggaren]

Friday, cloudy, dark overcast day, 24.5 degrees 84% humidity. Nothing added/taken away.
No water for at least 4 days now and it was looking a little droopy at around lunchtime today. I had supplemented its daylight (it is a dark day) with a 115w 5500k energy saving light and by the end of the day it had perked up. I had resisted watering after seeing its droopiness but it is now quite dry. I had pushed a piece of solder wire deep into the pot and that didn't show any signs of moisture or dampness on removal.

I took these pics around 7pm with my phone (I can get closer with that than with my camera-I'm a beginner in that department too!)

The newer set of leaves appear to be forming a different shape compared to earlier growth.

Lets see what the weekend brings and hope for a few brighter days, it feels like cheating when I put the light on.

 

[Radogast]

The new leaves will be at least 5 fingered instead of 3 fingered.


For a moisture dipstick, try a chopstick instead of solder wire. Push it all the way down and let it stay in the ground for at least 5 minutes.

This can reveal the depth of the moisture in the pot. (Soil in clay pots dry from the top surface down. )

 

[Heirloom]

 

[nagganaggaren]

Well I'd hoped for a brighter day and Saturday certainly brought that, started with a thunderstorm and by 9am it was clear with bright blue skies. temp and humidity went from 28 degrees and 75% to 34.4 degrees and 36%. A hot day with no complaints from either of us.

Taken at 11am, looking happy

Taken later in the afternoon. Happier leaning into the sun.

I have removed the wires for the time being as it's getting a bit busy fiddling with it and an accident is surely waiting to happen. Also, i noticed discolouration where the wire was resting on the leaf stem, a sort of bruise as if under pressure, maybe stress from being restricted, anyway it seemed like reason to me to lose the wires and give it a break.
The chopstick suggestion is a great idea, I will do that today, thanks for that. I suspect water will be needed soon, especially after the day spent in bright sunlight yesterday but I will wait until after the chopstick test to be sure.

 

[nagganaggaren]

The chopstick test showed a dusty dryness with no dampness as such but not totally dry, on a scale of 1-100 of dry to wet, I'd give it less than 10.
The end result; no water today.
Weather has taken a complete u-turn from Saturdays sunshine with thunderstorms and darkness all day.
27 degrees with 80% humidity.
I have placed a litre of water on the window cill in preparation for watering tomorrow, the ph level from the tap water is 7.2, hopefully this will drop a little by then.
No pictures today but still looking good, happy and healthy. the plant 'aint bad either.

 

[Radogast]

The chopstick test showed a dusty dryness with no dampness as such but not totally dry, on a scale of 1-100 of dry to wet, I'd give it less than 10.
The end result; no water today.
Weather has taken a complete u-turn from Saturdays sunshine with thunderstorms and darkness all day.
27 degrees with 80% humidity.
I have placed a litre of water on the window cill in preparation for watering tomorrow, the ph level from the tap water is 7.2, hopefully this will drop a little by then.
No pictures today but still looking good, happy and healthy. the plant 'aint bad either.

I gave you bad advice with the chopstick test. I had done this test with a tongue depressor and expected the chopstick test to be the same.

Visually, I left a chopstick for 30 minutes in a known dry plant and saw no color change top to bottom - as expected.
I then put the same chopstick in a pot known to be wet beginning about 3 inches down and saw no color change top to bottom either !!!

Touching the chopstick, I could feel a coolness on the lower 6 inches where the soil was moist and a normal temperature for the top 3-4 inches of the chopstick.

I normally use an inexpensive ($5) 1 foot long soil probe to measure the moisture level in a pot.
I watch the meter as I put in the probe. when the needle rises, I know I have reached the water table in the pot.
I don't care what the needle indicates, just that it indicates there is moisture.

If you can feel a temperature change along the length of a stick, that should work just as well.

If only the bottom 2 inches or so have moisture, I add water.



Sorry for giving you bad advice of looking for a color change to indicate wetness.

 

[Radogast]

When I had the girls out of the room taking pictures today, I discovered a couple of my wire hooks still in use.

Wire hooks hanging up waiting to be used.

Girl Scout Cookies - 19 days under 11/13 (flowering) light.

 

[nagganaggaren]

I don't think it was bad advice at all, it gave me the idea of putting something wooden into the plant pot rather than something metallic, made me think a bit more about what was going on in there and it was productive, so thank you again.
This morning it is looking all good, I'm at work at the moment and will post a picture update later, maybe a before and after watering picture.

 

[nagganaggaren]

Finally watered this morning, the PH level of the water had lowered to 7.0 and I gave it about 700ml, first 500ml and then another 200. A few seconds later it began to seep (a drip every second or so for about 2 minutes) from the bottom of the pot, I would estimate maybe 40-50ml made its way out.
This evening I noticed that the soil level has dropped about 3 or 4mm after the watering but the plant seems happy enough about it. I understand how this has happened but don't know if its a good or bad thing. Something about my soil preparation and lack of knowledge in that department maybe, I just emptied the bag of potting soil into my pot, topped it up out of another bag of the same and plopped my plant in! I imagine after the watering the soil settled a bit and the level dropped.
It's been a bit hectic here over the last day or 2 and the pictures were taken quickly just so I had something to post picture-wise.

Trying to show the thickness of the stem and how it has grown.

I think this was from the day before, before watering.

Another showing thickness and height.

A dull, overcast day temp 25.3 humidity 77%. Talk about changeable weather! Hot, cold, dark, bright, wet, dry.
It seems odd to me that the stem is thicker higher up than it is at the lower part, could this be because of the accident I had with it, is it normal or could it be something else? I would have thought that the strength and therefore thickness would be at the base rather than higher up. I know its early days yet but . . . . I hope there is a simple answer.

 

[Radogast]

Those thick spots could be from injury or some form of boring insect I have never heard of before. Most likely injury.

If you are going to adjust PH on the water, 6.3 would be closer to the usual optimum, 7.0 is high for most soil BUT she looks GREAT so no need to change what you are doing. If she were bothered by the high PH, she would be dropping her lower leaves and growing like a feather duster.

The nodes near the top are growing tightly together - very good