Jimbob's first grow, CFL's perpetual SOG from seed

[jimbob420]

Well I stated another thread on the microgrow forum but I figure I need a place to track the progress of the grow. My setup is one box seperated into two chambers top one is for cloning eventually, bottom one for mama's, top has one 27watt fluorex bulb and 2 13 watt WW cfl's

Mama chamber has one 65watt fluorex and one 42 watt ww cfl

Nothing is currently in the mama/veg box, other box is the flowering box...


it has 1 65 watt fluorex and 6 42 watt WW cfl's

The seeds were germed and started in the clone box for about a week and then were transplanted into the water bottles from 5oz cups, they seemed to have no prob with the transplant, since then I have put them in the flower box on 12/12. I was attempting to a mama plant out of this at some point so I think it may have been a mistake to go to 12/12 so soon but I think i will just wait it out and reveg if I have to in order to get a clone. I have only watered them very seldom but when I do I do the doc dunk method and I use 1/2 the nutes he recommends.

Temps in the room stay at about 80 in the box lights on, 69 when they are off.

pics are from today, plants are on their 4th day of 12/12 and on about their 11th day after going in soil.

Any recommendations? tips? tricks? complaints? Bueller...Bueller?

 

[Joe Budden]

lookin fuken good!! all the best on your grow man

 

[tngreen]

great start jimbob420! just remember to keep those lights close.

 

[2stoge]

i love watching mini perpetual grows. im trying the same thing so i gotta check out how you do.

 

[obZen]

The plants seem to look happy.

You might want to get them closer to the bulbs so they don't stretch as much.

What kind of soil are you using? Do you have any Nutrients?

Clear plastic bottles are great, you can see the bottom of the soil to see if the roots are dry. Most first time growers either overwater or underwater. Listen to the plants, look at the soil, water when it's dry.

Good Luck!

 

[jimbob420]

Day 7 of flowering

Day 7 of flowering

Well its 7 days in and things seem to be progressing nicely. I did move them closer to the lights and they seemed to love it, lots of growth in 2 days. I got a little pic happy so have fun with that. The soil is a mix of plane jane topsoil, worm poo, cow poo, mushroom compost, perlite, and vermiculite. How do you know when the root are dry? How often do you water? I know that a lot of people have a hard time with watering when first starting off so any advice would be great. I basically water ever 2 or 3 days when the soil looks pretty dry but before the plants show any negitive signs. I use the docs dunk method and have only been using about 1/2 strength nutes(1/2tbl spoon fish emulsions(god they stink), 2 drops shultz, 2 drops superthrive). Any ideas on when it would be ok to move to full strength?

Got some close ups of the crotches and looks like something is going on down there

 

[jimbob420]

It's day 14 of 12/12 and the ladies (well hopefully ALL ladies) are doing good, I think that I may have been under-watering them. After reading so much about people over watering their plants I have been just letting them go until the soil is pretty dry in between waterings. So far it has been every 3 days of so but it seems like they really needed it this last round, some of the bottom leaves were yellowing and getting crispy. After a round of watering they regained color and aren't so crispy half way up, they are the very bottom leaves and I'm sure by now the light is barely getting to them.

A couple of them are def showing pistils

but i cannot get a decent pic ---->



Group shots --->






Some purty ladies--->

 

[Buddle]

I built a 336 watt cfl(8 x 42 watt) veg light and my friend flowered five cuts I gave him with it.They came out really good.I was VERY surprised.He got at least 100 gms.The plants were 3+ ft tall when finished.
May I ask why your veg time was so short?

 

[SvenB]

Looking nice man, Ill be watching, good luck.

 

[jimbob420]

veg time was short because the box was short and I am attempting to use the docgreenbuds method of getting bud-sicles, this was started from scratch with bag seed as I wanted to be able to fine tune the box I just built before using better seeds. I know that the doc uses clones but I figured I would try it from seed and put them under 12/12 when they were still small like the clones the doc does.

I already have a couple of ladies showing me some preflowers so I am happy with that, now i just need to ensure we dont have any slick willy type males in there that can get to me ladies .

Next run will be sam the skunkmans original haze X skunk #1 (seedbay freebies) and skywalker.

The girls spent the night in their new home last night, I built a new box on a whim which is much more stealthy than the first one and it is bigger with twice as many lights all hung from the same height.

I found that it was important for the lights to all be around the same level to avoid leaving some bulbs unused.

Pics will follow once the lights come on again...

 

[D Rock]

Good lookin gro. Things are about to start happining and I got a front row seat. Goo luck.

 

[jimbob420]

New box

New box

Well the new box is finally completed and the it will be the lucky ladies new home, the old box was doing well but I could forsee issues as it was very small and it was not very stealthy. So I give you secret garden box #2 -->

By night an unsuspecting giant white box that looks like it was made by a five year old....



By day a mean green growin machine...

 

[jimbob420]

jimbo what are you trying to accomplish by this grow? you will yield next to nothing, plus you run the risk of most of them becoming hermies. When you dont wait till natural pre flowers show you screw up the plant. i jus saw your grow for a second, but do you have any ventilation in your set-up? another thing i would do would be to place all your bulbs horizontally you get more light out of each one. hope this is an experiment on your behalf because your going through alot of work for only about a half oz if your lucky. sorry

Does anyone else agree with this?

 

[Smoke68]

No I don't....
You are doing very well, and the plants are looking nice. He even stated that he just glanced at it for a minute... lol.
12/12 is a great method for seed plants and Atmosphere(another ol' timer from OG) does 12/12 from seed and averages 1g/watt.
So ya got any new pics to gander at?
In the meantime, don't even worry about dopes naysying like this.
Flower on Jimbob!

 

[jimbob420]

Ask and ye shall receive...















Does anyone know what the red discoloration on the leaves means/is? I am thinking possibly nute burn as they got the highest dose they have ever gotten the day before that showed up.

thanks for the support Smoke

 

[arne564]

in the docs grow log he states that stretching is fit into the equation w/his grow method. you are keeping your lights too close for your plants to stretch, and i'm pretty sure that they need to stretch for a bigger yield.

just throwing that out there, i'm not sure if you should keep your lights so close.

 

[jimbob420]

im not sure that's correct, CFL's only give out good light within about 2-3 inches away from the bulb, if the plants were further away they would barely grow. The way I read it, the doc just knows that when he puts in a clone of say strain X that if he puts it in at its sweet spot which would be say once the clone is Y inches tall that it will only end up growing up to be Z inches tall in the end. the examples I remember were if he puts in a 2 inch cutting once it is done flowering it will be about 14 inches tall and will be a "bud-sicle".

 

[arne564]

you should ask the doc and make sure.

 

[jimbob420]

Day 21

Day 21

The ladies are doing great as far as I can tell, there are 7 total and only one has not shown sex yet. Two of the 7 are doing fantastic, they are the ones off to the right. I gave them a good feeding of FE, shultz, and superthrive as they were looking a bit down and they perked up really nicely, I would even have to say I think that they grew a crap load overnight. The only problem I am having is the leafs are looking brown which means something is def going one that shouldnt be. The problem is that the soil gets dry in about 2 days and it starts to pull away from the sides, so should I be feeding about every other day at this point? Does that sound about right? As I said before I think I am underwatering them as I heard about everyone who first starts out overwatering.

Either way even with the small amount of brown on the leaves they are still doing really well and this was just mids bag seed. I am in the process of setting up the other cab for mothers and clones and will get some dolomite lime and better soil and make a new soil mix for the next round and also will be getting a ph tester to check the ph on the tap water as that is what I have been using.

Its all a work in progress and my girlfriend hates that but what can I do, you only learn by trying.

peace

 

[jimbob420]

Timeline

Timeline