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ShaggyGrower
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Hi All,

 

I'm a newby grower. 

 

I've recently started a new grow with seeds bought from a seedbank (current grow is nearing completion - 2 bag seeds, no idea of strain).

Anyhoo, I have germinated feminized four seeds: Dutch Kush; Duch Dragon; Nebula; and White Berry (all from Paradise Seeds).

All four germinated in soggy tissue although the White Berry was a very small seed and had only just cracked when I planted into 'TROPIC BAT MIX'.

They're in a 0.6m x 0.9m x 0.6m Bay 6 tent under a 125w CFL (Blue).  Humidity is ~ 80% and temp ~ 83°F.

Dutch Kush and Nebula are bottom left and bottom right respectively.

I'm going to be using the Shogun range of fertilizers, although not for a while as the Tropic Bat Bix should do for the next 4-5 weeks I think.

IMG_20171018_114725.jpg

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Heyo,

Look at those babies!
Do you intend growing them low? Or you're going to change the grow tent?
Just a couple tips. 
- Try to water only what you think is the current "root zone". You'll avoid overwatering.
- Take a 500ml plastic bottle, remove the cap, cut it in half and place it above the sprout. You'll raise humidity, while supplying oxygen, giving more days for Tip n°1 to dry out.
I say this cause i overwatered my babies, resulting in a slower growth. 
I want my babes to grow low, but not by overwatering :D

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I'll be Topping, LST-ing, and Lollypopping to attempt a Screen Of Green (~9 x 4 main colas). 

This is just the 60cm x 90cm x 60cm seedling tent.  The 1.2m x 1.2m x 2.0m is occupied by those you've seen on the other thread. 

Their growing medium is still on its first soak from when I planted the germinated seeds.  I've only added a splash of Shogun Katana Roots since (once).

Thanks for the tips.  What humidity should I be aiming for in the seedlings micro-microclimate (under the plastic bottle)?

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I guess your actual Humidity is fine after all, i missed the 80% sentence.
Humidity should be 75-85% Seedling, 50-75% VEG and 35-55% BLOOM. 
I apply the half bottle because i grow in my bedroom, and humidity is stable at 50% all the time. Putting the bottle on top raises it at 70-80%, but remember to leave the cap open. 
If i may, top them when they developed the 6th node, and top between the 4th and 5th node. 
I topped mine just above the third node, cause i wanted her to grow very, very flat. 
Last question, did you build or buy your grow room(s)? They look nice :3

 

Peace

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DD (Dutch Dragon) and Nebula are doing well, with DD now taller (5cm) than Nebula (3cm). 

No sight of Dutch Kush or White Berry breaking soil yet.  White Berry had only just cracked it's shell case when I planted it, although Dutch Kush (DK) had a nice a tap root (1.5cm), as the happy/long as DD & Nebula had when planted.

I decided to have a look at DK and found it's tap root had shrivelled up :sorry:  I've popped an Ice Cream (IC) in some water to germinate to take over from DK if it (and I suspect it will) die.  Fingers crossed for White Berry, and DK :clapping:.

Regarding topping at what node LedCherryBerry, I was thinking of topping like you, after node three as I'd like to keep them short; not run out of space this time; and attempt Sea Of Green.  I think I have about 1.4m of grow room in my 2m tent (minus final pot height and light dangling space).

Spec says Dutch Dragon (1.3m); Dutch Kush (1.2m); Ice Cream (1.1m); Nebula (1.2m); and White Berry (1.0m) so they're within that range, but I want some wiggle room just in case my method induces extra stretching.

Regarding the grow tents - I bought them unassembled and assembled them (Growell).  In fact, I've got much of my gear from Growell with the rest from Amazon and seeds from Paradise Seeds.

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Heyo,

All my thoughts to the DK. Hope that seed lives :3

I've read on forums people like to top between the 4th and 5th node, somebody else tops at the 3rd, others top when the plant are almost ready to flower. I personally prefer to let my babies grow a bit more, and then top them at a height where i want her to be, and where i see i'll have a good amount of colas. 
I also wanted to clarify that it's the first time i topped myself. I've witnessed topping before, but i wasn't in full control of the grow. 
And i also want to clarify that i've topped only 1 out of the 3 subjects i'm growing. 

I also wanted to tell you that strain height on strain specs says totally nothing. 
My second grow was 1 seed Critical Haze+, and the other 5 were Red Cherry Berry. 
The 5 reds grew in a way that made each one distinguishable from one another. They all varied in height (from 50 to 140cm), while giving the same nutes, the same light, same enviroment.
What really matters is the way you want them to grow. If you want them low, use LST or supercropping, or SOG, or Scrog... There are millions of ways.

I've also read that Blue light increases the chance of developing short internodes, while red light did the opposite. 
I've seen that in my actual greenhouse, too. I cover my gh with an opaque veil, and that one blocks blue light. My tomato spec says the plant should grow 50-80 cm tall, but they grew 2.5 meters. Also chili peppers are monsters in height (100-130 cm). They all gave flowers and fruit btw, like that was their normal enviroment. 

So for my indoor grow box i bought 4 blue led lights, and 4 full spectrum. I let the blue led lights to come closer to the plants, and the full spectrum stay higher. When blooming comes, i increase the height of the blue lamps while reducing the full spectrum's. In this way i keep the distance, while increasing or decreasing certain frequencies. 

Anyway, one rule to remember. When you switch to bloom, plant will (mostly) double in size, rarely triple. So if you intend to grow them 1 meter tall, you should switch them at 50cm approx. 

Sorry if this is too long, i wish you succeed in this with all my heart, cause i remember how many times I fucked up hehehehe.
Peace! 

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Thanks LedCherryBerry (long posts are fine by me).  DK's still in intensive care.  WB (White Berry) maybe making a breakout (of soil), although I could just be seeing a spec of what I want to see:rofl:. The IC (Ice Cream) seed is now not floating, so I've transferred to moist tissue to germinate.  Hopefully they'll catch up to DD and Nebula (5cm & 3 cm respectively).

Thanks for the info on topping.  I've got time yet.  The seedlings are under a blue 125w CFL.  When they're done seedlinging, they'll go in the big tent with the HPS (250w/400w/600w/660w settings) and I'll move the CFL in there with them also (250w HPS & 125w CFL - HPS set low for the first 1-2 weeks in veg).  Hopefully that'll keep the intermodal length shorter.

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RIP DK.  WB also not sprouting through soil yet.  While there is still some hope for WB, I'm soaking a Jacky White (JW) seed to replace the WB to go with the IC that's replacing the DK.  I'd like four plants in total.

DD & Nebula doing fine.

To recap, I hope now to have: Dutch Dragon - 75% Sativa; Nebula - 60% Sativa; Ice Cream - 60% Indica; and Jacky White - 75% Sativa.

 

IMG_20171020_090137.jpg

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Hi ShaggyGrower :)

 

These two look healthy, although I see in all the photos the substrate very wet. Is it possible that there is excess water? Personally I always like to see the substrate a little drier, and go watering with little quantity.

the new options to replace the empty pots, sound interesting :)

 

Cheers

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Rest in peace DK, hope you'll find your green brothers in weed heaven.

I agree with Jose, soil is a bit too wet. I'm saying this cause i overwatered mine too, even tho they survived. We all overlove our babies hehe.
Try to place a really small fan inside, you'll move the air and help dry the pots a bit. 
Don't worry about humidity, try to place the half bottles like i said before if you are concerned about it.
Remove the half bottles when the first set of leaves touch the bottle sides.

To help further drying, try to elevate your pots by placing small things beneath. In this way you'll increase air flow near the roots, helping them to breathe and, consequently, the pot to dry. When i started this grow, i had no fan, nor elevated pots, and they dried in 8-10 days. They now dry in 3-4 days.

As @Jose.gh says, it is preferable to leave them a bit dry, instead of a bit wet. You can always increase water in a matter of secs, but you'll have to wait a long time to decrease it. 

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58 minutes ago, ShaggyGrower said:

Every day is like Christmas morning with these guys!


I know right? I've spent my last 2 months buying stuff from amazon (forgot this, buy that, shit that looks awesome etc) so each working day was like becoming kid again.
It's the only time you're actually glad you spent money on something!

Do you, by chance, know about some fan which isn't noisy? The fan i'm running currently uses 5Watts, but is loud as an old Pentium 3 computer. I wish i find one that lets me sleep at night hehe. Thanks in advance :3
Peace

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My fans are quite loud as well LedCherryBerry, although I've fortunate to have my grow in the spare bedroom so I don't hear it. So unfortunately I can't recommend a quiet fan.

Was away all day yesterday and came back lunch time today and the tissue had dried out with IC seed in it. I think I can see a little crack & tail so have re-moistened the tissue and put the now-sunk JW seed in there as well to germinate.  I have been error-prone through germination with these :sorry:

 

DD & Nebula doing fine.  DD is 6.5cm and Nebula 3.5cm and starting to show their first true leaves (not the 1st cotyledons nor the 2nd single leave but a third set)imageproxy.php?img=&key=cc9043a29a0f0558

IMG_20171021_125128.jpg

Edited by ShaggyGrower
added photo
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ShaggyGrower,

Sorry I hadn't seen this grow journal until just now.

 

I see that you are having problems with the seedling stage, and I know why.

 

Your soil looks too dense, and therefore it holds too much water and doesn't allow very much oxygen to the roots.  Cannabis must have oxygen at its roots in order to grow optimally.  Your soil contains no Perlite (or a similar material) which is essential to allow the soil to drain well and to allow oxygen to get to the roots between waterings. 

 

It may be too late to try to correct this for these babies since they are so far along, but maybe you'll be lucky and they might survive this stage.

 

But I do highly recommend that you prepare the soil for the final pots using significant amounts of Perlite.

 

Also, in the future, (I assume that these are not Autos) your first seedling pot should be smaller.  only about 4 or 5 inches.  If the seedling pot is too big (as is this red one), then watering is difficult to judge, and your signal to transplant (the root-tips showing at the bottom of the pot) occurs much too late.

 

Also, the soil that is used for the seedling should not be so rich as "bat soil mix".  Again, you might be lucky; they might survive to the transplant stage, but seedlings need virtually no nutrients for the first couple weeks because they are being fed from their cotyledons (baby leaves).  And seedlings are very susceptible to nutrient burn until they have established their roots.  Usually, it is best to wait until after the cotyledons begin to shrivel up before introducing any nutrients. 

 

For the future, I would recommend your using just simple seedling soil with nothing except some Perlite added for the seedling stage.  Save the bat soil mix for use with Perlite and a number of other amendments when mixing your soil for the final pots.

 

If you haven't yet seen how to mix soil for cannabis, I recommend that you view some recipes for "supersoil for cannabis".  Use these words in search on Google or on YouTube, and you will see many recipes.  By viewing these recipes, you will begin to get an idea how to mix soil for cannabis.

 

Good Luck forward-going.

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Thanks Cannabissapean.  I was beginning to suspect that the bat mix (40% Coco, 60% peat, with added bat poop) was too strong a mix to put germinated seeds straight into. Thanks for the confirmation.

Initially, I had thoroughly soaked the medium then put the germinated seeds into it (half an inch deep) thinking this would be good, but alas not.  I dug into the ones I expected to have died and found the medium was quite compacted due to excessive moisture as you suspected :sorry: IC and JW went into the somewhat dried out old DK & WB pots, after fluffing/breaking up the medium and adding some dry medium.  I've just dug IC and JW up.  IC was not looking happy so have transferred back into soggy tissue to try to revive. JW had grown a longer tap root that also did not look too happy.  I've replanted JW with the seed head at the surface so she gets a little light and might be able to perk up/shed her shell case and get those cotyledons working .  If these two die, I shall germinate two more seeds and plant them in a medium you suggest (smaller pots and seedling soil).

I'm pretty sad I'm a cannabis seed murderer atm :sorry:

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b48fu1.jpg

 

They're alive!

 

DD (Dutch Dragon) and Nebula are doing well at the back, and after some surgery last night removing shell casings, IC (Ice Cream - bottom left ) and JW (Jacky White - bottom right) look like they're going to make it as well,  Sensi Star still in soggy tissue awaiting germination and from there I'll be trying Root!t rooting sponges.

 

 

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Look at those beauties!
Welcome to our world, babies!
Also love the photo above.

I wanted to tell you: do not feel too guilty about the germination.
I too have different methods i try out each time, i don't have a constant one.
I also try first to put them directly in soil.
My thoughts are that nature does NOT provide a wet tissue, and seeds just fall in the ground. It's the conditions that need to be precise. 

But this technique CAN and WILL fail eventually.

Prior to the sowing, i had 4 seeds. 3 of those were Bagseed, and one was an "automatic skunk" a friend found lying around in his house, still in the box.
I put the auto-skunk in soil, and it never germinated: i waited 8 days. I dig up the seed, only to my surprise that it didn't even broke the shell. 
I removed it, and planted a bagseed. The bagseed germinated in 2 days, so i planted the other 2 bagseed. The soil i used, water i gave, humidity, light, whatever, was the same as the auto seed. I tried to germinate the auto-skunk seed in a wet tissue, but no luck there either. 

I concluded that the seed must've been dead since.

It is possible that the 2 seeds you planted weren't alive in the first place. 

Either way, i am so happy to see that you have 2 newcomers! May they grow big and smelly!

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Growing, at different rates which is nice.  Added some virtually (light brown) dry medium to support ~1 inch of stem .  SS (Sensi Star) has been put in a small pot with the medium including perlite. 10ml of water added, total weight of pot 83.35g.  Gave DD & Nebula a mini leaf jet wash with a small syringe of pure water to wash those foliar spray residue marks off. 

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Day 10 of seedling stage for (back left and right) DD and Nebula and they're looking very nice.  JW (middle right) doing well as well and SS fledged last night (small pot).  IC struggling, but growing very, very slowly.  I think the tap root nearly died and so she's been fighting to grow more new root and she's winning against Death.

They're under a single 125w blue CFL 24 hours a day atm.  Foliar spray is EC 0.062 / 31ppm water.  I've given them a little root solution (Shogun Katana Roots).

Stated flowering time is:

Dutch Dragon: 63-70 days
Nebula: 60-65 days
Ice Cream: 55-60 days
Jacky White: 60 days
Sensi Star: 56-63 days


Hopefully they will grow together and get along :rofl:

28102017_New_Grow.jpg

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Day 12 of seedling phase. Everything is good in the garden.  DD and Nebula are making their 4th real set of leaves. JW growing second real set. IC and SS  still trying to create first real set of leaves. Very, VERY tight nodes atm on all plants.

I've started DD & Nebula on the Shogun feed cycle, so top-watering water (as well as very low ec 0.030 foliar spray with nothing in it) contains 5ml/l Katana Roots and 2ml/l Samurai Terra Grow.

I've stood the propagation tent on end so it's now 90cm high by 60cm x 60cm, and also put a bodged reflector (cardboard & white printer paper) just above the CFL at about 45cm to reflect light back down quicker (rather than travelling up to 90cm - CFL's lose a lot of power with distance).

Light cycle still on 24hrs a day with a 125w CFL 3 inches from canopy (~170k lumens).

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Day 13 of seedling stage for DD & Nebula.  Perhaps those two are now in veg - not too sure of the cutover from seedling to veg.  125w CFL still on 24hrs per day. Growth is motored along last (human-) night.

Topped DD and Nebula (NVclosetmedgrower topped around this growth point).  They're left with their cotyledons, their first single-fingered set of leaves, their first three-fingered set of leaves; their first two sets of five-fingered (perhaps the second is a seven-fingered) leaves.

 

 

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Day 14 of seedling stage for DD & Nebula.  Today I switch them to 18/6 - so they're officially in day 1 of veg.

 

I still have JW, IC and SS that need 24hrs lighting in the small tent, and my big tent is not available at the moment, so I've set some alarms and placed DD & Nebula in the clothes airing cupboard (dark and warmish) for 6 hours a day and then they'll go back under the 125w CFL with JW, IC and SS.

 

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