Flowering Day 53 - Some plants are failing to thrive

Day 53 into the flowering cycle and half of the plants are starting to show signs of sickness. Possibly due to nutrient imbalance. Unfortunately this has been going on for sometime now. But we didn't realize it was not going to self-correct.

Most of the indica plants appear to be thriving. Leaves are green to dark green. But as you can see in the photos the sativa plants have light green and worse yellow green leaves.

The Sativa were transplanted somewhere around 20 - 30 days into the flowering period.  They went from a 1 gallon smart pot to a 5 gallon smart pot.

Aside from that they have received the same low stress training, topping and feeding as the indica.

Damage Control: 

We're trying to figure out what is needed to bring these beauties back to the healthy dark green color range.

History: 

All plants are being fed on an alternating schedule. Nutrients then the next time is plain pH balanced water and then back to nutrients. Both nutrients and water feedings are pH balanced to around 5.5 - 6.5.

On nutrient feeding days the plants receive, MaxBloom and CalMag. We were trying to keep things simple and not use too many supplements.

The leaves below were pulled off one of the sativa plants shown above. We are not sure at this time if this is a nutrient, light, wind or even ectoparasite issue.

Name that sickness

Seriously we would love to know what the issue is and how to correct it.

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MM's

Day 50 - Trichome close-ups | Super Silver Haze | Super Hash Plant | Northern Lights |

Just rolled past day 50. Plant pistils on many of the indica plants have changed from bleach white to red and curled. Trichomes are being monitored daily for consistency changes.

Two ways to tell when the plants are ready for harvest.

Pistil colors:

<50% darkened pistils the plant is not ripe and the harvested flowers will possess lower amounts of THC.

Many experts will say that THC concentrations have peaked when 60% - 70% of the plant pistils have darkened.

>70% darkened pistils the CBD concentration will start to climb and the high will be more couch-lock in effect.

Trichomes:

When the plant is not ripe the resin will be clear like glass. As the plant ripens the trichomes will become cloudy and then transition to amber color.

Clear Trichomes = unripe flowers, that are still building in THC concentrations

Cloudy Trichomes = highest levels of THC

Amber Trichomes = waited too long to harvest

Using both of these methods in combination is the best way to gauge when your crop is ready to be harvested.

Day 50 - Northern Lights.

Day 50 - Super Silver Haze

Day 50 - Super Hash Plant

So do you think these are ready for harvest?

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MM's

Day 108 overall and Day 33 of Flowering

With this being our inaugural grow. We have been very pleased with the quality of the seeds as well as the growing equipment. We unfortunately learned that one of our best plants had turned into a hermie. This most likely occurred sometime between weeks 2 and 3.

"Hermie" short for hermaphrodite. Meaning that the plant has both male and female flowers. This has both genetic and environmental origins.

Genetic - meaning your seeds or clone came from a plant that was a hermie as well.

Environmental - there are many see below

- changes in the photoperiod. Such as exposing the plants to light during the dark period of flowering
- too much heat
- harvesting too late
- mechanical stress from over training and pruning during vegetative and flowering stages
- over-fertilization

We definitely did not control against all of these factors and are lucky that only one plant went hermie.

Now what to do with a plant that expresses male flowers on only a small area of the entire plant. Most people would suggest tossing the plant because the pollen from a single plant could pollenate the entire crop. We decided to remove the pollen sacks and isolate the plant to the smaller vegetation tent.  We are hopeful that the pollen sacks were removed early enough that the other plants were not seeded.  And by isolating it to a separate tent the plant will be able to grow without seeding in the future. That tent was currently housing early flower clones that we are attempting to re-veg for the next round.  More on monster-vegging at another time.

The isolated plant is now on a 12/12 cycle under 108 watts (12 9w 60w equivalent uncapped LED bulbs). It's interesting to note that the solitary plant appears to be progressing through the flowering cycle more quickly than those under a 600w HPS bulb.

Below are photos of all the plants at Day 33 of flowering. This is day 108 from seed.

Hermie plant photos (under 108w LED system):

Plant photos under 600w HPS system:

Comparison between the two plant set-ups:

Again 600w HPS tent:

Thoughts about the HPS tent.

We are having a little issue with the plants on the right side of the tent. Notice the light green color in the leaves. We aren't sure if this is a natural occurrence as the plants progress through the flowering phase, or if they are low on Nitrogen. We have been pH balancing the water and nutrients. So we aren't sure why only a portion of the crop is experiencing this nutrient deficiency.

And the 108w LED tent:

Thoughts on the LED tent.

This plant appears to be very healthy. It also has a number of hairs turning from white to red/brown.  We are using a jeweler's loupe to look at the trichomes. But we aren't very good at telling if they are cloudy.  With cloudy being the ideal level of THC.

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MM's

One Simple Grow Tent Design

Properly planning out your grow is by far the most important step aside from acquiring viable seeds. If the tent is too small or too large for the growing accessories it's not going to be a good fit. Similarly you need to determine if the room you are using to grow can support the tent.

Below is a 48"x48"x80" grow tent. It has a 600 watt air cooled light with digital digital ballast, with air filter and 440 CFM fan. CFM is short for cubic feet per minute (cu ft/min). It is a measurement of the velocity at which air flows into or out of a space. Both the fan and the light have dimmers which allow the operator to change the strength (50% - 100%).

This is particularly desirable for the fan, as they can be rather loud when at full strength.

How to determine the right CFM fan for your room

Multiple the Length x Width x Height of your grow room or tent. This will give you the cubic feet. Most grow shops suggest a fan that can pull this much cubic feet in 1-3 minutes.  

Personally we went with a stronger model, because we did not know how much resistance the activated charcoal filter and bends in the ducting would add to the fan.  

The filter and the fan are fixed at the top of the tent. This was to prevent any spacing issues as the light hood is raised. The fan pulls the air through the light hood and prevents it from becoming too hot. This means as the plants grow taller the light hood will still have room to move up towards the top of the tent without being a heat hazard.

We chose this option because the noise is greatly reduced with the fan inside the tent.  However if it isn't noisy or bothersome, having the fan outside the tent means less heat being generated inside.

More importantly having the fan close to the filter will increase efficiency.  The cool air will be pulled in from below your plants and up and out through the top of the tent.  Isolating the majority of the heat to the top of the tent.

The fan was securely tied to the top of the tent with string rather than fixed to a wall. This was done to reduce noise from vibrations. The fan when on lowest setting sounds like white noise.

The hot air that is removed from the tent needs to go somewhere. In our case the nearest window of the house was the easiest option. We aren't sure that this is the best solution, so we created a simple window vent.  This fan is strong enough to be combined with a second tent.  When we purchased it, that wasn't something we were considering but it will save on a second fan.  Buying larger is not always best, but in this case it worked out.

NEVER VENT INTO YOUR ATTIC
Moisture will leave the grow tent / grow room through the vents.  If you vent into the attic or similar space, there is a risk of mold.  Venting outside through a air filter system is a good way to avoid this issue altogether.

Since this is not a permanent fixture. We went with a foam sealant. This was selected because it is reliable and inexpensive. There are also many products that safely and effectively remove it.

Major takeaways

• Plan out everything you do before you do it. Even if you do this, it is still possible you're going to realize later there is a better to do it. We end up trekking back to the hardware store a lot because our initial plan ended up not being perfect. But at least we had that for a baseline.

• Research all products you are considering buying. The customer reviews are a great indicator of product quality and also best practice. If you don't find a lot of people doing something a certain way, there is probably a reason not to try it.  

• Make sure you're buying the right sizes for the space you have to grow in. You don't want to get lights/fan systems that are too weak or too strong.

• Most importantly - Have fun but do your homework. There is a lot of online material and friendly forum support for indoor cultivation.

• Less fun Disclaimer: Obey all laws when cultivating marijuana in your area. Do not put yourself or others at risk for harm, and take all precautions when DIYing.  

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MM's

Day 72 - Just under 2 weeks post super cropping

Twelve days have passed since the sativa on the left were FIMm'ed, and the 4 indica plants on the right were super cropped.

Our initial feelings...

Sativa plants - We don't feel that FIMming was the right option.  Only one of the three sativa plants bushed out.  The others are still displaying strong apical dominance.  As a result we decided to top all of them today.  This should force them to bush out rather than continue to grow tall.

Indica plants - Super-cropping on a whole seems to have really worked for the indica plants.  We are noticing that the left two indica plants are moving slower and are not as large.  The top right indica has really responded well to the super-cropping, has a patch of yellowing leaves.  And lastly the bottom right indica is stretching out horizontally rather than bushing out.  

Here is a picture of the sativa plant that best responded to being FIMmed.  Nearly all lower growth areas started growing after the cut.  We had read that FIMming isn't perfect.  And since one of three turned out good, we would suggest topping if you aren't experienced with this technique.

Indica with lots of horizontal stretching.  We are not sure why this plant is becoming so lengthy, but hopefully this will mean a lot of flower sites once the vertical growing kicks in.

Best super-cropped plant to date.  Aside from a yellowing patch of fan leaves dead smack in the middle of the plant, it has really opened up the number of potential flowering sites.  Last count was in the high teens.

Next Move

Sativa's - We are going to pull the three sativa plants out of the tent and put them back under the LED lights.  They will continue to be trained and filled out for the next grow cycle.  That space will allow the indica plants to keep growing before flipping to flower

Indica's - As mentioned above the plan is to continue to veg out the four indica plants until they have expanded to fill most of the canopy.  This should be done in about two more weeks.  Then the lighting will be switched over to 12/12


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MM's

Day 60 - Marijuana Plant Training Begins (super cropping & FIMing)

Day 60 - Marijuana Plant Training Begins (super cropping & FIMing)

The plants are not bushing out as much as we had hoped they would naturally do.  So today ~ 60 days into the vegetative stage, the indica were super cropped and the sativa were FIMed.

The outer four larger smart pots are the Indica's which were super cropped, and the stem was kept in place with a twisty tie and binder clip.

The inner row of smaller smart pots are the Sativa and were FIMed rather than just topped.

Possible sick plant issues: These plants were all off nutrients for about a week. We are going to bring them back into a vegetative friendly nutrient feed at the next watering cycle.  We are hoping that with food these plants will regain their darker green color.

As a safety precaution the 600 watt light was also raised slightly today.

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MM's

Day 31 - Finally some signs of Greener futures

Day 31 - Finally some signs of Green!!!

So we had a little luck in the past 5 days.  What did we learn.

Coco is an inert medium.  Growing in coco means you are going to be introducing nutrients on a regular schedule.  That is something we did not do for the first 25 days.

In 6 days we have seen almost all 7 of the seedlings double in size.  Many have developed at least one new node in that time.  Finally seeing a little stretching too.

Currently we are feeding 1/4 strength of 5-5-5 fertilizer.  3 Fert feeds and then 1 pure water to prevent any nutrient lock.  Drip to waste style watering.  Lights are still 18/6 (~ 108 Watts of uncapped LED bulbs).

To prevent potential stretching.  The distance between the light and the plants is now ~20 inches.  It was previously around ~24 inches.

Feels pretty good to know that we are slowly getting out of the seedling phase of the grow.  And to have only lost 1 seedling along the way to this point.

Here is are the latest photos of the ladies:

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MM's