Hey all, so.. I thought I would try to post the dets for my first grow, or where I'm at up to now, at least. I'm on day 35-40 with my plants which I germinated a few at a time over a period of several days, then popped them into seedling containers I left in the window for about 8-10 days.
About the seeds, I found them in some Orange Cookies buds I had through a friend, but he's not not really sure about many details..so I don't know if the seeds are feminized, or if they are auto or photo. I'm gonna assume they are photo until I know otherwise, I guess, unless someone has a better strategy to tell?
3x3 plant tent arrived on day 10 and I switched them to a 18x6 cycle after I set up the light (300W Vivosun LED). I have the plants in a soil/coco 50/50 mix using some organic potting plus foxfarms coco. They aren't as big as some that I've seen on YouTube but the plants were really perking up under the grow lights and had put on about 5 nodes before I decided to top them at 3.5 weeks.
Here's what I've done to them so far:
At 3 weeks: Transplanted to 1 Gal fabric containers, added Azos and Mycorrhizae beneficial bacteria, added Miracle Grow plant food.
Otherwise they've been getting water daily. I've ordered some organic bug spray (organicide 3 in 1) and Cal Mag which I'll start adding to the feed when it arrives this week.
They seem to have recovered well from the topping, and I've been doing some early low stress training with them as well (maybe a little over-agressive?) but in any case they probably need to be left alone for a week and start to stretch a bit now.
Because I don't know the sex, I have kept all 12 of my original plants, and I've been trying to train them all to start to grow in a spiral as I don't have a tone of room for them to grow out with present conditions.
I'm wondering when the plants will show their sex, as that could drastically change things one way or another. IF I find out 50% or more are male it would not be a surprise. On the other hand, could the seeds have been feminized? It's a mystery I guess!
@oc-hybrid Welcome to Percys mate!
Pretty much, from seed, a plant wil not flower for at least 4 weeks, regardless of light cycle. it has to be mature first, which takes about 4-5 weeks. Then it will start flowering.
once its over 4-5 weeks old, it will flower under 12/12, and you'll see flower start to from within 7 days, male flowers will show a little sooner than female flowers, but the key is looking for the white hairs 
Some claim to be able to tell if seeds are female or not, but ive never seen any good evidence to prove this is right. the best wy to tell is to flower them when they are old enough
@macky thanks mate! I kinda figured it would be something like that. Given where the plants are at now, I guess I’ll plan to grow them in veg for a few more weeks until they bush out a bit then switch light cycles and cross my fingers. Cheers!
Another nice day out and I'm indoors working (a bit, perhaps), but at least the garden which is taking half of my office seems to going alright so far. Hope everyone is off to a good start this week 🤠
As you can see, it's starting to feel a bit crowded in the grow-room. The initial plan was to flower these plants to see if they're female or no, but I'm realizing that means it will be a little challenging to get feminized seeds from this batch, which was a goal I had in the back of my mind.
As the plants get bigger it seems more obvious that they need more room and are already bumping up against each other with a few weeks of veg to go at least.
So I actually found a plant DNA kit online that charged $9 a plant to find out the sex, and I went ahead and popped as I am thinking it would be better to cull the males and get 5 of the best females into bigger pots before flowering, rather than try to react further down the line and maybe sacrifice some yield. Plus I am a big nerd and want to check out the DNA kit process.
I ordered my kit from Delta Leaf last Thursday and got a receipt emailed immediately, then a follow up email Saturday to say the kits had been shipped. Typically folks would be using this service for seedlings, but I'm just finding out about this so I'll let you know how it goes for me.
Other than the kit it's mostly regular service around here. I'm watering each morning, and misting my plants in the afternoon to check in on them and lower the temp a bit as it can get into the 80's F in this part of the house.
The plants are showing some nice growth this last week, and seemed to be managing the low stress training with no big problems. I trained the plants a bit more this week and added another round of Miracle Grow at 1/2 recommended potency at mid-week. I'll switch over to Cal-Mag for feeding on the next feed cycle.
Next week I'll be 1) collecting DNA as soon as the test kits arrive tomorrow and 2) spraying 3-in-1 Organicide.
How does it look? Let me know if you've ever used any DNA kits before? I'm stateside so the company I'm using is based in California. I'll report back how that goes.. 🤠 🤠
Here's a shot from today, day 38.
Welcome back to the grow tent pardners! 🤠 It's more than a bit crowded now after another solid week of growing, and all 12 plants seem to be looking pretty strong.
Updating from last week, I received the Delta Leaf DNA kits in the mail, and upon closer viewing of the instructions and the video how-to, everything tells you to use cotyledons rather than the true leafs for DNA tracing. Personally I'm a bit stumped as to why that would be so I used true leafs on my 10 best plants to get samples, and then sent them back to the company. They'll get the samples back early next week, and should have the results by the end of next week, fingers crossed.
I'm also preparing myself for the possibility that the test won't have been conclusive for some reason (like for example, I didn't use the right leaves). In which case, I suppose I'll be switching to flower as soon as I find out, given how crowded the tent is already.
Since I had bought only 10 tests, I had to choose a couple plants to cull (sad!) including this gal (or guy). Nothing really wrong, just a tad bit smaller than some of the others. It would be nice to find an outdoor space to improve with such a plant but we will see how practical that ends up to be.
Otherwise I sprayed some SuperThrive as I really am digging that they won the 1940 World's Fair. Impressive! This is made from kelp and has B1 which I understand acts as a topical growth hormone when sprayed. The leaves seemed to make an extra burst of growth the next days after being applied.
And the following day I sprayed some Organicide 3-in-1 bug spray, which smelled pretty fishy in the tent but impressively, the carbon filter seem to be working out as I can't really pick up the smell much just outside the tent. Here's another one that made the cut to get tested, hoping it's a lady plant and I suppose we will soon see.
Otherwise it's just been water, some training and topping to manage height and shape, and some regular pruning. Hopefully the DNA tests work; otherwise it seems like I'll probably have to speed this whole grow up a bit for space reasons. 🤠 🤠
very nice mate. Packed out in there. Youre gonna need a bigger boat lol
Well pardners it's been a week of growth, at least for my plants. 🤠
As Fast Five Freddy famously pronounced, It's like a jungle sometimes. Makes me wonder, how I keep from going under..
I went ahead and took all the plants out to have a sweep of the tent and take a pic of each plant, so we can get a good look at 'ya.
This week was a little busy. I tied the plants down and lollipop'ed them as it would be helpful to keep them as tidy as possible given space constraints. I fed with Cal-Mag at half concentration at 6.2 pH and re-fed my beneficial bacteria.
The DNA samples will have arrived at the facility later today so I'm still hoping to have some confirmation of sex by Friday. However, in addition to the problem with space, I think I'm seeing signs that the plants need bigger pots, as they are still in 1-Gallons.
Can you make out the rooting activity around the bottom of the pot? I'm thinking I have maybe 10 days before these guys could start to be root-bound, so I really need to figure out who I can keep soon.
With that in mind, I'm thinking about starting the change to 12-12 light cycle to induce flowering. What do you think, is it about time to make the change?
When I do switch, I take it I should give the plants an hour less light each night. I guess I should go off and learn how to re-program this timer (last time I figured it out was weeks ago and I'm sure I've forgotten.)
Cheers and happy growing y'all 🤠 🤠
No real need to step down the light cycle. It’s much easier to just flip to 12/12 and be done with it. Never had a problem with this and you only need adjust the timer once. The plants look real happy so great job mang.
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Some good looking plants you have there, well done and good luck rest of the way.
Boys are gone! About to transplant 🤠
Healthy looking girls there OC
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Hey all, here we are post-transplant. Day 3 of flower, and after closer inspection 6/12 were girls. What are the odds? 🤠
I figured I might keep 5 of the girls in 3 Gallon containers for the 40"x40" tent. Natural selection soon spoke up as I dropped and broke one of the girls transplanting. Fortunately I hadn't cut down the girl I was thinking to cull, and life goes on. Here are the survivors.
Seems like the DNA test was pointless in my case, but I've kept track of which plants were which sex and and going to see if the tests are accurate at least, for my next time growing non-feminized seeds. Seems the service would be handy early in the cycle to be able to give the plants the amount of room they need.
I'm switching to Advanced Nutrients's 3-part formula at 70% concentration for the rest of the way, as I filled in the roots with 80% coco, and hoping to make sure I feed properly from here out. They're in drainable fabric pots so hopefully no big issues with watering or nutrients.
My next project is to go ahead and choose a couple bud sites to spray with colloidal silver, as I would like to get some feminized seeds, in case this batch turns out well. So far the grow has gone relatively smoothly thanks to a lot of the folks around here. Appreciate the help guys and happy growing! 🤠 🤠
Hmm, I'm a little worried this could be a problem. I'm getting a dehumidifier tomorrow anyway, but does this look like some kind of fungus issue? I've seen this on a couple satellite bud sites, and the affected buds appear dry and grey.
Thanks for the word ! 🤠 🤠
Born and bred in the briar patch, that's me. 🤠
Day 5 of flower. Except for the fungus(?) issue that I posted, the girls appear to be happy in their new 3 Gallon pots with no signs of transplant shock. I added Azos and Mycorrizhae into the new medium, which was 80% coco. The ladies were tough to cut out of the old 1-Gallon fabric pots, and it's a really good thing I didn't try to wait at all on the transplant.
Almost forgot to mention, but the DNA test from Delta Leaf came back, and they were all accurate. So it seems the learning there is that you CAN use true leaves to test from later in the cycle if you so choose, and they still work. Just give the labs a couple extra days for turnaround (plus the mail service is slower on the way to the facility these days) so plan for a couple weeks from the time the kit is sent in to the time results are sent back by email.
I'm a little nervous about that fungus issue so immediately switched my oscillating fan to go all the time, and made sure to cut down on any overwatering. I've got a nice dehumidifier on the way that has a built in hygrometer which will be useful for drying as well. I also sprayed again with the Bee Safe 3-in-1 Organicide.
As there is more room in the tent and possibly a while to go before flower completes (I'm planning on 9 week cycle, but not sure as no real info on my genetics) I've tied down my main tops again.
Got my main buds tied down again.
I'm using pH perfect Micro-Grow-Bloom nutrients starting this week and adding Carboload and Big Bud products from Advanced Nutrients. I mix up a batch at full strength and dilute to 70% for water/feed. Let me know if you have any ideas for that issue I posted. Am I right to chalk that up to fungus?
Thanks all and happy growing! 🤠 🤠
@oc-hybrid looks good oc hope you sort your problems with her out mate but otherwise looking beautiful mate very well done job and did you actually go and get a dna test done on your plants if so what specifics does it tell or was it just a gender test?
Hey Josh thanks buddy! The place is called Delta Leaf Lab
I just got the sex analysis done there, but they apparently do things like plant and fungus species analysis. The sex test works fine, next time I plant regular seeds I plan to use them again (grow week 2 or so).
Unclear what caused that one node to die like that but as long as it’s not spread, you’re good. Didn’t look fungus to me but I had little to go on. All plants are different so chalk it up to nature. Start with just the base nutes for now. The additions come later in flower but you probably already knew this and begin at a very low rate, like 1/4 recommended on all the nutes. If she takes the feed well you can increase it easily but you cannot unfeed her if she’s not happy. So far looking good.
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Thanks for the look-see @monkeydo.. I'll take it down a notch on the nutes for now, never hurts to be safe. Cheers!
Hey what's happening all? Just thought I'd post a quick flower Day 7 pic of the girls as I corrected the canopy with some serious top tying and did some kinda serious defoliation to try to get light on any medium tops I could find. The girls are ready for me to leave them alone for a while but they look happy. 🤠
I'm starting to see a few medium-large sized tops and getting a bit excited for harvest. I've been removing the small tops that won't produce along the way. Each of the plants really seems to have a different personality in a way, but I am expecting big things from plant in the last pic below, her leaves are wider and she is getting a bit of purple/copper color coming into her fan leaves.
The biggest difference in the plants is the way they were trained. The plant I super-cropped (3/5) is nice and well-distributed. The plant I left un-topped is the weakest of the bunch in terms of bud distribution (pic 4/5) but is still coming along. The two I topped (1/5 & 2/5) did well but not as nice as the plant that got topped twice (pic 5/5). It's been really interesting watching the different plants develop and feel I'm learning a lot as we go.
In related news, I picked up beans for the next grow, I've got some Obsoul33t Genetics Orange Cookies x High Octane and FPOG x Orange Sour Dub picked out for the next grow, where I'll be checking out some known genetics for the first time. I'm surprised how much fun it's been growing so far, and looking forward to getting some variety in the tent next go round. Hopefully a nice harvest to get rolling before that, sticky fingers crossed!
OK that's all for now.. happy growing! 🤠 🤠
@oc-hybrid Looking good OC gonna be wall to wall buds in there
Sativa to change the things I can, Indica to accept the things I can’t.
@oc-hybrid very nice job man. Im starting to wonder also what would have been the result if I had topped 1 of my outdoors, oh well lol. Its cool that you've tried different methods with each of the plants so you can get a feel of what you see works best for you aswell. Gonna be a smashing show in there once the buds start popping out everywhere!!!
@colacody Cody as tall as your plants are getting, sure they would be monsters regardless:)
But thanks, and yeah I won't be afraid to top next time around, and I'll probably try to experiment with something else next time, probably run two different nutrient setups I think.
Sweet stuff. The tent looks very happy mate. Time to make some buds 
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