CFL Grow L.A. Confidential

Noooo. Lol. My "friend" is starting a dinafem diesel as well, I was wanting to watch along and see how she treats ya, and on your last post you are contemplating putting it elsewhere.

Keep on keepin' on!

K

Edit* - you know wally world has those ten dollar grow lights right? My friend uses them for his clones and babys. Still, if you got three of those, I think it would boost your overall growth. Good job btw, things look good.

koulajitong said:

Noooo. Lol. My "friend" is starting a dinafem diesel as well, I was wanting to watch along and see how she treats ya, and on your last post you are contemplating putting it elsewhere.

Keep on keepin' on!

K

Edit* - you know wally world has those ten dollar grow lights right? My friend uses them for his clones and babys. Still, if you got three of those, I think it would boost your overall growth. Good job btw, things look good.

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She's just getting taller than the others. It's understandable due to the genetics. The Dinafem seeds were freebies, so it's not a huge loss. I know I'll be able sample it when finished, etc. If I had more room or were better prepared.......I'd keep her. I was gonna hook my buddy up with clones anyway. I think it will be better this way because it will be tougher for me to stay on top of 3 dif sets of genetics and feeding schedules. I ordered the LA Con because it's an indica. She's staying true to form, short and stocky. Plus, even though I was fairly satisfied with a full grow of 2700k lighting, I really don't want the extra height that comes from that spectrum. The Diesel being sativa dominant might get to tall, before going into flower. And one more thing.......I'm not sure with my set up that I really need to be messing with multiple flowering times.

To add to my last post.....eventually there will be cabinets coming into play. Or a cabinet and a tent. The cabinet I'm talking about I already own. It's a double decker steel cabinet with separate chambers. It's perfect to use for cloning and vegging. The cabinet or tent for flowering.....I'm not dead set on yet. It's a money thing, like damn near everyone on here. The great thing about this community is that there's a ton of great info here to adapt and recycle things. And if that doesn't work, you can save a few bucks by getting ideas from others.

spots on la con is nothing I would worry about, should clear up now that you upcanned. Would back off on the molasses as it can cause lockouts if you use to much. and CMH is the bomb IMO no other light compares.

every thing looks great keep it up i will keep checking in to see whats up nice job

riddleme said:

spots on la con is nothing I would worry about, should clear up now that you upcanned. Would back off on the molasses as it can cause lockouts if you use to much. and CMH is the bomb IMO no other light compares.

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Thanks Riddle. As a mater of fact I read that abut molasses on one of your threads as well. Actually, I probably won't even add more until I go into flower.

embry928 said:

every thing looks great keep it up i will keep checking in to see whats up nice job

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Thanks bro please do.

OK, count me in, I wanna see how the LA Con works out for ya. Doing great so far, keep it up

I'll have to take more pictures tonight. I've never had plants recover from a transplant as quick as these two that got placed into the smart pots. This includes all of the plants, like roses I've transplanted outside. The LA Con is a tough bitch ready to take on the world. She's got tons of secondary branching going on under the bigger leaves. I'm sure it's a combination of things that I've just learned along the way. Most of it from here.

Here are the pics. They're recovering nicely. In fact, they didn't miss a beat. The Diesel was watered at the same time. You can see how much faster the soil dries with the smart pots. There's something to this root pruning and letting the roots get air via the side of the pot. I'm sold on this idea. In the time since the repotting, the indicas have caught back up height wise. If my buddy can't take the Diesel tomorrow I have no choice but to add more light. I own more, so it's not a big deal. I'll be less inclined to get rid of her then though. Oh well, such is life huh?

Ok, So I'm doing my normal gig and reading a bunch of stuff on here. And I figured I'd add some info as to what's going on in my head so you can see there's method to my madness as well. A guy on here Hobbes has a ton of great info here. https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/360125-new-growers-needed-grow-lab.html This was an early thread I read and followed as it developed. My current situation only allows me to apply elements from it. He turned me onto the idea of root pruning. It made sense, he posted links. Off I went I did more reading. Other guys are using it in other forms of growing. I'm like like a lot of us in that low buck is cool. My first batch of root pruning pots had some benefit, but I think I fell short. The Cups I used were a 20oz cottage cheese cup. The holes were maybe 1/8 inch. Tons of them all over. The second pic shows the LA Confidential's root ball. While I'd like to think it looks good, I think the holes in the cup were to small. I say that because the roots ran down the inside of the cup. The roots were nice and white for sure. There was quite a bit of lateral branching in the form of tiny hairs. My next go around will have bigger holes. Now when I pulled that plant out of the cup, that soil mass was nice and tight. I let the soil go dry so it would be easier to remove from the pot. The plants do need water more often in this style pot. But, even with my limited experience root pruning and letting the roots be able to breathe works.

I welcome comments.......

Well, that was a good try. Those roots look great, but I agree, bigger holes (or just a lot more holes) would probly work better. You should see good results with the smart pots.

That's an interesting link to Hobbes' thread, I hadn't seen that before, so thanks for posting it. Gonna give it a read over the next few days.

Cool, He's one of those guys that once you start reading.....There is no denying he knows what's going on with plants. Not just MJ, but plants in general. I was modifying old buckets like he does for my tomato plants. I bought the wrong bits and or the plastic is different. Anyway, my buckets have jagged holes and generally will take a ton of work to clean up before I'd plus plants of any kind in them. Part of me mentioning the Hobbes thread was he, like many other here really gets my mind working. I've got quite a few milk crates laying around. They're perfect on my book. Square, so they fit together, heavy, lots of holes MOLDED. I'll take some pics tonight. My tomatoes need to be up potted.

Hobbes uses buckets, inside buckets to slow down transpiration of the water. He explains why. For me, at this stage watering them more often is fine.

Here's pics of the first milk crate with a tomato plant in it. I was running out of light. She's not fully ready as a plant, in that, I'm going to top dress the soil with peat moss. Those milk crates hold a lot of soil. The fabric is a recycled weed blocker from Dupont. I've gt some regular old black weed block around here somewhere. I'll try it and see if it works better. Trying to get the stuff to conform to a square container was tough. Granted.....I just rolled it out and eyeballed it and cut it. Once you start piling dirt in it behaves a bit better. As I try stuff, I'll keep you posted as much as I can. This forum has helped me a bunch. So, I'm going to try and share what is and isn't working for me. By the way, soil in this crate is Roots Organics. Status report on the next one with different fabric as I get to it.

Interesting idea. So, is the plant inside of a smaller round pot, and then buried in the larger one?

I use roots organic potting mix, too. Good stuff.

It's in one of those peat pots, from the nursery. They degrade as the roots poke trough. I might experiment with them in the future for my grows. That one there is really about done. It's about to fall apart. It got cold and I need to get them into more soil to insulate them. I've got one more on my kitchen table now. Tomorrow it will get replanted. Same deal, different container, different fabric. They're both a husky cherry tomato hybrid. They're aimed at container gardening. It will be a nice side by side grow to test some things for yield out doors. Come to think of it, I might just grow the other one in a plastic bucket. With and without air pruning, side by side.
The Roots is so rich and earthy. I'm new to using it but all my plants indoors and out are getting it compared to FFHF last go around. Since tomatoes tend to be similar, requirement wise......This is research for if I choose to grow outdoor in the future.

More pics. Ok all you savvy guys and or gals......Do I have preflowers yet? I count 6 nodes on Connie. (LA Con). All of the close ups are her. The other two are feminized seeds. My buddy is being flaky about taking the Diesel now. Oh well, I'll just hang more lights this weekend. There is one really good shot of the discoloration on Connie's leaves that i keep mentioning. Is this a stain thing? Are the leaves always colored like this? She's doing really good for a plant with issues, if they're issues.

I've been trying to figure these leaf thing out right? And I've been doing some reading trying to figure it out. I couldn't find any pictures that looked like what I was seeing. Nothing I read made sense to what I was SEEING, with my naked eyes. I've been reading Riddleme's threads and he's a pretty sharp dude. So I asked him. He's confident that it's a mag issue. I believe him. I'm going to add a cal/mag supplement at my next feeding and experiment with doseages.

He responded way quicker than I expected. And while I was awaiting his reply I'd taken some pics and was preparing to post them. I read his reply......got distracted by life, lol. I figured I'd post the pics, even though he responded.

And then I realized something as I was previewing them during upload........Photographs, look different than the naked eye under almost all non-sunlight conditions. Fuck, I took photography in high school.. I used to be a pretty decent photographer, for a real amateur. That's another story, all together.

If you're having issues with your plants take pictures.....with a digital camera it's easy. Use the best camera you own. If you have a good sized monitor, all the better. Not only can someone help you if you need it, but you can see the plant under the same lighting conditions the camera sees them. Colors look different...... especially to film cameras. Try it if you haven't by now.

Just fed the girls. One gallon of filtered water got 4Tsp of Big Bloom, 3tsp of Grow Big and 2tsp of Cal Mag. The two in smart pots, the indicas got about 20 oz of water each. The Diesel in the plastic pot got about 16 oz. Even though Connie was the one showing a deficiency, the filtered water is probably effecting the others as well. I'd read in several places that filtered water might require adding cal mag to overcome taking the minerals out of the water. I just didn't realize what mag shortages looked like. I'm getting to see first hand how much different the feeding requirements of strains differ.

Now I have to go tend to the plants outside and my lawn...................Peace!

I finally got around to giving the girls a haircut. I cut all three above the second node. I've read a bunch of Uncle Ben's stuff. I'm following his explanation to get 4 main colas per plant. I think it will be easier to train the indicas into a bushier plant this way. Connie is going to be a stocky little bitch. It's amazing to me how much two days head start can make as far the secondary branching and growth. Wrong terminology maybe? I'm sure there are genetics at play as well. Another thing I noticed was the humidity skyrocketed within minutes of me cutting them. The plants were losing that much moisture. I didn't have a way to measure humidity the last grow, so once again I'm fascinated at all the little things that occur. I'll keep a closer eye on how much moisture the soil loses today to stay on top of that. I was going to use the tops as clone material but currently I'm really space limited and can't do it correctly, so why bother. I'm readying a cabinet for this purpose, but it's a lot of work. I'll be able to take cuttings later as I'm going to let them veg a little while and recover and bulk up.

Though I like the high of a sativa dominant, I'm not really fond of how the Diesel grows compared to the two indicas. To be fair, she does need more light, but there's a huge difference in the speed at which they grow. Other plants and environments will differ, I'm sure.

One more thing. This journal is now 30 days old. Wow, time flies.......