First grow - Easy Ryders under CFLs in soil

Was going to put these up a few days ago but I just got around to it. Looks like the problem with my fan leaves yellowing/spotting/dying from the bottom of the plant up has, at least for the moment, slowed to a halt, with the assistance of "Revive", switching to distilled water, re-introducing bloom nutes, thoroughly flushing the soil, and of course the passage of time (about 2 weeks from when it started). I lost a bunch of my really big lower to mid fan leaves, especially on my large phenotype Easy Ryders (Scarlett, Stella, and Jennifer). For some reason the smaller phenotype didn't suffer quite as bad, but they did experience the same problem and did lose several leaves. I still have enough fan leaves and all the sugar leaves that I think will be sufficient for the photosynthesis the plants need to finish out their life cycle, which for the smaller pheno is only going to be another 10 days to 2 weeks IMO, and for the larger pheno will be another 3-4 weeks best guess. Gave all my girls another round of molasses tonight, which is the 3rd round I believe, and it might be the last for my smaller pheno plants, or perhaps one more.

As you can see from the pics below, my smaller pheno plants, Tiffany and Sarah, have the appearance of being totally dusted with powdered sugar, YUM. The buds on the larger pheno plants definitely don't mature nearly as fast as the smaller phenos, and they still don't have that dusted appearance that the smaller phenos do, but I can see the first signs of it. Wish Attitude would get this strain sorted out so that they were only selling one pheno, or create a new name for the other one, because the differences are so substantial that buyers/growers may well want to select one over the other. For example, the smaller pheno looks like it's going to top out at only perhaps 10 inches by harvest time, and will probably be ready for harvest between week 7 and week 8, whereas the larger pheno is not only much taller, ranging from around 14" to 20" at harvest, but it's also larger in circumference and apparently takes around 10 weeks to finish. Those are pretty radical differences, even though it's obvious to look at it that it's the same strain. My two smaller plants look like identical twins, as do my two largest plants, and my 5th plant is definitely the larger phenotype but hasn't grown quite as tall.

10/2 Pics


Easy Ryders (5)

Sarah - Day 44

Jennifer - Day 39

Tiffany - Day 39

Scarlett - Day 39
*No Pics*
Stella - Day 38
*No Pics*


Auto Onyx (1)

Amber - Day 34
*No Pics*

looking really nice! the little ones look like at least 2 weeks more, think mine are going to go at least 70 days(day 63 now) and maybe another week after that, though I thought the same thing 2 weeks ago too, to be honest

mine are the larger pheno definitely, one hit 24"

Great to see that you were able to recover, for the most part. So you flushed it? Did you use just water, or a flushing solution? When you re-introduced "bloom nutes", at what strength and how often do you give them?

bobhamm said:

looking really nice! the little ones look like at least 2 weeks more, think mine are going to go at least 70 days(day 63 now) and maybe another week after that, though I thought the same thing 2 weeks ago too, to be honest

mine are the larger pheno definitely, one hit 24"

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Thanks. I'm totally making an educated guess on how much time is left with these girls since this is my first time around, but 2 weeks seems about right with my smaller ones. 10 days was probably a little optimistic. Not at all surprised to hear yours are going to go to at least 70 days, that seems to be right in line with how long it takes for the larger phenotypes to finish, and how long I think mine are going to go. 24" is pretty big but not unheard of with the larger pheno of this strain. Mine are in smaller pots than I thought they were in, the idiot that was working at the hydro shop that day thought these were 2 gallon pots and I didn't know any better (and there were no markings whatsoever on the pots), but they're closer to 1 gallon. That would be about perfect if my plants naturally grew to their current heights since everyone seems to say 1 gallon per foot of growth, but I don't know if the size of my pots has resulted in the larger phenos only getting to about 13" currently. Did your larger Phenos go through a second stretch phase late in the flowering cycle, or just the one crazy stretch that started right as they started to flower like mine did? I'm REALLY hoping they don't get any taller because they're right at the height limit for the space that I'm growing them in, and I really don't want to have to move them. Besides, there's more than enough room for plenty of room for bud growth at their current size, I think anything else is just wasted.

Aspyre said:

Great to see that you were able to recover, for the most part. So you flushed it? Did you use just water, or a flushing solution? When you re-introduced "bloom nutes", at what strength and how often do you give them?

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I just flushed with water and Hygrozyme (I always use Hygrozyme, it never hurts anything to use it). I've only done one feeding of bloom nutes so far since I met with the guys at the hydro shop a week ago and developed a game plan. They suggested two rounds of "Revive" with my normal watering schedule which is ever 2 to 3 days depending on how thoroughly I water them, then re-introducing bloom nutes at 1/2 strength or less with the next watering, then just distilled water next time. By the time I finished that whole cycle the yellowing/spotting/dying had virtually halted. Prior to the problem starting I was actually giving full strength bloom nutes with every other watering and they were doing fine, so I'll probably return to that cycle.

My bloom nutes are just a base btw, and are 3-12-6, I'm not using anything to promote larger/fatter buds other than molasses. Since this was my first grow I wanted to take a "less is more" approach, and would rather have a smaller but successful yield than to overdo it and screw things up, and possibly destroy my whole harvest. Judging by how things are progressing I'm going to be satisfied with the yield, but it's not going to be as much as I was hoping for when I got started (I was hoping for 1/2 oz per plant). Worst case I'm sure I'll get at least a 1/4 from each of the Easy Ryders, and maybe an 1/8th from my poor stunted little Onyx lol. Might get substantially more from my larger pheno plants, it's tough to say since they're still probably 4 weeks away. All told if I get an ounce and a half I'll be happy, 2 ounces total and I'll be very happy. Anything in that range should cover my costs for all the equipment, seeds, nutes, and possibly electricity, and I won't have to buy anything else for my next grow.



Speaking of my next grow, I've already ordered my next seeds from Attitude, all autos and all fem - Afghan Kush Ryder, Red Dwarf, Sweet Dwarf, and Snowryder. The freebies I got this time are good but they were all photoperiod - Lemon Skunk, Blueberry Gum, Pineapple Express, Kandy Kush, and Magus Genetics Exile. Still have a Blue Himalaya Diesel auto, a Super-Cali-Haze super-auto, BCN Diesel, and Blue Hash. Going to pick 2 or 3 of the autos for my next grow and save the rest of my seeds. Most of the photoperiod strains are too big for me to grow discretely on my property so I don't know what I'm going to do with them. Too bad I don't know anybody nearby that has the room to grow them or I'd work something out. It's completely legal for me since I'm a prop 215 card holder in Calif., but I have gardeners that come once a week and it just wouldn't be smart to have one or more large plants growing in the back yard that other people know about.

My easy ryders both went thru a 2 week growth spurt from 5 inches to at least 20", then a later growth spurt where they put on anoother 2-4 inches

bobhamm said:

My easy ryders both went thru a 2 week growth spurt from 5 inches to at least 20", then a later growth spurt where they put on anoother 2-4 inches

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Hmm, good to know. If mine grow so much as another inch I've got problems and will have to relocate my grow box, unless I can devise a way to rearrange my light fixtures. They topped out right at the max height for my space after the first major growth spurt.

One thing I've discovered from my first grow... once the girls are done with their veg phase, where you could literally see visible changes every several hours, the flowering phase pretty much sucks to watch because the growth is so slow. You almost have to measure it by the week rather than by the hours or days. It's a little frustrating when you're used to the instant gratification you get from the explosive veg. growth of these autos.

enonumus said:

One thing I've discovered from my first grow... once the girls are done with their veg phase, where you could literally see visible changes every several hours, the flowering phase pretty much sucks to watch because the growth is so slow. You almost have to measure it by the week rather than by the hours or days. It's a little frustrating when you're used to the instant gratification you get from the explosive veg. growth of these autos.

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I know what you're saying; I'm still in veg phase with my ER's, and I can't help myself but to go in there every few hours just to see the change. It's something I have to stop, since I just incorporated a CO2 system in my cabinet.
About this growth spurt, when does it usually hit? I'm just over 3 weeks from seed, and these girls are only about 3-4 inches tall; very bushy, though.

Also, I started using Pro-Tekt, since these babies can get pretty hot, depending on the time of day. I know this product can ease some of the heat stress. I know you've been using it, and I've read decent things about it.

As for attitude, I was looking for some strains as well. I guess the best bet is to stick with Autos since i'm limited by space. Though some of those freebees looked tempting. Another member, EarlofTea is growing some real nice Red Dwarfs. I may try and get my hands on some of those, depending on his yield. I may use the scrog method if I decide to use a taller plant.
Anyways, your plants are looking great. I'm glad they were able to pull though.

If you guys want a nice thread to watch Auto's in we have a AF cage match going on in this thread(see below). I've read this whole thread last night Enonumus, glad to see you found the problem with your plants and were able to save them. I hope you have a good smoke when it's all done. I'm growing a White Dwarf for this cage match, you guys should check it out. +rep to ya Enonumus for hanging in there and fixing the problem instead of giving up or panicking.

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/368443-autoflower-cage-match-community-activity.html

Aspyre said:

I know what you're saying; I'm still in veg phase with my ER's, and I can't help myself but to go in there every few hours just to see the change. It's something I have to stop, since I just incorporated a CO2 system in my cabinet.
About this growth spurt, when does it usually hit? I'm just over 3 weeks from seed, and these girls are only about 3-4 inches tall; very bushy, though.

Also, I started using Pro-Tekt, since these babies can get pretty hot, depending on the time of day. I know this product can ease some of the heat stress. I know you've been using it, and I've read decent things about it.

As for attitude, I was looking for some strains as well. I guess the best bet is to stick with Autos since i'm limited by space. Though some of those freebees looked tempting. Another member, EarlofTea is growing some real nice Red Dwarfs. I may try and get my hands on some of those, depending on his yield. I may use the scrog method if I decide to use a taller plant.
Anyways, your plants are looking great. I'm glad they were able to pull though.

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Yeah, I don't know if it's just a first time grower thing, but I was definitely checking on my plants at least 3 or 4 times a day in the Veg phase looking for changes (and seeing them since these things grow so fast). I still check on them at least 3 times a day, partly because I'm still afraid of that yellowing problem, partly to make sure they aren't touching any of my lights (that's happened more than once since they grow so fast), and partly to watch for changes.

As far as the growth spurt goes, it started right when they started to flower which for me was right around day 19. Scarlett exploded at day 19, but her twin, Stella, had lots of problems (because of me) and didn't explode the way Scarlett did. It was more of a gradual thing with her and one day I realized that she was just as tall as Scarlett, and in fact grew a little taller. Except for Stella who was shocked/stunted for a while, they all went through that explosive stage, but only the larger phenotypes really exploded upwards, so you might wind up having the shorter phenotype. Nothing wrong with that, I think the yield can be about the same, you just don't have all that wasted stem space that the larger phenos have.

I've had to deal with really high temps for a large portion of my grow, certainly into the 90s pretty often, and I think that Pro-Tekt probably helped a lot. I gave them 2.5ml per gallon with every single feeding. Can't hurt anything giving them that, but be sure to shake it REALLY well, mix it REALLY well, wait 15-30 minutes then mix it again REALLY well before you test your PH levels. Sames goes for all your nutes and additives, it takes them a little while to break down in water, but especially for the Pro-Tekt. If you test your PH right away and/or don't mix it extremely well, you'll get probably a different PH reading than if you mix/wait/mix before testing.

What I did was I looked at the autos that matched my criteria, which was auto/Indica/short height/short flower time/Indoor grow, and then looked at the THC levels and any other relevant information they had on their site. That narrowed it down to a list of perhaps 6-8 strains I was interested in, then I searched ROI for feedback and grow journals for those strains to see how they grew and what people had to say about them. That brought my list down to just 4 or 5, and I decided to buy those 4 that I listed, not including Easy Ryders which would certainly be a favorite. The Red Dwarf is the one I'm most interested in growing based on what I've read and the pics I've seen, looks to be a good yielder and has good THC levels. The other strains I'm going to grow also were high in THC, had good yields, and stayed small and compact. Definitely would have grown White Dwarf too but they didn't have them in singles and I didn't want to buy 5 of something. Anyway that Red Dwarf will definitely be among the 2 or 3 strains I'm going to grow next time, the rest of the seeds I'm going to hang on to for my next grow.

Took some pics of Scarlett last night. Would've taken pics of Stella but my battery went dead in my camera and it takes quite a while to charge. Scarlett's buds are maturing a little faster than I thought now that I've had a good look at them, but they're definitely still 1 to 2 weeks behind the smaller phenotype plants. Should get a decent yield out of Scarlett since she still has at least 3 weeks to go, maybe 4. Stella not as much after all the problems she had, but I was surprised that Stella even pulled through some of the things she's endured. She's still gonna produce though, but we'll see. I'll take pics of Stella soon, perhaps tonight. It was a LOT easier when I could take pics of them in the grow boxes, but with the Mylar on all sides and the plants reaching all the way up in between the CFLs, it's impossible to take a good picture of them in there anymore.

You can clearly see what I'm talking about with the yellowing leaves in the pictures of Scarlett below. At the moment the problem is only progressing very slowly, unlike a week or two ago when those leaves would have been gone within 12-24 hours of looking like that. If anybody says It look like they're over watered I'm going to break their neck lol, it's NOT from over watering, but I'd be the first to agree that it can appear that way. The first thing I did when I saw the problem occurring was to let the plants go an extra day without watering, and all that accomplished was causing them all to droop and look a little wilted, like any plant would without enough water, and as soon as I watered them they immediately perked up, but the leaves only got worse. It was as if the plants needed water, but something in the water was poisoning them (or depriving them of something they were getting previously in their water), which is why I'm inclined to believe it was related to changing my Brita filter a couple days before I saw the problem start.

Scarlett - Day 44 - 10/7/10


** Click on the pics after they pop up and you'll get a better/closer picture of the plants than the pop up shows.

Woohoo, I see that my recent seed order from Attitude was processed through the NY facility today and is en route to my house. You always know you're in the clear once it leaves the NY facility. Hopefully I'll receive them by Saturday. Oh and this time I didn't pay the extra $15 or so for the super stealthy shipping inside a mug or t-shirt, I just selected the DVD case and kept them in the original breeders packs.

Yours really topped out only at 13" and 24"? I use 3 gallon pots with my easy ryders and mine get anywhere from 30-34" and my average yield is 50grams dried. Your girls are looking nice though try and let them go longer than 2-3 weeks, i've noticed going an extra week really helps.

all in all youre looking really good I'd say, your yellowing problems was def not same as mine though,think the ezeyders can be fussy plants depending on pheno...

JME02100 said:

Yours really topped out only at 13" and 24"? I use 3 gallon pots with my easy ryders and mine get anywhere from 30-34" and my average yield is 50grams dried. Your girls are looking nice though try and let them go longer than 2-3 weeks, i've noticed going an extra week really helps.

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if I hadnt supercropped mine it would easily have hit 30" and agree on these look like at least 3 weeks, you are about 2 weeks behind mine?(Im on day 67 from seed) and Id say I have 2 weeks left

Some pics of Sarah, my oldest, at day 51, and my poor stunted Onyx. The Onyx has pulled through and is producing some nice looking bud, but I doubt it'll be more than several grams by harvest time since it's looking pretty mature already and is only 6" and doesn't have any real branching. You can see some of the affected leaves on Sarah in these pics, and the Onyx has a few now too. Not worrying about it too awfully much anymore, I figure it's a race to the finish and I'm sure I'm going to win, but the yield will no doubt be affected.

Sarah - Day 51


Amber - Day 41

sara looks awesome,way better than mine,nice work

Great man! Sarah belongs in a magazine.. can't wait to see your harvest!

Aspyre said:

Great man! Sarah belongs in a magazine.. can't wait to see your harvest!

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Lol, thanks for the support, but the only way she belongs in a magazine would be a spread showing mediocre first grow attempts . She looks ok and she'll yield enough to satisfy me, but she's only about 10" tall measured from the soil of course, and I've seen amazing Easy Ryders that were full and incredibly green at harvest, and up to around 30". She's the smaller phenotype though, along with 1 of my other Easy Ryders, so the height comparison isn't entirely valid. I might not have argued with you before I started having the problem with my fan leaves yellowing and dieing from the bottom of the plant up, but my plants are a mere shell of their former selves. Still, they're all hanging in there and I'd imagine they're doing better than 75% of the first grow attempts.

I'm on day 26 and there is a great deal of yellow lower foliage. I guess this is something that all ER's are doing around this time. I'm ordering this Revive stuff you mentioned, ASAP. Due to my space limitations, and little thought into pot size, i think i may have limited my plants ability to grow too large. I'm using gallon size. What size are those square pots? I just ordered a few 3 gallon square pots, a larger cab, and a 250 Watt LED. I already have my next set of ER's freshly planted. Hopefully the increase in space will give me more bountiful results.

Aspyre said:

I'm on day 26 and there is a great deal of yellow lower foliage. I guess this is something that all ER's are doing around this time. I'm ordering this Revive stuff you mentioned, ASAP. Due to my space limitations, and little thought into pot size, i think i may have limited my plants ability to grow too large. I'm using gallon size. What size are those square pots? I just ordered a few 3 gallon square pots, a larger cab, and a 250 Watt LED. I already have my next set of ER's freshly planted. Hopefully the increase in space will give me more bountiful results.

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It's definitely not a given that the Easy Ryders will start to lose their lower fan leaves, especially so early in their development. I've seen beautiful Easy Ryders that were completely full and green all the way til harvest time. Could be a number of different things, but whatever it is I haven't put my finger on it yet. Be careful with Revive, it's a little strong. I used 1ml per liter, which is what it recommends for a maintenance dosage. I think you can user a larger dosage for severely deficient or damaged plants, but just be careful.

I thought my yellowing had stopped, and it had actually for at least a few days, but it started up again with a vengance several days ago, right after I used molasses again. In fact, it was right around the time I used molasses the first time that the problem started, so I'm seriously starting to wonder if that isn't what's causing it, I just don't know. I really don't have almost any fan leaves anymore, just lots of sugar leaves, and i guess what might be considered small fan leaves. It's just a race to the finish at this point.

I thought I had purchased two gallon containers originally. They were 9" rectangular pots and the guy at the hydro shop said he thought they were 2 gallon, and I didn't know any better. I'm sure now though that they are around 1 gallon or maybe 5 liters, so I'm sure that has affected my grow as well, and might be contributing to losing my fan leaves.

That's cool about your new setup, I'm sure you're excited. I'm just about to purchase a grow tent for my next grow, which will give me plenty of room for at least 4 or 6 3-gallon containers depending on which tent I buy. Gonna start my next batch of autos in the next week or two, as soon as my first couple Easy Ryders are ready to be chopped, then I'll move them to the grow tent when they get a little bigger.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do for lighting with my tent in the short term. I have plenty of CFLs and hardware, which will be totally fine for at least the first 30 days seeing as how that's what I've used for my entire first grow. That'll leave me plenty of time to decide if I'm going to go with an HPS and deal with all of the issues that come with it such as heat, fans, electricity, etc., or if I'm going to go with LEDs, and possibly supplemental CFL.s

Might try one of the top of the line UFOs with the 660NM Red, and 460NM blue, as opposed to the cheapo 630NMs UFOs that seem to suck. Watched a time laps comparison on Youtube that compared various UFOs and one of them was very impressive. I'd love to buy one of the top of the line LEDs like the Supernova, but I just don't want to invest several hundred dollars or more in one at this point, especially when I know prices continue to drop substantially in the near future. One of the really good UFOs should be fine for a 2' by 2', or 30" by 2' grow tent, which is what I'm looking at. They all claim to handle 3' by 3', but I don't necessarily buy those claims.

Good luck with your grow, post plenty of pics!