400+Watts of cfls, Ch9 Green Bud, 1st Journal

Hello RIU community. This is my first grow journal. I am not a newb grower, but definately still a rookie who often feels like a newb. Constructive advice/comments are welcome, just please try to keep the thread positive.

The strain is Ch9 Green Bud.
The soil is Scotts Premium potting soil.
The lights are currently nine 42w cfls and one 26w cfl. I will try to add to these as I can.
The veg fert is Miracle Grow Nursery Select (20-20-20).
For flower fert I have Miracle Grow Bloom Burst (15-30-15).

This is a very small grow op. I just started germing one Green Bud seed about 3 hours ago, using the paper towel method. I have another Green Bud plant that I started on 1/20. This plant was started in regular Miracle Grow potting soil as the bagseed I've been growing did well in that soil. For the first 2+ weeks I thought it was growing slowly for what I expected. Then, about a week ago, I saw some nute burn on it, although i've fed it nothing but aged water. At that time I dug it out of the Miracle Grow soil and replanted it in the Scotts soil. I then cut off the part of the leaves with nute burn (obvious in the pics) and it seems to be growing much better now. This plant is now 25 days old.

In one of the pics you might notice some white spots which appear to be some bug damage, but it is not. That is just residue from the spray bottle, a bottle which was bought brand new and has been cleaned with water, yet the residue persists.

I also included a 2 day old pic of the top cola of a plant grown from bagseed. This plant is on day 45 of flower and its buds are rock hard.

Sorry about the low quality of the pics, but my camera is a piece of crap. I will try to keep updating this journal with new pics about once a week.

looking very nice on the 45 day old plant mate! Looking forwards to seein how this grow turns out will be keepin an eye on it.
If my girls turn out anything like wut yu said then fuck me, i'll be in heaven! haha

Wish yu all the best with these new girls mate, and im subbed

Hello MightyS, I'm glad you stopped in to check things out.

The seed that I was germing has popped. It took about 30 hours. Unfortunately, the bag I have of Scotts Premium potting soil had some mold in it, so I had to throw most of it out. As a result of not having much soil, I had to use a smaller pot, but it should be large enough to get this baby started.

thats one cute mofo of a pot! haha,
looking all good still mate, tried that fast drying methods yu showed me, previously i just shoved a branch that broke off hanging by a piece of string at the back of my xbox then played some cod for a few hours haha, it worked well, but im always trying new things so given this one a try

Had the microwave set to 70w dunno how well its done, it felt dry, but then got a bit too hot, so it feels a bit damp again, but to be honest, im sure i could just grab some straight off the plant and smoke it with my lungs!

Can't wait to see this baby grow, let me just say, that ch9 green bud seed, WILL shock you at how vigoreous and lively it grows. Shame about the mold, i'd buy a hole new bag if that was me paranoid the rest wud go moldy

When I quick-dry a bud to sample I use the microwave method too. I'm not sure of the output, but I use power level 4 of 10. I zap it for 12 seconds, then wait for a minute or 2 before zapping it again. This lets it cool and helps you to not over-do it. It takes a while doing it that way but seems to work well.

I'll definately be keeping an eye out for mold. My guess is that it will be OK because it was an almost full bag and the mold was just on the very top layer. I threw out 90% of it. What really gets me is that this is the second bag in a row that this has happened to me with Scotts soil. The soil was purchased just last week and I still have a bag of Miracle Grow soil from 6 weeks ago that's still looking/smelling good. I figure I'll be transplanting to a larger pot soon enough anyway, so I'll get a good look at things at that point.

The Green Bud plant that is already growing has some yellowing with red center viens on the bottom leaves. I'm kind of afraid to give it any nutes yet since it had nute burn from the other soil so recently. I did give it a small dose of epsom salt as none of the soil I've used has Mag in it. Hopefully that will fix it up. Troubleshooting deficiencies has always been my weakest area. I'm going to wait a couple of days on the regular nutes and see how it goes.

nice plants so far. Hey you might want to add a couple of tsp of molasses to your water evry other watering to help bulk them up even more but they look great right now for their age

send us a picture of the yellow? I had the same in early days, added some epson salt to the equation by foilage feeding it, and boom, it was gone and never came back

Thanks for the molasses suggestion, Newbie Grow420. I have never tried that before. This plant is so close to being ready that I think I will hold off on the molasses for this one. On that particular plant, while I have to admit that I have a hard time finding many amber trichs, I have an even harder time finding any clear trichs. They are almost all very milky and a lot of them are starting to bend over. I flushed 2 days ago and plan on cutting the top cola and many of the tops of the buds in about 7 or 8 days. For the lower buds, I'll give them a little longer. I cut a small bud and quick dryed for a sample, and the high was a great mix of a head high and couch lock. The plant has been flowering now for 7 weeks, going by it's size it is an indica, and it preflowered before I changed the lights to 12/12. I think I'm really going to have to suck it up to just wait for this next week to pass, but I'll make it!

For some good and bad news on the Green Bud plants, the new one has sprouted. On the other one, the yellowing has progressed up to the second layer of leaves, and I'm going to loose all of them. Yesterday, when I saw how far the yellowing had advanced, I gave the plant it's first dose of veg fert (at 1/4 strength). The good news is that the fert seems to have slowed the yellowing, if not stopped it completely. I'll be keeping an eye on it (won't be hard).-P

I harvested most of the bagseed plant. I think I got a little carried away when I was cutting it because I took off a lot more than I really wanted to. There is not much left of the plant at all. It might be too much shock for the remaining buds to flourish, but there's hardly any buds left, anyway. I'll give what's left of the plant a couple days and see how it looks. As far as the harvest goes....Fuck Yeah!!! Whoever says you can't grow some great stuff from bagseed doesn't know anything! All I have for weighing it is some cheap hand scales, and they are not very accurate. But any how, according to my cheap hand scales, from this plant I got somewhere around 125-135 grams wet, and about 45 grams dry. Finally, something to smoke on while I grow the Green Bud plants.

The Green Bud plant that had just sprouted in my last update is looking good. It is also probably the larger of the two Green Bud plants. The older one is still having problems. The yellowing has spread to the third level of leaves. The bottom two levels of leaves have fallen off, but I knew they would. Sorry about no pics, but I was trying to take some shots of the bagseed plant right before harvesting and the batteries ran down in the cam. I still haven't got around to getting replacement batteries, yet.

All right, time for an update. The smoke I harvested is great. Having weed is so much nicer than not having it. I'm trying to make it last, but I'm not very good at that when it comes to smoke, especially after having been out for a while. The bagseed plant that I harvested is still growing, still has a good quarter oz, or more, of bud on it and it is doing well.

As far as the two green bud plants go, the younger one is looking great, no problem. The older one is still having some difficulties. Some days it seems to look much better than it does on other days. I haven't given up hope on it yet. Anyhow, I finally got some batteries for the cam so how about some pics...

Pic 1 is a picture of what is left of the bagseed plant that I harvested last week. I'll probably give it about two weeks, and then see if the buds seem to be growing much or what. I might even cut it down a little sooner.

Pics 2-4 are some of what's left of the harvest. There is only about one oz left (Have I really smoked that much of it already!?!?).

Pic 5+6 are of the older, sickly Green Bud plant. It won't be long now before the next tier of leaves falls off. It actually does look a little better than it did a couple of days ago.

Pics 7-9 are of the younger Green Bud plant. It is about two weeks old. Pic 7 is a shot of that plant when it was about 3 days old (3 days after the last pic I posted of it). It's just humming along. If only all plants could grow so easily and trouble-free.

I guess I missed an update, but anyway, here comes amother one. I harvested the last of the bagseed plant. I forgot to weigh it wet, but after it dried it was 8 grams. Combined with the 45g I got from the plant already, the grand total was 53 grams. The bottom buds were let to grow and mature for 16 days longer than the rest. After the 16 days, those buds looked exactly the same as they did at the start. They were the same size and the trichs were unchanged. I think that might be because when I initially harvested, I cut way too much and the plant was probably in shock. Never the less, I am happy with what I got from the plant.

The Green Bud plant in the larger pot is still struggling along. Some days it looks like it is about to come out of it's funk and start to grow well, and then some days it looks like the best move for me might be to end it's agony and cut it down. The Green Bud in the smaller pot is still doing well. About 2 days after my last post in this thread the plant had some yellowing on its lower leaves. I started it on its veg ferts and this plant responded much better than the other one. You can see some of this yellow, rust-like color in the pics. It is apparent on the lower left of the plant. This plant is growing fast (at least for me and what I am used too). I'm already able to see that it won't be long before I need to think about transplanting to a larger pot. Now that's the type of problem that I like.

Great news! The Green Bud plant in the larger pot is finally growing again. For the last several weeks, even when it was growing, the new growth was light green. Now it's a nice shade of green again, finally. The shade of green we're looking for. You can see the difference in pics 1 and 2. It's hard to believe that this plant is about 2 months old, as small as it is. Then again, it's had a rough life. Mental Note--Don't use Miracle Grow Premium Potting Soil for growing CH9 Green Bud! We live, we learn, we take a huge bong hit, and we move on. Hopefully, this plant still might end up being a super big fat huge sexy girlfriend.

The younger Green Bud plant is in cruise-control, meaning it's doing very well. I still haven't transplanted it yet, but I did get a fresh bag of Scott's Premium potting soil. I do remember how I've had the mold issue with this soil, so I will definately use it this week. Probably, I will do it in a day or two. You can see in pics 3 and 4 that the plant does not appear to be root bound yet and, other than a little bit of nute burn on some of the leaf tips, the plant is looking healthy. This plant is 32 days old now.

I threw in one last picture (pic 5) of another plant that I haven't shown yet. This plant is yet another that has been grown from bagseed. I just changed its light cycle to 12/12 7 days ago. I'm not 100% yet (although I'm closer than I want to admit), but it looks like this one might be a fucking male. My females are all for me and I don't share, so the future doesn't look good for this plant. I'll do the usual and give it 2 or 3 more days to surprise me.

I know that TheMightyS is on vacation, but does no one else have any comments? Remember that if if could reach you, I would pass you the loaded bong! --Peace

The bagseed plant that I showed a picture of in my previous post (pic 5) did indeed turn out to be a male, so I cut it down. The Green Bud plant that has been so sickly has began to droop a bit, but it is still growing. It's drooping leaves appears to me to be caused by too much water, but I had cut back how much I was giving it just before this occured. Mabey I should restore this amount to what it had been. I transplanted the other Green Bud plant into a larger pot than what it had. Now they are both in pots that are about 3 gallons. These pics are one day old.

Today, the younger GB plant is 40 days old. I see something that looks like two white pistols in one spot, but they are too small for me to tell for sure. I find that I suddenly have the itch to get it started flowering. Since the other plant still has to veg for a while (because of its prior sickness), I'm thinking that I probably will start flowering this one tonight or tomorrow. At this point it is 9 1/2 inches tall, and decently bushy.

This last week was a good one for my plants as they grew well and no new issues came up.

The one that has been sickly doesn't look very good in these pics, but it has been growing like a champ.

The other plant is 47 days old since sprouting and is now nearly a foot tall. I thought I saw some pistols, but what I saw turned out to be just another grow shoot, until today. I'm still not 100% sure that what I see now are pistols, but it's looking great. I still have not changed the light cycle from veg (24/0). I'm past the moment of weakness that i had last week and now I will try to wait until the plant definately preflowers, at least, before changing this plant's light cycle to 12/12.

I'm going to throw a third plant into the mix here. I have a clone of a plant that I grew from bagseed. It's not quite as big as my better looking Green Bud, but close. I started flowering this plant 11 days ago and it is definately a sweet female. My experience with clones is that I have only ever taken them right before putting a parent plant of unknown sex into flowering. Some of the clones rooted, some did not. In every case the parent plant turned out to be male, so I killed the clone. That's why this is exciting for me, as this will be my first clone to grow out and get some love back instead of having a swift and violent ending! The clone is sleeping (in its dark cycle of light) right now so I will put up a pic or two of this virgin lady a little later on today.

Here is the clone, 11 days after switching the light cycle to 12/12.

My camera is too much of a piece of shit to provide a decent pic, but I wanted to declare it official---The better looking Green Bud plant is a female!

he nice job in nursing that baby back i was just wondering was it because the lights were too close or too hot in there i had similar issues in my babies but then i had a 300 w regular light in there and i think i was frying them after i changed it too a 45w agro light started to come back to normal and when i started giving it nutri s again started vigorous growth again. maybe you might want to take a few clones from the gb before you go 12/12 its really simple dip (cloning gel)and dunk in the soil or peat pellets. and then check for sex there at the same time you can keep the momma in veg and take a clone every week or so and add it as desired helps to close that gap of waiting for bud lol. any how im not trying to tell you what to do just offering some suggestions, KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

Thanks macrael, I appreciate the encouraging words. I like your idea of taking a clone every week or two. In fact, that was my original plan until about a month ago. Then I got a letter from my insurance company telling me of some repairs that I need to make to my house. Nothing big, but I will have to let some workers come inside. With that in mind, my new plan is to finish my current garden, make the repairs, and then begin growing again (with a vengeance).

My temps are about 75-79 in the day and 65-70 at night. I could be way off, but I think the problems with my Green Bud plant were.... First of all, the Miracle Grow Premium Potting Soil that I originally planted it in had nutes that were way too strong for this strain. The results---burnt leaves, an underdeveloped root system, and an overall stunted plant. Replanting it in Scotts Premium Potting Soil (which has very little nutes in it) helped a lot, but with less nutes in the soil, and a crappy root system, the plant quickly developed a pretty bad N def and also a slight Mg def. The veg fert that I use (Miracle Grow Nursery Select) is some pretty hot stuff as well. The whole thing became a balancing act of trying to give the plant enough fert to overcome the deficiencies and yet not cause any more chem burn or other nute lockout. If I had some fert that had an N-P-K of 5-0-0 or so, I believe the plant would have recovered much more quickly.

Plants are so vulnerable at that young age, so who knows? I'll admit that I still learn everyday, but I really don't think that the lights I'm useing were a part of the problem.

It's about time for some more pics, eh? Today's pics didn't seem to come out very good, but maybe it's just me and that last bong hit.

Pic 1 The gang

pic 2 I don't expect any great yield from this plant and I don't want it to hog my cfls at crunch time, so I switched this plants light cycle to 12/12 yesterday. It has not preflowered, so I'll be watching closely to determine its sex.

pics 3-4 The heathier GB plant, still vegging. Once every two weeks I put some epsom salt in the water I feed to all of my plants for magnnesium (my fert contains none). This one plant did not get its dose of epsom salt last round and is once again showing a Mg def. Hopefully, I got on top of this problem soon enough this time.

pics 5-7 The bagseed clone, 17 days into flowering. Only 40 days, or so, to go.