First Cannabis grow, third crop grow. How do my plants look? Feedback appreciated.

Hi there,

This is my first ever cannabis grow, and when I was popping my seeds to start spring planting, I decided to give a try with some random bag-seed I had. Germinated 3 seeds in addition to everything else.

The Basics

• Species: unknown. It's random bag seed. I figure, why waste the good stuff if I don't know what I'm doing?
• Lighting: 3x 2-foot t5 fixture on a 16/8 cycle. This seemed to work pretty well the last couple of years for my other crops (tomatoes, peppers, basil) before I moved them outdoors.
  
  • Lighting to be upgraded soon to either a 315 W light emitting ceramic or some sort of blurple LED like advanced platinum or kind. I want to avoid HPS because heat and electricity. And I don't want to build anything at this time.
• Grow space: Secret Jardin DP (heh heh) 90. 3' x 2.5' x 3'
  • Soon to be upgraded to a 3' x 3' x 6' gorilla grow tent space because I started my crops SUUUPER early this year and I'm running out of space. Need to up-pot everything to 1 gallons soon.
• Medium: Canna Coco
• Nutrients: Canna Coco. Yes, they're a bit pricey, but I figure the Dutch have this shit figured out, so I might as well spend the extra coin for high quality nutrients and reduce one of the variables. This stuff allegedly all works together.
• Feeding schedule: hand watering using light feeding schedule (giving nutes every feeding whenever the coco looks dry-ish - every 2-3 days)
• Water: Tap water.
  • 204 ppm and 7.8 pH coming out of the tap.
  • When nutrients are mixed it's near 800ppm (where Canna tells me it should be) and ~6.3 pH.
• Resources: here (duh), marijuana grower's handbook (Rosenthal), Marijuana Horticulture Bible (Cervantes).

The Goal

Obviously I'm not looking for 1g/watt right off the bat. My goals are twofold and, I think, modest and achievable.

1. Learn the plant life-cycle and how it behaves.
2. Have a harvest, of any sort. If I can get some frost, avoid pests, and have smokable weed, I will count this grow as a success.

To meet my goals I am doing the following: not doing much plant fuckery. No fimming or super-cropping or any stuff like that. I wasn't even going to top or LST the plants, just let them grow out. But, after some consideration, I decided against that. Instead, I'll try a SCROG because I understand light penetration with cmh/leds isn't as good as with HPS. I think I can manage a scrog. The plants will probably end up in 3 gallon smart pots for now.

I've avoided fancy hydroponic suff as well - flood and drain, or automatic feeding, or bubbleponics, or anything that has pumps/motors that can break/clog/go wrong. The goal is to eliminate or reduce variables until I get at least one successful grow under my belt. Once I get good at what I consider the basics, I'll start adding complexity. You don't play Mozart without first learning your scales.

The Timeline

• March 6: popped the seeds in paper towel.
• March 8: moved the sprouted seeds to peat pellets - it occurs to me I could have started in solo cups and coco or peat pellets, along with the rest of my seeds, but I wasn't sure if any of the beans were viable.
• March 17: transplanted the seedlings into current pots (half gallon? Half quart maybe? Unsure of the size).
  • I'm not super sure of my timelines, here, either. Not sure if this counts as the start of veg or whether them showing the cotyledons on the 12th counts as the start. I'm calling the 17th the start of veg for my purposes.
• ~March 21 or 22: topped 2 of the plants. But I don't know the exact date because I didn't write it down.
• April 1: the pics you see below.

Rookie Thoughts
The plants look healthy to me. Lots of green, and no deficiencies that I can see yet. I've seen some deficiencies in my veggies in previous years, and these look healthy. They don't look super stretchy, which tells me I did okay on light placement/height.

Plant 3 is the healthiest of the bunch, with the best growth.

Plant 2 is a weird one. The third node only sprouted 1 fan leaf, and it sprouted 7 blades instead of 5. Nice growth from the middle, though. It's gonna be bushy, I think.

Plant 1 is the middle child. Good growth, spacing's okay (I think), and the leaves look healthy. Slight spotting but I think that's from dried water droplets, and not a nutrient deficiency, because it hasn't gotten worse. But, I could be wrong. I'm thinking I'll skip a 1 gallon for these guys and go right to the final 3 gallon air pot so I don't have to transplant again. Probably do that this weekend.

Concerns
They look a little small to me. Depending on when you count as the start of veg, they're either into week 3 or week 4, and I suspect they should be a bit taller than they are. But I can't tell whether it's a function of the small pot they're in, the crapshoot genetics, or the light feeding schedule. But, again, I'm a rookie with this plant, so I don't really know one way or another.

Any thoughts or criticisms or comments? I'd appreciate any feedback I can get. The pictures below are from April 1.

Greetings, nice post, looks good so far.

If I had to choose between cmh or blurple LEDs I would choose 4-qb132 quantum boards and a 250w driver or 3 qb288's for way less than 200$.

Canna products are great until we get to cannaboost's enormous price tag for basically a PGR.

Males usually has the most vigorous growth early.

You are gonna need magnesium in that Coco for sure or that will be your first def guaranteed.

Move into #3 next for sure.

Hope for .5 per watt.

The variable's will start soon.

They look good so far.. nice job

Week 3.5 (ish) Update:

Started Veg on March 17th.

This has been an interesting period since I last posted. A ton has happened in life and everything else. My garden is HUGE. All my other plants are doing super well (except the tomatoes - some are bushy, but others are spindly. I need to fix that next season). My crops are doing so well, in fact, I ran out of room in my tiny propagation tent.

So I went and bought a 3 x 3 Gorilla Grow tent. This thing is like a black monolith in my apartment, and I couldn't be happier. I'm really really impressed with the fit and finish of this tent. The canvas looks good and thick and durable, the frame seems a lot heavier duty than the other one I have, and I'm loving all the zipper covers and flaps they've added to stop light leakage. The vent selection and layout looks astounding as well. I'm happy with this, despite the eye-watering price.

I've also put in an order for a 315 watt cmh light, which I expect to arrive on April 19th. That's about 2 weeks too late, as my T5s are far too weak for the new space I have. My plants are getting light, but it's weak and anemic. 3 2-foot t5s are too weak for a 3 x 3 space. I need a new light pronto.

As I've decided to SCROG these plants, I've used LBH's Scrog tutorial to guide me. So I've topped them once, and staked the arms out with coat-hangers to increase the bushiness. Right now, the plants are squat and not stretchy, which is nice, but they seem a bit small to me. Temperatures are between 20 and 30 degrees and humidity is between 60 and 70%.

Today I pruned the bottom fan leaves to clean up the stems, and gave them a good drink. I know a lot of people are all about removing all the fan leaves, but I'm trying to find a middle ground. These leaves help the plant grow and synthesize nutrients. I don't want all of them gone yet. Not until the plants fill out a bit. But they were dragging on the coco coir, so they had to go.

I've also started using GrowBuddy for my grow, and I'm finding it's helping immensely just to keep track of tasks and when I do stuff. Better than a notebook, imo.

Plant Analysis

Plant 3 continues to look the healthiest and bushiest. 4 distinct branches, and lots of growth. It's been growing nicely and has large healthy leaves and a good strong stalk.

Plant 1 comes in second. It's stalk is healthy too, and it looks the 'scroggiest' of the three. 4 distinct branches responding well to staking, though it's not as full as I'd like.

Plan 2 again is the weird little mutant plant. Lots of small growth, but it's super bushy on the centre. I can't even tell how many arms I have at this point, as they're too small to tell. It didn't grow as regularly as the others, but it, too seems healthy.

The Bad

During the last 10 days, my plants got really root-bound. Like, to the point where I should have transplanted these on April 5th or earlier. When I took the first photos, these plants should already have been transplanted. That's a lesson learned.

They seem a bit small to me for being into week 4 of veg. I guess being root-bound didn't help, and the weakish light isn't helping either. 7 more days and they get a good healthy light.

My 6 inch clip-on fan isn't cutting it for air movement. I need to get a second, or upgrade to an 8-inch to get more airflow and thicken the stalks. It doesn't help that the other plants are blocking air flow as well.

The Good

Thus far, though, the plants are healthy. Lots of green, not much damage or dead leaves yet. I don't see any nutrient deficiencies yet either. Been staying with the Canna Coco Light Feeding schedule and it seems to be doing the trick. I could probably water them a bit more frequently, though.

Lessons Learned

• Transplant early!! I may no longer start in the half-gallon pots, and root straight in the 1 gallons, then transplant to the 3 gallons afterwards.

• Monitor more frequently! I didn't check frequently on them over the last little while (work and life got in the way) and I allowed the growth to get a bit more out of control than I would have liked. Nothing too serious, but I should have monitored more. Even just looking a bit closer would have helped.

• I am learning a ton about these plants, and getting valuable experience. Considering how small these plants are, I don't expect to have much of a yield or anything. I expect to get something if I can keep them alive, but yield will be light. That's okay, though. A result was my goal. Progress, not perfection.

Nice Peppers.

Sgt.Sly said:

Nice Peppers.

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Thanks! They're going gangbusters. But the veggies are easy: light, water, half-ass decent potting soil.

This bag seed, tho... It's like starting from scratch. Coco, which I've never used (cept for boomers), bottle feed which I've never used from scratch, and a plant I've never grown. Least they're friggin growing .

How are those Jardin tents? Any light leaks? Regarding Canna, they seem to have too much nitrogen during flowering. Anyones thoughts on that?

So first the disclaimer. I've only ever used the dp90 2.5x3x2.5 propagation tent and I've never run the full cycle, just used it for boomers and seedlings before planting outdoors. I've got a special place for it though as it's my first tent and got the job done.

I'm pretty sure Secret Jardin went out of business and a new compsny, Mammoth, has taken over the factory and production, though, so you'll probably find them under that name.

For starting seedlings, it's fine. The frame is lighter gauge unpainted steel and the reflective surface works. But I've never had more than 3 t5s hanging from it. The concerns are the fittings. The corner brackets are plastic and the c-ends you have for the roof supports are also plastic. Everything is pressure fit - so you stick the pole into the plastic to build the frame. It's functional, but I'm not at all confident it could hold a large light and can assembly.

The canvas is light gauge as well. There is some light leakage from the zipper, but I don't see anything coming through the stitching. Good ventilation ports too.

I've had mine for maybe 3 ish years and it's only been up and down maybe 4-5 times, and I've already got the stitching in one of the corners giving way. It works, but is definitely not as durable as I'd have hoped. The zippers are fine, no issues so far. But I'm going to have to replace it after 1-2 more uses likely.

It'll get you through a few grows and if you don't dick with it too much, it should last awhile. Much more than 50 lbs hanging from the roof would give me pause, though.

But, hell, it's like $160 for a 3x3, and you can't really argue the price .

I read youre getting a gorilla tent later on. Ive done my fair shair of researching grow tent reviews and all most all brands, including gorilla, have problems with light leaks. So i havent made a decision yet. bummer

Thegermling said:

I read youre getting a gorilla tent later on. Ive done my fair shair of researching grow tent reviews and all most all brands, including gorilla, have problems with light leaks. So i havent made a decision yet. bummer

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A bit of light leak is unavoidable, and not a big deal unless you're blasting 1000 watt lights in the tent room directly at the tent. Don't forget, it's never 100% dark at night: stars and moon are a thing. Fwiw, i'm really happy with the gorilla thus far. Big, durable, and has flaps and stuff for all the seams.

Ro0k said:

A bit of light leak is unavoidable, and not a big deal unless you're blasting 1000 watt lights in the tent room directly at the tent. Don't forget, it's never 100% dark at night: stars and moon are a thing. Fwiw, i'm really happy with the gorilla thus far. Big, durable, and has flaps and stuff for all the seams.

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True, but some genetics hermie from even a red light on a power strip in veg, from what ive heard. What size tent did you get?

Thegermling said:

True, but some genetics hermie from even a red light on a power strip in veg, from what ive heard. What size tent did you get?

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Not trying to be a dick, but my notes are all in this thread. C'mon, dude.

GGT33 with the extention to 7'11"

Ro0k said:

Not trying to be a dick, but my notes are all in this thread. C'mon, dude.

GGT33 with the extention to 7'11"

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Sorry, only read the first post.

Week 8 Update -- Day 5 of Flower

Back again for another update.

So far, the first grow is going well I think. At least, the plants are still alive, green and healthy. I have learned a TON about this plant in the last 8 weeks, and a lot about growing environment. Flipped to flower on Sunday May 13th. I'm counting Mar 17th as day 1 of veg, so an 8 week veg cycle. A bit too long, methinks. 6 weeks would have been perfect.

Final Setup

Hardware
Tent: 3x3 Gorilla Grow Tent
Light: Sun Systems LEC 315 w/ 3100k bulb
Fan: Growneer 4 Inch 200 CFM Inline Duct Fan
Filter: Growneer 4 Inch Inline Fan Carbon Filter

Grow Stuff
Medium: Canna Coco
Nutrients: Canna Coco Full line
Feeding Schedule: Every 2nd day, hand watering using canna light feed schedule
Amendments: Epsom Salt whenever I see a Mg deficiency
Pot sizes

• started in peat pellets
• moved to half gallon plastic
• moved to 1 gallon plastic
• final pot is #3 Smart Pot

Plants
Grow Method: SCROG
Number of Plants: 3
Strain: Unknown

The Good

There's a lot of good to discuss.

• My plants are still alive!!! I started with 3, and still have 3. Despite a bit of over-enthusiastic pruning, some nutrient deficiencies, multiple repots and a mis-read of the nutrient schedule, all 3 are still alive and healthy.
• They appear to be all female! I was super worried because this was random bag seed that I'd get 3 males, no females and that'd be that. Wasted money and time. I'm not quite a week into flower, but I don't see any balls yet, and I see what appear to be flower sites on all 3. So I'm hopeful, but not out of the woods.
• The LEC light is freakin amazing. Low draw from the wall, really bright, and the plants love it. I don't really need any supplemental exhaust or anything. In the cooler spring months, I just had the passive intake at the back of the tent open, and the tent stayed around 80F, which is nice. Once the temperature started rising, I plugged a 6" conduit into the bottom exhaust port and stuck the other end out my window. Fresh air intake from outside gets exhausted from the top. Keeps things nice and cool and fresh.
• No pests. I'm going to 'knock on wood' on this one, because I haven't seen any buggies. But this is more of a 'yet' thing than anything else. I still have 7 weeks of flower left to go. But with high quality nutrients and good medium, they've been clean.
• Smart pots are best pots. Seriously. No root binding, lots of oxygen gets to the roots, great nutrient uptake. I'm sold on these.

The Bad

All things considered, there's not much bad to discuss, mainly some lessons learned.

• I broke one of the branches off one of the plants way back in week 3 of flower, which is a bummer. But it survived the trauma and grew to compensate. It's now got the highest number of bud sites.
• I somehow managed to not top one of the others enough, so it looks like I have only 4-6 grow sites for now.
• I have had a perpetual 'problem child' plant. Not big problems or anything, no disease or issues, just high maintenance. It takes more nutrients, I've had half a dozen leaves go yellow over the course of the grow, it gets Mg deficiency faster than the others. Not sure if this is different genetics, or bad genetics or just a higher-maintenance plant. It's still alive, though, it's bushy, and looks healthy (to my eyes).
• I think I let them grow too big for the space before switching to flower. Check that, I definitely did. 8 weeks flower was far too long. But I don't really have a baseline for this. For 3 plants, 6 weeks would probably have been best. For the eventual 4 per cycle I want to have, I can probably get away with 4-5 weeks.
• Temperatures. We've had a cool spring so far, so the weather has been nice. If I had to grow these in high summer, I don't know what I'd do. So I won't be growing again till the fall. I'll use the exhaust from the tent to heat my house.
• I still don't know what to do re: pruning. I know to keep their undercarriages clean. Not sure about the big fan leaves, though. I've heard prune them, not prune them and everything in between. I'm sort of leaning towards leaving them, unless they seriously start to interfere with the light and space. But they're there for a reason.

Unless I meet with catastrophe in the next 6 weeks (knock on wood), I'm hopeful I'll get a harvest. Even if it's light, my goal was to get something, not best yields ever. And I think I'll achieve that.

As always, let me know what you think. Any comments questions or concerns, feel free to reach out.

Its best to drain the trays and not let them sit in their own run off.

coreywebster said:

Its best to drain the trays and not let them sit in their own run off.

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Yeah, i noticed that. Right now my options are a bit limited considering they're on the floor. I'm thinking next grow I'll either raise them on some sort of table with a drain to waste or something else. As it stands, 2.5 gal per feeding is creating too much runoff, so I'll back it down to 2 gal per feeding which creates very little, but will probably cause some salt buildup requiring a flush or 2. Tricky to do in scrog. It's kind of a pick your poison at this point.

Any ideas what I could do for the time being?

Ro0k said:

Yeah, i noticed that. Right now my options are a bit limited considering they're on the floor. I'm thinking next grow I'll either raise them on some sort of table with a drain to waste or something else. As it stands, 2.5 gal per feeding is creating too much runoff, so I'll back it down to 2 gal per feeding which creates very little, but will probably cause some salt buildup requiring a flush or 2. Tricky to do in scrog. It's kind of a pick your poison at this point.

Any ideas what I could do for the time being?

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For the time being either raise the pots a few inch on anything to keep them out of the run off. Or just suck it out with a water vac half hour after feeding.

I had mine on tomato feed bag trays, raised 6" off the tent floor, tilted slightly with a hole at the end to drain into a small low profile res. Lost me 6" of tent height which was no problem. When the res was full enough to care I started vacuuming it out, soon realised I could siphon it easier though. But not everyone can get lower than their grow to siphon..

You could also buy a large vets syringe and just draw the run off out and shoot it into a bucket. Pretty cheap option.

Ro0k said:

Yeah, i noticed that. Right now my options are a bit limited considering they're on the floor. I'm thinking next grow I'll either raise them on some sort of table with a drain to waste or something else. As it stands, 2.5 gal per feeding is creating too much runoff, so I'll back it down to 2 gal per feeding which creates very little, but will probably cause some salt buildup requiring a flush or 2. Tricky to do in scrog. It's kind of a pick your poison at this point.

Any ideas what I could do for the time being?

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Do you have a shop vac?

dstroy said:

Do you have a shop vac?

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Nothing that'll handle water. I think I'll have to suck it up and drain by hand, or find a brick or something to prop 'em out of the trays.

I have 2+ more feet of height to work with, so it shouldn't be an issue.