First time CFL grow 'Wonder Woman' and Bagseed

Hey there,
This is my first grow ever and I'm starting this thread so I can track the progress for other first timers to reference. To start off I suppose I should list my equipment;

6x CFL's (~105W, 4x6500k, 2x2700k)
random size pots (4x6", 2x hanging planters)
britta filter
buds for less book
my set up is made up of random things so I won't go into detail about what I put the plants inside of.

All of the pictures taken start on day 3 and every week after that. My 2 strains are staggered 2 weeks apart almost exactly. Currently 'WW' is 23 days old and the 'BS' is 9 days. As my 2 WW are coming along VERY well I'm looking to flower as soon as next week to the day. I am looking for comments and criticisms so please feel free to leave anything you like.
These are the WW plants at 3 days, The lights were not strong enough and too far away. I feel as though this stunted their growth lightly


These are the WW plants at 10 days


These are the WW plants at 17 days, BS is now 3 days


(Today) WW is now at 23 days and BS is 10 days. One of the WW stocks has split into 3! All BS babies are growing LOTS by the hour it seems.

At what point or how tall should a plant be before its okay to tie down the top? My one WW is becoming at least 2 inches taller than the rest of the plants just need to know if it could be tied to maintain a certain height while the others catch up

So the lights are still on 20/4 and both of my WW plants have been looking strange. So I went over to walmart and picked up a ph tester for my filtered water. Turns out the ph was over 7.5 so I balanced my reservoir to <6.6. Can't wait to see the difference this may make when combined with some organic fert. Next watering is monday or so which is also the day I plan of switching my photo period. As for the height problem I did some reading and decided to use some twist ties to expose more foliage.The BS babies now have 2 full sets of leaves and should have at least 1 more by monday. I'm going away for the long weekend so I hope it doesn't get too hot while I'm gone. We have had a heat wave all week so the a/c has been on but I want to leave it off while im gone I think. Pics will also be taken monday and there has been LOTS of growth.

Okay so this is day 31 update.
Recently I've started to water the plants with pH balanced water (~6.4) and the growth has really started to accelerate. I want badly to switch the lights to 12/12 because the two WW plants are getting quite large but the BS plants are just starting to fill out their 4th set of leaves. In light of this situation I've decided to adjust the light to 12/12 over a period of time. The method I'm going to try change the lights to 18/6 for 2 days, 14/8 for 2 days then switch to full 12/12. This should give time for the 4th set of leaves to fill out. In addition to this I have also topped the larger of the WW by folding over the new growth at the secured it down with a twist tie. In my last entry I watered the plants with an organic fert, but the leaves, although not completely burned are telling me that the plant doesn't like it. I think for the remainder of the grow I am going to leave out the fertilizer.

I also have a question, is it normal for the plant to smell skunky before the plant can be sexed? I'm asking because one of the WW is beginning to smell when disturbed and I'm hoping it's a female trait.

These pics were taken yesterday, WW is 30 days and are both 8" and 6"(pics 3,4), BS is 17 days(pics 1,2,5,6)

Looks like you found out about the ph on your own, good job! I had the same problem when I first started out..

I'm growing wonderwoman aswell, shes in the 5th week of flowering under cfl's! I must say, she is turning out fantastic!! Come by and give her a look if you want, my grow is in my signature below. Here's one pic from last week just so you have an idea.

Oh and I threw her into 12/12 around 12" tall and now she is around 2 feet couple inches.. Just thought I'd let you know, keep up the good work!

Day 33 update

So I have become impatient and decided today is the day I switch to 12/12. Since sunday, I added on a couple hours of darkness to allow the BS to develop their 4th set of leaves before switching to 12/12. Seeing as the 4th set is about 75% developed and the 2 WW are getting large I don't want to wait any longer. As you can see in the pic, its getting a little crowded for 6 plants in my space. I also find I'm raising the lights what feels like daily and I'm running out of things to put under the MUCH shorter BS to get them within 3" of the lights. Anyways I'm really hoping I can sex these plants soon because realistically I should only have 3 females in the space I'm growing in.

Again, can anyone tell me if the skunk smell of a plant can be a indicator to it's sex? or is this trait common to both male and female plants?

Only way to tell the sex is "hairs or balls.." The good thing is from my experience the males will show within the first week, everything for me so far thats taken longer than a week to show has turned female.. I did have a few mature females show pretty quick aswell so keep an eye out!

You made a good move switching them to 12/12, now you will really have to move the lights up at least once a day lol..

Okay so there's not much new going on. I'm watering roughly every 7 days with ~6.4pH and NO nutes. All the plants look healthy to me, aside from the odd leaf burn due to the lights being really close. One of the WW has been tied down to control the space it is consuming. The LST techniques I've read about have been working VERY effectively. All the BS plants are growing quickly despite having no nutes added what so ever. One of the BS plants has stretched a little so I had to create a brace to keep it upright, but other than that no problems have been encountered.

This is the 4th day of 12/12, and as mentioned earlier I am anxiously awaiting the sex of the plants. The room that the plants are being housed in continues to grow smellier by the day. I have designed my own active carbon filter I just have not put it to use as of yet, but I imagine Ill be needing it functional within the next 2 weeks or so.

Recently I've been reading lots about flowering nutes and I'm very curious as to why people use molasses in the last 3 weeks of flowering??? As I mentioned in my first post on this thread, I'm using the 'Buds for less' book to aid me in my growing adventure. Now if you haven't had the opportunity to read this book, no nutes are used throughout the entire grow and still a large harvest is achieved. So I'm really unsure about using more nutes given my negative experience a couple weeks ago.

Pics 1-4 are WW, 5-7 are the BS and 8 is my setup...

SmeLLyTreeZ said:

Only way to tell the sex is "hairs or balls.." The good thing is from my experience the males will show within the first week, everything for me so far thats taken longer than a week to show has turned female.. I did have a few mature females show pretty quick aswell so keep an eye out!

You made a good move switching them to 12/12, now you will really have to move the lights up at least once a day lol..

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You really weren't kidding, these plants are growing REALLY fast!

blatMachine said:

You really weren't kidding, these plants are growing REALLY fast!

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Yea its a great thing to see your babies take off isn't it!

I would look into some foxfarms bigbloom at least! Its very effective and I've had nothing but good results with it! Either way it looks like your doing a great job so far, keep it up! Oh I've been using molasses on both my girls and since its my first grow I dont really know if its helping but my girls sure do look good

Okay so today is an EPIC day!

My 2 WW have sexed themselves only 6 days into flowering!...or at least I think they have. Maybe someone can help me? Pics 1,2 are my suspected male and 3,4 are of the female.


Now seeing as this is my first grow this is pretty exciting. So basically these 2 plants were mature when put into flowering so I'm not really surprised about them showing their sex so early. But another question I have is should I wait longer just to make certain that the one WW is male? But funny enough I have no doubts whatsoever that the other WW is female even though the pics are not the greatest. If you refer to my previous post, the female is the plant that the stock split into 3.. but since then has really turned into 4 main stocks.

Maybe I'm just hoping the 'male looking plant' will turn out to be female, but I still have 4 other BS plants. The BS are still too young to determine their sex but that's okay.

So as soon as someone can confirm I have a male plant I can finally free up some MUCH needed space in my grow area.

blatMachine said:

Okay so today is an EPIC day!

My 2 WW have sexed themselves only 6 days into flowering!...or at least I think they have. Maybe someone can help me? Pics 1,2 are my suspected male and 3,4 are of the female.
View attachment 1157158View attachment 1157160View attachment 1157156View attachment 1157162

Now seeing as this is my first grow this is pretty exciting. So basically these 2 plants were mature when put into flowering so I'm not really surprised about them showing their sex so early. But another question I have is should I wait longer just to make certain that the one WW is male? But funny enough I have no doubts whatsoever that the other WW is female even though the pics are not the greatest. If you refer to my previous post, the female is the plant that the stock split into 3.. but since then has really turned into 4 main stocks.

Maybe I'm just hoping the 'male looking plant' will turn out to be female, but I still have 4 other BS plants. The BS are still too young to determine their sex but that's okay.

So as soon as someone can confirm I have a male plant I can finally free up some MUCH needed space in my grow area.

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I'd say those first two pics are definately male. No little white hairs comming out of those balls at the nodes=male. Breed it or kill it.

So after being able sex my WW plants yesterday I have removed the male. This new space in my grow area is doing wonders for the rest of the BS plants as they now have enough space to thrive without being over shadowed by the bigger plants. Since yesterday I have checked the female WW and the number of pistols has doubled but the plant has not grown vertically (which is okay with me). While at the the grocery store last night I picked up some 'Fancy molasses', basically I chose the container that did not contain sulfur. Keeping a more natural approach to this first grow (and by natural I mean on a budget), I'm all for adding cheap natural additives to my water. If anyone has any other suggestions, keeping mind I live in a small town with no hydro shops to buy any decent ferts, it would be greatly appreciated.

My question for this post is; When should I think about adding the molasses to my water (3-4 weeks into flower?) and how much of it per liter would be the most effective?

Today is day 11 of 12/12.

After sexing both the WW last week I ended up with 1 male and 1 female. The male was chopped up and discarded and the female is enjoying the new growing space. The WW has buds starting all over and filling out quickly. Because the main stock had split into 4 I really feel as though this plant will not grow much taller which is great for my growing space. I'm also hoping that this lack of vertical growth will result in fatter buds.

Now all the BS plants are 30 days from seed. and have slowed vertical growth and have started to fill out. Up until this morning none of the plants had sexed themselves, but I attribute this to the fact that they were far from maturity when put into 12/12. So as I was going to say, this morning one of the BS has revealed its pistols and I'm pretty excited about it. In light of this, I have a theory...

...Out of the 2 WW one smelled skunky. This plant turned out to be female. Out of the 4 BS 2 smell skuny(more specifically they smell like kush!...just awesome). Now so far one of the 2 skunky plants has turned female and I'm egar to see if the other skunky plant will also turn out female. Anyway, I'm beginning to think that the smell of a plant can be an indicator of its sex. Now I'm not saying that every stinky plant will turn female but what if say 80% of the time they do turn female? From now on I'll be monitoring this so I can get a better understanding of this situation.

I have watered all the plants this past weekend with ~6.5pH water and I'm thinking that the next watering will contain a portion of molasses. Does this make the plant sweeter? Or does the plant just utilize the minerals and sugar to make fatter buds?

Pics 1-4 are of WW, 5-7 are my two skunky BS, 8-11 are my suspected male BS

Looking good bro, I'm not sure what the molasses does but I'm using it to and it seems to be working!! Just remember it will lower you ph a little. I mix 1 tablespoon per gallon, whatever you mix just make sure you use becuase the molasses will go bad and it smells horrible so only mix what your using..

Looking good man. Funny to see this here. I have the same thing going. 2 WW and 7 BS. Im only 3 days in.
Keep the pics coming. Cant wait to see the WW.

I got a wonderwoman and 3 bs, one just turned male but the other 2 are females!! I'm happy

Smelly we have a strange coincidence, I was just hopping on here to give a quick update on the sex of my BS...

So today upon checking the sex of the BS I would like to report that I have 2 females and 1 male and 1 undecided. This outcome is helping my vegetative cycle 'skunky smell theory'.

blatMachine said:

Smelly we have a strange coincidence, I was just hopping on here to give a quick update on the sex of my BS...

So today upon checking the sex of the BS I would like to report that I have 2 females and 1 male and 1 undecided. This outcome is helping my vegetative cycle 'skunky smell theory'.

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LoL, nice! I'll take 2 to 1 anyday

Okay so at long last my final BS plant has sexed itself as a male.....

This isn't the worst of news, so as a recap I now have 2 BS females and 1 WW female remaining in my grow space. 3 fems from 6 plants is just lucky considering this is my first grow. Tomorrow will be 14 full days of 12/12 and watering day. As I mentioned earlier I will be adding molasses to my water to fatten up my buds on the WW and hopefully accelerate bud growth on both the BS plants.

Smelly, I will be using your advice and mixing 1tbsp into a 4L(1gal = 3.78L) jug of distilled water. That jug can be distributed evenly among my 3 plants (2L for WW, 1L per BS).

Monday should be interesting when I take more pics of the ladies, I'm hoping for some serious growth.