First Time Growing from Seed

I'm planning my next grow (in a couple of months) now and I'm planning to try growing from seed this time vice growing from clones. This is going to be a new experience! Anyway, I've purchased TGA Dairy Queen and Vortex seeds.

I'm doing 100% organic soil grows and have just started trying to use "The Rev's" spikes and layers technique with my soil. So far it's water, molasses and dyna grow protekt and it is going great. The lighting is CFL for germinating, LED and CFL for veg and then more LED and par T5 side lighting for flower. Containers are .8 gallon airpots for seedlings, 3 gallon airpots for veg and finally 8 gallon airpots for flower...at least that's the plan. I have pretty fair ventilation, good humidifier (may need to get a dehumidifier for this winter, I don't know yet) with a humidistat and am having to add heat to the grow room since the advent of LEDs. Oh, and I have my wormfarm in the grow room to keep the worms happy and who knows a little extra CO2 for the girls??

What I would like to end up with is 4 female plants in 8 gallon containers (for flower). I could possibly put in two more three gallon containers if I had more than 4 female plants. Anyway, are there rules of thumb for how many seeds I should germinate to try and end up with the 4 female plants? I realize there are no guarantees, I'm just wondering about general guidelines....and of course, am quite willing to take advice on best methods.

I know this sounds like a dumb question but, did you buy feminized seeds?

jcmjrt said:

I'm planning my next grow (in a couple of months) now and I'm planning to try growing from seed this time vice growing from clones. This is going to be a new experience! Anyway, I've purchased TGA Dairy Queen and Vortex seeds.

I'm doing 100% organic soil grows and have just started trying to use "The Rev's" spikes and layers technique with my soil. So far it's water, molasses and dyna grow protekt and it is going great. The lighting is CFL for germinating, LED and CFL for veg and then more LED and par T5 side lighting for flower. Containers are .8 gallon airpots for seedlings, 3 gallon airpots for veg and finally 8 gallon airpots for flower...at least that's the plan. I have pretty fair ventilation, good humidifier (may need to get a dehumidifier for this winter, I don't know yet) with a humidistat and am having to add heat to the grow room since the advent of LEDs. Oh, and I have my wormfarm in the grow room to keep the worms happy and who knows a little extra CO2 for the girls??

What I would like to end up with is 4 female plants in 8 gallon containers (for flower). I could possibly put in two more three gallon containers if I had more than 4 female plants. Anyway, are there rules of thumb for how many seeds I should germinate to try and end up with the 4 female plants? I realize there are no guarantees, I'm just wondering about general guidelines....and of course, am quite willing to take advice on best methods.

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With regular seeds expect a 50-50 chance of male/hermies and fems. 5-6 good fems from a 10 pack of regular seeds is a good result.

Good luck.

No, the seeds aren't feminized. I don't think that TGA sells any feminized seeds. I was hoping there might be an edge to females but 50/50 it be. I guess I'll try cracking 8 and see what happens.

For planning purposes, how long from starting germination to the plant being the approximate size of a decent clone - about two weeks or..??

jcmjrt said:

No, the seeds aren't feminized. I don't think that TGA sells any feminized seeds. I was hoping there might be an edge to females but 50/50 it be. I guess I'll try cracking 8 and see what happens.

For planning purposes, how long from starting germination to the plant being the approximate size of a decent clone - about two weeks or..??

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You are better waiting until the sex of the plant shows at about 6-8 weeks of veg (or from seed) then clone away when you have your fem plant.

I agree with luda and you should let it mature during veg to show pre flower sex signs...Then clone off it.

TGA is good for its %'s of females to males...... If you run a cooler room 70 degrees or so as you are germinating them until you are able to sex them (as stated above about 45 days or so) you have a better chance of getting more females. If you run a room warmer than that its more likely you'll see more males.... I started an all TGA grow mid august with 13 seeds from TGA and I got 9 females..... But you have the right idea popping double the amount you want because even if you do run a cooler room as I said, it doesnt get better than a 50-50 shot.... However, its possible to get all females or all males.... not likely..... but possible.

Its slow going until you get to the point of being able to sex them. They'll really start moving after that. But just for your own personal info, I started those 13 seeds on aug. 16th, I still havent flipped them yet..... The last female to show me what she was did so about a week or so ago. I'll be vegging for another couple weeks I think so plan on it being between 4-6 months at the least before you are smoking dank.... So dont think about shortcuts or rushing anything.. It doesnt work and it will only slow things down....

Good luck, and its nice to see your starting with some good genetics.... You will be very happy with both of those strains.....

No problem keeping it at 70 degrees; I've been having to add heat to the room anyway...just add a little less. It's nice to hear that you got a good percentage of females with your TGA strains. I know that I could get zip or a 100% but was just looking for general guidance. I usually go about two months on a veg so a little longer for some good genetics/better crop isn't a bad thing.

As for cloning...another thing that I haven't tried yet but ya' know it does sound interesting. Keeping in mind that I do prefer organic methods and I'm not living in a laboratory, can someone point me to a good method/thread that a somewhat competent beginner can get results with. I can at least take a look at what's involved and maybe I'll give that a shot too as I have a few weeks to make plans. Thanks to all for your advice.

I use most of this site but I mostly stay in subcools oldschool organic section (a subsection of the organics forum, the first and only subsection atop the organics forum) and the stickys in subcools section has his cloning methods and theres plenty of "how to clone" threads everywhere in the growing sections of this forum, so be proactive and search out what you need. The searches on this site and others arent always easy and take some time to filter through in order to find what you need but thats what you need to do.

Myself personally use rapid rooters to clone with under a couple cfl lights on a 18/6 schedule. I use either a store bought humidity dome or a couple of plastic shoe boxes (subs method) and just make sure to keep the rooters from drying out completely. Once you have clones on hand and rooted, a 6-8 week veg period is going to get you some very good sized plants, with proper training/topping and pruning will equate to awesome yields. I see you have your plans pretty well worked out but once you get through a couple grows with the revs TLO style, think about doing a super soil grow. I dont know of an easier method to get the dankest of dank by just watering plants, no nothing else added aside from some sweetener here and there, however as I said I'll be using compost/aact teas as well but I dont see to much better looking bud from such an easy way of growing. TGA has gotten it down to a science and they do all their growing with supersoil so why not grow their genetics with their growing methods/feeding methods??? Thats my take on it anyhow, but I will also say dont switch up mid grow and finish what you started with the revs methods until you get to the point of not being able to get any better with it and are familiar with what you can get out of your strains, then do some side by sides and see what works better rather than starting one way and mixing it up mid grow. This is the biggest most regrettable mistake I made as I newb grower (which I still am)..... I've done synthetic nutes, semi-organic/natural, organic bottled stuff, organic bottled stuff with compost teas (best herb I've grown so far) and I have cheated myself by changing it up so much without finishing what I started on more than one occasion. Stick with what you start and master it is what I'm getting at I guess. Now I can only see the "just add water" style of growing organic cannabis in my future even though I use compost teas, its nothing like using bottled shit......

What I like to do when growing from seed is to grow my seedlings until that have 7 or 8 nodes (before they start alternating, which means they are sexually mature and are ready for budding) and then take a clone of the top of the plant leaving me 2 to 4 branch sets to work with, that leaves me the top 2 nodes which is 4 branches to turn into my 4 main colas and a few extra sets of branches below those to cut off and make into clones once they get big enough. I will try to remember to get some pics tonight of some of my plants to show you how what this method shapes the plants into. Its similar to what nugbuckets mainlining does but instead of using only the single top node with 2 branches, which works out to a better end product as far as bud size and structure but takes a bit longer than what I do because even though the buds tend to be fairly close in size, mainlining will give you buds that are almost identical when finished but it just takes a bit longer. I will start running my plants using the mainlining method once I get my jars filled and a little bit of a supply going on, as of now I am completely out so I am just trying to get some nugs on hand so I dont wanna slow my girls down anymore than I have.....

Theres a lot to learn but as I said, you are starting with good genetics, a VERY good idea in this "hobby" and it sounds like you have your grow equipment/room worked out and all that. Just keep it organic if you are running in dirt. I personally dont like the revs growing style, but I guess he knows his shit so.... I did however like his article in last months skunk about compost teas, I like that method of feeding better myself but I am using a combination of subcools super soil and compost teas...... I think compost teas should be used with organic soil growing no matter what style of feeding you are doing as long as its organic. Its taken me a long time to finally get it through my thick head that less is more in most cases with organic growing and the bottled shit should be left out aside from liquid fish/squid products like general organics bio marine and maxi-crop fish products are about as much liquid bottled stuff I want in my grow room. Other than that and some organic cal mag (general organics camg+), the only nutrients on my grow room shelves are dry 100% organic amendments along with molasses..... And dont ever forget the worm castings, they are the single best amendment that you can add to your soil I think.

I'm sorry for the excessively long and random rambling session but I have been helped out quite a bit buy the people on this forum and others so I was just trying to pass some things I've learned along my journey so far to anyone I can. One other thing I have to tell you is dont start new threads in order to ask those questions that have been asked a million times, which almost anything you could possibly think of has been asked and answered dozens of times, exhaust the search feature as much as possible before starting a new thread, folks will tend to purposely avoid answering you when thats the situation. Most anything you need to know is here somewhere, it just takes some energy to find it.

Also, another thing about the rev's growing..... he states that you must use reverse osmosis, distilled, or rain water (Anything besides city/tap basically) for use with a living soil (organic soil) growing..... A lot of us have been using aerated tap water for everything we do, watering our plants in organic soil, brewing compost teas etc.... just make sure to aerate it with a air pump and air stone before using it. I hate seeing people have to go buy a reverse osmosis setup for hundreds of dollars for no reason. If you have city water, try it before going and blowing $ on a RO setup.... If you have to..... you have to...... but its not always a necessity and is another expenditure when this stuff already costs a small fortune to get started with a halfway decent setup.

And the last thing I will say that I already have here, stick with quality genetics. I run only TGA/subcool gear and have been for the past several grows and cant see myself running much else for awhile. Theres plenty of people that hate subcool but theres way more that love him and stand behind him and his genetics 200%. But on the flip side of that, theres also plenty of other worthwhile genetics out there, I just try to stick with regular seeds rather than feminized, but I have and will grow fem seeds again at some pont so dont avoid something because of that, just go for the reputable breeders. Aside from TGA I will be ordering from cali connection and I am itching to get my mitts on some real deal jack herer beans from sensi seeds. Theres also quite a few others out there that I havent had time to look into but just research what you buy thats all.

I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming grow and hope to see your results here somewhere.....I'll try and remember to post those pics of my plants later on tonight for you....

Hey Whitey, thanks for taking the time to pass on your experience. I'm pretty dedicated to organic soil. I will try some variations...well, many actually,I'm sure...but over all I want to enjoy what I smoke so it will be organic. I'll spend a little time in subcool's section as I'm sure there's a lot to learn.
I am blessed with high quality drinking water but of course, the municipality adds chloramine so for the benefit of both the plants and I, I put in a sediment filter followed by two activated charcoal filters. Not as dear as an RO but really pretty effective at a reasonable price. I look forward to seeing your pics.

If your water is working...dont fall into the "I need an RO filter" shit.... They give you 0ppm water which on one hand is awesome because you know what you are starting with. On the other hand, theres plenty of trace stuff in city water mainly calcium that aids in growing and in a lot of cases as long as you amend your soil properly, you wont see any deficiencies... However with RO water you will see calcium deficiencies right off the rip if you arent adding it constantly from the beginning... Theres others but thats the one that comes to mind first and the one I dealt with the most running RO water. The only application that I would use RO water is if I decided to run hydro OR if I had some kind of issue with the city water that was killing my plants but as long as you are watering your plants with your tap water after some bubbling/aeration and they arent falling over dead.... You're all set, dont waste your $ on reverse osmosis. A good filter setup like you have is more than sufficient.

Anyhow heres a few pics of what I said I'd post... nothing spectacular and the pics make them look even less sexy but I'm happy with them, I think another week or 2 of veg and I'm going to start flipping those that are ready, a few arent quite ready yet and will need some more veg time, especially my querkle dom cheese quakes and 1 ace of spades that I'm hoping is black cherry soda dominant, these just arent vegging as fast as the rest of the bunch and as a general rule the longer you veg the better your yield which should be obvious to most...


I didnt mean to post all these pictures in your thread, I wanted to upload them to my picture "thing" in my profile for use in other threads as well but whatever....a few extra pics never hurt no one...... I think.....