Here we go! First grow.

So, this grow has been changing quite a bit since it was first started and it is serving as my experimental grow(because I am not sure of plant sex or true capabilities of the box.) It all started with an advertisement for Aerogardens on sale. As soon as i saw the Aerogarden I knew I wanted to grow a baby or two in it. 5 Days later an AG Extra Elite is setup in my kitchen with 3 tomato pods. Three days later 3 Mary pods and 1 Mimosa Pudica(look it up it's sweet.) until recently I hadn't taken many pictures but here we go.

The two in the glass domes and the front left under the dome are my baby mary. on day 3 of popping up out of the grow sponge.
5/8


The two in the back started off great besides me ripping off one of the cotyledon leaves on my first seedling because i was anxiously pulling the seed shell off to let it stretch out. oops.. Other than that it's first set of true leaves are beautiful.
5/9


The second seedling seemed to have male tendencies for the first 2 weeks of growth so i gave it to a friend to put outdoors.



2 weeks later I have tossed one pod because the seedling took too long to germinate, gave one baby away, cut away and tomato and am left with this in the AG. Overcrowding imminent.
The yellow spots are from the shock she went through when i was contemplating giving away both. and i let her roots get a little dry when i was rearranging. sorry!
5/23


Really happy so far! will post another one of the progress from then till now.

At this point I knew I could no longer house her in the AG unless I took everything else out. I couldn't do it so... I contacted a buddy and he gave me some supplies from his last grow and his box that I help him build. I transplanted Mary into his tub and custom trellis that he had made and everything was looking good.
5/24


The roots looked pretty good from the AG but I was NOT happy with his tub since it was a clear tub that was painted. I saw future problems and started to plan my tub.
5/24


1 45w 5500k CFL on 5/25





on 5/26 I decided to up the lights to 3 45w 5500k CFL's and figured i should start my plans for making this a monster bush.





I tied the stem over to center it in my new tub that i built and i hard tipped the center stem and one fan leaf

I knew I wanted to try some LST. At first I was thinking of putting pegs into the box this will be going into but I didn't think about the fact that i'd have to untie everything for every water change. not uh.. i'm lazy. lol So I built a little trellis/frame for my future LST tie downs. After my hard tip it recovered quick.
5/31


Now inside this box I was given there are two CFL sockets which I will split into 4 and there is an HPS mounted to the top. Now since this will be in a garage in the summer I chose to buy a 100w Blackstar Hydro UFO LED and set it up finally. Also pruned off a bottom branch because I have the stem lying almost flat on the bucket now. It's huge so I used it to roll up a honey Magar! Fiiiiine long smoke. Notice the size difference between the last prune! WOW!!
6/1

So! Let me hear it guys. questions, comments, concerns. Am I right in saying this is most likely pure indica? What methods of topping does everyone recommend? I have done one Hard tip, one soft tip today and am working on LSTing another branch.

water-logged and over-fed. add more bubbles; better diffusers. ease up on the N, imo

Thanks for the comment scrog.

I'm waiting on one of those 3 foot flexible air stones to put in. think that will help? What is it that makes them seem waterlogged and overfed? This is my first grow so it seems to be doing great to me.

Last night I completely flushed the system and put a slightly lower dose of nutes in. Still waiting on the new air stone. She'll be happy then.

Did a bit of pruning to free up the canopy and get rid of some N soaked leaves. Have about 8 new stems popping up all over the place. They should grow with a fury now that I trimmed some and freed up their area. She's filling out real nice. wanna get about 20 tops goin and then i'll be happy.

Set everything up in the closet also. Lookin good and bright.

Will post pics later today. Any certain pics anyone interested in?

After last night's trim, flush, weight movement and loving.
6/4


I can see 5 new branches forming in this picture but i've counted 8 definite new branches that will be full by the end of this week.


top down view


Second root picture! Woot!
6/4

not bad for your first grow. keep it up...

Thank ya sir. I have the luck of knowing a lot about plants in general but I do have a question. On the "top down view" one of the newer leaves towards the top of the picture has a browned tip. it happened on 3 leaves about 3 days ago. Hoping the flush, back down on N and general lovin will prevent it from doing anything. Still curious as to what it is. Some leaves are slightly curling under but they are not yellowing or drying. Up until yesterday I was just guessing on the pH but now I have all the proper chems.

Closet is now 3/4 of the way done. Need some shelf supports, tidy up the wiring and then get the carbon filter setup and finish the exhaust.

I've got a 20watt UVB fluorescent in the back so i'm not blinded when I'm checking the baby out or working in the closet and i figured it'll never hurt to have MORE! Right now I have (2)45W 5500k cfls, (2)26w 2700k and my 100W Blackstar Hydro UFO LED.

She's doing great and new branches are just popping out with a fury!

With the new setup the closet is sitting at 83.5 max temp. Will take those pictures later. Checking the plant out today and noticed that only one of the branches coming off this stem is actually to a fan leaf haha!


Some minor pruning today and everything looked good. Stem is as thick as my pointer finger! nice!

So i'm in there foolin around last night and was trying to bend a top branch down and accidentally snapped it off right at the node. so.. I dipped it in some rootech and popped it into the bubble cloner which i have some seedlings about 3-4 inches tall in. It drooped over for the first hour but now it's about halfway stood up. What light schedule should I throw the clone on to help it root??

crimsonfro911 said:

So i'm in there foolin around last night and was trying to bend a top branch down and accidentally snapped it off right at the node. so.. I dipped it in some rootech and popped it into the bubble cloner which i have some seedlings about 3-4 inches tall in. It drooped over for the first hour but now it's about halfway stood up. What light schedule should I throw the clone on to help it root??

Click to expand...

24 hours of light for a week to ten days.

cool thanks. That works perfect cuz it's in the bubbler with some seedlings. Thanks for the reply.

She was starting to get an uneven canopy but looking nice and full.


So I went a lil crazy taking off some fan leaves and tying her down all over. Looks pretty horrid right now but she'll be perky tomorrow morning I promise you that!



zip-ties FTW. need larger ones however.... chaining isn't fun lol

I've had the clone in the bubbler for 5 days now. yesterday it started to droop a little more but the stem coming out of the grow sponge is almost twice as fast as when I originally put it in there. Is it drooping a little more cuz it's working hard to root? when I pull it goes nowhere.

I will have pics of this and the growth since the last shower and shave which is due for this weekend again. Filling in quite nice Now it's time to get the tips in position, give it a couple more inches then flower! Pics will be up later tonight.

It's drooping because it isn't getting enough moisture, or it is drowned in too much moisture. 5 days in, why would you pull on it? Patience, roots will grow into the bubbler and that's how you know it has roots.

crimsonfro911 said:

The second seedling seemed to have male tendencies for the first 2 weeks of growth so i gave it to a friend to put outdoors.

Click to expand...

I was confused by this lol

crimsonfro911 said:

So I went a lil crazy taking off some fan leaves and tying her down all over. Looks pretty horrid right now but she'll be perky tomorrow morning I promise you that!

Click to expand...

Whyyyy??

If anything it's not getting enough. Maybe i'll fill the reservoir more. I was hoping the bubbling would keep it wet. seems wet but not enough.

I've read all over on early sexing. It's not definite. but out of 100 seedlings in 2 weeks this one guy guessed 97 of them correct. The male was growing taller, and longer and the stem was pure green. He found the females had red striping on the stems, were shorter and had shorter leaves. So I used his findings in my study. They were from the same strain so I guessed.

I went a little crazy on fan leaves because I've always had great luck with semi heavy pruning on other plants. Cannabis can't be too much different. It was recovered and full in 2 days.

crimsonfro911 said:

If anything it's not getting enough. Maybe i'll fill the reservoir more. I was hoping the bubbling would keep it wet. seems wet but not enough.

Click to expand...

Give that a try - many growers trim the larger fan leaves on their clones in half; this, in theory, limits moisture transpiration by reducing leaf surface area. Maybe an option if the water level increase isn't enough.

crimsonfro911 said:

I've read all over on early sexing. It's not definite. but out of 100 seedlings in 2 weeks this one guy guessed 97 of them correct. The male was growing taller, and longer and the stem was pure green. He found the females had red striping on the stems, were shorter and had shorter leaves. So I used his findings in my study. They were from the same strain so I guessed.

Click to expand...

Interesting observations. I tend to suspect the surrounding environment is playing the major role in sex determination, but I'm always learning, too.

crimsonfro911 said:

I went a little crazy on fan leaves because I've always had great luck with semi heavy pruning on other plants. Cannabis can't be too much different. It was recovered and full in 2 days.

Click to expand...

It is different enough. I have had an unquenching desire to gain experience with hundreds of plant species I've kept myself, from arboreal to marine non-vasculars; all of them perform unmatched by devoting all my efforts towards reproducing their natural environment and practicin gthe 'no-touch' approach. Trimming in my early experiences has only slowed photosynthesis and developement. The only trimming in my grow rooms now are maybe topping once to promote branching if needed. - caught my curiousity though, what other plants have you kept and pruned with success? I use to trim a lot of the species I kept but found it to be useless. I understand you went a little crazy as I've seen my buddy do the same thing (he did more damage than you, 2 weeks before 12/12, took off ALL fan leaves leaving just the new growth nodes on the stems - YIKES lol) before talking to me lol; we watched his plants flower for 3 months to finish at seven feet composed of all stem and frostless bracts, no buds. A mild amount of pruning can sometimes be explained (I didn't say necessary, but reasons could be defendable). I feel that your amount of removal is more detrimental than beneficial and the plant was likely slowed down drastically for 2 days. Not the end of the world, just try to resist removing healthy glucose factories next time.

Found this, it tackles the trimming topic well: http://www.weedwatch.com/growfaq/1546.html

"Leaves only absorb about 15% of the solar energy that hits them, the other 85%
passes through-- but they reflect all the green light, which means it looks
darker below the leaf to a human than it does to the plant because our eyes are
most sensitive to the green spectrum (Shipperke, 03.15.2002)." Nietzsche

"Removal of fan leaves will not only slow growth, but it will also hinder the
plants ability to rid itself of toxic gases, and also hinder the regulation of
the plants temperature via stomata. Changes in the plants chemical metabolism
caused by fan leave removal causes the plant to work overtime to rid ‘toxins’
with less leaves, as a result the pant may allocate more growth hormones into
growing more leaves to make up for what has been lost(Equator, 03.15.2002).
Removing large amounts of fan leaves may also interfere with the metabolic
balance of the plant. Leaf removal may also cause sex reversal resulting from a
metabolic imbalance." Nietzsche

"Fan leaves store mobile nutrients, these stored nutrients are essential in the
later stages of flowering." Nietzsche

"Another method is to tuck your fans leaves under to expose the buds, don't
forget that even though they wont be getting as much light they are still
photosynthesizing and more importantly exchanging gases storing nutrients, and
building sugars which the bud then converts into THC and other cannibinoids (Ca,
13.03.2002)" Nietzsche