Little Becka (SunFlower)

April 17

Starting a grow journal for my next grow which is just purely sunflowers taking a small break from growing buds.

Soil - Pro Mix HP
Water- Tap no PH
Seeds - Little Becka dwarf sunflowers from Burpee
Pots- Maui Mike's Soft Pots 3gals
Drip tray- 12inch no pot elevators.
Lights- HLG 320 V2
Exhaust- AC Inifinity Cloudline T4
Lighting schedule- currently running it on 12/12 but for today since i cleaned out the tent from my cannabis grow it is only going to be on for about 4 hours 6am-6pm ( currently 2pm ). will be swapping light schedule to 16/8 once seeds are close to sprouting as well as dropping the lights down lower.

all i did was fill the pots 3/4th the way add Myko's NON WP, add a layer of pro mix, More myko's, seed ontop ( 1 per pot just incase i didn't want to waste seeds since i only got 30 so if they don't sprout i can just add more seeds later on ), last layer was just a very thin layer of Pro mix. Watered with a little over a gallon of tap water since it's on the colder side ( rain water outside is hot didn't want to fry the roots in the future ) also added 20ml of voodoo juice. a little excessive but in the end the voodoo juice will inoculate the soil with microbes and mine is going to expire in a few months with more then half the bottle left.

this is my very first time growing flowers besides cannabis. i have no idea wtf i am doing so this is going to be an interesting grow. these are dwarf sunflowers so they shouldn't get too big and i honestly don't expect them to get very big since it is my first time. i am just hoping all 10 germinate and sprout some of the seeds looked kind of bad like they were old ( they were sunken in like someone sucked the air out of um ). i got them in 3gal pots because i read they dislike to be transfered so i went with the biggest pot they would need which was 3gals. i did not water the entire pots i just watered over the seedlings by hand gently as i could to not wash away the seeds. i am expecting to be watering almost daily/every other day. it is hard to judge though because they are in big pots from the start. i only have experience starting off in solo cups then moving small seedings into 3gals then i can gauge watering based on that.

putting this journal out just for those interested. will be updating daily once they show any sign of actions of sprouting but it states 7-10 days until then

April 18

watered 1gal split amongst 10 3gal pots added 9ml voodoo juice. i accidentally washed away some soil on 1 pot and i found the seed. looks like they are germinating fine maybe by tomorrow they will break surface.

i didn't really wash away the soil i thought i saw the seed so i brushed the soil off a little but it was a twig i think. then i found the seed. i didn't plant them too deep i planted it at about 1/4th inch as stated by many and the package as well i believe. i know others state 1inch deep but think that is for the bigger varieties. im hoping all 10 break surface some point otherwise i will be dropping more seeds.

Update- looks like the package stated 1inch lol but i read online most people told me 1inch is fairly deep and 1/4th inch is a better depth. either way we gonna see what happens i've done this before with cannabis seeds no real issues. i don't really measure either i just eye ball everything so i aint worried

Will be interesting to see how the led's treat these...... Nice to see people growing things other than cannabis indoors

April 19

found 1 sprouting already at first glance i thought nothing sprouted after work but i saw something sticking out that was green and yup it a sprout. so basically 1 out of 10 has actually sprouted. i know another one has as well but i recovered it lightly since i knocked off the soil from ontop of it yesterday.

dropped the lights lower and turned um on blast thought they were already on blast but apparently they were only half way strength. lights are about 2 feet from the top of the pots. need to water them tomorrow and idk what kind of fertilizer i will be running on these plants. i still got some AN but im not familiar with running lines like that for other kind of crops. likely will just buy some miracle grow. we got some laying around somewhere i know.

tent is running cooler without the cannabis plants in it though. RH is pretty low in the 60's now. im waiting for the plants to sprout entirely before i start to water deeper then imma feed at around 1 true leaf in.

Nice good luck

April 20

watered 1gal split this morning just water. got 7 out of 10 sprouting that i can see and 3 idk what is happening i dont see anything on the 3. 2 of the 7 are barely sprouting though kind of slacking but maybe by tomorrow they will have fully sprouted. been only about 3 days since i planted the seeds so honestly it's not bad. most people/sites told me they take 7-10 days to sprout.

pots don't really dry out since im watering practically daily im just trying to do like a deeper watering then dry it out kind of build a bigger root system. will be feeding once the first true leaves are out though possibly sooner depending how fast they sprout up with the cotyledons.

this morning they didn't look like this though you couldn't even tell any of um were really going to get this far along they basically look like the other 3 were the shell is sticking out but no visible stems.

Will these future sunflowers seeds be available for purchase? Looks like this Sunflower seed operation will have way more testing then most bean breeders

Dieseltech said:

Will these future sunflowers seeds be available for purchase? Looks like this Sunflower seed operation will have way more testing then most bean breeders

Click to expand...

what do you mean? the seeds are for purchase already XD i bought the seeds from Burpee online. im growing them mainly because i needed a break from growing cannabis i got too much buds on my hands then what i can smoke on my own ( i can get rid of it easily but smoking situation is hard so i don't smoke very often right now ). also growing them to kind of learn more about growing plants from seeds as well as grow some cut flowers for my mom. she passed away last month from leukemia and she was cremated so figured i grow some flowers for her since she never cared much for cannabis. she did like fresh flowers though. always had a vase or 2 full of um on a weekly basis but buying flowers is easy and can get costly this way at least to me it is more special. kind of pressures me into being a better grower as well because if i were to grow these for myself i wouldn't care how they turned out i could just grow more and learn

figured i start off with something fairly easy to grow flower wise. i am probably going to save some seeds for a future run but i like to try new colors/breeds same with cannabis thus why i dont buy in bulk or really seed my plants i like to buy various strains and try them very interesting smells and looks they all have. i pretty much just grow for fun treat it as a hobby. not many people i know of anymore that actually grow plants in my state most of the people are older in their 50's+ kinda trying to keep it alive in a sense teach my future kids how to grow if they wanted to doesn't need to be weed or i could grow with my future wife

Lethidox said:

what do you mean? the seeds are for purchase already XD i bought the seeds from Burpee online. im growing them mainly because i needed a break from growing cannabis i got too much buds on my hands then what i can smoke on my own ( i can get rid of it easily but smoking situation is hard so i don't smoke very often right now ). also growing them to kind of learn more about growing plants from seeds as well as grow some cut flowers for my mom. she passed away last month from leukemia and she was cremated so figured i grow some flowers for her since she never cared much for cannabis. she did like fresh flowers though. always had a vase or 2 full of um on a weekly basis but buying flowers is easy and can get costly this way at least to me it is more special. kind of pressures me into being a better grower as well because if i were to grow these for myself i wouldn't care how they turned out i could just grow more and learn

figured i start off with something fairly easy to grow flower wise. i am probably going to save some seeds for a future run but i like to try new colors/breeds same with cannabis thus why i dont buy in bulk or really seed my plants i like to buy various strains and try them very interesting smells and looks they all have. i pretty much just grow for fun treat it as a hobby. not many people i know of anymore that actually grow plants in my state most of the people are older in their 50's+ kinda trying to keep it alive in a sense teach my future kids how to grow if they wanted to doesn't need to be weed or i could grow with my future wife

Click to expand...

Your seeds will be bigger and better

Sorry to hear about your mom

Dieseltech said:

Your seeds will be bigger and better

Sorry to hear about your mom

Click to expand...

hmm idk they might be we had some flowers outside dwarf sunflowers as well my dad bought for my mom from homedepot i think they were small as shit though. they were grown in some tiny ass pots maybe like a 3inch pot seeds much have been smaller then the ones i got now. im running the lights on 12/12 so yea they might actually turn out good. gotta start feeding them soon i think

April 21

check out that weird little beauty. 3 cotyledons off the bat. still got about 7 out of 10 only sprouted they are mostly at that stage or up with the shell still stuck on um. one of the seeds is having a hard time popping the surface the one i uncovered and recovered. it looks like it wants to grow but having a hard time pushing out so i just removed some of the soil ontop of it to maybe help out a little. i can't remove the shell on it because it's not quite at that stage it's like a premature sprout. the other 2 idk i don't see anything coming up but im going to let them ride a little longer as if give um 2 weeks max to do anything and if not removing those pots from the tent to make more room for the rest for lighting issues as well as RH issues.

might start new seeds in um idk yet already hard enough to get to the pots in the far back to water or check on um due to no space and i can't just go around the back of my tent as it is propped up against the wall so the back door has no access to it at all.

im going to try and feed a 20-20-20 mixture i found by schultz just laying around in the garage. overall though 70% germination rate not too bad possibly 80%

UPDATE- fed them the schultz 1tsp per gal as directed by the label for seedlings. not sure how they will react but my soil has no nutrients in it. will be feeding once a week only and raising the nutrient level higher as they get bigger. i try to water as early as possible so they have time to dry out via the lights on so they don't remain waterlogged as i do water almost daily at this point. other then that just paitently waiting for them to start getting bigger

April 22

watered 1gal just water again today. thinking i might need to slow down on the watering soon before they get root rot or something. pots slowly getting heavier on a daily since the soil is just soaking it all up. other then that plants looking good they look like they are starting their 1st true leaves.

biggest issue i got is only 7 out of 10 actually sprouted. 3 still has no results. one of them i uncovered the same one i been uncovering and it looks like it was struggling maybe i planted too shallow because i uprooted it accidentally today. burried it deeper and going to give all 3 about another week. if nothing im scrapping all 3 of them.

not much going on though i mean these plants seem to grow fairly slow compared to cannabis but i will be checking up on um once the first true leaves are out maybe they might start pushing out more work. one of them on the edge has already started curving towards the light so i just rearranged it closer to the light. idk if that is how it was growing or just it stretching towards the light i mean it's a 4x4 tent with 1 HLG 320 on blast so yea the lighting should be good for these plants to grow

April 24

watered deeply this time. 1gal split for every 3 plants. 3 gal total. 1 more plant sprouted so 8/10=80% rate. most are on their 2nd set of true leaves coming out. some of them have weird first set leaves though like one is big and the other is tiny.

April 25

plants are all mostly on there 2nd set of true leaves already they are slightly taller and wider it's been a week now since i planted from seeds. hopefully these sunflowers will get bigger. im going to try and raise the lights tomorrow to kind of get them to stretch out a little more.

April 28

haven't been updating lately been stressed out some fucker ran the light and totaled my car in a 4 way intersection a few days ago. so pretty much aint got a car to go to work and insurance only covers a certain amount of money they can cover during the downtime of all this which is only $900 which is currently going to the rental i am using for now.

other then that sunflowers looking good. 2 still did not pop im giving them until wednesday which is the 2 week mark before i remove them. i watered and fed 2gals with 2 tbs of the schults which is 20-20-20. i have only been feeding once a week.

plants got watered on because i was lazy and decided to use the big watering can not going to do that again. overall most are on there 3rd set of true leaves not including the cotyledons of course. the rest are on there 2nd but 3rd likely popping out. they are getting bigger slowly. i didn't raise the lights yet will have to do that eventually. there are algae growing on the tops though meaning i watered too frequently so im going to sit back and water every 3 days from now on

March 1

watered 3gals split amongst 10 plants. 1 more plant kinda germinated it looks like it was buried too deep or kind of struggling but im going to let it go and see what happens so basically 90% germination rate 1 still didn't germinate.

plants are mostly all on there 4th set of true leaves already some are slacking behind but meh the ones that germinated the latest which is about 2 of them are doing the worst though they look fairly too small for how far along they are. im just going to let things ride as is.

feeding once a week and watering every 3 days. and yes i got algae growing on the tops not sure how.. when my cannabis are growing even on this watering schedule they dont get that much algae

March 3

NO PICS

plants are looking fairly the same imo one thing i noticed is the leaves are starting to yellow and i quickly thought 1 or 2 things. 1. the plants are not getting enough nitrogen as i do not think they have some sort of nutrient lock out. or 2. which i think is an over watering issue. i doubt it is this though because the issue seems more nutrient related and i'd be actually surprised if it is a nitrogen defiency because 20-20-20 once per week is a lot of nitrogen i mean even when i feed my cannabis i feed them 2-3 times a week but they easily get nitrogen toxicity. i am going to try and switch over to my AN line for the sunflowers and feed full dosage and see what happens

May 4

watered 1gal split amongst 10. i finally removed the 2 that were heavily slacking behind they wouldn't make it anyways no new growth on them and the other didn't germinate at all.

they are taking a while to drink up all the water as well thus why today i only gave 1gal. it's weird because i read and people say they drink a lot of water yet i have them on 12/12 since day 1 and they take about 4-5 days to get dry even with the fans on.

idk if you can see the yellowing of the leaves but i think they are hungry. fed them my AN grow line today instead of the schults 20-20-20. other then that they are looking good to me. usually when we buy sunflowers from the stores they are NOWHERE near this big. pretty sure thats because they don't even have good lighting they just run it on like 4-5 hours of direct light and thats it so it's super small but these ones should be nice. they are on there 6th set of true leaves with the 7th already popping out as well. no signs of the flower buds yet probably end of this month that will come along

May 7

plants seem to be doing alright. they don't seem to drink a lot of water though the 2liters i give them every 3 days lasts a while i think im going to start watering every 4-5 days now. i tried to give 1 plant a whole gallon 4liters in and about on the 5th liter it just all started to drain out the bottom. meaning it still had a lot of water in it because even if i watered too fast my cannabis plants will take up a full gallon in 3 days in 3gal pots.

couple of the plants are already exceeding the edges of the pots they are fairly big. bottom leaves slowly starting to wither away and yellow because at this point they are shaded. plants are still short and stout though not sure when they will gain some height but i have my lights at the very top of the tent they can't go any higher.

May 12

5 days shy of a month since i started plants doing well. been slacking on the journal cause i want to try and show actual significant changes instead of daily pics plus been going through some stuff personally aint got a whole lot of time to be constantly updating daily right now.