MINI BUDGET GROW CHALLENGE

SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
Waffledick420 said:
Update: added foil to walls of box, it's better than nothing. Added heat mat on floor because it's been cold lately. Also threw in some tomato seeds in there so I can start them outside when it warms up. CBD Kush still hasn't germinated, so I guess they didn't make it. Last time I tried to grow this strain, they popped out of the soil in a a day and a half. I'll leave them in and pray they decide to pop out.
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You gotta remember too that usually the older the seed is the longer it can take to germinate so it could still be coming, just fresh seeds pop that fast since the outer shell hasn't aged/dried enough to be super hard yet.

It's kinda funny that you say that though about the foil, I've heard many times foil is one of the worst things you can use because of how crinkled it gets so it doesn't evenly reflect light and can either direct it away from plants at weird angles or focus it too much in one place and make a hot spot. If you aren't able to just get some standard black/white poly, another thing you can try that should be better that I also considered doing is using foam board. Most dollar stores I've been too sell white foam board usually 20" x 30" for $1 each and you can just hot glue it to make walls/reflector whatever. Unlike foil it's perfectly smooth, I decided to just stick with the plastic since I have it and its totally moisture proof, I believe the foam board has a paper layer on the surface it but should still be fine as long as you don't directly soak it.

Did your seeds split at all before going in soil? I've sometimes taken seeds back out and very carefully scratched/scraped the seam to encourage them to split open.

I'm a big supporter of regular seed and keeping the full genetics, once you feminize you lose 50% of the genes (Y chromosome) and drastically decrease the plants ability to evolve and combat diseases and you could lose the strain entirely in the long term(like the issues now with the banana trees). I much prefer to just sex my plants and then take clones from a mother but that's something you can't easily do with an auto flower either. There's lots of pros and cons but its also a known issue that feminized seeds if stressed can turn into hermaphrodites and pollinate your entire grow without you realizing it among other things. There's more detail to the argument for male plants but I'll leave it at that, just wanted to throw my opinion out there for your consideration.
 
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BostonBuds

BostonBuds

Well-Known Member
Waffledick420 said:
I hope making feminized seeds works out. I've been researching how to make them and I really wanna try it off to the side on a small clone or something. Are you gonna be using colloidal silver to force the plants to Hermie? Or is there a different spray that caught your attention? Also, just had a friend offer me a light too! It's a vivosun 600w led light. Hopefully i'll get a decent yield off of it. And I found some things white board that I will try to combine with some scrap metal to build a box. I'm gonna try to keep it a micro grow too, so it'll probably only be 4 feet high so I can tuck it against the wall under a window. This community is so amazing and I'm very happy I joined. My mom will be very excited to see a nice big medicine stash in the near future.
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Yes using that silver spray hopefully I can figure out how to make some seeds. I almost forgot about the seed, the mailman just came and I had to chase him down the street, you should get it monday.
 
Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
Yes using that silver spray hopefully I can figure out how to make some seeds. Ialmostforgot about the seed, themailman just came and I had to chase him down the street, you should get it monday.
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I hear that using the silver spray will basically poison the buds so you can't consume them, but the seeds will be fine and grow smokable buds. Not 100% sure if that's right, but better safe than sorry. And thank you so much. The light that a buddy sent me will be here tomorrow as well, so that's great. I can't wait to try my hand at an auto flower. When I started researching, I decided against autos just because with photos I have control over how big they get and i can take my time. But I'm very interested in seeing how much I can train an auto to get the best yield I can.
 
Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
SODreamsB said:
You gotta remember too that usually the older the seed is the longer it can take to germinate so it could still be coming, just fresh seeds pop that fast since the outer shell hasn't aged/dried enough to be super hard yet.

It's kinda funny that you say that though about the foil, I've heard many times foil is one of the worst things you can use because of how crinkled it gets so it doesn't evenly reflect light and can either direct it away from plants at weird angles or focus it too much in one place and make a hot spot. If you aren't able to just get some standard black/white poly, another thing you can try that should be better that I also considered doing is using foam board. Most dollar stores I've been too sell white foam board usually 20" x 30" for $1 each and you can just hot glue it to make walls/reflector whatever. Unlike foil it's perfectly smooth, I decided to just stick with the plastic since I have it and its totally moisture proof, I believe the foam board has a paper layer on the surface it but should still be fine as long as you don't directly soak it.

Did your seeds split at all before going in soil? I've sometimes taken seeds back out and very carefully scratched/scraped the seam to encourage them to split open.

I'm a big supporter of regular seed and keeping the full genetics, once you feminize you lose 50% of the genes (Y chromosome) and drastically decrease the plants ability to evolve and combat diseases and you could lose the strain entirely in the long term(like the issues now with the banana trees). I much prefer to just sex my plants and then take clones from a mother but that's something you can't easily do with an auto flower either. There's lots of pros and cons but its also a known issue that feminized seeds if stressed can turn into hermaphrodites and pollinate your entire grow without you realizing it among other things. There's more detail to the argument for male plants but I'll leave it at that, just wanted to throw my opinion out there for your consideration.
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When I put them in soil, they just started popping out a tap root, but a day later it still didnt get longer. So i decided to give them one last chance in soil. still haven't come up yet, but I hope they pull through. And about saving genetics, I agree with you to an extent. I agree that it's better to have diversity and we can make huge improvements on strains by using reg seed, but if there is a particular strain that grows amazing, and it came from a single bag seed, I say make feminized seed to preserve that specific genetic. Then you can re-grow that strain, choose the strongest plants, and cross pollinate to create newer strains. If the CBD Kush do pull through, I will take a male and collect a little pollen to pollinate a lower branch of the auto that bostonbuds has donated. Hopefully it will turn into a nice strain for my mom. Hopefully I will have a big update in the next week or so, and hopefully things go well
 
BostonBuds

BostonBuds

Well-Known Member
Waffledick420 said:
I hear that using the silver spray will basically poison the buds so you can't consume them, but the seeds will be fine and grow smokable buds. Not 100% sure if that's right, but better safe than sorry. And thank you so much. The light that a buddy sent me will be here tomorrow as well, so that's great. I can't wait to try my hand at an auto flower. When I started researching, I decided against autos just because with photos I have control over how big they get and i can take my time. But I'm very interested in seeing how much I can train an auto to get the best yield I can.
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The seed I sent you is not good for training, you wont have time to do anything to it. Why not just stick it in the dirt and let it do its thing?
 
SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
BostonBuds said:
The seed I sent you is not good for training, you wont have time to do anything to it. Why not just stick it in the dirt and let it do its thing?
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The colloidal silver is basically harmless and it actually gets used in the food industry quite a bit for various purposes, so it being dangerous is a bit of a myth. You would have to consume or somehow take in an absurd amount of silver before you had any kind of negative health problem.

Yup, like he said a true auto will flower right after getting several sets of leaves and stay pretty small so you won't be able to do too much with it, they also are better to not be transplanted so 2gal (maybe 3gal) pot is probably the only thing you need for it, since you're talking like an 8-12 week life cycle.
 
Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
BostonBuds said:
The seed I sent you is not good for training, you wont have time to do anything to it. Why not just stick it in the dirt and let it do its thing?
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Okay, I'll just let it do what it wants, and see how it goes. It hasn't arrived yet, and neither has the light I was sent. Kinda disappointed I don't get to start building a new grow area, but oh well. Hopefully everything works out.
 
SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
Hey there,

So my light showed up today so I assembled the box frame and did a test fit for my layout.

I'll attach a picture but basically I cut two 6 ft 2x4 into 3 pieces, two just over an inch wide and one 3/4" piece.
Then I cut those pieces into slightly less than 3 foot lengths and the thinner pieces into 1.5 foot lengths.
This left me with eight 3' length pieces and six 1.5' pieces for the box frame and then 2 extra thin pieces which I used to hang the light and mount the exhaust fan.
I assembled them all and pre drilled with a 1/8th drill bit before using 2" #8 screws to connect everything.

Also the plastic I found is a 5 ft by 10 ft extra bit that I picked up at the store for a total of $6 and it fits this just perfect.



As you can see I put the 3' side rails inside, this lets me make a sort of water catch tray in the bottom, but I'll explain the other reasons why in the next update. I'm going to use the compost bin charcoal carbon odor filters for a bottom intake vent and a top exhaust vent and tape them in place with some white UV stable tape I have. It looks like my total costs though are under $80 CAD for everything.
 
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Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
SODreamsB said:
Hey there,

So my light showed up today so I assembled the box frame and did a test fit for my layout.

I'll attach a picture but basically I cut two 6 ft 2x4 into 3 pieces, two just over an inch wide and one 3/4" piece.
Then I cut those pieces into slightly less than 3 foot lengths and the thinner pieces into 1.5 foot lengths.
This left me with eight 3' length pieces and six 1.5' pieces for the box frame and then 2 extra thin pieces which I used to hang the light and mount the exhaust fan.
I assembled them all and pre drilled with a 1/8th drill bit before using 2" #8 screws to connect everything.

Also the plastic I found is a 5 ft by 10 ft extra bit that I picked up at the store for a total of $6 and it fits this just perfect.



As you can see I put the 3' side rails inside, this lets me make a sort of water catch tray in the bottom, but I'll explain the other reasons why in the next update. I'm going to use the compost bin charcoal carbon odor filters for a bottom intake vent and a top exhaust vent and tape them in place with some white UV stable tape I have. It looks like my total costs though are under $80 CAD for everything.
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Looks great! Can't wait to see what you can get out of it
 
Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
UPDATE: one CBD Kush seed decided to pop above soil. So now I have two seedlings. Still expecting Light and seed hopefully soon. Can't wait for more activity in the box
 
SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
Waffledick420 said:
UPDATE: one CBD Kush seed decided to pop above soil. So now I have two seedlings. Still expecting Light and seed hopefully soon. Can't wait for more activity in the box
Click to expand...
Heeyyy there you go, see it just needed a little extra time!

You could of course do exactly what I'm doing and just buy some 2x2s and 1x2s and cut the length but it was an excuse for me to use my table saw and wood I already had and cost nothing extra, so why not right?

So I've got it wrapped now and I used the compost odor carbon filter that I got (used 3 out of a 12 pack for $9, 1 cut in half to double up on top and 2 full size for intake) to make a carbon filtered intake vent which will also block light as well as a filter for exhaust on the top, I cut it so there's a few strips to hold the filter up but let air through. Then used a small triangle piece of excess plastic I cut off from this project to make a wrap taped to the wood for the exhaust fan so it seals it up and gets a good draw, I didn't tape it directly to the fan just wrapped it around tight so its easy to open and swap the filter. With just the one exhaust fan on top the idea here is to make a negative pressure system so its always pulling air in which will keep the smell contained better, so I probably wouldn't have needed to filter the intake if I kept the exhaust fan running all the time but figured I might as well anyways and then there's no light leak either.

So the other reasons I put those cross pieces inside, it gives me something to easily clip 6" air circulating fan to and also since I mainly just attached the plastic with staples put through tape to the top and bottom....it allows me to flip the plastic down and wrap it around the vertical pieces to actually get a pretty decent air seal and not require a zipper or anything complicated.

Here's more pics of the progress, I soaked the seeds last night and put them in soil, not sure what to expect for germination rates so I did 8 of them out of the 100 I got.

 
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G

growingforfun

Well-Known Member
I've done this several times for fun and I can tell you what I've done but I don't have the space and time to do it again right now. using household led bulbs and power strips, with lightbulb to outlet converters I would spend around 40$. Then I'd use a old card table and drape sheets over it to keep the light in. Zip tie the power strip lights to the card table, put the plants in there. Get some rubber made trashcans for dark chambers. Move the plants every 12 hours. Some are under the table while some are in the trashcans and switching them every 12 hours.
I dont remember what I got last time but I know I've gotten several oz every time I've done it and I've done it a few times

I had to wipe down and disinfect the trashcans every 12 hours due to condensation and to prevent mold.
 
SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
growingforfun said:
I've done this several times for fun and I can tell you what I've done but I don't have the space and time to do it again right now. using household led bulbs and power strips, with lightbulb to outlet converters I would spend around 40$. Then I'd use a old card table and drape sheets over it to keep the light in. Zip tie the power strip lights to the card table, put the plants in there. Get some rubber made trashcans for dark chambers. Move the plants every 12 hours. Some are under the table while some are in the trashcans and switching them every 12 hours.
I dont remember what I got last time but I know I've gotten several oz every time I've done it and I've done it a few times

I had to wipe down and disinfect the trashcans every 12 hours due to condensation and to prevent mold.
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That sounds like a lot of work, I guess you didn't have to worry too much about the smell ? I just came across the compost bin filters and they were so cheap it seemed like a great idea, its anyone's guess how long they will last though.

So you were just using the bulbs in socket plug adapter straight in a power bar huh, I'm kinda interested to try that now with something like a 4 ft workshop power bar.
 
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G

growingforfun

Well-Known Member
SODreamsB said:
That sounds like a lot of work, I guess you didn't have to worry too much about the smell ? I just came across the compost bin filters and they were so cheap it seemed like a great idea, its anyone's guess how long they will last though.

So your were just using the bulbs in socket plug adapter straight in a power bar huh, I'm kinda interested to try that now with something like a 4 ft workshop power bar.
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I actually had a shitload of carbon filtering going on that I already had. This was just a fun thing to do.

And it kinda was a lot of work but not too bad at all. I ended up getting a fair bit of erb for extremely low cost and it was fun. I'm no stranger to moving plants every 12 hours so it wasnt stressful on me.
 
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Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
Everyone has great ideas and tips for this. I wish I could go to the store and get more stuff to replicate you guys boxes so I could try multiple different techniques for growing. But rn I gotta just go with what I can find.

UPDATE: added two more small e27 lights I got for $1 each a year ago on eBay. Still only one CBD Kush seeding, but better than none. Need to fix humidity so later will probably put wet toilet paper around the box. And if the plants get a little too big for the tote, I will make a box out of some metal and scrap wood, and put it in a closet.
 

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Waffledick420

Waffledick420

Active Member
Sad update. I got the lemon auto seed in the mail, but my mail carrier smashed the shit out of the packaging and all that was left is this. Very sad that this happened, but oh well. The light never came in either so they probably delivered it to a different house. At least I still have my mystery seed and CBD Kush seedling.
 

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SODreamsB

SODreamsB

Member
Waffledick420 said:
Sad update. I got the lemon auto seed in the mail, but my mail carrier smashed the shit out of the packaging and all that was left is this. Very sad that this happened, but oh well. The light never came in either so they probably delivered it to a different house. At least I still have my mystery seed and CBD Kush seedling.
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I guess all those jokes I've heard/seen about the US postal service have some truth in them, but on the bright side at least if you can get your other plant going well then you should be able to take cuttings.
 
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