New Grower - 1st Indoor Grow Questions

[Cali Cajun]

I jarred up the buds from the first round of harvesting - it looks like I let the batch from the first day (I staggered over three days) dry out a bit too much - it's reading 56% humidity in the jar. All the other jars are 60% +. I have about 5.5 ounces so far - judging by what still looks to be on the plants I should have at least another 3 ounces. I'm happy with the weight it looks like I'm going to pull for my first time out with my light (260 watt HLG quantum board), but am a bit disappointed in the visual appearance of the buds after drying - kind of light, airy and wispy. Not sure if it's the strain or my environmental conditions - the last few weeks I was having a hard time keeping temps down in the tent so definitely need to change up my light cycle the next time around.

I've got about 4 ounces of trim - will probably try to make a batch of bubble hash this weekend. I'm going to let the remaining buds on the plants ripen for about another week and then finish off the harvest. Feeling a bit "meh" about how things went, but all in all ... could have been worse!! I learned a bit and had some fun; hopefully next grow goes a bit better but I already messed my biggest plant on grow 2 up yesterday when I accidentally obliterated a top trying to tie it down.

 

[GroErr]

I jarred up the buds from the first round of harvesting - it looks like I let the batch from the first day (I staggered over three days) dry out a bit too much - it's reading 56% humidity in the jar. All the other jars are 60% +. I have about 5.5 ounces so far - judging by what still looks to be on the plants I should have at least another 3 ounces. I'm happy with the weight it looks like I'm going to pull for my first time out with my light (260 watt HLG quantum board), but am a bit disappointed in the visual appearance of the buds after drying - kind of light, airy and wispy. Not sure if it's the strain or my environmental conditions - the last few weeks I was having a hard time keeping temps down in the tent so definitely need to change up my light cycle the next time around.

I've got about 4 ounces of trim - will probably try to make a batch of bubble hash this weekend. I'm going to let the remaining buds on the plants ripen for about another week and then finish off the harvest. Feeling a bit "meh" about how things went, but all in all ... could have been worse!! I learned a bit and had some fun; hopefully next grow goes a bit better but I already messed my biggest plant on grow 2 up yesterday when I accidentally obliterated a top trying to tie it down.

Nice, don't be down on yourself for the airy buds, they can get more dense with feeding adjustments/tweaking later but more typically the bud density is more strain and even phenotype specific. I've run a pheno hunt and had super-dense buds on one, and airy buds on another pheno right beside it. Being that most of your run was under the QB's I don't think the lighting or environment would have had much of an effect on density. Careful with the drying process, once they get too dry you can't really get them back (you can try with Boveda packs or adding moisture but terps suffer). You're better to leave them with a bit more moisture going into curing, then cure longer to do the final drying, they'll retain more terps and burn/taste better.

 

[SmileyBizz]

Ah, I see. I'm working with clones, though, and they had alternating nodes when I got them. Is that a sign that they were flowering when the clones were cut? Sorry for all the questions - still trying to wrap my head around all of this!

its called super cloning when you take clones that are in week 3ish in flower.

From the info i have been looking at they say super clones get alot bigger in flower?

 

[Cali Cajun]

Nice, don't be down on yourself for the airy buds, they can get more dense with feeding adjustments/tweaking later but more typically the bud density is more strain and even phenotype specific. I've run a pheno hunt and had super-dense buds on one, and airy buds on another pheno right beside it. Being that most of your run was under the QB's I don't think the lighting or environment would have had much of an effect on density. Careful with the drying process, once they get too dry you can't really get them back (you can try with Boveda packs or adding moisture but terps suffer). You're better to leave them with a bit more moisture going into curing, then cure longer to do the final drying, they'll retain more terps and burn/taste better.

Thanks GroErr - I'm feeling a bit better about them after they've settled in the jar a bit. Yeah, the first batch I pulled I think it was a bit too hot and I had a fan going in the closet, so those seem to have dried a bit more than the others. I put a Boveda pack in which helped a bit; it got the RH back to about 58%. That ounce is a bit over-dried, but I vaped a bud of it yesterday and it actually was pretty nice.

 

[Cali Cajun]

its called super cloning when you take clones that are in week 3ish in flower.

From the info i have been looking at they say super clones get alot bigger in flower?

I think they about doubled in size during flower (maybe a few inches less than that).

 

[Cali Cajun]

Yesterday I finished harvesting the bottom half of all plants. In cleaning out the grow pots, I noticed that the roots really didn't look too healthy on any of the plants, and only one of them had roots that had reached the bottom of the 5 gallon pot - the others only extended 1/3 to 1/2 of the way, and a couple looked like they actually hadn't done any additional rooting since transplanting from 3 gallon pots. The soil also seemed to be holding way too much water. An early bit of feedback someone (Chef420) provided me at the start of my grow was that it looked like I was over-watering. I backed off a bunch on the watering, but is it possible I was still over-watering?? Or had I possibly already done early damage to the root system that they never completely recovered from? During flowering, I was pretty much watering every four or five days, never quite to runoff (a little less than two quarts of water per 5 gallon pot). I usually waited to water until the plants started to wilt just slightly, and they felt light when lifting compared to their weight after watering.

I originally had a fifth plant in the tent that had very clear root problems at the last transplant and went into a very slow growing pattern. I still have that plant outside (and it recently started budding), but is still growing very slowly. I was about to transplant the plants on my second grow today, but think I need to get a handle on whatever is happening in my environment with my roots. I popped one of the plants from its container yesterday to see where the roots were, and while they were reaching the bottom of the container, I noticed they had a lot of brown on the roots.

 

[Cali Cajun]

I also did a trial run of bubble hash in a little portable washing machine today. I picked a bad place to do it - the side yard of my house which is unfortunately under a large pine and large redwood tree (LOTS of tree needles), which managed to get into my first batch and ruin it. I cleaned up and moved to a better location, and did another two rinses. I got pretty small yield, but it sure smells nice...

 

[GroErr]

Yesterday I finished harvesting the bottom half of all plants. In cleaning out the grow pots, I noticed that the roots really didn't look too healthy on any of the plants, and only one of them had roots that had reached the bottom of the 5 gallon pot - the others only extended 1/3 to 1/2 of the way, and a couple looked like they actually hadn't done any additional rooting since transplanting from 3 gallon pots. The soil also seemed to be holding way too much water. An early bit of feedback someone (Chef420) provided me at the start of my grow was that it looked like I was over-watering. I backed off a bunch on the watering, but is it possible I was still over-watering?? Or had I possibly already done early damage to the root system that they never completely recovered from? During flowering, I was pretty much watering every four or five days, never quite to runoff (a little less than two quarts of water per 5 gallon pot). I usually waited to water until the plants started to wilt just slightly, and they felt light when lifting compared to their weight after watering.

I originally had a fifth plant in the tent that had very clear root problems at the last transplant and went into a very slow growing pattern. I still have that plant outside (and it recently started budding), but is still growing very slowly. I was about to transplant the plants on my second grow today, but think I need to get a handle on whatever is happening in my environment with my roots. I popped one of the plants from its container yesterday to see where the roots were, and while they were reaching the bottom of the container, I noticed they had a lot of brown on the roots.

It is very likely that you were overwatering. It's not unusual to have significant differences between plants/phenos in how much water they take and how fast. I have a couple of phenos that drink twice as fast as any others I throw into the room. You really have to treat them as individual plants, not as a group and watch each one's tendencies, same goes for feeding and almost anything related to the growth rates/patterns.

One thing you can do to have less worries and build better root systems is to try the fabric pots. They take a little adjustment, typically dry out a little faster than plastic pots. But they are totally forgiving when it comes to watering and grow amazing roots. They also support much bigger plants per gallon of medium in comparison to plastic pots. Here's an example of that, those were 3ft. plants from seed in 1gal fabric pots.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Thanks GroErr - I do have some of the 3 gallon smart pots; I think I will try them when I do my next transplant on my new Chemdog grow. The one plant I culled from my tent for the Gorilla Glue grow I've had in a smart pot - the two things I don't like about it are that every time I water I get leakage out of the bottom and sides (worried about getting water in the bottom of my tent) and that I can't as easily attach eye hooks for tying down the plants for LST. But I think it might be worth giving them another go - and given that my roots didn't really take advantage of the 5 gallon pots, I might just stick with 3 gallon ones for the current grow.

Thanks again GroErr for all your help - you had a lot of great suggestions and made the whole process of my first grow much less intimidating!

I finished up jarring the last of the initial harvest, and am just a tad under half a pound. My bubble hash experiment didn't go well and only yielded a gram and a half, but it is a good gram and a half! And my final fifth plant has started budding and is chugging away in the back yard - hopefully will get another ounce or two from that plant in the fall.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Oh, and one other question - should I be worrying about monitoring the pH of my water for growing in organic soil? Because I haven't been - I read somewhere (I think on the Grow Weed Easy site) that for organic soil grows the water pH didn't matter, but have read recently that it does. I took a pH reading when I first started the grow and checked information from our water provider, and think the pH was somewhere around 8. Should I be trying to get closer to a neutral reading?

 

[GroErr]

Thanks GroErr - I do have some of the 3 gallon smart pots; I think I will try them when I do my next transplant on my new Chemdog grow. The one plant I culled from my tent for the Gorilla Glue grow I've had in a smart pot - the two things I don't like about it are that every time I water I get leakage out of the bottom and sides (worried about getting water in the bottom of my tent) and that I can't as easily attach eye hooks for tying down the plants for LST. But I think it might be worth giving them another go - and given that my roots didn't really take advantage of the 5 gallon pots, I might just stick with 3 gallon ones for the current grow.

Thanks again GroErr for all your help - you had a lot of great suggestions and made the whole process of my first grow much less intimidating!

I finished up jarring the last of the initial harvest, and am just a tad under half a pound. My bubble hash experiment didn't go well and only yielded a gram and a half, but it is a good gram and a half! And my final fifth plant has started budding and is chugging away in the back yard - hopefully will get another ounce or two from that plant in the fall.

Cheers, glad to help out, lots of things to deal with when first starting out. RE: Leaking in the fabrics, yes there can be, one way to manage that is compress (just fill the pot around the root ball, then press down the soil around the outer edge) the outer 1" or so of the soil against the walls of the pot when transplanting. I've found side leaks pretty well go away if you do that. When watering, take it easy on the amount in the first lot of water you pour, let it settle while you water the others, then come back to it. Between those I may get the odd one leaking a little but very little and they soak that up through the bottom quickly. The LST thing is something I used to deal with, I don't do much now and just use trellises in the sides of the pots if the plants need support and wind the larger branches through them for support. One thing I used when I was doing LST in fabrics were safety pins, they can be put around the edge and give you something to tie string/wire to.

Nice harvest and homegrown so you know exactly what went into it!

 

[GroErr]

Oh, and one other question - should I be worrying about monitoring the pH of my water for growing in organic soil? Because I haven't been - I read somewhere (I think on the Grow Weed Easy site) that for organic soil grows the water pH didn't matter, but have read recently that it does. I took a pH reading when I first started the grow and checked information from our water provider, and think the pH was somewhere around 8. Should I be trying to get closer to a neutral reading?

I checked my ph once when switching medium but haven't since, that was probably about 4-5 years ago Soil provides quite a buffer and unless you're extreme one way or the other (low/high) or having issues which you think could be PH related I don't feel it's necessary in soil based medium. 8 seems high though, may want to take some readings and confirm it's consistently that high.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Cheers, glad to help out, lots of things to deal with when first starting out. RE: Leaking in the fabrics, yes there can be, one way to manage that is compress (just fill the pot around the root ball, then press down the soil around the outer edge) the outer 1" or so of the soil against the walls of the pot when transplanting. I've found side leaks pretty well go away if you do that. When watering, take it easy on the amount in the first lot of water you pour, let it settle while you water the others, then come back to it. Between those I may get the odd one leaking a little but very little and they soak that up through the bottom quickly. The LST thing is something I used to deal with, I don't do much now and just use trellises in the sides of the pots if the plants need support and wind the larger branches through them for support. One thing I used when I was doing LST in fabrics were safety pins, they can be put around the edge and give you something to tie string/wire to.

Nice harvest and homegrown so you know exactly what went into it!

Sounds good - I'll give your suggestions a try and transplant to smart pots soon. I've developed a problem with my new grow (lower leaves have started yellowing / dying) so am hoping to get that sorted out and will then transplant in the next week or so. The safety pins sound like a great idea.

 

[Cali Cajun]

I checked my ph once when switching medium but haven't since, that was probably about 4-5 years ago Soil provides quite a buffer and unless you're extreme one way or the other (low/high) or having issues which you think could be PH related I don't feel it's necessary in soil based medium. 8 seems high though, may want to take some readings and confirm it's consistently that high.

My water district says they raise the pH to that to avoid problems in the distribution pipes (??? that was in the water report), but I don't think it was that high when I took a measurement. I'll dig up my test kit and take a few more readings; if high I'll buy some pH down and try using that.

 

[GroErr]

My water district says they raise the pH to that to avoid problems in the distribution pipes (??? that was in the water report), but I don't think it was that high when I took a measurement. I'll dig up my test kit and take a few more readings; if high I'll buy some pH down and try using that.

Yeah I'd test it a few times, if it's high consistently ph down isn't going to hurt.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Just tested - water that I've had sitting for a couple of days to get rid of chlorine is over 8 pH! I looked on the website of the super soil vendor and they said that while it will buffer the pH to some degree, if significantly over 7.5 or it should be lowered. Live and learn - I'll start doing that on the new grow. I started transplanting the second grow into 3 gallon pots in preparation of moving into the flower tent - the roots look much better than first grow! There still seems to be some root rot at the sides of the pot, but hopefully the smart pots will help with that somewhat.

 

[GroErr]

Just tested - water that I've had sitting for a couple of days to get rid of chlorine is over 8 pH! I looked on the website of the super soil vendor and they said that while it will buffer the pH to some degree, if significantly over 7.5 or it should be lowered. Live and learn - I'll start doing that on the new grow. I started transplanting the second grow into 3 gallon pots in preparation of moving into the flower tent - the roots look much better than first grow! There still seems to be some root rot at the sides of the pot, but hopefully the smart pots will help with that somewhat.

Yeah worth a try if that's the case with your water, anything to help with uptake. It could be screwing with your roots but that's more likely water retention than anything, the roots are one thing you shouldn't have to worry about with the fabric pots.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Cool - hopefully helps a bit!

 

[doctordetroit]

Congrats calicajun on your first grow they look good.

 

[Cali Cajun]

Thanks Doctordetroit - having fun so far, and a lot left to learn!