1st hydro grow Dinafem Roadrunner (auto)

plant is lookin good keep it up

I added another 2.5 ml/gal of nutes today. Total concentration is 7.5 ml/gal and so far plant is not showing any signs of stress.

Tonight is the first night I under the HID light. I'm a little worried if I have the right distance from the bulb - right now its 15" from the top of the plant. I'm concerned it may dry the medium too quickly because there is a fan blowing constantly. So I'm going to let the pumps run all the time; under the CFL they were running half an hour on half off. Temperature is around 82F, humidity around 60%.

Here is a picture right before I put it under the HID:

Kaban said:

I added another 2.5 ml/gal of nutes today. Total concentration is 7.5 ml/gal and so far plant is not showing any signs of stress.

Tonight is the first night I under the HID light. I'm a little worried if I have the right distance from the bulb - right now its 15" from the top of the plant. I'm concerned it may dry the medium too quickly because there is a fan blowing constantly. So I'm going to let the pumps run all the time; under the CFL they were running half an hour on half off. Temperature is around 82F, humidity around 60%.

Here is a picture right before I put it under the HID:

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I'd put it way higher at first, I harden em off at about 45 inches and then drop it over the course of a couple days down to about 20"

JonnyBtreed said:

I'd put it way higher at first, I harden em off at about 45 inches and then drop it over the course of a couple days down to about 20"

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The plant looks ok but the there was a lot more salt on the pebbles than before, and the level in the reservoir had gone down a little more than usual.

Today was windy day, so the plant is a little tilted. pH is higher than 6.5 but not 7 yet. Will check it again tomorrow morning and possibly adjust. I’ve been adding distilled water to the reservoir as it evaporates, that’s probably why.

Pic from today:

Not much new today. pH was 6.5 in the morning, I brought it down to 6.0 but by the evening it was back up to 6.5. I'm going to have to use a more concentrated ph down solution.

Pic from today:

Battles with pH again. It was 6.5 I decided to lower it by adding 1/4 tsp concentrate of ph down.

An hour later, it was down to 6 if I looked at the vial under a lightbulb, but if I tested it against the sun it was between 4 and 5. I really hate to shell out the money for a digitial ph meter but I may have to.

Pic from the day:

The plant spent some of the day in the sun. pH is over 6.5. I’ll let it run overnight and correct in the morning.

The plant really exploded when I put it under the sun. However, once I returned it under the HPS the top pair of leaves started to hang down a little. That usually happens with the other plants when I have it too close to the light, so I moved the light up a notch. I’m also seeing some nutrient burn on the older leaves, but nothing too serious. I’ll back out the nutes a little on the next feeding which should be in the next few days.

Let me know if you think the reason for the hanging leaves is different. You can see them here:


and the aerial view

Great! I'm doing Roadrunner at the moment as well. You're 10 days ahead of me.

Anyone have ideas why the top leaf is hanging so low. Is it overwatering? Is it too close to the light? Or too much light cause it was in the sun most of the day? Or too hot/humid something?

Any help appreciated.

Plant's doing fine, just updating daily pic. It should start to flower any day now. Its been almost a week since last change of nutes so once it flowers I'll put it on different schedule.

Kaban said:

Anyone have ideas why the top leaf is hanging so low. Is it overwatering? Is it too close to the light? Or too much light cause it was in the sun most of the day? Or too hot/humid something?

Any help appreciated.

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I think the most important consideration I've learned from growing is giving the plant a consistent environment. It seems that a lot of times the diagnosing of problems can sometimes be the problem itself.

TurkeyOnRye said:

I think the most important consideration I've learned from growing is giving the plant a consistent environment. It seems that a lot of times the diagnosing of problems can sometimes be the problem itself.

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I was starting to suspect that constantly moving the plants in and out of the sun wasn't such a good idea. Although I love how the plant goes literally hyper when its out.

Anyway, here's a daily update. PPM is 980, no signs of flowering, still growing very fast. According to the instruction manual it should automatically start to flower, although if I have to "entice" it by going 12/12 that's fine.

Kaban said:

I was starting to suspect that constantly moving the plants in and out of the sun wasn't such a good idea. Although I love how the plant goes literally hyper when its out.

Anyway, here's a daily update. PPM is 980, no signs of flowering, still growing very fast. According to the instruction manual it should automatically start to flower, although if I have to "entice" it by going 12/12 that's fine.

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I too am germinating a freebie dinafem roadrunner at the moment so I'm watching your thread with great interest. A nice quick flowering plant would be nice to hold me over until the harvest of white widow and super lemon haze.

This all will be my first grow. I've done my homework but I'm still quite nervous about it all.

The plant's dead. It has had stem rot or someone described it damping off or Pythium wilt. Sorry and thanks to everyone who commented on this journal.

I will sterilize the setup and start something else in a few weeks.. I hope.

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Oh man, that really sucks. I gave my dad a roadrunner seed that I got free for his medical grow, and his died after a week. Maybe its not a good strain? and I just subscribed to the thread yesterday too. could you cut it up and grow it like 3 or 4 plants? Or would you only get 3 or 4 little tiny buds?

420roofer said:

Oh man, that really sucks. I gave my dad a roadrunner seed that I got free for his medical grow, and his died after a week. Maybe its not a good strain? and I just subscribed to the thread yesterday too. could you cut it up and grow it like 3 or 4 plants? Or would you only get 3 or 4 little tiny buds?

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I just had my first seedling die of damping off. I gave the little guy a lot of stress in the short experiment that was its life. He came from humble beginnings as bagseed from some of the nastiest schwag I've ever smoked. I disturbed its roots repeatedly early and often in attempts to learn more about the cannabis plant in preparation for my Super Lemon Haze grow. I put the still green fan leaves into a book for storage...

GH Fem Super Lemon Haze is looking good so far with at least 9 for 10 germinating and sprouting within 48 hours (and the tenth looks promising). Maybe I'll take some pictures later to share....

Completely dead? really?

JonnyBtreed said:

Completely dead? really?

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Yeah, basically an hour after the break the leaves started having very weird dark spots on and to curl upwards. I chopped it off and the remains are being cremated as we speak


Thanks for the kind words folks. This was just dipping toes in the water with a freebie and I learned a lot. I'm a lot more confident about doing a bigger grow with non-auto variety (that actually costs $$$)

To those of you who are also growing the Roadrunner, let me know how it turns out.

Best wishes to everyone, hope to see you in a grow journal soon!

Archness said:

I just had my first seedling die of damping off. I gave the little guy a lot of stress in the short experiment that was its life. He came from humble beginnings as bagseed from some of the nastiest schwag I've ever smoked. I disturbed its roots repeatedly early and often in attempts to learn more about the cannabis plant in preparation for my Super Lemon Haze grow. I put the still green fan leaves into a book for storage...

GH Fem Super Lemon Haze is looking good so far with at least 9 for 10 germinating and sprouting within 48 hours (and the tenth looks promising). Maybe I'll take some pictures later to share....

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why the hell would you save fan leaves in a book for storage??

I know this thread is REALLY old & I'm not trying to hijack it or anything, but finding any practical info on Dinafem's Roadrunner is pretty tough!!

I, like others, got a freebie RoadRunner bean from The Attitude. Now I'm not a master grower, quite frankly I'm far from it.
But I'm VERY happy with my go at this strain. Attached are 4 pics of my RoadRunner at 5 weeks.

This grow was done with miracle-gro moisture control "soil"(not looking for a debate over MG products, I've read most of the pros & cons...it's just what works for me at the moment), 2 125w CFLs (with 2 24w & 2 30w CFLs filling in)...The bean went right into the bucket, I didn't germ it 1st...It broke soil after 4 days & with the lights on a 20/4 cycle it grew like CRAZY!!

I fed it only tap water, that I let sit out for 24hrs, for the 1st 2&1/2 weeks & then I have hit it 2xs with an H2o blackstrap molasses mix(1TBSP per US Gal.) since. The lights got switched from 20/4 to 18/6 after 4 weeks.....I was trying to stop upward growth & it worked

I do know that the "fluffy bud thing" will be the result of using CFLs & even though Colleen (that's her name) has at least 4 more weeks to go, I have to say this was the best auto-flower strain I have tried so far (I have tried La Diva & Lowryder #2 x AK47 too)

Anyway, here are the pics...