First Grow...

Any help will be appreciated.

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A small room with 2.5 cubic meters volume and 1 square meter usable area. There are two little fans working 15 minutes for several times a day. The fans open to the A ventilator runs all day long.

Room's relative humidity was around 60% and varies between 45-65% depending on the fan and ventilator schedule. Temperature goes between 26-29 centigrade degrees. Fans seem to be able to decrease the temperature only by one or two degrees if any at all. Opening the grow room's door was the best way to lower the temperature by far.

1.5-2.5 gallon containers. Root medium is composed of two parts general potting soil (with some peat moss and some nutrients in it), one part some good soil with perlite, and a handful of styrofoam bubbles for each container (didn't have more perlite!).

6400K compact fluorescent light bulbs with at least 20-60w per sq. ft.

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Two different strains of unknown street seeds: U1 and U2!

16 soaked U1 seeds were sowed all together in a single little plastic cup. The first one sprouted the 6th day after the sowing. The last one came at the 11th day, and yes all of them sprouted somehow! Ten sprouts were selected and transplanted into containers and watered throughly on the 12th day.

10 soaked U2 seeds were sowed (5 in peat pellets, 5 in individual plastic cups with soil mix). First sprout came out of one peat pellet on the 3rd day. The last one came on the 9th day. Out of 10 seeds only six sprouted. Five U1 plants selected and transplanted into containers and watered throughly on the 11th day.

Finally seven U1 and five U2 plants were selected.

Since U1 strain is put under less intense light, U2 plants grew faster and the both strains' growth is almost equal on the 21st day.

Both the U1 and U2 seem to be of Indica type. U1 may have some Sativa code since its leaves are thinner and less bushy (this difference may be due to the difference in their lighting conditions though). U2 has larger and thicker leaves with clearly visible fluffy patterns on them.

Nine days since the watering, soil surface is a little dry but the root level is still wet.

U2 plants apparently outgrew U1. Four five sets of leaves formed. First five bladed leaves formed.

13 days since watering: Surface is dry, root level moist.

***Vegetative growth begins

A couple of new bulbs added. Temperature too high: 28 centigrade degrees. Ventilator now works at full speed for 24 hours.

17 days since watering. Moisture meter still reads moist to little dry but the upper part of the soil is absolutely dry and even have some cracks out of drought. Some plants even show signs of dehydration (wilted leaves). Enough with the water diet, tomorrow is the time.

Some of the plants have faintly yellow areas on their leaves. This seems to be a kind of nutrient deficiency. 1/2 dose of general purpose (7-6-6) water soluble fertilizer will be used with the next watering.

The plants are taken out of the grow room for watering. This is the first time they see the sunshine since transplanting! Most of them have wilted since last night. There are huge cracks through the soil.

Watering was a battle. The soil was so dry that the most of the water poured onto it came right down to the drainage holes through the cracks in the soil. It took several drenching sessions for each plant to actually wet the soil (any help on this subject will be appreciated, other than to water earlier

It's been eight hours since watering and the plants are already showing signs of recovery. I'll post some pictures of them tomorrow, after a day of recovery.

***A general purpose (7-5-5) fertilizer with secondary and trace elements added to water with the half dosage.

lookin good so far, good luck

Moldy said:

...I have some babies about the same size of plants now and when they do go "vegi" they'll need watering every other day...

Click to expand...

I just took them out for watering and let them stay for a while, they will usually be in the room. By the way, when exactly the vegetative stage starts?

Nothing compares to cultivate corn in the Midwest Thanks a lot Moldy.

A day after watering. The droopy plants are turning back to normal.

U2 strain seems to be a very strong one. U2 stems look far stronger than those of U1. U1s are clearly thinner and longer than the U2s. Most U2 plants developed extra leaves from the lower nodes, they look bushy, one of them still has a cracked seed on the cotyledon though One of the U1s seems almost as strong as U2s.

Overall height of the plants is around 10-13cm (4-5 inches). The temperature is around 28 centigrade degrees for the last few days.

Problems:
* One of the U2s has curled leaves for no reason i know of
* One U2 plant has a leaf which has yellow-brown discoloration on the tips. This may be due to contact with nutrient dissolved water during the watering?
* Some of them still look droopy, why?

Today i got a tiny 1w pump to keep the water aerated. Since i let the tap water rest in a tank for several days to evaporate the chlorine, i thought these little bubbles would help. Though, i don't know if stirring the water before waterings could do the same thing

And guess what, the room has started to smell a bit. Is it normal to smell this early or maybe my nose doesn't work quite right?

yeah its normal for them to start smelling a bit. its where the fun starts jaja

While measuring the plants' height, one of the lower leaves of a U1 plant was accidentally cut. Since the injured plant was one of the weakest ones and there's not much space in the room, i decided to take it out of the room and force it to flower. This little one has stayed in a dark room for 12 hours (Yhey were under CFLs for 24 hours a day) and will be having weak indirect sunshine during the day.

So this plant is forced to flower on the 32nd day of sowing (25th day after sprouting, at the end of the first week of vegetative stage), let's see what happens...

After adding the last CFLs, i think it's seems that using two 150W HPS and/or MH (one for vegetative, one for flowering) is a more logical lighting solution. There will be about 5-6 plants under each bulb. For flowering, a 250W HPS can be used or 150W HPS supported by warm white vertical CFLs hanging between the lower branches.

By the way, in theory, HPS bulbs--although less in percentage--produce more amount of blue light than MH bulbs. If so, is there a reason to ever use MH bulbs? Or maybe the excess red light emitted by HPSs effect vegetative growth negatively?

The temperature was never below 28C (82.5F). The plants seem to suffer a bit from the high temperature. The humidity was around 50-60% for the last several days. The ph of the soil is around 7-8.

It's been only three days since the second watering and the soil is already dry on the first couple of inches. The time between the first and the second waterings was 17 days! Next watering should be in about three four days, they started to consume a lot more water.

The tallest plant is more than 20cm (U1). The shortest one is about 12cm (U2). U2 strain is getting bushier and started to look very nice.

*** Some plants from both strains show signs of "heat stress"
*** There are some purple stems and branches among the both strains???
*** As can be seen from the pictures, some of the them have burns on the new growing leaves, i guess i'm pushing the light distance a bit

Any comment will be appreciated.

The nutrient solution used didn't have sulfur in it and according to "plant problems forum," purple stems and branches are because of sulfur deficiency.

But these plants don't have the other symptoms of sulfur deficiency, so i guess we have a problem...

Well it was going strangely smooth until now but i guess the real challenge begins now...

Today some plants were really droopy and were watered (pictures before and 6 hours after watering are attached). There are some minor? problems going on with the plants these days. They show some signs of nutrient lockout. Also, lower leaves get yellow and some has kind of burns on them. Purple stems and branches are common..

I can't decrease the temperature with fans at all... What fans do is to simply lower the humidity below 50% which i don't want.

Things are getting a little complicated, i've already started to get bored. I guess i need some new toys to cheer up a little. As the number of the CFLs increased, it got more difficult to control them. I can't even take care of the plants because of the bad room and light design. I plan to buy two 150W HPSs (one for vegetating, one for flowering. One bulb for each 2-3 sq. feet, 3-4 plants under each light). I can later support the flowering plants' sides with vertical warm white fluorescent bulbs. But i don't how to deal with the heat, it's already pushing the limits with CFLs...

I think i also want a kind of CO2 generator thing. A CO2 tank, regulator, valves and little tubes for each plant! Since the smell is about to become a problem, i need some gels to get rid of the smell. Some more small ventilators hanged around the room would also be quite nice.

Actually, i wish i can start from the beginning! Well here we go again... Avoiding, postponing and "clean sheets" instead of struggling, which is after all, what anything is all about

Any comments are appreciated.

Today i noticed a rather strange thing. These plants were under 24 hours of light a day since they sprouted (25-30 days ago). Now they have clearly visible preflowers???

What's the meaning of this? Autoflowering or early preflowering?

There are probably five females, four males, and a hermaphrodite.

What should i do now? Switch to 12/12 or what?

Here are the males (they were taken out of the room):

The pistils are so thin and hard to picture. But here is a couple of assumed females:

This one is probably a hermaphrodite. It seems to have some pistils on the top cola and a developing pollen sack on one of the lower branches. It's still in the room, don't know what to do with it, will keep it until the sacks become clear...