First Time Grower, G13 Feminized

a few updates

still no pistils visible. good thing in my opinion. save 'em for later.

in the past few days i've gotten over my fear of touching the leaves to check for good health etc. it feels good to get some hands-on time.

the 2 wilting leaves that i mentioned recently are right across from each other, more than halfway down the plant height. i am pretty sure they are the *original* set of leaves, like pair #1 ever. i don't wanna dig around the truckloads of newer leaves in that area to find out, but this makes sense.

all other leaves are thriving. there are sporadic tiny spots of chlorophyll damage in a leaf here or there. most of them are from above. i have only found 2 leaf blades with actual eat damage from underneath.

sporadic tiny bugs of 2 or 3 varieties. still very low numbers, like 1 or 2 at a time. no outbreaks.

height 6", leafspan 12". daily visible growth surprising me every day.

supersymmetry said:

a few updates

still no pistils visible. good thing in my opinion. save 'em for later.

in the past few days i've gotten over my fear of touching the leaves to check for good health etc. it feels good to get some hands-on time.

the 2 wilting leaves that i mentioned recently are right across from each other, more than halfway down the plant height. i am pretty sure they are the *original* set of leaves, like pair #1 ever. i don't wanna dig around the truckloads of newer leaves in that area to find out, but this makes sense.

all other leaves are thriving. there are sporadic tiny spots of chlorophyll damage in a leaf here or there. most of them are from above. i have only found 2 leaf blades with actual eat damage from underneath.

sporadic tiny bugs of 2 or 3 varieties. still very low numbers, like 1 or 2 at a time. no outbreaks.

height 6", leafspan 12". daily visible growth surprising me every day.

Click to expand...

I cant remember when it showed sex but it usually is around 40 days or more from seed for the stuff ive run.

world's first rotating grow room in effect, haha... test run lookin good. i will plan on putting it to use starting tomorrow. also bought a clear runoff plate with wheels so i can more easily cart around my grow pot & clearly see runoff, which up till now i couldn't. bought some mosquito dunks; haven't opened pkg yet.

oops, left the light on one extra hour this time around, total 19hrs... d'oh. should i just use 5hrs of darkness instead of 6 and keep on keepin on, or do something else? that's probably what i'll do

hula growroom working out pretty nicely so far. it does a good job of keeping temp down as the fan blades suck cool air from the bottom & lift it upwards.

i cut down more mirrors from a bigger mirror. this time i have 5 of 'em, each one about 10" x 8". 4 of those are now surrounding the plant on 4 sides and are blasting it w/ extra light. soon enough they'll be too small though!

plant now appx 14" at widest leafspan and approaching 7" tall. all branches are still symmetric and there are no visible pistils. i read somewhere that asymmetric branching is a sign of maturity so i am keeping an eye out for that.

if i am doing the math right, this is day veg day 35

just keep to your schedule....the hour wont hurt.

really bad pic, sorry, but it's the best screen-cap i can do right now half asleep zzz

this from last nite shows the expanding leafspan and the 4 newer mirror chunks in place. plant dimensions are roughly 14" wide by 7" tall.

eventually i may need to employ a "floor" at dirt level around the bucket to better space out the mirrors, and later on cut out bigger mirrors or stack 'em vertically somehow.

this measly 90 watt light is doing an outstanding job so far, so the naysayers would be wise to look into LED's! cheap, simple, cool running, no wasted frequencies etc. etc. etc. unbeatable (they should hire me to do their ads)

quickie update notes:

as far as phenotype, mine looks just like dr gruber's plant #2, the one germed a week after the other one

every day i still find a few tiny see-through spots (eat damage) on upper leaves. nothing big but it still bothers me

i fed about 30 oz today, the most in a day, other than initially filling the bucket at the transplant which was gallons. ppm roughly 150 right now. just a little runout, which is how i like it. soon as i run out of this half gallon or so i have left, i will keep ramping up the water amount by 5-10% a day and nutrition supply by 20%-40% or something like that, until i see adverse fx

ok, pistils - i just wanted to make a note here: my definition of pistil is small white hairs with curled ends at the beginning signs of flowering. i don't have those yet, which is good, i'm still right on track, but - everywhere there's a pair of branches branching off the main trunk, usually there have been 2 little horns that pop out perpendicular to the branches, and they just stay that way. my understanding is that this is where the pistils will sprout from. so, because of the fact that i've never grown before, i don't know if the 2 little horns *are* the pistils, but they are definitely not hairy, they're more like thorns and have been there since day 1 usually.

node spacing used to be fractions of an inch at first, and is now about an inch towards the top

temp reached 86F for a few minutes today. other than that, i've been having a pretty steady 78-80 and less at night

day 36 (since seed placed in paper towel) is about to end in 30 minutes

my plant is between 7 inches & 8 inches tall

nice LED video http://youtu.be/kxPvN9ke2Xg

at the moment i see no new spider mites or fungus gnats so that is good, but it seems they are always in the general area, so i will be trying neem oil if i can find some at lowe's tomorrow because i hear mostly great things about neem oil when used properly

supersymmetry said:

quickie update notes:

as far as phenotype, mine looks just like dr gruber's plant #2, the one germed a week after the other one

every day i still find a few tiny see-through spots (eat damage) on upper leaves. nothing big but it still bothers me

i fed about 30 oz today, the most in a day, other than initially filling the bucket at the transplant which was gallons. ppm roughly 150 right now. just a little runout, which is how i like it. soon as i run out of this half gallon or so i have left, i will keep ramping up the water amount by 5-10% a day and nutrition supply by 20%-40% or something like that, until i see adverse fx

ok, pistils - i just wanted to make a note here: my definition of pistil is small white hairs with curled ends at the beginning signs of flowering. i don't have those yet, which is good, i'm still right on track, but - everywhere there's a pair of branches branching off the main trunk, usually there have been 2 little horns that pop out perpendicular to the branches, and they just stay that way. my understanding is that this is where the pistils will sprout from. so, because of the fact that i've never grown before, i don't know if the 2 little horns *are* the pistils, but they are definitely not hairy, they're more like thorns and have been there since day 1 usually.

node spacing used to be fractions of an inch at first, and is now about an inch towards the top

temp reached 86F for a few minutes today. other than that, i've been having a pretty steady 78-80 and less at night

day 36 (since seed placed in paper towel) is about to end in 30 minutes

my plant is between 7 inches & 8 inches tall

nice LED video http://youtu.be/kxPvN9ke2Xg

Click to expand...

Its not really good or bad that the plant has no pitils yet. Of course most people want it to show as early as possible especially when using reg seeds. Dont be worried that it will go into flower on its own because it shows pistils, thats just the plant showing its sex and thats a good thing.

supersymmetry said:

at the moment i see no new spider mites or fungus gnats so that is good, but it seems they are always in the general area, so i will be trying neem oil if i can find some at lowe's tomorrow because i hear mostly great things about neem oil when used properly

Click to expand...

I hate neem oil...it stinks and pretty much sucks to work with. For a spray Safer Soap makes a good 3 in 1 that kills fungus gnats and mites. But neem oil works so if you are sold on it go ahead.

first verified pistil sighting! hairy curly protrusions at central stem near top branches where they sprouted from stem. even though it's not *that* significant, as dr.groob was sayin, wow i'm still excited. tippety tips already reddish brown which i thought came later, but oh well, mother nature knows best.

plant about 7 1/2" tall with slight droop, closer to 8" when it's stiff & tight

i crumbled a quarter mosquito dunk and top dressed the soil and watered it down with appx 20oz water, appx 150ppm nutes. it seems like not enough to me, but pkg specifically said 1/4 disk for 30 days on up to a 5 sq ft surface area, and i'm way under 5 sq ft so i guess it's fine

early on, i was spraying/misting usually. now, my main watering method involves gently lifting the lower leaves by hand and pouring water on the dirt gently enough to avoid making craters. i do that w/ most of the water and do a final misting with the rest of it, to normalize the topsoil surface

a few lower leaf blades from pretty old leaves are wilting from the tip inwards. i don't see much in the way of new burn areas or eatout areas like i did in the past few days. still i would guesstimate only 1% of my total leaf surfaces are affected, so i guess we're good.

as i lifted the insane hularoom cover to water my baby, i got a visual on one tiny black gnat. hopefully it's one of the ones to DIE from the mosquito dunk shortly.

my defenses lately are:
1) Foxfarm Don't Bug Me pyrethrums/piperonyls (for dirt or under leaves) , used sparingly up till yesterday and i'm gonna lay off for now because i am unsure as to its effectiveness. also i've been doing it in the daytime which is wrong. if i restart that regiment it will have to be at night
2) Mosquito Dunk. the crumbled 1/4 disk like i just mentioned above (for dirt). it's almost powder consistency after crumbling and it does drift with waterings because it's so lightweight, so i try to shpritz it back toward the center of the pot when finishing watering
3) neem oil concentrate (for under leaves). mix 2 tbsp/gallon for fungus prevention, 2-4tbsp/gallon for insect death. says to keep mixing when spraying, coz it's highly oily i guess and doesn't want to be in water. i bought it today and haven't used it at all yet. maybe in a few days, depending on plant health, which right now is good

some early day 38 pics.
opposite pics w/ how the plant is a little off-center
side pic w/ underneath structure

just mixed up some 440ppm/5.4pH gallons. i'll water it down to maybe 350ppm/5.8pH w/ tap water at first, and then if no adverse fx, full strength of those other numbers for a while, then higher ppm as time goes on

supersymmetry said:

just mixed up some 440ppm/5.4pH gallons. i'll water it down to maybe 350ppm/5.8pH w/ tap water at first, and then if no adverse fx, full strength of those other numbers for a while, then higher ppm as time goes on

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My trick is i keep bringing the PPM level up until i see slight burn on the tips then i know to back off. That tells you the strength of nutes it can take at that time. After the plant gets bigger the PPM level will go up and I do the same thing looking for slight burn on the tips and so on. On another site Dr Greenthumb says he doesnt go above 800 ppm in soil and thats about the highest I went.

Dr Gruber said:

My trick is i keep bringing the PPM level up until i see slight burn on the tips then i know to back off. That tells you the strength of nutes it can take at that time. After the plant gets bigger the PPM level will go up and I do the same thing looking for slight burn on the tips and so on. On another site Dr Greenthumb says he doesnt go above 800 ppm in soil and thats about the highest I went.

Click to expand...

the last batch i've been using was 150-170ppm which by now seems way too low almost 6 weeks into vegetating, and i took a pretty big jump to 350-ish, so right now, till the 350 soaks in, is a critical period for a newby like me to keep an extra eye open. the trick you use is awesome and i'll probably try it. incremental slow change makes good sense for nute level. thanks!

ok well it's been a minute. let's see... what's been up...

g13 got watered the day before yesterday w/ 20 oz 340ppm. no runoff.

it got watered again today w/ 20oz 400ppm and then again 20oz 300ppm. still no runoff.

however, the BEAST is still nice & healthy. current height is 10 inches. day 43 (after 8:30pm)

yeah there were a few days there where it was sorta stuck at 8", right around when i did a thorough spraydown w/ Don't Bug Me. i can't say for sure if it was that or something else, but the past few days have seen it grow at least half an inch a day so i think we're good.

there's LOTS of lateral growth down low. the branches are reaching sideways pretty bigtime, running into my mirrors, still dense and thick though. not much empty space anywhere.

wow, the 10x8 mirrors are inadequate now. i think i'll just coat the whole inner surface of the hularoom (54 inches tall, 32 inches diameter, appx 108 inches circumference) with reflective tape and see is that's enough light for future use. maybe just attach it at top & bottom, not peel its backing off, in case i need to quickly undo that coating. it should help a lot. if it's not enuf, i'll just keep the inner surface that way for later, & try to move the mirrors outwardly to give the thing more room. i still haven't figured out how to hang the mirrs w/o having them attached to the bucket. oh well, necessity is the mother of invention. also, it's never too early to think about cutting the other 20x24 mirror into three 8x20's or something like that, and maybe even get more cheapo walmart mirrors.

sporadically there are various issues, though none of them are out of control. a gnat or two, a nute burn mark here or there, a semi-wilting leaf further down, different leaves with different textures depending on their age/location/size/bladecount/exposure/etc., but i am really thankful that the plant is overall quite healthy.

got pix but no good ones. maybe in the near future.

i should drench the soil at least one more time till i get runoff. maybe tomorrow or the next day.

it's very easy to see new tissue growth: leaves that are established look dull and grey under the LED light, and brand new leaves up top and expanding leaves up top look a lighter grey, sorta orange brown red, then they turn grey too.

node spacing is still damn tight. for a while there i thought it was reaching too far, but nope. node spacing still fractions of an inch. although i must say, node spacing does expand as it becomes older. some nodes are more than an inch apart, even though they started out a fraction of an inch apart. all in all, who cares? the growth seems quite normal to me, and bushy as hell. those few days it was growing new growth more slowly, the underneath nodes and the rest of the plant were still expanding throughout.

probably forgetting half what i wanted to say but there's always nextime

couple xtra notes...

- just sprayed down w/ about 6 - oz regular tap water just for a midnight cooldown. well, middle of the night for me, but high noon for g13

- the other day when i said i saw pistils, i was wrong. it was semi-burned mini leaves coming from some upper branch/stem intersections

- some low branches are for sure asymmetric now. i think porcupine said it's a sign of maturity. not sure if he meant for high or low branches

starting to see what i think are future bud sites galore. not like i would know wtf to look for since i've never done any planting whatsoever, but still it's kinda obvious. smaller & more concentrated leaf areas offshooting from among where there was previously nothing but full size fan leaves. way back when i mentioned that there were 4 new branches sprouting around where the cotyledon once was, and that it was news2me how that could happen - i think that was the first example of this. now that same thing is happening all over. from here on out i better provide more regular watering, or at least that's my instinct, to keep things fat & fed

yesterday was the first for-sure time when i saw 2-layered leaves coming out the top. by 2-layered i mean the normal 9 blades per leaf or whatever, and then an extra blade above all those, a little smaller, and shooting off in a slightly higher direction. woohoo. i can totally see how this would lead to a bud site eventually, with its multitudes of leaf layers all around it / within it. anyway, good progress going on. my hularoom is already looking too small for the flowering phase, but maybe not. 2 early 2 tell. i'm just saying the thing is exploding in growth.

watered w/ about 20oz/330ppm and 20oz/290ppm, 40oz total, and got just the slightest hint of runoff, just barely a couple wet spots at bottom. she's gonna eat me out of house & home (insert audience's fake laughter)

i'm too lazy to take new pics, but they should be coming soon, whenever i get to it.

love the smell. it's pretty complex. won't try to describe it now.

fed w/ 20oz/300ppm & 20oz/250ppm. rearranged mirrors a little to increase light. raised light about 2 more inches. good progress, good density