First Time Grower, G13 Feminized

33" tall! yeah, bud(dy)!

ok the light yesterday was appx 8" above the top of the canopy. i repositioned it higher up at around sun-up earlier and now it's 13 1/2" above, but not for long i'm sure.
if germing day was day #1, this is day #86. when i turn off the light here in a few minutes, i think it'll be the end of day #15 on 12/12 light. the 4-day transition a couple weeks ago actually took 3 days... don't ask me why, coz i can't remember. anyway yeah. things looking ok. no water today. probably tomorrow.

note to self... since i'm still learning all the time... seems like no matter what, anywhere that there's a fan leaf, if you trace its stem back to its bigger "parent" stem, there's a bud site. i never noticed that before recently.

watered 96oz w/ the water mix just as i described it on previous page... too lazy to retype all those numbers. 1 or 2 more leaves still falling off per day down low where the light can't penetrate as much. lower buds smaller, upper buds bigger, plant gaining more height all the time. it's not a perfect setup but i'm very happy with it! next time around it'll be vastly improved.

Sounds like you are losing a lot of leaves....are they all from the bottom of the plant? If thats so, its probably lack of light to the lower parts of the plant, but if you are losing leaves all over the plant you may have another problem. How do the leaves look? Nice and green or do you have spots on them or yellowing?

over 34 inches! today is a no-action day... no water, or much else. just sitting here observing my baby...

Dr Gruber said:

Sounds like you are losing a lot of leaves....are they all from the bottom of the plant? If thats so, its probably lack of light to the lower parts of the plant, but if you are losing leaves all over the plant you may have another problem. How do the leaves look? Nice and green or do you have spots on them or yellowing?

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i am losing leaves from the bottom end only, where it's darker. all the other leaves are normal green. you are right... there's just not as much light down there . for the sake of not alerting my landlord to a bunch of energy usage, i think i better just stick with the one UFO light. i don't want to rush out and buy some cheapo CFL's from lowe's or whatever. depending on what kind of yield i get, i will probably get a 180-watt UFO for next time, and sell my 90-watt. like... ballpark figure - ... if i yield under 4 oz, i will probably get a bigger light. if i yield 8 oz or more, i will probably stick with the light i have. like i said, i'm just a solitary user, and occasionally w/ friends, not a dealer in any way, shape or form, so 8 oz would be like hitting the jackpot. it's way too early to be making judgment calls like that, but things are looking good for now

hey dr.g, i've got a ? for ya... ok, i'm in day 17 of flowering - when did you first notice the botrytis? was it closer to harvest than i am now? how did you notice it? i.e. smell, or visual? thanks for yer help... hope you're enjoying the (cat-piss!) fruits of your labor...

above pic (one) is 8/1/2011, flower day #7



above pics (seven) are 8/7/2011, flower day #13



above pics (eight) are today, 8/11/2011, flower day #17.

last batch of pics: 1st pic shows dollar bill for size comparison. 6th and 7th pic show some of the undergrowth that gets less light. 7th pic also shows some partly "chewed-up" looking leaf blades toward bottom right corner. that leaf is from way way back, nute-burned i think.

i don't expect a plant anywhere near as dense as dr.gruber's due to my low lighting conditions, but overall the pee-wee sized 90 watt UFO is doing an excellent job! misted plant down a few minutes ago.

misted down tap/6.5pH & watered 80oz/520ppm/6.5pH. picked off 4 more fan old/dried leaves & about 2 tiny/newer leaves in the dark areas. smoked the 4 stems from the 4 fan leaves & i'm feelin' it more than i have ever before from this plant's spare parts. nice relaxed / creative feeling.

must be over 35" in height now. pistils getting denser slowly. even some areas down low that are pretty damn dark have flowers. dunno exactly how that works, but that's cool by me.

it has big-time asymmetric branch growth now. some of the branches have stretched from like 6" or 8" off the ground to near full top, while the ones directly across from 'em have made it only halfway up. in my mind definitely a low light issue. more reason to upgrade lights nextime. things lookin overall good.

supersymmetry said:

hey dr.g, i've got a ? for ya... ok, i'm in day 17 of flowering - when did you first notice the botrytis? was it closer to harvest than i am now? how did you notice it? i.e. smell, or visual? thanks for yer help... hope you're enjoying the (cat-piss!) fruits of your labor...

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at the end of flower when the buds are big and dense is when it happened to me. you have a way to go before worrying about it in my opinion. do you have a temp/humidity gauge?

Dr Gruber said:

at the end of flower when the buds are big and dense is when it happened to me. you have a way to go before worrying about it in my opinion. do you have a temp/humidity gauge?

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i have a thermometer always right next to the plant. normal temp is 75 to 82 but there have been occasions where it passed 90 for a short time, like an hour or 2. i don't have a hygrometer. i run the air conditioner enough for me to stay comfortable in this building and i just gotta hope it's a decent range for the plant...

it's about time to invest in a cheap hygrometer, eh? ... google shopping has ones for under $10, shipping included...

watered 48oz day before yesterday. not much action yesterday. gonna water again here in a few minutes. freakin beast is running out of vertical room again, haha... gonna have to re-raise ufo light. there's only so much higher i can go before i compromise the light-tightness of the room

speakin of - i never really have had 100% light-tightness at night. it's about 99%. there are little pinholes here & there, little cracks here & there which i try to seal off as best i can, etc. never been 100% but it doesn't seem to be a prob as of now. i keep it really dark inside my building even in the daytime so we should be ok... time will tell...

i love lookin at the hairs / pistils coming out of the buds, man... whoever came up w/ the phrase "bud porn" is right, LOL...
if i was a male cannabis indica, i would have a stiffy for sure

watered 96oz. about to mist down a little. 6 or 8 smaller leaves had already fallen off down low in the darker regions. a few more ready to come off, as well as a couple more fan leaves. i feel like the plant is definitely focusing its efforts at the top from here on out.

misted down, watered w/ about 88oz and picked off a few more leaves at the bottom. water breakdown is 24oz old bloom mix of 520/6.5pH, just to get rid of what i had left over, and 64oz new bloom mix of 550ppm/80ppm(molasses)6.5pH. i think 550 will be what i stick with for a while because a few lower leaves are developing dryness spots which i think is likely nute burn but i am not sure.

overall day 94, flower day 23.

so here's a few notes on new stuff... today is the first day i am trying molasses. poured 5 gal tap water into a bucket, it measured 49ppm/whocares(about 6.9)pH, added about 550ppm bloom nutrition, added about 5 tablespoons Grandma's Molasses (unsulphured), measured about 5.36pH, added about 6 capfulls of pH-up additive to raise pH to 6.5pH.

for future reference... i've noticed that 1 tablespoon of molasses in tap water is about 80ppm and it drops the pH further than nutrition alone. also noticed that one capfull of pH-up raises the pH in 5 gallons about 0.15 points. usually 555ppm nutes dropped my tap water a point and a half, 1tbsp/gal molasses by itself the other day seemed to drop tap water from half to 3/4 points, and now 550ppm nutes along w/ 1tbsp/gal molasses drops the water 1.7 points. my pH checker still seems to calibrate ok but every once in a while it'll fluctuate a lot if you keep stirring, so... who the hell knows.

sadly some lower branches are trying pretty hard to flower but they just don't have enough light to process. you can see their stems are fairly thick and trying to make their way through the brush and out into the open, but at the end of the branch it's just a pre-bud site; no pistils yet. poor thing. definitely low light problem in my book. well, live & learn! the last word will be the oz count at the end of harvest. it's way too early to be guessing, but just for fun i will predict 4 oz. of dried de-stemmed flowers.

that reminds me, i need to buy a digital scale. tah tah for now.

about 40 inches tall. misted down earlier. watered w/ 96oz 550ppm/6.5pH/molasses. raised light even more and it is currently about a foot above the top. a few dried up leaves came off the bottom as usual. buds are getting visibly bigger every day. all pistils still full white. the main stem bud sites are starting to get frosty. some buds have a flowering smell, which they didn't at first. still very very low smell plant. what can i say, i'm pretty happy to see the thing doing well.

misted down w/ mist mix & watered about 96? oz w/ watering mix. lost count of the 16oz bottles honestly but pretty sure i was halfway through the 7th one when i noticed i was getting tons of runoff, more than ever. runoff was probly 8-16oz, more than the bottom dish can hold so it went all over the floor. cleaned most of it off but not all. i hope it doesn't attract ants. sprayed Don't Bug Me down there & will again. got a few random bud pics. most buds & primarily upper buds definitely gettin crunchy! plenty of trichomes all over. i think this is flower day 27.

2 days ago: misted down w/ 6.5pH tap water and watered w/ 96oz/550ppm/molasses/6.5pH. got like 8oz runoff. today: same exact thing. flower day 31.

mist-down & 80oz watering. got some runoff, even w/ water reduction; last few times it's been 96oz. i guess the thing is less thirsty lately. i need to look up if anyone ever made a watering chart, to see typical water amount requirement over a plant's typical life, coz mine is apparently drinking a little less lately. picked off 3 or 4 leaves as usual. there's just not enough energy (light!) to go around, i guess. also using galvanized wire i propped up about 4 or 5 branches that were bowing almost horizontal from their own weight. now they are at a more sustainable angle. i'll have to keep an eye on this and see if there's any side fx, but i figure it's a lot better to have upright buds getting more light & more stress-free branches.

pictures?????

yesterday: misted down & watered appx 75oz/550ppm/80ppm/molasses/6.5pH. no runoff. propped up about 4 more branches for a total of 10 now. it's been several days since any leaves wilted or fell off. don't know why, but maybe the propped up branches using less energy, or maybe increased light in lower areas, or lower water quantity.

dr.g: no pics lately but hopefully tomorrow. it's a light-density plant so don't expect anything mind-blowing. basically it's what i should've expected, given this setup: long branches reaching for mirrors in anticipation of light, and overall smaller bud density coz the total light available is still just the 90W UFO.

what is sorta mind-blowing though is the smell of bud mini-leaves! hellzyeah. i rub my finger on a bud leaf once or twice & then smell it... freakin awesome, strong smell. i really wanna chop a bud & sample it, but i'm not gonna do it yet. all pistils still full white, no rusty color yet.

my pH meter might be shot so i'm havin trouble checking the new food mix i just made. it was workin, then i placed it in front of the a/c unit to dry it, it got cold & gathered condensation & then was reading pH 17, 18, 19 regardless of liquid. i'll try it again.

new food mix is: 5 gallons tap water @ 40ppm, bloom nutes @ 700ppm, molasses @ 7.5tbsp (about 115ppm). when i check pH i expect it to be right around 5. i estimate i'll have to add 9 to 12 capfulls of pH-up to bring it to 6.5. more later.

edit: pH meter got its act together & calibrated just fine. 6 1/2 capfulls later, new food mix = 6.52pH. new food starts tomorrow.

gonna do a 6.5pH tap water mistdown for now, maybe take a pic or two.

You may want to cease misting right now. This strain is not mold resistant, you have no de humidifier and a 90w light, thats asking for mold. Watering is enough anyway.

thanks. i will take your advice!

kinda late for today, as i just sprayed down & watered w/ 80oz. water was: 16oz old mix (550ppm/80ppmmolasses) just to transition & get rid of what was left, and 64oz new mix (700ppm/120ppmmolasses). it's a jump from 550 to 700 so i need to watch for side effects...

propped up 2 more branches, total 12 now, & picked off 3 maybe 4 small leaves from the underside. the reason i'm having to prop up branches is that they reached sideways towards the mirror surrounding the plant (as opposed to vertical), and now that they are sprouting buds, they droop. i don't want a branch to snap from its own weight.

overall height i'm guesstimating around 44" ? haven't measured lately. it has been there around a week or more but now but in the last couple days it has grown visibly maybe another 1" or so.

there are a few eat-damage spots on some high leaves from main stem and i've seen various insects, usually one at a time. nothing unmanageable... it seems to be extremely minimal, like you really gotta look to find it.

the main cola has enough buds to where they are starting to look like one big growth. i can't really say the same for the other branches, although there must be over a hundred popcorn buds everywhere.

got some bud pix yesterday & today. will try to remember to post later today. flowerday 37 i think, will doublecheck later