Grow Tube - Part Deux

Day 6 of 12/12. The widening may have slowed a bit, and the stretch up my be increasing a bit. About 9 inches tall now, that's 4 inches over 6 days. 2/3 inch per day, with stretch stopping at 21 days of 12/12, would be 14 inches additional height. Total would be 19 inches. Not sure if this has anything to do with reality, but what the hell.

Watered at day 23, 2 quarts 6.4 spring water, no nutes yet, other than the bone meal that was mixed into the soil at start.

I'm going to stick with the 26w for this grow. I know that more light is supposed to be better, but I've done some more reading, so likely confusing myself further. Supposedly, the 2nd leading cause of airy buds(after light intensity) is heat. Makes sense to me, heat = stretch. If needed, I'll put in some y splitters and add more 26w. Time will tell.

Now for my crummy pics. 1st is the usual top view. 2nd is a close up. Camera quality isn't good enough, but tried to zoom in on branch point for sexing. I'll pass on trying to call it yet, 6 days probably won't cut it.

Day 8 of 12/12 and looking fairly good. The good part is no rooster nuts showing, the fair part is no bud signs visible yet, at least not obvious. We'll hold a good thought.

Plant is around 10 inches, that's 5 inches over 8 days. Getting more optimistic height will not kill me. Width is actually more of a problem. Tube pretty well filled up. Have to hope it doesn't continue.

Smell has appeared, actually just becoming a little noticeable, but just. I have to put my nose right up to the exhaust vent to really notice it. Definite odor stealth so far. Very mild, very light skunk smell. Not unpleasant.

Now for my cfl and height adjustments. The plant is on a stacked brick pedestal. Crude, but works. I've done about 4 adjustments in height so far. That's about 1 a week. I don't think plant has suffered a bit from stretch. The bad rap on cfl's and height adjustment isn't true, at least in my case. Of course a sativa might be more demanding.

Enough talk, here's the show.

Day 10 of 12/12. Still no obvious sex signs yet. The wait is nerve wracking. Even a male will not be a disaster. Freeze dry the pollen, then render into oil. Not a nice as the female persuasion though.

We're at 10.5 inches, that's about 1/2 an inch a day. Keeping the top close to the 5500k lights I think is definitely limiting height. Looked over a nice thread on 12/12 from seed. Others seem to have noticed this too. Let your plants grow close to the cfl's, and they will slow. Great for height control in small places.

Width hasn't become much worse. That's good because it's a full house in the tube. Another good grow experience, haven't fed yet, and don't need to. 1 gallon of MG organic soil + 1 tablespoon of MG bone meal is plenty for the 1st month, maybe longer.

Day 12 of 12/12. Still waiting for the sign, but nothing obvious yet. A bit of trouble has appeared on a few of the lower fan leaves. Looks like stain marks, kind of a white colored 'water mark'. There has been some condensation on the lower part of the tube. Damp leaf = unhappy leaf. Not a large problem, plant is still quite robust.

Height measured today was 12 inches. That's about a half inch per day for the 'stretch'. Width is bigger problem. A wider tube would probably be better for next attempt.

could you post a pic of your set up??

goofy9er420 said:

could you post a pic of your set up??

Click to expand...

Here's the link to my 1st attempt, the 1st post has some pics. The 1st grow crashed and burned, but that was soil I think. The 2nd grow is using the exact same equipment, just changed from MG Moisture Control to MG Organic soil.

https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/179797-newbs-grow-tube.html

Day 14 of 12/12. Lot's of stuff happened in few days, 1st of which is it's a FEMALE! The hairs literally popped out overnight. Whew! I eventually would like to get some male pollen for freeze drying, just not yet.

Watered and fed for the 1st time 2 days ago. The feeding was 1/2 tsp of molasses to 2 quarts water. Seems to have agreed with the plant so far. I think my last time between waterings was 8 days. It was a little too long. I found a few small fan leaves had started to wilt a bit. Wasn't sure what was up, but they sprang right back a day after watering.

Now on to the width/height. The widening has definitely slowed. Height has ramped up a bit though. 14 inches, maybe a bit less. That's about 2/3 inch per day. If we stretch for 21 days(my guess, not sure), that would come out to 18-20 inches. That would be sweet, but I've learned my lesson. Always have a back up plan.

Last bit, tossed in the 2700k bulbs, it's the red zone in the tube now. Is it coincidence that the sexing popped right after this change? Maybe not. Picture is from new camera. Thought I was upgrading but pics don't look much better. Another cheap camera, not as cheap as 1st, but doesn't look like the chip inside is any better. Shit. Well, if 1 dies I can still keep logging.

nice. Good looking plant.

thnx for the look. better than the 1st grow by a long ways. the seed breeder recommends an 8 week flower, so that gives me 6 weeks to go. of course, i'll be scoping out the trics, and make a best guess when to harvest.

Day 16 of 12/12. Height now at 15 inches. And bit more smell, not much, can smell it about 1-2 feet from the tube. Very stealthy in that respect.

Thinking over that the central cola should be at least 5 inches or so, that would give a minimum height of 20 inches. Suspect it will finish higher than that. 28 inches is about as high as I could manage, maybe 30 in a pinch. So height may yet get me. But it's the 1st run for a new indoor grower. Feeling good that I will get something, how much is the question.

Picture under the 2700k cfl's are not the best. Some red artifacts showing up, not leaf problem, camera/light problem. New camera has flash, next time that might be better.

Day 18 of 12/12. Height is 16 inches. That's 11 inches of flower stretch over 18 days. If flower stretch goes 36 days, that's about a 27 inch plant. No taller please!

Smell has seemed to gone down in the last few days, at least a smell that you would think of as weed. You smell, something ..., but barely noticeable.

Watered with pure water yesterday. It had a bit of wilt, just a few lower fans, but the plant's water needs have gone way up over the last week. 5 days between watering, and that was not enough. 3 days will be the new schedule. One small fan set seems to have cupped down a bit, it recovered some after the water, but not completely. May have pushed the low water schedule a bit too far.

Bud is beginning to form! It's been a long time since I've seen a bud close up.

Day 20 of 12/12. Height is 18 inches. 13 inches of flower stretch over 20 days. I'll still guess the stretch will go on for 5 weeks of flower, maybe 28 inches. That's pretty much my limit

Smell is mildly noticeable, especially when temp's are in 80's in the tube. No odor control, not really needed.

Will feed today with the molasses/water. Not much of a feed, but just don't see that anymore is needed. Plant health seems very good.

Bud formation moving along. Main cola will be 6 inches? Guessing is cheap. A 2nd bud that will probably be the next largest has formed, well away from the main stem. It's in the lower left side of pic

nice looking plant. I think i want to give this method a try. But maybe do a 12/12 from seed.

goofy9er420 said:

nice looking plant. I think i want to give this method a try. But maybe do a 12/12 from seed.

Click to expand...

thnx for the encouragement, looking mostly good
i'm seeing a bit of leaf roll on the small leaves coming out what will be the main cola, just enough for a bit of worry
if you're thinking of 12/12, check out the 12/12 club thread, lots of good experiences over there
if you are thinking of doing a tube like this one, there were a few tricks that helped put it together

1st on the list of items, near total disaster with equipment. I had gotten a little cute with the stealth, and there was a stack of stuff next to the tube. Thought it was stable, it wasn't. Got real lucky, some bend and pile up, but no real damage. Could have easily broken some of cfl's or the plant.

Day 22 of 12/12. Height is 20 inches. Width is definitely a minor issue now, height - well it's going to be close. However, I've come up with a scheme to add another 4 inches of extra head room if needed.

I believe the smell is beginning to decrease. Which would be similar to other experiences I've seen with the strain.

The effect of my close call is a crooked plant. Wasn't bent by force, change in light position seems to have caused a bit of tilt. Small deal considering what could have happened. It's not porn yet, but it's progressing.

Day 24 of 12/12. Height is 21 inches. I think the height stretch is finally beginning to slow. If it is, then things may work out yet.

Latest issue in the problem file, heat got up to just about 88 last night. That's not what I wanted to see, from my last plant disaster, that was where I saw cupping on the upper leaves. I see just a bit of cupping on 1 upper leaf, at bit of tip burn on another. I get the message, and expand the space where the venting is done. I had drilled some holes and used it as a grill work, just wasn't enough. The extra opening looks to have brought down temps by 5 degrees or so. Only way to be sure it to check after another night's worth of growing.

Smell is pretty much a non issue. Hard to tell if it is going down, but sure isn't getting worse.

Plant pics are getting more interesting, top cola beginning to fill in a bit. More if happening lower down, just doesn't show in pic.

Day 26 of 12/12. Height is 24 inches. I really need to shut the fuck up about slowing stretch, really isn't helping. Still, I have headroom for the moment and a simple trick should extend my max from 28 to 32.

On the more positive side, a little extra opening of the exhaust grill made big difference. Maxing at about 82, much better.

Now onto feeding, and lack thereof. I used a pretty vanilla soil mix, and got a lot of mileage out of MG Organic and 2 tbsp of bone meal. Well, that's come to an end, I'm seeing the blue/purple tinge of phosphorus deficiency. Just starting on the lower leaf, not bad yet.

I could have just gone and bought some nice commercial nute. Some people just can't do things the easy way. I'm kind of determined to use raw materials, not finished products. Went reading on bone meal tea. Most are of the opinion that bone meal is slow release and that's that. I did find some pretty interesting reading on icmag where some seem to find bone meal tea can actually pull the P out a bit quicker than that. The recipe is start with a molasses water, let ferment a day. Then fine ground bone added to ferment for a couple of days. Trick is fine ground, the MG meal I have is more of a powder than a meal. Feed today, see what happens.

With all the blathering about def., you'd think my plant would be hurting. It's not, judge as you will.

Day 28 of 12/12. Height is 24 inches. No more comments on height, may yet have soft landing.

Fed 2 days ago with a bone meal tea. Was also able to ph the outflow, the muddy outflow has stopped. Ph came out as 6, and that's the limit of the drops. Could be lower, going to take some action on that. Will try a tbsp of wood ash to next tea feed.

Took a close look 1 day after the tea feed, think the blue/purple color receded a bit, didn't look any worse. More reading on bone meal in a tea is really promising. A finely powdered bone meal will get rapidly eaten in a tea. A lot of the fancy organic bloom products are based on this, just a lot more pricey than DIY.

Bud keeps growing, not quite as fast as I'd like. At 4 weeks, think the plant is a bit behind, probably due to running low on nutes.

Day 30 of 12/12. Height is bit over 25 inches. Outflow ph was still around 6, though by the color of the ph drops the wood ash did bring the ph up a bit.

Just did another feed with a bone meal tea with 1 tbsp of wood ash, seems to have agreed with the plant so far. Phosphorus def. not progressing, may be regressing

Just read the thread, Great grow man!
i Carn't offer you any tips lol, I have just stared and i hope mine grows like your one is!
It would be great if you could give me some advise, i got a 6 day old snow white growing. https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/205108-first-grow-using-cfl-pics.html