New to growing - which to keep, which to kill?

Hi RIU folks!

Been lurking on RIU for a loooong time (such a useful site!) while planning my first grow, but since I now have babies with their heads above ground that I'm worrying about, I think it's time to say hello and ask my first question.

Before I ask, here is my setup. I hope I cover everything, please let me know if there is more needed. I don't have any photos yet because my darkroom is out of action but as soon as I can print again I will put some pics up.

Room: 120cm sq tent, 1.8m high, sitting in a dedicated room. 22-27 degrees C, 60-70% RH inside tent.
Light: 250W MH for veg, 600W HPS for flower
Medium: 2" rockwool for germ, placed in 4" rockwool for seedling, then into 15 litre pots of Canna Coco (silicone pebbles at bottom for drainage)
Nutes: Vitalink Max for veg (plus root tonic), will use Canna nutes for flower. Advice on micro nutes for veg appreciated. Nothing but water for first week, then water with weak root tonic at 1 week. at 10 days, water with 1/4 strength nutes and full strength root tonic.
Airflow: carbon filtered exhaust powered by inline fan, exhausting into chimney. Passive intake from room, can open window for fresh air when needed.

The Plants:
5x Dutch Passion Feminized Blueberry
2x Green House Feminized Super Lemon Haze (freebie)
1x Delicious Seeds Auto La Diva (freebie)
1x Samsara Auto Flash Babylon (freebie)

"Whoah!", you say, "9 plants in a 120cm square footprint tent? Is this guy stupid?" Well, yes, I am, but not that stupid. I don't intend to grow 9 plants, I would rather do 6 with a view to culling a further 2-3 when they show their phenotypes and I know what I'm dealing with.

I started with a bag of five DP BB seeds that I bought for a pretty penny, got given the autos as a freebie with them, and decided to also put to germinate the two SLH seeds that had been sat in a bag at the back of my desk drawer for three years, thinking nothing would come of them.

Whaddya know, they all germinated! Clearly I don't have room for them in my tent. I would like to grow the autos because they should harvest before I even set my normal plants to flower, giving me a taste of the fruits of my labour early.

Question is, what do I let survive? Most of the blueberries aren't looking that healthy. I overwatered them yesterday by accident (shouldn't work when stoned). 11 days after they put their heads above ground, they all only have one set of leaves in addition to the cotyledons, 3 of them are stretchy as fook, one is really short and stout with barely any leaf growth. The SLH look really healthy, showing their second set of leaves and standing proud, which is annoying because I didn't really want to grow a sativa dominant strain for my first grow, plus SLH flower time is really long which would mean flowering all through the summer. The Auto La Diva is looking the best, really coming along and I have already put her 4" rockwool cube into her final coco pot. The Auto Flash Babylon I only set to germ yesterday but I can see growth inside the cube already

Way I see it these are my options:

1) Cull the SLH on account of long flower time, tendency to grow real tall etc, and concentrate on the sickly looking BB and autos, culling 2-3 of the BB later on when I can see which are strong plants.

2) Cull all the BB, just grow the SLH and the autos as they are the healthiest and strongest looking plants

3) Hold my horses, put up with the lack of space in the grow tent for now, and let the BB recover from the overwatering and see what happens before making any decisions.

4) Any suggestions?

Apart from overwatering them, was I right to start on nutes at 10 days? The growth was so slow (non existent) over the last five days that I figured they wanted *something*, given that coco provides nothing.

Appreciate any answers, tips and advice from y'all!

Oh, also I want to check a couple of things. Firstly, my 250W MH light is about 1.5 - 2 feet above the plants because that's as much jack chain as I have. Is it close enough? Most of them are pretty stretchy is all, like 2-3" tall before the cotyledons.

Secondly, once the plants put head above soil, I put the rockwool cubes into 4" rockwool blocks, which are sitting on plates. Once I see roots coming through the bottom of the 4" block they are put on top of the coco in the pots, and the coco pushed up around the block (rather than digging a hole for the block). Am I doing everything right here?

sounds great so far. any pics of the set up?

Thanks for the quick reply - I'm worrying about them today I have to say! The BB are all showing what I guess is either nute burn or nute deficiency - or possibly just overwatering - I leave it to the experts to advise me!

Here is the setup. Very crowded as you can see. Clockwise from bottom:

-In the open propagator, from bottom up we have SLH, BB #5, SLH.
-Top left we have Auto La Diva
-BB #1
-BB #2
-BB #4
-BB #3
Here you can see the SLH - they look pretty healthy, albeit a bit pale, and a weird chunk missing from one leaf of the right hand side SLH - but no pests to be seen anywhere, I think it grew up like this! The middle one is Blueberry - I *think*. I had a blueberry seed and a Bubba Kush seed right next to each other and mixed up the labels. Doh!

Here is the Auto La Diva - coming along strong! She had a root about 1" long coming out of the bottom of the 4" block so I potted her up. She is looking great. Let's hope she provides some tasty early smoke for me - this one is meant to be done in as little as 45 days, but can yield rather low I've been warned.


Blueberry #1. Pretty weedy and stretchy. Paling yellowy bits on leaves.


BB #2. Came up later than the others. Much shorter, but sturdier stem. Long cotyledons but wimpy leaves.
BB #3 - the burn / deficiency is clear on this one. Which is it? One of the cotyledons is paling and brown, but I guess that's nothing to worry about.
BB # 4 - again, see the paling yellowy bits. What is this?


Cheers guys, time for a bowl I think!

do you regulate PH???I just killed a couple by watering them without checking out PH and giving them water at 8.2 when I discovered that PH had changed in water suply I adjusted acordingly and seedlings came right back in a week.

whats SLH , i keep reading through but cant find it. I assume BB is big bud , right ?

cheers

mudhead, yes, I ph to 6 using malt vinegar and a basic testing solution kit.

Holy Grail, sorry for my laziness. SLH - Super Lemon Haze and BB - blueberry.

Put em in my first post and abbreviated after that.

Any advice appreciated as the blueberry really dont look healthy and are growing sooooo slowly - they popped up about 11/12 days ago!

ETA I also have, in the closed propagator, an auto flash babylon (my namesake) which I hope will thrive.

It's way too early to start culling. Wait until they are much bigger, at least 8" or until the room gets crowded, and then see which ones are strongest. 1.5 feet above the plants when they are this small is fine. I don't understand why you put the 1" rockwools in 4" rockwools instead of just putting them in the coco.

noalibi said:

It's way too early to start culling. Wait until they are much bigger, at least 8" or until the room gets crowded, and then see which ones are strongest. 1.5 feet above the plants when they are this small is fine. I don't understand why you put the 1" rockwools in 4" rockwools instead of just putting them in the coco.

Click to expand...

^^^^^^^^^^^^ What he said. Just give them all time to acclimate, you have the space and the time.

As a footnote, when I first saw the first photo you posted I thought, " Cool, he even has a mini-flat screen in there for his girls !!!!".......I should cut back on my ingestion.

Since you have the room now, I would keep them all. You can pick out the under achievers when space becomes an issue.

Appears to me, some are stretching... lower your light if possible.

greenlikemoney.... regarding your footnote... I thought the same damn thing...LOL....

Lastly, relax and enjoy the journey!

Good luck! Keep us posted!

Cheers

Thanks for the advice guys. I was wanting to have a max of six going but I spose it won't hurt to keep the others going for now, especially as I seem to be doing such a good job of killing the little girls!

noalibi said:

I don't understand why you put the 1" rockwools in 4" rockwools instead of just putting them in the coco.

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I forgot to say, they're in the 4" rockwool cause matey who's grown before said it was good for them - I really have no idea, I'll confess I'm not green thumbed I just hate paying not so nice people for my meds when I can (hopefully) grow it.

And ha, yeah the mesh in the back of the tent really does look like a screen play the girls some cheech and chong to help em along maybe

slhaze nice

heh yeah tell me about it one of my favourites, didnt want to grow a leggy long flowering sativa for my first grow but had some freebie seeds lying in a drawer so threw em in as insurance. If all the blueberries die and those thrive at least it'll be a tasty ass harvest. I'd LST them to fill the tent widthways in veg to make up for only having two plants. Sadly I can't really run both blueberry and super lemon haze at the same time because of the difference in flowering period - I need my tent for drying after harvest.

FlashBabylon said:

mudhead, yes, I ph to 6 using malt vinegar and a basic testing solution kit.

Holy Grail, sorry for my laziness. SLH - Super Lemon Haze and BB - blueberry.

Put em in my first post and abbreviated after that.

Any advice appreciated as the blueberry really dont look healthy and are growing sooooo slowly - they popped up about 11/12 days ago!

ETA I also have, in the closed propagator, an auto flash babylon (my namesake) which I hope will thrive.

Click to expand...

I tried blueberry last year and failed miserably overwatered( I think) and all the stalks rotted off and they all died within two days of putting sprouts into the starter tray .

Ooh dear mudhead! I've heard it's not very forgiving. If they don't pull through at least I have backup!

Well at least they were free...LOL...A budy had one herm on him outdoors and gave me a ton of seed but it just wasn't meant to be...LOL...That was before I had a medical card and found attitude seeds...LOL

Watch the blue berry and yes its finicky and the DP BB hermied on me every time. The SLH was also a dismal failure but in retrospect they were my first attempts at indoor! To bad you have to cull before flowering to see what super pheno you have .

If I do find myself able to go to flower before culling the super lemon haze, what should I look for in terms of the phenotype? Really spell it out for me I have no idea

Neither do I lol, it was a long time ago and all I remember was disappointment lol. I'm sure there are lots of people who have grown it with great success, try searching. Its a long finisher so never tried again.