RollingDope's LA Confidential Bagseed CFL Grow

What's up Rollitup forums. I'm a 1st time grower and 1st time member on here(long time spectator of the forums). This is my 1st TRUE grow(l1st few times just playing with seeds in jiffy cups) that I've ever started. I'm growing LA Confidential from some bagseed I got a month ago. Well here goes my crack at a grow journal for the 1st time.

Day 1(8/27/13):
Today I planted 2 LA Confidential seeds. I soaked them for about 48 hours and decided to plant them after seeing a small taproot from both(still kinda new at this). After planting i plugged up the lights to the timer and now its the waiting game.
Light schedule: 18/6 under 3 26w CFLs
Soil: FF Happy Frog

Question: I'm still new at this but should I add more lights or wait until I see the 1st set of cotyledon leaves?
Edit:Had to add in a fan cuz the temps were kinda high.

Day 3:
After getting anxious I decided to move some soil around to check and see if they were alive. To my surprise they both were!
Both of them are growing and Rene(the one on the right) has shed her shell already and Tiffany(on the left) still has her shell on but she's coming along.
Hopefully by next week both of them will have their cotyledon leafs.

Day 4:
So both of they have started to show both of their cotyledon leaves! Only problem is the one on the right(Rene) has one of her cotyledon leaves still folded over. I don't know if it'll unfold as time goes on or what but so far so good. If anyone can offer some advice or info that'll be awesome.
Tiffany(Left) is doing great

Rene(Right) her leaf is still folded. I kinda tried to gently unfold it but she was stubborn -_- but any advice again would be much appreciated.

The hardest part of growing is having the patience! I personally hate it, but by the looks of it your plants look fine and are growing normal. That weird leaf should bend out in a couple days of growth.

RollingDope708 said:

Day 4:
So both of they have started to show both of their cotyledon leaves! Only problem is the one on the right(Rene) has one of her cotyledon leaves still folded over. I don't know if it'll unfold as time goes on or what but so far so good. If anyone can offer some advice or info that'll be awesome.
Tiffany(Left) is doing great
View attachment 2797809
Rene(Right) her leaf is still folded. I kinda tried to gently unfold it but she was stubborn -_- but any advice again would be much appreciated.
View attachment 2797810

Click to expand...

Don't touch the sprout again. Leave them alone. No overwatering.

Just a few pics from yesterday(Day 6).Also I thought I had the timer for 18/6 but its really 16/8 .So tomorrow im gonna change it to go one hour up then keep going up each week until its actually at 18/6 so it doesn't shock the plants too much.
Question: The temps are getting higher again and I've added cups of ice water to help keep them down. Are there any other suggestions? The soil temp is between 75-80 but the overall box is about 85 degrees.

Day 9:
Construction:
So I completely rearranged the grow box design and added some clamp reflectors and have 4 26w cfls instead of 2.
In addition to the lights, I've began to mist them once every hour or so.
Also I had to re-spray the grow room to make sure no more critters enter or get the idea to.
The girls:
Also I've keep the temps down since this "reconstruction" and the girls are responding too good to it!
I can actually smell them slightly. It's more of a "plant like" smell, nothing pungent just floral like.
Tiffany:


Renee:

Day 14:
.So I've completely redid the growbox (again) and they seem to like it alot more
.The girls have gotten alot bigger since the last time and I'm starting to think I got two different phenotypes because one is more squat and shorter than the other.
I'm wondering should I start to add nutes or wait until the cotyledons leaves to fall off.
Tiffany



Renee

Why are the plant's leaves wet? You're going to end up getting light burn with CFL's trust me. That's the same bulbs I used way back and you cant foliar feed when there on. You shouldn't add nutes until roughly your fourth set of true leaves, unless of course you see a deficiency or the soil is a very light mix. I usually go by the 2-3 week rule of thumb before adding anything to my mix. I actually don't follow a specific nute chart or program anymore. I just learn the deficiencies and correct them as they come. I believe if beginners like me continue to practice this method it will mold them into a better grower by leaps and bounds. Anyways! The plants' are looking good! Just make sure to give it time and let them grow. If the box has no need to be rebuilt then don't disturb it. Some strains are extra sensitive and can become stressed/stunned by the littlest things. Your goal is a perfect environment thats stress free/temperature appropriate. Once you reach that your plants will flourish quickly. There's an old saying, "Don't fix it unless its broken." Also make sure not to over water or use nutes early. It's biggest mistake I've seen new grows make, and it's the same one I made on my first time around. Also I'll be posting an update to my grow journal here this saturday as im going to throw the ww into flowering if you'd like to check it out heres the link.https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/714167-ebb-flow-dwc-fox-farm.html

Thanks for the tips CFLNoob lol. I mist them and they actually like it believe it or not and as far as light burn I've already been down that road this weekend lol. As far as nutes Imma wait like you said and wait until the cotyledon leaves fall off(I've been reading that's when they start to really need nutes). And as far as the box I had to scale it down from 5ft to 3.5 ft for venting reasons as well as stealth reasons because 3 ft is easier to cover up.

Yours are ready to go into flowering already? Do WW plants grow squat? I thought they were lanky and stretchy.

No problem, just trying to save you the problems I ran into when I started! My white widow pheno seemed to be super bushy but I have also heard of it being lanky (You can never really tell because theres so many variations of white widow. I got this from seedsman). I haven't uploaded pic's in a good 10 days but you'll see this saturday its probably 2 times thicker and taller. From what I heard from other growers of ww it will at least double in size if not tripe or quadruple. If it even triples in size I might have some hight issues so I think the end of week 5 is a good time to change cycles.

So its week 3 and the girls are starting to stink! It's not an overpowering stink but if u move the pot or get close you know that your gonna get a kushy floral scent.
The cotyledon leaves are starting to yellow so I think I'mma have to start adding nutes soon.
Tiffany
View attachment 2825030View attachment 2825031
Rene
View attachment 2825032View attachment 2825034

So its been a week since I've posted about these lil girlies.
So here's what happened in the last week:
.I started adding 1/8 strength of big bloom and 1/8 of grow big to their water feeding.
.I'm still misting them throughout the day
.I'm thinking about topping and LSTing but I once again I'm not sure about it yet. I'm glad to hear any advice or suggestions.
Tiffany:


Rene:


By the way Renee(the bottom plant) has alot of branches coming from the main stalk however their really small should I LST so they get more light?

Friday I'm going to begin topping and LSTing. I know I could have started sooner but with this being my first grow I wanted to take extra precaution. Pics will be posted Friday/Saturday.

As promised I topped both of them today. I'mma hold off on LSTing because I don't have time until this weekend to do it. Their really starting to develop more branches and responding well to the nutes.
Before(Rene)


After(Rene)

Before(Tiffany)

After(Tiffany)

The snippings

Really coming along! I think you'll be a fan of topping, it kept my plant super bushey.

So I'm back with their once a week update. Both are taking off now in their vegging sate.
I'm worried if their gonna hermie but if they do I guess its just gonna be alot more inspection everyday.
New:
Alot of side branches are starting to emerge.
I started them on a 1/2 strength mix today because their eating more than I thought they were.
I removed two lower leaves(one from each plant) due to yellowing.
The topping from last week is starting to quickly recover.
Tiffany

Rene

Trimmings

Major updates:
Well both of them are about a ft tall now so I decided to go ahead and switch out the bulbs and flip to 12/12 tomorrow. So hopefully next week they'll start to show their preflowers and start the flowering process from there
Minor updates:
I removed several lower leaves that began to yellow
I started adding more nutes to their watering after seeing that they could handle full doses(wanted to be on the safe side)
I realized I should have topped earlier on so they could be even more bushier than they are now
Tiffany

Renee

Just flipped it to 12/12 this morning. Ill report on the preflowers soon as I see em.

(Hey I had to post on here it wont let me PM you back for some reason.) Good to hear! By the looks of the latest pics you've uploaded on the thread there doing great! When to switch to 12/12 is really all up to you! Since you've fim'ed like I have they should be bushy as hell and really start branching out in flowering. Take into consideration some plants double, some even triple in size by harvest. They go grow wide or tall depending on the strains phenotype and the type of training. Basically all im saying is take in account the space your growing them in! I personally would say flip em there big and you should get a nice harvest. The extra 2 weeks probably wont make that much of a weight difference anyway.