The Count's First Hindu Kush Experiment

What's up everyone? I'm the Count, a new MMJ patient since January 2010, and I love to smoke. This is my first grow experiment, so I hope to learn a lot from this community! Please post with your comments, questions, advice, or anything else!

But First, a Prayer for the Plant
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
-Siddhartha

Here's what I'm currently working with:
3x26w CFL + 105 w CFL; 183w total, 5000k temperature. Bulbs are attached to clamp lights with the reflectors removed for space consideration.
12" pot (I think it's 5 gallons, not sure)
FoxFarms Ocean Forest soil (I always call it FireFox soil, I dunno why)
16" Honeywell Ventilation Fan
pH test kit (Bought it at Home Depot where you fill a container with powder, distilled water, and soil)
Reverse-Osmosis H20 (7.0 pH balance)
MJ Horticulture - The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible, by Jorge Cervantes, for reference
1 Feminized Hindu Kush seed. I bought 10 seeds for $30 at my local collective (I named her Indira, after Indira Gandhi, one of the prime ministers of India)

My Wishlist:
Digital pH meter
Moisture meter
Thermometer/Hygrometer
FireFox fertilizing trio - GrowBig, Tiger Bloom, Big Bloom
105w 2700k CFL for flowering stage

And So It Begins...
April 3, 2010: Soaked Indira in a cup of water for 24 hours.
April 4, 2010: Wrapped Indira in a moist paper towel and enclosed her in a plastic tupperware.
April 5, 2010: 34 hours later, a white root emerges from the seed. Potted in a Jiffy Cube within the bigger pot. Sat her under 4 x 26w CFL's and set the timer for a 18/6 photoperiod.
April 7, 2010: 9:30 am - Indira pops her little head up! Arranged the lights 2"-3" from the plant.

10:30 pm - Stem starts to grow.
View attachment 893576

April 8, 2010: Watered with 1.5 L of H20, cap still not shed.
April 9, 2010: 10:30 am - Indira still has not shed her cap.
4:20 pm - At 4:20, I was pleasantly surprised to see Indira and her first set of leaves! Watered her, and then smoked in her honor.
View attachment 893580

April 10, 2010: I re-read Cervantes' section on transplanting, and I realized I should have cut the netting around the jiffy cube before planting the seed. When I tried to cut away the netting, some of the roots had become tangled with the netting and some of the roots got ripped clean off when I removed the netting. I expect to see some stunted growth, and wouldn't be surprised if she took a week or so to resume growth.


April 14, 2010: Indira is looking good despite the transplant disaster. She is growing everyday now, but her leaves are a little droopy, which I blame overwatering. The first pic shows a little purple tinge, which would be awesome if I had some purple traits come out during flowering stage.


MORE TO COME

Seedling Stage

April 15th, 2010: Indira is turning out to be quite squat. This morning I rearranged the lights to hover 3" above the plant. Later that day, my 105w CF bulb came in the mail and I positioned it about 5" from her leaves (1000bulbs.com). I am considering raising the lights to induce a little stretching.


April 16th, 2010: Coming along nicely... haven't watered her since the 13th, thinking she should be good to go for a couple more days.
View attachment 895252

April 18th, 2010: Watered Indira with 1.5 L of H20, although I may have watered her too soon. The leaves are a little droopy and tinged bright green. Also, I have noticed for the past couple of days an irregular leaf formation. Check out the second set of leaves, left side. I am almost certain that the botched transplant is the main causal factor. I hope Indira stays strong and resilient.


April 19, 2010: Noticed a couple gnats flying around, could be harmless but I think I'll get sticky-strips to trap them.


MORE TO COME

Vegetative Growth
It's been 13 days since germination. I was expecting the seedling cycle to last 21 days, but I guess this strain is different.

April 20, 2010: Happy 420! Indira is looking great. I topped her today at the 5th node; I firmly pinched the growth and twisted off. The first pic was taken in the morning, where you can barely see the 5th set coming in. I rearranged the lights to about 1'4" above her to induce a little stretching.


Second and third pic were taken after topping.


April 22, 2010: Still no sign of the two new growths. Beginning to wonder if I topped correctly. On a side note, there is a lot of new growth on the bottom leaves.



MORE TO COME

April 23, 2010: Today, I went out and bought FireFox GrowBig for $13 and some sticky fly paper. I will begin fertilization tomorrow, as I just watered her yesterday. I hear good things about this company, does anybody have any experience with FoxFarms?


I set up the sticky paper close to the plant and let her be.
But when I came back to check on her a couple hours later, the fly paper had fallen over and stuck to a part of Indira! FUCKKKKK! I tried to peel it away as slowly as possible, but ripped off a big chunk of her leaf. I feel so stupid because I also fucked up the transplant, and I really hope I didn't do any long term damage. I better go smoke before I get depressed

Evidence Room Exhibit A

Evidence Room Exhibit B


MORE TO COME

Lookin good so far. Im subbed. I grow mostly soil with fox farms stuff myself. May she grow green!! Just saw yer last post.. ack.. she will likely be ok.. if you are just now doing a transplant into a bigger pot of ocean forest.. may I suggest you dont use the grow big yet. You new soil with a good watering will give her all she needs for now. Do you water untill you have some runoff then wait for it to dry before you water again?

Hey Waggs! Thanks for tuning in!

I'm not transplanting anymore, I'm gonna leave it in the 5 gal pot so I think it should be okay to use the nutrients. But maybe I will wait another half week or so and see what happens. Maybe the nutes will even help her out in light of her accident with the fly paper.

I water usually with 1.5 L water bottles and let the runoff drain before I put it back under light. Then I cultivate the top half inch or so with a fork and if the first half inch feels dry and looks light in color, then I water with another 1.5 L. Thanks for your assurance that everything will be okay, I got really stressed about it.

Ah I see. How long has she been in that current soil then? if its been more than like 2-3 weeks then you are ready to start your grow big. Be sure to check the ph of your nute mix if you have gotten your meter. I have read that aerating the top of the soil in your pot is a bad thing. not positive but the roots get really close to the top of the soil as the plant gets larger. The one I just chopped was using every bit of the 3 gallon bag she was in.

Waggs said:

Ah I see. How long has she been in that current soil then? if its been more than like 2-3 weeks then you are ready to start your grow big. Be sure to check the ph of your nute mix if you have gotten your meter. I have read that aerating the top of the soil in your pot is a bad thing. not positive but the roots get really close to the top of the soil as the plant gets larger. The one I just chopped was using every bit of the 3 gallon bag she was in.

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Waggs,

It's been 16 days. Just in between the 2-3 week stage. I'm very eager to see how she responds to the ripped leaf treated with fertilizer. Isn't FoxFarms specially formulated for a stable pH? Also, Cervantes advises: "Lightly cultivate the soil surface so that water penetrates evenly. Be careful not to disturb roots" (236). I only cultivate the top half inch, crusty, dry soil so that when I water the plant there are no air pockets that could contribute to uneven watering.

The ph will depend a lot on your water. My water I use tap water after its filtered for sediment and then thru a carbon filter. Ppm comes out about 100. I let it sit and air for at least 24 hours and the ph is usually about 6.8 so sometimes I do have to ph down. Seldom ever used the ph up tho.. not sure ive opened the bottle lol. I use 3 diff fox farms nutrients, and I ph my final mix at 6.5 for my soil grow before I feed them with it. The strenght I mix depends on the size of my plants. For one your size i'd use about 200 ppm for a starter feed. thats plus whatever your normal ppm is.. for my water would be 300 ppm for example. As for the soil top surface, I was just passing on what I read. I did it myself a few times cause I thought the soil seemed pretty compacted on the top. Then I read that and stopped doing it hehe.

Waggs said:

The ph will depend a lot on your water.

Click to expand...

I have a reverse-osmosis filter and the pH comes out to 7.0

Waggs said:

The strenght I mix depends on the size of my plants. For one your size i'd use about 200 ppm for a starter feed. thats plus whatever your normal ppm is.. for my water would be 300 ppm for example.hehe.

Click to expand...

I know that ppm stands for parts per million, but that's about it. Ha. I'm not sure ppm really matters cause i plan starting out on half the lowest recommended dosage anyways and seeing how she responds to the nutrients.

As for pH, I'm waiting for my moisture/light/pH meter to come in the mail. Not digital, but it was $5. Cut out the middle man! The runoff of my water is usually 6.4-6.6 so I'm not too worried. This FireFox soil has been regulating pH amazingly well.

I bought one of those type of meters too but they are pretty bad for accurate ph so I broke down and spent the 20 bux for a good one.

Vegetative Stage (17 Days Since Germination)

April 24, 2010: Geez this watering business is harder than I thought it would be. Currently, I'm using these 1.5 L plastic water bottles that I fill up from my kitchen sink (my reverse-osmosis system is set up to run through the whole house). But the directions on the GrowBig bottle said to use 2-3 teaspoons per gallon, and I only had a tablespoon measuring spoon.

So I had to do some math to convert gallons to liters and teaspoons to tablespoons get the number to tablespoons per liter (anybody remember dimensional analysis from AP Chem?) And with some guesswork, I hopefully got the right amount. I guess this is where a ppm or EC meter would come in handy . Also still impatiently waiting for that 3-in-1 meter to come.

Anyways, these are two pictures of Indira before I watered her with GrowBig.


And these pictures were snapped 2 hours later. Look at the difference, Indira loves this stuff!


I'm also excited because two new sets of leaves are just starting to growing right on the main cola. We'll see how fast these puppies grow with the nutes mwahahaha. That is, if I don't fuck up.


MORE TO COME

Vegetative Stage

April 27, 2010: Indira is looking very good after the nute shot, although I should remember not to pour the water directly onto the leaves, as I can see some signs of nitrogen overdose on the top leaves but the bottom leaves look great! I think I'll increase the amount to 75% strength next time.


Also, the two growths where I topped are coming in nicely.


April 30, 2010: Hello everybody! I hope y'all had a good April. Indira is looking great, although I think I should lower my lights a little. As of now, they are about 1' away from the plant, and since they're CF's, I should put 'em 6" from her. She's about 6" tall and her fan leaves are blowing up like balloons. I watered her today with 3 L of H2O without nutrients, and I'm still waiting for that friggin moisture meter to finally come in the mail to make my life exponentially easier.


Bird's eye of the two mains growing in from the topping site. C'mon baby grow!


Things are running smoothly, although I do have one concern. Some parts of the fan leaves are curling downward. The parts that are curled feel dry and crusty and not as soft as the other parts of the leaf. I'm guessing this could be from underwatering, but I will never know until this stupid meter comes. Any advice?

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Also, anybody know the difference between FoxFarm's water soluble dry fertilizers and their liquid concentrates?

THE COUNT HAS MOVED TO GRASSCITY.COM!
http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-g...st-hindu-kush-cfl-grow-come-one-come-all.html