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Hey, this is my first time growing cannabis so I'll be taking any kind of advice. For germination I did the paper towel method witch worked great then planted directly into my final pot. The seedling has popped out with two tiny leaves so I'm feeling quite confident. Watering caused the soil to settle a bit lower but I'm ok with that.
Hey, I learned that when watering you need to water until there ~20% runoff but I watered little at a time during 30 minutes or so and gave about 3-4L of plain water before runoff and even if two leaves have popped I'm worried. Is this normal ?
Try this - I was sick of not finding helpful watering information for indoors growing ('lift the pot' or 'when it needs it' were frustrating terms I came across often) so I did a side project for myself to figure out average waterings in soil for organics all the below from my current grow:
This is for an organic grow - no intentional runoff watering required, for synthetics you will need a slightly different approach and alternate feedings with clean pH'd water to orevent excess salt buildup in your medium.
Get a small hand sprayer
Watering in week 1 tip: Get a big plastic cup and cover the plants over like a helmet so you dont spray the leaves - I burned my first plant doing that. Do this every day when watering until the plant no longer fits under the cup.
Each watering should be dry in 24hrs and keep your humidity like 70-90%
Week 1 - 100ml per day, increased 20ml per day, sprayed across the surface of the soil and 5-10ml at the bottom of the stem in a gentle trickle every day.
The trickle at the base to give the plants tiny root some water straight away. The spray all across the top to soak into the top few cm of the soil to let the spreader roots rush across the top of the pot to chase the water, you have airpots so it makes sense to encourage lateral growth ASAP
Week 2 - 250ml per day increasing 10ml per day (plant should be too big to fit under cup this week so just soray carefully) and a couple of squirts at the bottom of the stem
Week 3 - 350ml per day
Week 3 mid week - 1 x 1L watering of the whole pot (I am organics) - let half of it dry (weight pot before and after) and then a 250ml watering on top
Week 4 - up to 500ml per day and rising - about 100ml directly at base if stem every watering now
Week4 mid week - 1x 1L water / 2 days dry (almost saturated)
Week 5 - 750ml per day and rising steadily
Continue until they reach max water intake per 24hrs
With the 1L feeds, do it slowly, in 2 x 500ml sessions about 1 hour apart to allow the top of the medium to absorb water, and then the 2nd watering for the water to flow to the lower substrate.
The reason for the 1L feeds is Im on dry organics and 1L almost gives me run off, I cam just feel moisture under the pots (fabric, 11L) so I'm not watering to runoff, but helping the roots lower down in the pot chase a nice big drink. It am hoping it also allows me to build into a constant wet / dry cycle, eventually I hope the pot should synchronize and need a full watering every day(ish).
I try to imagine watering the plant like spring rain showers man, and a bigger plant will definitely suck up more rainwater than a smaller plant.
It helps to know the weight if your pots wet and dry for sure, put them on scales if you need to - I did / do, thats how I know how kuch my girls are drinking on a daily basis 🤣
I also 'roughly' follow VPD charts to allow for maximum transpiration, my temps are also sweet at 20oC-26/27oC
The liquid amounts were kinda based on fractions of the pot too, my 1L feeds are like 10% of the pot, increase or decrease your waterings in proportion based on the size of the pot in the early days, I dont water to runoff cause I'm not synthetic.
The above is now my baseline watering guide.
Soaked the whole pot on day 1 so I didn't need to water this week but yesterday I poured around 200mmL of plain water(at 6.4 pH) around the soil to get those roots somme new water. The pot still feels heavy and the bottom is wet so I'll wait a bit until I water again. On the other hand the plant has grow well compared to other grows I saw so still pretty confident.
Nothing particular just kept an eye on temp and humidity and watered when needed. I used pH perfect sensi grow part A&B in the water this week wich seems to lock the pH around 7 so lowered it to 6,2.
Everything going great this week, I started tying down some of the higher leaves in order to let the light touch the lower ones and the plant responded quite well with new flower sites appearing. I didn't want to get overwhelmed with a bunch of nutrients since it's my first time growing so I only used Advanced nutrients sensi grow so far. But I am getting more confortable with watering and nutrients dosage so I ordered a few other products from AN which I will start using probably next week when it arrives.
The plant has grown a lot since last week and I'm starting to struggle with LST because of the numerous leaves that I don't find very important. So I want to do some research about defoliation which didn't interest me at first since it's high stress but I think it will be needed here.
Not much this week except I switched to bloom spectrum on my LED. I'm also giving bloom nutrients now and by the end of the week, I could see hairy pistils developing so I tested my microscope for smartphone. The flowers are starting to smell very nice but only in my bedroom so that's cool.
Nice grow this week, I'm kinda struggling with LST and the structure of the plant is a little out of control but that's ok. The soil is feeling really cold today so I'll look into that.
Find something to get her raised off the floor if she isnt, so that her root zone stays a bit warmer. You could add a space heater to keep things relatively warm aswell but I wouldn't be too worried
Looking great this far, buds are forming and smell is increasing. I started to feed with runoff and only feed every 2 waters because I measured 3000ppm in the runoff which is very very high. Since I'm using synthetic in soil I should have watered with runoff earlier but my girl seems very healthy and not at all burnt or anything. I'm also using Biobizz light mix as soil but since it's organic, I read online that It's normal to have higher ppm in runoff. I'll keep an eye on ppm anyway but I'm open to suggestions.
I hit 70% of humidity this night in my growroom when I usually have 60% tops at night and a good dehumidifier is quite expensive. Any quick tips to decrease HR without one ? And if I can't, how bad is 60% average HR ?
Watch out for overlapping foliage or buds really close to each other (like hand in hand) and make sure you have enough circulation. Enough fans, like monkey fan oscillating from secret jardin. I'm in week 7 flower and the buds are really dense, in night time also around 70/75% and daytime around 65 %. In nighttime there is little evaporation so it should be no problem with a resistant and healthy plant. Dwc like mine is somewhat less resistant to mold because of the constant supply of water but i have none.
The trick is that when there is moisture that doesn't dry up, then the molding process starts. The plant must breathe and release moisture otherwise it will rot.
Buds are getting bigger especially the top cola and trichomes appear everywhere (sugar leaves on the top cola). Nothing more to report, the conditions are under control so I feel great.
Very chill week, the main cola looks beautiful and the smell is just amazing. All the flowers are twinkling with clear tricomes. I hope the buds will grow more but I'll just keep an eye on the tricomes for the flushing mark.
Going great, buds are fattening (a bit) and they smell better than ever. I had high ppm run off so I watered with plain water but nothing serious. I'll keeping an eye on tricomes to know when it's time to flush but God these resinous buds make me drool I can't wait.
No problems this week, there are some nice, big and sticky colas and she's going to need a bit more time so that's cool. About the tricomes, there's a majority of milky/cloudy ones but very few amber ones and still to much clear ones especially on smaller buds. I got a new 250W LED (600W HID replacement) from EasyGrow to replace my shitty Amazon LED.
Very good strain for my first grow : I had almost no problem and I loved sharing my concerns with the community and get quick and helpful answers. I'm just getting started and I'm eager to experiment and learn everything I can about growing cannabis so I can have maximum control over my final smokable product.
Hey! Happy growing my friend! I hope you do well and get some good results! I will come by sometime to see your progress! Keep on growing!
If you ever visit my page please say hello!
Peace & love L.S.T 🌟❤️🔥
It is better not to defoliate - maximum amount of leaves = maximum amount of energy production = maximum growth = maximum health.
Besides, if your plant did not need those leaves, it would not have grown them in the first place!
Cutting perfectly healthy leaves off and forcing your plant to grow new leaves seems like a stupid idea to me, and no doubt, the plant too!
It is also better to go to 18/6, all living things need sleep, cannabis included, and besides, plants need a dark period during every 24 hour period to complete their photosynthetic cycle, as there are certain metabolic processes they can not do while the lights are on. A plant with an incomplete metabolism can not grow properly.
The myth that cannabis can be grown for months at 24/0 is just that, a myth.
This myth can only be recommended by people who don't understand how photosynthesis works or don't understand how plants function.
Your plants will be healthier, grow more and be more potent when you go to 18 hours lights on and 6 hours lights off due to (finally) having a normal metabolism and a complete photosynthetic cycle. This is known as a "circadian rhythm" and without one, every living thing on planet Earth can not function properly.
Hope this helps, Organoman. (and crusader against the 24/0 myth and protector of cannabis plants everywhere!)
@Organoman, indeed I always thought more light = more growth but I get your idea so I'm switching to 18/6. And thank you for your help on defoliation I understand it better now and I'm a beginner so I'm not gonna try it on this grow.
Tutto spettacolare amico, bella e chiara la tua descrizione, fantastico lavoro 💪🏻 continua così amico che tornerò a vedere i sicuramente ottimi risultati 👏🏻👏🏻💪🏻😎
@Inganjawetrust, thanks man, I'm feeling pretty confident except for the part that temp is higher than ever but FastBuds says it's a quite resilient strain so I'm not too worried.
T1000
