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It's my first grow! Yay!
Doing Mephisto Genetics Sour Crack, because it's smallish and easy to manage. I figured I'll practice all of the simple techniques on her and learn, make mistakes and possibly fail. (Spoiler: Haven't failed!)
Growing in soil, Great Lakes Water Only. It's one of those living soil thingys. Seems to be working great! I topped off the pots with about five inches of potting soil to ease the plants into the hotter stuff. During the first two weeks she was under a "1000w" Blurple from Amazon. It is a 125ish watt from the wall light. Worked fine but then I read a bunch of stuff that made me anxious about Blurples and splurged on a 3x Cree Cob setup that runs 190w and 3500k, which is what she's been under since day 16.
She's going to get leaf tucking, LST, PHed water, and Myco Blast. nothing else. Until flower and I'll hit her with a week of P/K. Keeping it super simple.
As she is my first plant, I didn't know what to expect. I read a whole heaping pile of stuff, learned that there is a whole world of experts, armchair experts, bro-science "experts", and not-at-all experts with lots of words willing to tell a noob many, many things that may or may not be true. I chose to listen to the people who seemed really big on what *not* to do, rather than the people telling me to do 500 different things.
It may have been a conservative decision, but she is alive at the end of week 1 and looks healthy so we'll call it a win.
While week 2 for the average grower is probably boring as all get out, it's my first grow, so every change is exciting and scary, you know? Each little shift, even hourly, is a new little lesson. Learned about seedlings getting top heavy, learned about wrinkly early leaves, read probably a couple hundred pages of information, some good, some bad, some not applicable but good for future reference.
This week was a week of false LST starts lol. She wasn't quite big enough, and I was afraid to bend her. She threw on bulk all over the place, and her stem finally got stronk enough to hold her up without me worrying all the time. I declare her officially out of the seedling gauntlet and into the veggie safe zone!
LST came on hard this week. I've been super worried about it because, as my first experience, I don't know how hard I should be mooshing and tugging her parts get get results without damaging her. So far I have roughed up a couple leaves bug she is otherwise just fine. Her growth at this point is out of control, and while I was sort of against the idea of defoliation on a plant that doesn't get very big, and ended up snipping a few leaves off to avoid them dragging on the dirt.
She's turning into a tiny monster! On day 26 LSTing her was actually hard to do, with all the growth and her general sturdiness. I pushed a plant tie stake down into the soil to keep her main stem low and she wasn't having it. Just yanked right back up and said "NAW, MAN, NAW." Had to hook a second tie to the first one to keep her down.
Her recovery from the bends seems to be about three hours, pretty fast?
One last note - Doing LST is fun! Once I got past the fear of bending her, the fussing around and trying to get an optimal canopy feeds something deep down in my OCD glad and it's an all around hoot.
So far all of the plants in my grow, apart from Mandy Capable (Who is beyond recovery and into showing off at this point) have been a dream! Historically I have had seriously bad luck trying to grow plants. (Never tried cannabis before. Just hot peppers and a couple regular old houseplants.)
But I guess if you read carefully and look at all the most common amateur errors, you can come out without too much trouble! We'll see how this week goes.
Day 31 - She's starting to stretch I think! All of her tops pulled up about an inch in the last 24 hours.
Day 33 - She's starting to actually look a tiny bit frosty!
Day 36 - Apart from the tent being invaded by a kittycat, she's doing great coming into week 6! Gonna stop with the PK for a week and see how she does. Will hit her again if need be. At this point I am tucking leaves and maintaining, nothing else.
Day 37 - Had to rearrange plants in the tent to make room for foliageness. She's now in the corner, working away.
Day 40 - Hitting her with some nutes to deal with minor yellowing. Iguana Juice Bloom. Seems like all of them are missing a little N. Something to look out for with Great Lakes Water Only soil? For the next grow I'll have something at hand, and earlier. Probably blood meal. Or even just switch to the Iguana Juice for all of their later NPK. We'll see.
Day 43 - She's showing signs of deficiencies in calcium, magnesium, or both. Doing a foliar spray of Cal/Mag to see if it helps. She'll get a full dose with her next watering but it's too soon at this point. Wish me luck!
Day 44 - Decided to flush her early. She was still a bit damp but not soaking, but I was worried about her situation. Ran eight gallons of 6.15ph through her followed by a final gallon with some cal/mag, which I was worried about but may in fact be incorrect about. One good does of cal/mag won't hurt her, though, so either way, no harm. It's hard to see but she's perked up a bit and some of the yellow that was invading her top leaves has gone a little more green. We'll keep an eye on her, of course. She' on day 44 of a 55-60 day life so I'm hesitant to go back to feeding her unless something weird happens.
Day 45 - The flush is working! She's thicker at the base of her but sites and seems to be generally perkier.
Day 48 - Her flowers are starting to look like one giant wad of bud, rather than a bunch of distinct spots. Seven days until commercial cut age according to Mephisto. I'm gonna go a couple days more, of course. The yellowed leaves on top only go down half an inch or so, and the bottoms of the yellowed leaves still look normal, so I don't think she was horribly damaged by her incident, and her mass keeps packing on, so I expect to get more than the minimum of one ounce listed on the Meph official description. *Shaking First Grow Knows Nothing Magic 8 Ball* "I Declare as Someone Who is on their First Grow that this plant shall yield ONE POINT FIVE OUNCES." - Watch me be wrong!
Day 50 - It's the probably final week! She's fading up top , but her buds look healthy and thick. Will start inspecting her trichomes at about day 55 and decide between then and day 60 or so. Super happy with how she turned out, even with her accident. I think she's gonna have a decent yield for her strain. First grow - Almost in the hole!
Day 52 - At a crossroads. Her Trichomes are maybe 30-40% amber. But she's at day 52! So I want to be sure I don't chop her early but her trichomes say DOOO EEEET. I will probably let her get to day 55 but after that I think she gets the chop. Not 100% yet. I think that 60 days would be too long though. We'll see.
Day 56 - Today might be the day. Her leaves are about to give up the ghost and her pistils are pretty red. Not sure yet.
Day 53 - It's a Friday. Sunday she's getting the axe. She's ready for it. She seemed to have tried to sprint to the finish line and going sixty days doesn't seem worth it because this gal is pretty spent.
Day 57 - The Last Day. Okay 95% sure. She's got amber on her calyxes, they're swelled up a bit, and she's really tired looking. She's got what looks like a whole lot of flower mass and the tent is super crowded, so yeah, it's her time. Will chop tonight and post pics of the process tomorrow.
Day 58 - The 5% wins the day. She's still with us. Busy last night doing more important things. Some time in the next day or so probably, barring any further scheduling stuff.
Day 58 - Evening - She's Down! Pics added.
Day 58 - Just cut her, will update with more details after drying and tasting. :-D
Day 63 - Just for kicks I lit up a dry, uncured bud. Surprisingly not harsh! (Cured will be better lol) Tasted like lemons and weed. Didn't seem too terribly potent at first. Kinda crept up on me. Then I went to stand up and get some coffee and the three minutes it took to get the coffee felt more like twenty minutes of slideshow. When I was standing in one place I was there, and when I'd walk to another spot there was kinda no transition between the first location (Coffee machine) and the second (Counter). The more I walked around, the more blitzed I became. SO, who this strain was experimentally grown for, had some. Every time she has used Cannabis, she has edged very near a panic attack. We really wanted to find a strain to keep her mellow rather than increase her anxiety. Her in media res review - "It Feels Like I'm Floaaaaaating away onna Clooooud." Her post-experience review - "It was intense but I didn't feel like I was going to lose it."
So yeah, high praise. Sour Crack is great, and will be SO's Daily Driver. (Actually let's say monthly or biweekly because we don't smoke much.) She is exactly as advertised, done in 55-65 days, small, potent buds, 1-2oz yield, calm high, lemony. Exactly what the household ordered. All of this said with mostly dried, uncured buds.
Day 58 - First Grow. First plant. 272.16 Grams I dinged her up pretty good around days 35-40 or so, which were pretty crucial days in a 55-60 day plant, but it seems like the damage was primarily cosmetic as she came through with what seems to me like a whole lot of bud, that looks pretty good up close. Most of the damage seemed to have been to her fan leaves*, and all of those were still supple and looked good on the bottoms, so there was still some good action happening inside her. Her wet weight (With stems) is 272.16 Grams. I don't know how much they weigh, but my hope is to get 1.5 ounces out of her. I'm fairly certain that I'll get more than 1oz. For a plant with a claimed harvest of 30-60 grams, I am a happy camper for a first timer. I'll do better next time! This gal is about a week older than her sisters in the grow, and most of the worst mistakes I have made have been with her, so onward and upward! She's drying now, with most of her sugar leaves attached and a tiny bit of fan leaves hanging off of her to slow her dry. Our RH is in the 20s and 30s right now and it's hard to keep up so slowing down her dry is critical. She's in an 18x18x24 inch moving box. Some holes poked into the sides, hanging from some paracord. (She was so heavy I wanted 550lb test line har har etc.) So now we wait and watch her dry out. Will read more about drying and make sure her conditions are as optimal as they can be.
So basically I'M IN. This is a thing I can do and not get bored. Every step is interesting and I'm constantly trying to figure ways out to make thing easier and better. I'm an obsessive tinkerer and optimizer and this is one more thing that has nearly endless putzing around potential. My goal, after this full grow is harvested, is to go through my whole process (Was well documented) and cut out every dead end and mistake, and creating as simple a grow plan as possible. Things like learning that nutrients are an endless rabbit hole for salespeople to send a newbie down, how not to panic and make big, drastic moves. How to wait a couple days and see before acting. It's a good general patience training exercise. I've come out of the first grow having learned about 30 things to never do again, and still managed to come out with what looks like a damned decent crop, so yay me, and yay people here on Growdiaries, /r/autoflowers /r/mephheads and /r/microgrowery who were instrumental getting me through this with some dignity. :-D
I'll update the harvest when she's dry and I've tasted a lil' sump'n.
After giving her the pre-cut haircut we were kind of amazed at how healthy she looked underneath her beat up top layer of foliage!
Day 61 - Due to a horrible unforseen humidity issue she ended up pretty damned dry in three days. Not super dry, just pretty dry. Dry enough to cure. Trimmed the buds (First time trimming, be easy on me.) and weighed them. 44.75 Grams! AKA 1.6oz!
My hope was to get 1.5 or better out of this girl. She yields between 30-60 grams and for a first grow, smak dab int the middle of an average yield means I didn't screw up too badly! Can only get better from here, right? So huzzah!00
@@@Kinimod, I was told to use p/k during. The first week of flower. Bad idea? It's the only nutrient I'll be using during the grow apart from Bio Root.
@Budcoin, I was super close to scheduling her chop for tomorrow. Going to give her until Sunday, which will be day 55 exactly. Her leaves are fading and her trichomes are maybe a third amber. Thinking I'm going to remove fan leaves and chop her as one piece. Just hang the whole kit and kaboodle up. Our RH in the house is 20-25% in the winter and I want to slow her dry as much as I can. Pics will of course be incoming. :-D Will take pics, prune all of her fans, take more pics, chop her, hang her, take more pics. :-D Won't be able to get a wet weight with a whole plant hang but I'll weigh her anyway.
By the way yours looks super frosty! Sorry for the mishap. Mine had one, too, last week. Dunno what caused her to go all yellow, but I have suspicions*. A flush fixed her though and her discolored leaves didn't die or shrivel so *Shrug*.
*Her first two doses of P/K were me listening to the dude at the grow shop and not reading the bottle. Gave her 15ml of P/K per gallon for three feedings. She didn't get what you would call a regular nutrient burn, so the symptoms were confusing. Someone else said PH lockout, which it certainly looked like, but I had been measuring PH both in and out of the plant. But hey, as I said, flush fixed her so here we are. I think I'm gonna be hitting the higher end of the yield size for her strain. At least I'm hoping so. If I manage 1.5oz I'll feel like I have hero level first grow and retire forever... Or not. :-D
Happy Growing!
Hey there Hexus, have you tested her runoff? Ph could be too low, if youre using good soil calcium or magnesium or any other secondary nutrient deficiency doesnt happen too often. I usually flush if i have any issues unless im sure my soil ph is correct. I suggest to check your soil on time before its too late :) If indeed your ph is off balance flush with twice the amount of your potsize. Let the soil dry thoroughly and follow with a friendly dose of nutrients. Lets hope this isnt necessary. Looking great for a first grow
@ArucambaAutoflowers297, I really appreciate the help! PH is 6.15 going in, and 6.8 coming back out. Been pretty obsessive on PH. The next time she's dry she's getting a flush either way, and then a 1 tsp/gallon dose of cal mag, which should fix her if that is the problem, and won't hurt her if it isn't.
I kind of have it down to one of two (Four) problems at this point, all of which will be solved by the flush, but it'd be good to know the actual cause.
1. I listened to the dude at the grow store who told me to hit the plant with Canna P/K 13/14 at 12-15ml/Gallon for the first week of flower. I did three waterings this way and stopped after five days. So there may be an overdose of P/K. But it's been a really slow, creeping up symptom so I wasn't as sure about it.
2. It *looks* like symptoms of Cal/Mag. Older leaves are getting paler with brown spots, new growth is fairly pale, and slow.
3. She's right in the middle of her last two/three weeks as well, which might be a contributing factor.
4. I actually am just guessing and making a fool on myself, and have no idea.
Here's a pic in natural light in case it can help.
https://i.imgur.com/n5OMp5d.jpg
Again, really appreciate the feedback!
EDIT - RE: Natural light pic - I do not spray my leaves with water. This is the first time ever, with the folair cal/mag, and it's not in direct light. Just making that clear.
Hexus
