My First "Real" Grow

Have only been growing for about 6 months but this is first time with coco coir so starting out 25% and adding cal-mag right away. Also first time w/ feminized seeds from quality source so pretty excited overall :) if anyone has any suggestions let me know, otherwise I'll post weekly along with any experiments I like to randomly do. I have 3 going so far, so here's the first. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Seeds: Sink or Swim?! Summary ILGM recommends germinating seeds by placing into water until the tail begins to form. New to this method I'm interested in doing an experiment determine best chances for viability (primary observation) and growth rate (secondary observation) with sinking vs floating seeds. I'd think that seeds that sink have more water contact on surface area, therefore will germinate twice as fast, but it's also possible that seeds that sink will not have enough oxygen to develop, or become too waterlogged to germinate. Experiment - Place 2 ILGM Durban Poison and 2 ILGM Bergman Gold Leaf into separate cups with purified water, 7.6 pH - Purposefully sink one of each strain - Place in room with 22C temperature, no light Test Started: Saturday, December 7 @ 4:20 am Test Ended: Sunday, December 8 @ 8:43 pm Results All four seeds showed signs of a tail being formed but the two seeds that were floating were visibly longer (~1/4"), so may take more care not to sink them in future but it ultimately doesn't matter. All four eventually become sprouts at the same growth rate so sinking vs floating, though it's worth pointing out that it only took 28-30 hours to grow a tail is pretty darn awesome :) I don't know if that is genetics or this method, but will take extra care not to sink seeds in future so I can turn on my lights a few days sooner!

Not a bad week, coir kept the substrate well so didn't really have to water, but went ahead so I could move up to 50% solution and keep her going strong! Per recommendation I've moved lights down to 28" to see how they respond.

Summary: After 3 other grows, 1 being slightly successful (ww auto - smoked great but weird smell, i wouldn't buy/sell) I can say this is an explosive growth over just 6 a week. @dianne suggestion to drop the light significantly from 32" to 24" was a big deal but also noticing the height growth - the other 3 grows were quite tall but still a few weeks from being the same diameter as the pot. This is either good - meaning I was wrong all along and think this is the case; or bad because the light is too close and it just wants to grow outward? Either way they're beautiful and I'm so happy so thank you @dianne :) See my last picture, shows ~1cm whereas i'm used to ~1". Question: These are fem seeds and not auto, so I want to take full advantage of that as I didn't do much training w/ autos. I don't know any techniques other than pruning which I'm comfortable with during veg. I want to "bend" these out to the corners where the bamboo stakes are and eventually get to scrog. When should I begin tying the plants to the stakes so they "bend"? Garduino: So far it's been progressing well. Look through pictures and you'll see it goes from breadboarding to making a circuit. The image where it's laid out on the table from left to right: there are four sensors that have a power, ground, and data wire. The data wire sends back a value from 0 (wet) to 1023 (dry) to the arduino (center). There is some code that converts these values into measurements of "when to water" - this is still being developed as I need to add a few resistors to the circuit in order to make all 4 sensors return uniform results in similar conditions. I'll explain that next week in more detail. Anyway, the arduino also has a sensor on top of it that measures temperature, humidity, ultraviolet-A and -B spectrum values, UV index, and pressure. This is the original sensor I recommended last week and I've just built on top of. To the right are some wires that aren't hooked up yet, but are power and ground to what will be motors. When one of the 4 soil sensors returns a "dry" value it will automatically pull water into that pot until it reaches a "wet" value we desire depending on the growth cycle of the plant.

Thank you @Clutch for the recommendation of @CBalderson SCROG. Did do an earlier defoliate than I'm used to and will look for some bigger stakes, couldn't find any locally. Not as verbose this week, a bit medicated. So yea :)