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This is my first ever grow. I have zero practical experience but I believe I have done my research. We will find out. I will be using a fairly simple/ cheap set up to gain experience before any further investment.
Germination: April 16th -19th 2020
Transferred to Medium: April 19th
Promix Seed Starting Mix
Red Solo Cup 18oz
60W LED white plant light @ 8” 20/4H
Sprout: April 21st
Seedling Stage: 3 weeks NO feed.
Daily watering with spray bottle.
April 25: moved to 600W LED @ 30"
Room temperature is sitting at 25’C which jam happy with. However I do not have a grow tent and my humidity is only 40%. Hoping this won’t affect the grow too much
I think it still seems to be going well. Growing a little slower then I see some other people progress but I have read Super OG can be a slow grower. No signs of any issues so I think it’s just a slow starter. I moved from the single 60W LED to the 600W on day 6 and growth has picked up. Still in promix seed starter mix with no added nutrients. Watering every 24 hours with small amounts from a squirt bottle.
Day 10: leaves outgrowing the solo cup. Transplanted you 5G bucket. Added tomato cage to assist with LST when it comes that time. Bucket has 20+ 1/4 inch holes drilled in the bottom and sides for drainage and ventilation. I also lined the bottom of the bucket with gravel to assist with drainage.
Started to see some decent growth by the end of the week. Next set of leaves should be full 5 part leaves. Working on 3rd node. I have added a constant fan at a low level so enough to move the branches a little bit
Growth is slow but steady. I think slow growth is strain and humidity related. Working on a solutions for humidity. Plant is staying short related to this issue which I don’t think is a bad thing. Appears to be developing regularly under less then ideal conditions. Plant stalk and nodes have thickened up this week
Day 18: growth appears very slowed. Very little noticeable progress in 24 hours. I have picked up a humidifier today and will try and bump the humidity up to 60 and hope that helps. On day 21 will begin feeding with AN PHd Sensi Grow A&B.
Day 20: I now have a humidifier set up and have my levels up <50. I don’t have a grow tent so Iam working to get a consistent humidity without fluctuating to much and stressing the plant.
Day 21: humidity is finally up. Inconsistent but up. Typically ranging between 50-70%. It is difficult to keep consistent in a open room grow. Noticed increased growth rate in a 24 hours time period with humidifier compared to without. Today was first watering with nutrients. 0.5ml/L of AN PHd Sensi Grow A&B
Day 23: new node growth was slow over the past 2 days but vertical growth exploded. Grew about 2 inches in 2 days
Day 26: 5th nodes are visibly separated and 6th nodes are sprouting. Going to top the plant after the 6th nodes are visible and separated. Still watering every 3 days with 0.5lm/L AN Sensi Grow A&B
Fan leaves are growing steady but actual branches are barely even developed, nothing more then a tiny leaf. This seems very far behind does anyone know what might be causing this?
You've answered this yourself in your grow journal: too many weeks with the humidity far too low relative to the plant's actual needs, and after 4 weeks of growing you still haven't stabilized it and are seeing daily fluctuations as much as 20%. Given time, and if you avoid high stress training techniques which aren't supposed to be done on an unhealthy plant (as you have here, unless your aim is to kill it more quickly), the plant may still recover if you get on top of your environment problem you've had for four weeks (the humidifier doesn't fix it when your plant is experiencing 20% fluctuations, which you need to fix first before deliberately using High Stress Training techniques).
Better still: since this is your first grow, your plant is unhealthy, stunted, and you still don't have the humidity dialed in, would be to go with gentle LST when the plant has enough height and is looking more healthy.
You may have some stagnant water in the soil and poor drainage from your choice of pot as well. I've covered how to fix this. Something you can try next watering is to mix hydrogen peroxide 3% (2 tablespoons/gallon) to the water as it will kill any root fungi and harden both the plant and roots against fungus plus improve aeration of the root zone, something your choice of pot doesn't do well.
You only need to do this one or two waterings. And its worth looking at how you're watering as a common newbie mistake I've also made is to over water. though I didn't do too bad there.
A last question: have you used a fan on your plant at all? You spec your setup but I don't see it in your photos or notes and since you added things as you needed them (which I did too) its not clear if you ever added a fan.
If you have no fan on your plant then its going to develop weak stems as a fan serves as training weights, though the trick is not to use too much air (which I did my first weeks). Most growers use a 6" oscillating fan, though I went cheap and mine doesn't oscillate. Something I did early to compensate was to regularly rotate the plant. Though it still developed wind burn just from having even a small fan blowing very gently on it, and a refinement I picked up this grow is to not run the fan 24/7 but to cycle it on and off instead (more off than on during the first days).
Though I'm not trying to dishearten you. My advice is to keep it simple. After 28 days with no tent you're either going to have to buy a tent, or try other methods to stabilize your environment problem. And if you haven't added drainage and a fan, you need to so sooner than later - this is fundamental stuff.
I would worry about getting the fundamentals dialed in and would not do any HST - your plant has been stressed enough. Gentle LST when the plant is ready is a better alternative. And next grow I would ditch the bucket (I have one just like it I use to feed my plant in to keep the tent clean) and get a fabric pot. Until then, its still soon enough to salvage provided you get the environment and pot situation fixed and don't make the other common first grow mistake of over-feeding with nutes. Less is more (make sure you are ph testing your water: 6.5 is ideal, though 6.3-6.8 is acceptable for soil).
Day 28: Thank you to all the helpful comments and suggestions from last weeks grow question. Everyone seemed to agree that humidity stability was hindering growth. I have learned as a first time grower that it’s very difficult to make ideal conditions without proper equipment. I have purchased an automatic meter from Inkbird that will keep my humidity at my preferred setting. I also purchased a grow tent that should arrive this week and will
Only make conditions better. Hopefully the damage done won’t screw up the whole grow. Maybe just a lengthier veg stage? Against what most suggested I did top the plant today. I waited until the plant had 6 distinct sets of nodes then I topped just above 3rd set of nodes. She will live or she will die now we will see.
Day 31: recovered from topping now. Stem had doubled in thickness. Branches have grown about an inch
Day 34: today this lady has to make her way outside. An 8 week work course was canceled due to Covid but is now back on and I will be out of town for 4+ nights per week. So she will have to live and grow outdoors as I don’t have time to properly care for an indoor grow. It is unfortunate but I have no choice. I will try and keep the log going outdoors and will start a new one in the fall with my first indoor grow. Should go better as I have all the equipment now at least
Need help with seedling. Grown in peat pellet, on seedling mat, under 90W light, 60%H, misting with water every 24H. new growth was yellow and now new leaf growth is almost 0. Stem grows strong, normal colour. Leafs now shrivelled Other seedlings no issues with same conditions
@MadeInGermany No nutrients used yet on this plant. I thought maybe it was a nutrient deficiency due to only being in peat so I transplanted into a seedling potting soil. Leaves have gotten some colour back but started to shrivel. This was the strongest of 4 plants, sprouted and grew at 2x the speed. Now is way behind. I thought also could be over watering so I haven’t watered in 2 days. How long would it take to recover from one of these 3
Problems to rule them out?
Hi buddy :-) Since your other plants are very beautiful under the same conditions 😍, I would have typed first that it may be genetic. How high is the ec of your feed?
Day 36: three days outdoors now. Plant is exploding with growth. Iam able to move around to follow the sun and she gets about 9 hours of direct sunlight. Today I removed the lowest 2 fan leaves and started some LST
Day 37: I had planned to attempt a mainline with this plant to keep it compact for indoors with 8 main colas. Now that she has to live outside I left t extra branches and will attempt 16 main colas.
Day 39: continuing to adjust LST each day as she grows
Day 44: lower branch growth was very underdeveloped so I decided to go with a true mainline. I trimmed and manipulated the branches slowly over the past 3 days.
Day 45: I upped the nutrient dosage from 1mg/L (.25 of recommended) to 2mg/L (.5 of recommended)
Day 46: plant looked good in am. By afternoon nute burn had taken full effect. I had to trim off both sets of fan leaves on my inner nodes. I used 5 gallons of water to flush the plant. The last 1.5 G ran straight though the medium completely clear.
Day 47: some small signs of burn on new growth but not spreading.
Day 51: has been a long road. Many mistakes. Have learned a lot. My many mistakes has created a lot of slow growth but my main-line is finally set. Time to grow grow grow until end of summer. Going to be a very long veg period due to my setbacks
Is this a male plant? Was a feminized OG Kush seed but it now looks like a male. Just started forming on the top of each branch. All other bud sights show female.
Привет, друг! 👋😇
Да, это мальчик. Сочувствую! Скоро и на нижних ветках и междоузлия появятся "шары". Такое бывает, когда в пачке, на которой написано FEMENISED, попадаются Regulars. Не расстраивайся, в следующих растениях повезёт с девочкой! 👌
Удачи, друг! ✊😇
Royal Queen Seeds recommends 65-70% Relative Room Humidity (RRH) for the first week, which is about on par with what they all recommend because the seedling has no roots, so it transpires (breathes) mostly through the leaves instead. 65-70% is optimal to do that; more and the leaves "sweat" just as humans do, and it is similarly stressing the plant as you go above 70% in week 1; less and it doesn't get enough of one of the things it needs for photosynthesis: water as humidity that low this early is also stressful.
Humidity is one of the easiest things though, and also fundamental: get it wrong and you will see the effects on the plant as it grows both in appearance and yield. With my first grow, I got it wrong too far the other way because I thought my hydrogometer was faulty and didn't put it in the tent (though I did recoord the values from outside the tent and I wound up with two hydrometers, 1 in and 1 next to me, and I could retroactively work out how high the humidity really had been the first three weeks (too high, though I don't think it ultimately affected my yield as I got on top of by week 3).
Then you progress downward about 5% a week, aiming for 55-60% through veg and into early flower. where you begin lowering it again by about 5% a week aiming for 40-50% by mid flower and as low as 30% in the last week (by decreasing slowly week by week).
Though without even a cheap humidifier and dehumidifier combo this can require more work to try and get close to. When I began, I started (and still have) a very modest setup: a tiny tent, a 150 W LED, etc, but I got good results my first grow despite the inevitable mistakes. Other than that, your start is good.
I've seen a lot of new growers run into problems growing in buckets like yours because they neglect to add the drainage they need, which if you don't add yourself, will create problems fairly soon as water, because it can't drain through, creates pockets of stagnant water below the soil. This leads to different root issues (not uptaking water nutes right, possible nute lockout from salt build up, mold, etc) and you can even get mold below the soil in the roots themselves.
Fabric pots plus some perlite in the soil solve this and prevent the plant becoming root bound and they're cheap: about $3 for a 2 or 3 gallon pot that you can wash after each grow and reuse.
Though its not worth transplanting again this late I don't think. If you drilled holes in the bucket for drainage and neglected to mention that, then you've covered that so you're good there but if not you need to do it and sooner is better.
Though its late to drill with the plant in the soil: I wouldn't want to use anything that create plastic bucket shavings that go into the soil, so instead I'd punch some small holes as close to the bottom as possible: enough and larger enough to allow water to leave the bottom of the bucket instead of becoming stagnant there, but not so many or so big that they allow the soil to fall through (maybe a little bigger than the size of a ballpoint pen for each hole and at least 8 of them around the bottom of the bucket spaced apart).
With regards to growth: that could be because the light isn't close enough and this is a tough needle to thread as you want the light as close to the plant as you can get it, but without burning the leaves (which usually can't be noticed until its already close enough to bleach or stress them).
Though looking at the heights that other growers with the same light are using as they correspond to your plant's stage can be one method to narrow it down (the other is to determine PPFD output from the light and adjust accordingly: most LED brands publish this as a chart that gives PPFD/PAR at different heights.
Your early problems look directly tied to the low humidity. You've solved that part for this and future grows so really, there's not much to be done from any stunting that results there and that's par for the course: I think the first grow is more to become familiar with the process and the benefits of the journal is you can combine what you observed the first time with notes and photos so your second grow is more dialed in.
That's what I'm trying to do this grow. Also, even when it looks bad, keep going as any grow that finishes is a success because of what it taught you. There were weeks late in my first grow where I was really worried that my grow would be among the single digit gram yielders because it had so many nutrient deficiencies on top of newbie mistakes; but I got 30 grams off it so it wound up over-delivering despite the mistakes.
You're identifying and correcting issues as you find them which is a huge part of this first time around (and documenting it as well).
Stingray99
