If you want to hit the easy button ahd have awesome, healthy plants with minimal problems starting with your first grow, go soilless. Stick to the basics outlined by cocoforcannabis.com guides and articles and even better information in "Dr. Photon's Corner" of the website.
When you control 100% of the nutrition provided, it makes diagnosing and adjust much easier. It eliminates numerous other possible causes to any problems seen. Any nutritional issue is amatter of adjusting the formual used and no concern about other stuff like what amendments are providing or whether there's a buildup of nutrients in the medium. Buildup of nutes is not possible with correct irrigation ahbits and soilless/hydro nutes. Better hydro products will be pH-balanced, so pH should never be a concern with a good product. It really is an easier learning curve.
if you can follow instructions, not cut corners, and start with a quality fertilizer that doesn't instruct you to bomb the plant with overfeeding or some whack-a-do ratio of nutrients, you'll do well day 1. This hobby isn't rocket science. It's easy to get 90% of potential with minimal effort. Obviously that's a made up number to express a general concept that you can realize the vast majority of a plant's potential through simple means.
Do things in a basic way to start and form good baseline expectations of this plant... there's a lot of genetic diversity, so your initial perceptions based on 5-10 plants can be wildly inaccurate, which then can impact your ability to recognize what helps and what is a waste of time/effort as you add layers of sophistication to your process.
A large portion of the things you'll read out there are simply bullshit. If an over-priced product is being sold along with it, even more likely to be bullshit. You'll find this hobby is more like a religion to many people. They are militant about long-held beliefs and incredibly insecure about any criticism or skepticism of the numerous, unproven hyptheses.that sorround this hobby.
Good info -- not the user-submitted stuff, though. Forums are rife with misinformation.
Cocoforcannabis.com
bruce bugbee (apogee instruments) on youtbue
Read up on Daily Light Itegral and VPD
Recognize how these sources frame things and don't over-promise. They admit where there are holes in knowledge or limitations of initial studies, etc etc. That's a key to discerning better information. Accepting of skepticism, recognizing what is a maybe and what is a fact..If it sounds like a sales pitch at GNC, it's probably bullshit. If the marketing reminds you of marketing for dietary supplements or hoistic health products, it's probably bullshit.
I'd be wary of social media personalities. they are often shills. Some of good info, but they are all trying to sell you soemthing that may or may not be a good value or necessary. They don't care as long as they make money, lol. Just as on this site.. people will tell you a light is "badass" because thy got it for free, but it is some low-efficacy nonsense that is barely better than an HID bulb --.A veritable space-heater that coincidentally produces light, lol. Most of the people recommending a light don't even understand the importance of efficacy. They just get angry and insecure about not understanding the math.
so, keep it simple for several grows and you will better recognize fact from bro science later on.. Or, just buy into all the madness and follow the herd. whatever floats your boat. struggle for years trying to ride this bike instead of weeks.