Beans' 3rd CFL Grow

Grew in my closet twice;

The first time was using Northern Lights x Big Bud. I dropped the lights on them several times. Ended up with one female, much to my relief. Took good care of her and ended up with a little over an 1/8. Used two 2' 24W T5, putting out 6500K.

Second time was a little better, a little more prepared. This time it was White Widow. Used the same 2' 24W T5 fixtures. Allowed a sturdier grow space. Still managed to drop the lights on them, but not as often! Ended up with two females, one definitely prettier than the other. Harvested a little over a half.

Now on to my third time. Hope to harvest quite a bit for CFL growth. Using White Widow, supplied by BC Seed King, who was very fast in delivery and accepted credit payment. Awesome, found my new supplier. =)

Background:
I'm really a noob. I figure you can stick a seed in the dirt and it should grow. That's probably why I don't yield as much, but hey, it gets you high.

Used Black Gold for soil, probably stick with it. I'm thinking about getting litmus paper to test pH, but I don't know...one of those things that are a maybe. I germinated the seeds last weekend and planted two nights ago. 6 started, 5 sprouted.

Hence, here we are. One is a pic of my setup from my last two grows. Once I repot, I'll move it to the new setup.

A note of things to buy:

A small fan.
Duct Tape.
Smaller pots, perhaps more shallow.

Anyway, worked on my new grow space for about an hour and a half; The toughest part of this whole process for me is designing a functional, reliable system to put my lights on.

I thought about hanging the lights, but decided on using a shelf system. A little more convenient and since it'll be closer to the floor instead of reaching up high in the closet, I shouldn't drop the lights as much. LOL. Reading some other people's journals makes me realize just how much care and thought they put into it while I try to be proficiently lazy yet hope to yield good results.

I had this grow journal in mind while I was working and decided on naming my plants. I'll change them once they sex so I tried my best to give them unisex names.

Dinky is the runt of the bunch. Man, hope it grows out. Otherwise, the best seems to be Kimber;

First pic is Dinky. Not any higher than my first knuckle while the others are at least to my second knuckle.

Second pic is (almost) everyone, with Kimber in front. Dinky is right in the middle, soaking up the max amount of light.

Just remodeled the bottom of my closet so it's become the official grow space. A little ghetto, but functional:

Mylar covering every surface; Added two more lights (24 watt, 6500K). Deeply watered all five babies since there's more heat close to its surface and I don't think I'll check it again until Monday morning. Wish I had pics to post but don't have a camera battery at the moment.

Whole remodelling/moving process took over 2 hours, but worth it. I think there is much more light/conservation going on now that it's been tweaked.

Just rewatered tonight. They were just the right amount thirsty.

First pic is my new grow space, mylar galore

Second pic is my best, Kimber.

Third pic is a question for all that look: What is with the curled leaves in the beginning of growth? I thought it was heat so I let the grow space ventilate, but no change. Any ideas?

Last pic is of Dinky, a little bigger, but still behind all its siblings.

Wow, one day can make a big difference. All my plants started a spurt of growth, probably 3-4 days until I have to raise the lights again.

The pic is a close up of Kimber's new growth; Still the strongest and tallest of the bunch, but it's getting to be a tight race among them all.

Well, except Dinky. Maybe it'll turn out to the be cute little sister of the bunch? Haha, I hope so.

Uhh...not too much to say. Just posting pics to update on growth. I see roots coming out of the holes at the bottom of the pot; Not time, but maybe in another week?

Kimber, doing great. Dinky...not so much. You'll be able to see how it's doing in comparison.

Last picture is a nice little row, Dinky is the smallest of the bunch.

I think I pinpointed the cause of its runtiness; When I planted the seeds, there was one with half of its sprout got stuck in the paper towel and I still planted, thinking it wouldn't sprout. But it did! Thus, Dinky. It's like...2-3 days behind everyone else, but oh well.

Watered again tonight; As soon as I opened the box, I noticed that sweet smell associated with flowering. A little concerned, I saw that Kimber had little offshots coming off the main branches. ALREADY???

For about four hours yesterday, I had to go "dark" for stealth purposes. Hopefully, with the 24 hour sunlight schedule back into play should suppress any flowering desire.

Or maybe it was because I added more lights? If so, only good things can happen from it.

So checked the babies tonight and they've grown horizontally, with slight vertical growth. Most of them have their first, largest set of leaves kind of spotted. You'll see in the examples. I have an inkling of what it may be, but I'll remedy it tomorrow night. Gotta do some research.

Anyway, watered them thoroughly. They were thirsty. Kimber is doing great, but so is Pepper and Beans; The only way I can tell the difference is Kimber is a half inch taller than the rest.

Took lots of pics tonight, might be two posts.

These are two sets of two plants, view from top and a view of nodal growth. A little surprising, thought it could be from the little sleep they took (and it could be) or something to be expected from all the mylar that is reflected back into the plant.

Mylar is nothing like Aluminum foil, for those of you that read this; Definitely a worthwhile investment, cost me around 30 bucks for a big roll of 2mm (thicker stuff than the 1mm) 6'X25'.

All right, second set of pics. A little more disturbing, but I think it involves nutrients or burning of lights, or maybe too much heat? I would really like to be enlightened so please comment if any of this looks familiar to you.

Sorry for the pic where it's crooked. The size limitation automatically did it for me, nothing I can do to correct it.

As you can see, there are yellow spots on the lower tier leaves, some are in the beginning stages. The one that is definitely yellow is the worst of the bunch, but the rest are a little lighter colored.

The last pic is of Dinky's nodal growth. Thought it was kind of cute.

I once saw this website that had pictures of weed plant problems and I'm off to google for it, but in case I don't find it, does anyone know what it is? Thanks.

You're plants are looking great!

Im having a slight problem with my seeds sprouting.
I germinated them using the paper towel n zip lock container technique and they germed fine, but the seeds are taking forever to sprout.
It's been about a week since I planted them, and Im JUST starting to see my first sprout, and even that one still has the seed casing on it.
I planted them about an inch deep in Miracle Grow potting Soil.
The temps ranges between 70 and 80 degrees and I water it daily on mist with a squirt bottle.
What am I doing wrong?

TreeMan93 said:

You're plants are looking great!

Im having a slight problem with my seeds sprouting.
I germinated them using the paper towel n zip lock container technique and they germed fine, but the seeds are taking forever to sprout.
It's been about a week since I planted them, and Im JUST starting to see my first sprout, and even that one still has the seed casing on it.
I planted them about an inch deep in Miracle Grow potting Soil.
The temps ranges between 70 and 80 degrees and I water it daily on mist with a squirt bottle.
What am I doing wrong?

Click to expand...

Hmm, I'm not really an expert on this stuff but I can tell you what I've learned;

Sprouting can take a while, especially depending on the amount of light you have. So if you're giving it 24 hour light, it will eventually come out. It'll come out faster if there's more light.

And only mist if the surface of the soil feels dry, don't do it daily just for habit.

And I don't know about Miracle Grow potting soil, but if it has chemical releasing fertilizers, that's bad news.

Just transplanted tonight; I was up, watching the television, thinking about my plants. I was a little surprised they weren't vertically growing; The fact there is nodal growth is also disturbing, but at this stage, I think they're too young to flower (obviously). I just hope I haven't stressed them too much or anything, don't want a batch of hermies, you know?

So I transplanted into 2.5 quart pots, big enough for the grow space I have. I also added bat guana and bonemeal to my water. I researched quite a bit and learned from my first grow that organic fertilizer is the best route for me. I'm not in serious danger of overfertilizing even if I feed it alot. Plus, it's gotta help the smoke, right?

Anyway, took one pic of them all in a row. Good night.

You should post how old your plants are in each picture, they look like they are growing fast.

My plants sprouted on the 10th and i am using cfls, https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/65396-first-cfl-grow.html

greenkong said:

You should post how old your plants are in each picture, they look like they are growing fast.

Click to expand...

TreeMan93 said:

You're plants are looking great!

Im having a slight problem with my seeds sprouting.
I germinated them using the paper towel n zip lock container technique and they germed fine, but the seeds are taking forever to sprout.
It's been about a week since I planted them, and Im JUST starting to see my first sprout, and even that one still has the seed casing on it.
I planted them about an inch deep in Miracle Grow potting Soil.
The temps ranges between 70 and 80 degrees and I water it daily on mist with a squirt bottle.
What am I doing wrong?

Click to expand...

how deep did you bury them?

About an inch.
I think I was under watering while trying not to be a noob and over water
I pulled the little seed out and the root was all dried out and tiny. It literally fell apart between my fingers.
I germinated another seed and planted it yesterday.
Can anybody give me an estimate as to how much I should be watering?
Im using a squirt bottle and i give it roughly 10 squirts daily on mist.

TreeMan93 said:

About an inch.
I think I was under watering while trying not to be a noob and over water
I pulled the little seed out and the root was all dried out and tiny. It literally fell apart between my fingers.
I germinated another seed and planted it yesterday.
Can anybody give me an estimate as to how much I should be watering?
Im using a squirt bottle and i give it roughly 10 squirts daily on mist.

Click to expand...

I germinated my seed then planted them no more than 1cm deep, they sprouted within a day or 2

All right, thanks for the "comments".

Anyway, I would call these adolescents; I think in the past, I would normally initiate flowering right around here. This time, I'll veg for a bit longer, maybe 2 weeks longer. I plan on training them in the next day or so, possibly tonight, to even out the younger branches.

I have to research how to prune.

I figured out the solution to my problem. I knew it wasn't nutrient burn because I barely fertilized it. But I ran into this problem in the past so I added bonemeal along with bat guana into the soil.

That, however, did not solve anything (but it didn't hurt either). Much thanks to Green Man's page, I surmised that the problem was heat. I've never had a problem with heat in the past because I've only had 2 lights and they weren't as well contained. Now I've got 4 and it does get pretty warm when I box it up for the evening. There's also no circulation of air so I've left the box open to air out until I get a small fan I can stick into a vent of sorts.

Otherwise, that's about it. They're getting pretty bushy, the tallest is about 8" (I think) and you can see the dimensions for yourself of random plants I measured.

I'm a man of my word.

I pruned this afternoon with the intent of training them to be horizontal. So I clipped the large leaves and most of the medium fan leaves that covered the offshoots.

I'm not too scared, just hope nothing bad happens. I have all of them pulled down with fishing line and lowered the lights by 2".

We'll see how this goes...

Haven't updated; Not too much going on...

I've pruned them all about twice so far. Just the big fan leaves and small undergrowth. I topped two, one on accident. I was a little skeptical, but so far, the surrounding branches have filled out quite nicely.

I've switched over to a 12/12 schedule now since they've been vegging for ~4 weeks. I noticed I have a slightly sweet smell on my fingers, almost sickly. Hope everything is good; I do know that if I left my bedroom door open, it would smell like weed all in the apt and there aren't any flowers showing yet!

Anyway, here are the pics; Notice all the potential bud sites!