In search of a mother!

Yesterday I soaked 3 White Rhino seeds in distilled water for a total of 24 hours. Today will be day 1 in my search for a nice, healthy, clone-able mother so I can move on to aero.

I planted them in 1 gallon milk jugs filled with Miracle Gro potting soil, misted them with distilled water and put the top portion of the milk jugs back on to retain mositure. They are setting in the attic which is a little warm and should be great for now. Hopefully in a couple days I will see sprouts and start them under 2 compact CFL's (one 40W soft white and a 23W daylight) somewhere around 4K lumens total. They are hooked to separate shop light fixtures which have aluminum surrounds and direct the light well. I wish I could have found high wattage ones, but no go locally and I didn't want to wait for ebay.

I will be growing these at the bottom of the stairway leading to the attic which is probably around 2.5'x2.5' square, nothing special but I just want one good mother... two would be nice, but we will see. I'll post pics as soon as they sprout and are under the lights. This is more for myself, but feel free to comment and ask questions as you see fit.

If you can, I'd go with something other than miracle grow. And you shouldn't need to have the tops of the jugs on. Really only need the moisture for clones the first few days. Seedlings will be fine without it.

Also, did the tap root pop out of the seeds before you planted them?

Pool said:

If you can, I'd go with something other than miracle grow. And you shouldn't need to have the tops of the jugs on. Really only need the moisture for clones the first few days. Seedlings will be fine without it.

Also, did the tap root pop out of the seeds before you planted them?

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Can I ask why not use Miracle-Gro? I have had nothing but success with it, granted I added an equal part of vermiculite to help with drainage and make the medium lighter.

About the jug tops... I used them to keep the moisture in. It has been rather hot here and they were in my attic which is even hotter. What I did was spray the medium a bit and the tops because I noticed after a couple hours the medium was completely dry and the tops helped drastically. I didn't put them all the way on to cut off the air flow though.

And finally I soaked the seeds for 24 hours, the tap root was not out yet, but the seed had cracked open. That's when I planted them now and on a previous grow I had a 100% success rate. I just make sure I plant them with the open side down which is the tap root and wha-la. They all germinate.

Now for the update. I went this yesterday afternoon and looked at my pots and what do you know, all of the seeds were popped out of the soil about an inch with the seed shell still attached. I immediately put them under my CFL's and when I returned after work they were all open up sucking up the lumens. So far so good and I will snap some pictures as soon as I have some time. Feels good to be growing again.

So now that they've popped, you're going to remove the jug tops, right?

Also, MG is just the last resort for medium to most growers. Too high in nute content, not organic(don't believe it if it says it is either, imo). I've just had bad experiences with it, as have many.

P.S.- Congrats on the sprouts, hope they make you some nice trees soon.

DND said:

Can I ask why not use Miracle-Gro? I have had nothing but success with it, granted I added an equal part of vermiculite to help with drainage and make the medium lighter.

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I use the MG potting soil mix that feeds up to 3 months. I see people saying not to use the time release stuff all the time but its what i have on hand and i don't have any problems. The stuff i have is really light and fluffy too and i didnt add anything to it. It suprised me when i picked it up.

P.S Good luck with your grow.

Pool said:

So now that they've popped, you're going to remove the jug tops, right?

Also, MG is just the last resort for medium to most growers. Too high in nute content, not organic(don't believe it if it says it is either, imo). I've just had bad experiences with it, as have many.

P.S.- Congrats on the sprouts, hope they make you some nice trees soon.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the jug tops came off as soon as they sprouted... they were just there to keep the soil moist for germinating. My attic was just too hot and dry without something as a buffer.

biggflintmi: I'm in the same situation as you my friend, it was what was handy and I never had any problems with Miracle-Gro...maybe some do and others don't. I got the same soil you did, but I just added some stuff to help it drain better.

Thank you both for the well wishes and the same to you in your gardens. I checked them again tonight and all is well. I wish I could fast forward so I can see if I get a good mom and then it's bye bye soil. Not that I have anything against it, I just want to try aeroponics and cloning etc... Last time I did I was too impatient and failed because I thought the clones were not going to root. Owell moving on!

Well, keep us updated, I'll be back eventually. Good luck.

Just an update with some pictures of my ghetto setup. I have one 40W warm white and one 40W Bright CFL. I plan on adding a third soon. I put them outside for regular sun (they love it) as much as possible. Remember, I'm just trying to find 1 mother...2 would be great and 3 would just be outstanding. I will put them under a 250W MH soon and ditch the CFLs in 2 weeks. Anyway here are the pictures. Feedback please.

Just got done watering them before I took these pics. Out of the 3 it seems like I have one straggler, but it's still hanging in there. Feedback and comments welcome.

Some pics of day 22. I bent the tops just for fun...some LST, they are 12" tall and bushy. I can't wait till they show their sex. Do I need to start 12/12 to get them to show or will they show themselves after they reach maturity? I can't remember from previous grows for some reason. Remember I only want these for the clones so I don't want them to flower.

I checked yesterday night and all of my plants have preflowers. 1 is for sure a female and the other 2 appear to be males, but I'm going to wait a few days like I have previously and hope that at least one will show some pistils. If not I'll seperate the best male and wait until after I get all of my clones from the mum. Then I'll join them together and flower them...I want some extra seeds and some experience breeding. I know it will create lots of seeds this way, but I want to share them with friends and try some outdoor overgrowing this spring. Toss a bunch in an open field and see how many make it etc...

I'll toss up some pictures as soon as I see more preflowers.

Here is the pic of the mother finally. I re potted in a 5 gallon pot and broke her main stem so the lower parts got more light. Right now I guess shes around 2' and real bushy.

First off, plants are looking great, keep up the good work.

Second off, are they in flower? If not, then knowing for sure if they're male/female is not possible.

Third off, your mother is from seed... I highly disapprove of this. Taking so many clones, and doing so much branch reworking will stress a plant from seed to hermie in no time. Take a clone of it, and make that clone the mother. Be as rough as you want, she'll be happy.

Hey Pool,

Thanks for the comments. To answer your questions... I have not flowered this plant, it just started popping pistils left and right. I'll take some pictures in a bit and post them. The other 2 plants I had showed sex too, but they were males for sure so I chopped them. You bring up a good point about stressing and it turning hermie. I will take few clones and root them soon just in case. If a plant turns hermie will the clones be hermie too? I hope not.

Here are the preflowers...my macros suck, sorry. They are even on the side branches, I just took pics of the ones on the main stem because they are the easiest to see.

From the looks of it, that's a baby leaf or a stem man-o. No telling sex without the flip to 12/12, sorry.

Nah, they are definantly female preflowers, my camera just sucks. I did some looking around to see if MJ plants show sex before you actually switch the light cycle and this is what I came up with. From this statement it seems like they can and if I'm remembering right from my last grow, I never switched to 12/12 until I seperated the males from females according to the preflowers.

Taken from... The Marijuana grow book | Relax.420

"Vegetative Growth:
The plant now begins to grow at the rate which its leaves can produce energy. At this stage the plant needs all the light and food it can get. It will continue to grow upwards producing new leaves as it moves along . It will also produce a thicker stem with thicker branches and with more fingers on the leaves. It will eventually start to show its sex. When it does this it is time for the plant’s pre-flowering stage. It can take anywhere between 1 and 5 months for the plant to hit this next stage."

Well good sir, I regret to inform you that no, you cannot tell sex without flower.

Here's a chapter from a grow book written by Tood Mcormick, I'll go through the rest of them in a bit with more info backing up the fact that you cannot tell sex for sure without flowering them.

Cloning is a technique you will use often
in the Sea of Green Technique.
After a couple weeks the clones you
placed under 24-hour-a-day light root as
described in Chapter Nine, Cloning for a
Continual Harvest.​

To sex, after roots develop you can
then transplant the clones into a 4”X4” pot.
When a medical marijuana plant flowers,
it reveals its sex. to do this adjust the timer
in your Clone Room (that is if you don’t
have other clones rooting, if you do have
other plants rooting you will have to put
them into another room) for 12 hours on
and 12 hours off. This triggers the plant’s
internal clock to say, “Twelve hours of
darkness means winter’s coming on.
Enough veging around. Time to reproduce.”​

During the off period, the Clone Room
(or whatever room your using) must remain
in absolute darkness. If even a little light
gets in for a few seconds, the plants will
think it’s Spring again and stop flowering.
This absolute-darkness rule applies to all
flowering cycles.​

In about two weeks, the males will
begin to display their maleness. Look for
pollen pods, specks the size of a sesame
seed in the crotch of a branch. Destroy all
male clones and the plants they were cloned
from. About half the plants will be males​