Newbie with some babies!

Hi everyone! I'm a newbie to this though I've spent years and years gardening veggies and flowers so I'm not thinking it'll be too hard. Just gotta pay attention to the difference in this plants nutrient, light and water requirements.

Ok so here we go with the pics and questions. But first, BACKGROUNDS info (that's right, a bonus back story!!): so I've experimented with growing before but as a teenager and usually they ended up as deer food. Bummer! So I bought myself a nice indoor hydro tent setup (Gorilla tent complete setup (2x4x6'11" from fullbloomhydroponics.net - they assemble each kit at the time of order so there is lag between order snd ship, but the products are worth it. So it looks like I'm growing outdoors for this batch). So since I'm waiting on the tent I started up regular blue dream seeds. I do know how to sex so that's a plus. Right now I have 19 little babies going STRONG and 2 that are smaller but not giving up yet. So hopefully I'll end up with maybe 7-10 females.
I have advanced degrees in molecular biology and have spent a few years studying botany so I figured it's time to put all that book knowledge to practical use. So I'm approaching this as a scientist: log books, pH and conductivity monitoring, etc...right now I'm at about 22 days. Look at these babies in the pics below, what do you think? They look healthy to me.
So I'm wondering - I want to do some LST on a few and compare my results. Looking at the closeup pictures: I think I need to wait for the set of leaves coming up from the meristem to grow out and I want to pluck the next set. As you can see the leaves that are out are so far only 3 fingered. This next set should be 5, right? Then I pluck the set after the 1st five leaf off, correct? I understand the "pinning" of the stems once they have pided.
Anyway, any advice is greatly appreciated. Oh, growing currently in composted manure mixed with high quality top soil. I've fed with 1/4 recommendation of a good 5-4-4 fertilizer and have a 1-4-6 (I think - I know it's low in N and high in P and K) for blooming.
Second question: can these eventually be brought inside to flower once I'm setup with my hydro and have sexed them? I want males no where near my tent!! I'm planning to clone the best plants and have a hook up to some real nice blue dream clones from a healthy mother. Thanks!

Dont count leaves just wait till the plant gets 4-5 nodes high to top. Leaf counting is totally unreliable

No offense intended, but I avoid the science. More the chef type myself. I aced everything in school except the non math based sciences.

On LST.. I recommend getting a few sets of true leaves, top once, and then start the lst process. It is simple as can be!

On moving indoors for flower. Concern one - how do you take a mature plant and root system from dirt to hydro? I grow soil indoors so maybe you can wash em out... Doesn't seem like a bright idea for first grow... Concern two - bugs coming indoors. Concern three - transporting plants if it ain't legal..

How long to get the tent and lights. Not ideal for first grow but why not scale down grow one. Keep a bunch small with topping, small pots, etc and keep them inside. Go soil for first grow and get your base environment down.

For me, since I am a dumbass with science and get baffled by it, it is more about knowing what the plants need and reading them to make it so. Keep it all as simple as possible and then build up from there.

And plants look fine. I like a perlite heavy mix with excellent drainage. I mix cheap earthgro potting soil, perlite, vermiculite, and peat in roughly equal parts with some added dolomite lime. While still in solo cups, I hate to admit it but I use MG seed starter and add in about 30% perlite. Shit works great for me for popped seeds and clones!

Hi growing Dad
I have the exact same concerns you listed: bugs, moving from soil to hydro (tho I'll finish these in soil), etc. sounds to me like I'm making a wise decision to use my large woods adjacent yard for this grow. I have access to blue dream clones and I have seeds from Barneys Farm for my hydro grows

Oh time till tent: they say shipping about 25 May so a few weeks. too late for this batch.

GrowinDad said:

No offense intended, but I avoid the science. More the chef type myself. I aced everything in school except the non math based sciences.

On LST.. I recommend getting a few sets of true leaves, top once, and then start the lst process. It is simple as can be!

On moving indoors for flower. Concern one - how do you take a mature plant and root system from dirt to hydro? I grow soil indoors so maybe you can wash em out... Doesn't seem like a bright idea for first grow... Concern two - bugs coming indoors. Concern three - transporting plants if it ain't legal..

How long to get the tent and lights. Not ideal for first grow but why not scale down grow one. Keep a bunch small with topping, small pots, etc and keep them inside. Go soil for first grow and get your base environment down.

For me, since I am a dumbass with science and get baffled by it, it is more about knowing what the plants need and reading them to make it so. Keep it all as simple as possible and then build up from there.

Click to expand...

First no offense taken on the science thing. I can't help it, honestly I approach everything that way anymore....lol. But I do know what you mean, 90% of what I learned in school is useless in the real/professional worlds. I'm not going nuts here with it, just keeping records and watching pH. Everyone says that is critical (esp. For hydro). If you want to see the indoor setup I'm waiting for go to www.fullbloomhydroponics.net and look for the complete grow tent kits, gorilla tent kit 2x4x6'11". I got the 400 HPS bulb and extra nutrients with it. It ain't cheap but i figured if I can successfully supply my own needs then it pays for itself in 3 months of not buying any. I also picked up an aeroponic cloner and a Kessil H150 red LED for bloom boosting. My plan is to have maybe 4-5 plants in there to start with. I can always increase if all goes well and after I have a few grows/harvests under my belt. Keep the suggestions coming! Here's a new pic of all the babies, except the one I have in a hanging pot. Like I said, they are regular seedlings so I'll have to sex them later, and I know maybe 50% will be girls. So if I end up with 5-8 females outdoors....hmmmm. good thing I have are huge wooded yard....lol. oh and the second pic is the roots growing out of the biodegradable pots I have them in. time to move them to the final big pots and plant them in the yard.

So I've tested the soil quality of the composted cow manure (Black Kow brand). The NPK results haven't developed yet (waiting for the soil to settle so I can remove the extract and get a colorimetric result) but the pH is done. The pH of this manure is off the charts of the garden soil test kit I have (professional kit purchased from Cole-Parmer - scientific supplier we use at work too). To my eye id say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of pH 10-11. Yikes! I have acetic acid (glacial) and 6N HCl to add to water to acidify the soil. I'm hesitant to make those adjustments tho, the plants look good. Why fix what isn't broke?
Any advice on proper soil pH, or making adjustments to the soil pH, for marijuana? I know hydro the nutrient solution should be between pH 6.5 and 7.
I'll post the NPK results later when they are ready.