Third Grow! Pics Included! Any Help is Welcome!

Hi,


I'm doing my third grow now, it's low budget. They are about 27-29 days old. The plant that is alone in the bucket has a ppm of 399, and the other bucket, with the two plants, has a ppm of 599. I'm not sure how much I should be feeding them.
They've been through some cupping and curling, also some water or ph problems. But I think they are pulling through. When do you think is a good time to start flowering? I'm looking to do it asap, but don't want to start if the plants are too young. Thanks!




The materials:
* two 5 gallon buckets
* two 4 hole air pumps
* four 4inch air stones+ 4 1inch air stones
* FloraNova Grow & Bloom, Cal Mag.
* 400 watt mh/hps
* strain: Blue Dream

Have a look at your pre-flowers, 2 little hairs coming from the nodes. These will indicate that the plants are sexually mature enough to flower. But by looking at the sheer size of them, they are ready. Just make sure you sex them properly, otherwise your next ten grows will be from the massive amount of seeds you have generated =)

Also check your nutrient brand's guidelines (you usually get a little card with a chart showing weeks growth from -2 weeks to 9 weeks of flowering). Just remember, its better to under nute than over nute and burn them. But sometimes you just need to see what works best for you and your strain. Every strain behaves differently. And dont forget to stop using nutes completely about 2-3 weeks before you harvest.

The cupping looks evident on some of the leaves but they mostly look healthy, so keep it up! Lets hope you get some really good smoke out of it.

Green Troll said:

Have a look at your pre-flowers, 2 little hairs coming from the nodes. These will indicate that the plants are sexually mature enough to flower. But by looking at the sheer size of them, they are ready. Just make sure you sex them properly, otherwise your next ten grows will be from the massive amount of seeds you have generated =)

Also check your nutrient brand's guidelines (you usually get a little card with a chart showing weeks growth from -2 weeks to 9 weeks of flowering). Just remember, its better to under nute than over nute and burn them. But sometimes you just need to see what works best for you and your strain. Every strain behaves differently. And dont forget to stop using nutes completely about 2-3 weeks before you harvest.

The cupping looks evident on some of the leaves but they mostly look healthy, so keep it up! Lets hope you get some really good smoke out of it.

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Two to three week flush in hydro? I flush with just plain ph'ed water for 4 days.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, they're all females! I'm going to start flowering them in the next couple of days. I heard that when you start flowering, it's good to keep them an entire day in darkness then switch to 12/12, is this true? Thanks again.

no just increases the rates of hermies i think.
you dont wanna rush em.

Eh... Another flora nova... Organics in DWC...

Lucas has plagued us..

Switch nutes also to non organic, should do better..

I am going with the Flora Nova nutes as well and my friend uses them and loves them.

Bigz2277 said:

Two to three week flush in hydro? I flush with just plain ph'ed water for 4 days.

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Well each to their own. I prefer smoking the bud, not the nutes

Hey guys, here is an update. Day #30. 24/7 light cycle. Going to switch them to 12/12 in a few days

I noticed that the plant in the single bucket really exploded in growth over the past few days. What can I do about the 2 plants in the single bucket? Should I sacrifice one plant and cut a lot of the leaves so that the other can have more space? I can't transplant them as their roots are entangled. Any help is much appreciated.

Green Troll said:

Well each to their own. I prefer smoking the bud, not the nutes

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I think a lot of it depends on how much you use, what you use, and what you're growing. If a plant finishes in 9 or less weeks, I usually flush it for a full week with water; longer flowering sativas I tend to flush for 2 weeks, as I just sort of presume they have more salts built up in 'em. Regardless, I have only noticed distinct taste issues with less than four day of flushing. I am also an advocate of the Flora Nova line, but I think it is important to remember that GH tells you to use way more of their stuff than you need to. I have gotten more fat, drippy buds with that line (as well as some additional supplements) than anything else, but I never need to go remotely near the 3 tsp./gallon rate in either stage of growth, and rarely go higher than 1.75-2 tsp/gallon. If you were using higher levels than that, I would think you would want to/have to flush longer.

In reply to Ocean Green, I am not sure why you advise against Organics in DWC? It requires more work than a 3 part, such as agitating the nutes regularly, finding a pump strong enough to aerate the bejeezus out of them, and cleaning your shit really often to make sure you don't get clogs or unhealthy buildup, but the rewards in plant vitality and terpene levels well make up for it. In my opinion anyway, of course it is to each his own, but what do you have against organic nutes?

UPDATE DAY 31: Switched to my HPS and started the 12/12 last night!

Some concerns I have are the burnt tips of one of the plants. The ppm of that plant is 433, and the ppm of the bucket with 2 plants is 630.

Junnk said:

UPDATE DAY 31: Switched to my HPS and started the 12/12 last night!

Some concerns I have are the burnt tips of one of the plants. The ppm of that plant is 433, and the ppm of the bucket with 2 plants is 630.

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It looks to me from the pictures like the edges of you leaves are standing up, indicating that the plants are getting a little hot and trying to transpire water quickly to cool down. If your temperature in there is too warm, not only will you want to do what you can to get it down, you will want to step back your nutes a little; the reason for this being that if your plants are trying to use up as much water as they can as fast as they can to stay cool, then the salts in the plant build up that much more quickly, which can lead to nutrient problems manifesting themselves much more rapidly. What kind of daytime temps are you running there?

Just added another box fan today, hopefully this will solve that problem. The new growth looks alright though.
What should I do about the bucket with the 2 plants? Should I sacrifice and trim one to leave space for the other?

Clankie said:

It looks to me from the pictures like the edges of you leaves are standing up, indicating that the plants are getting a little hot and trying to transpire water quickly to cool down. If your temperature in there is too warm, not only will you want to do what you can to get it down, you will want to step back your nutes a little; the reason for this being that if your plants are trying to use up as much water as they can as fast as they can to stay cool, then the salts in the plant build up that much more quickly, which can lead to nutrient problems manifesting themselves much more rapidly. What kind of daytime temps are you running there?

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Is there a point where I should only feed the plants Bloom nutes? or should I always combine them?

what I do with nutes is I add use 50/50 the first week of flowering, 25g/75b the second week, and from then on just the bloom and supplements. Regarding the two in one bucket, if they are blue dream, they will probably get quite big in that bucket. If you don't know gender, I would advise flowering them, and if one is male kill it, unless you want a whole bunch of seedy tweeds. If they are both female, you probably just want to try to grow them out, as to kill one of them would lead to a whole bunch of dead root mass in your medium, which wouldn't be too healthy. I have grown multiple plants in one bucket before, and while I don't like it, and don't advise it, it is possible I would recommend aerating the shit out of your bucket, maybe even put an air additional tube in their just going down and blowing into the bottom of the reservoir bucket, as this will help the roots stay alive and healthy, and keep them growing down instead of choking one another off.

Thanks for the reply.
All 3 plants are females, luckily. I currently have 4 air stones in that bucket (2 5inch and 2 1inch stones), and I have 4 in the other. I might switch another one to the bucket with 2 plants for the extra bubbles. Could I lightly trim plant to give more room for the other, not kill it but trim it?

Clankie said:

what I do with nutes is I add use 50/50 the first week of flowering, 25g/75b the second week, and from then on just the bloom and supplements. Regarding the two in one bucket, if they are blue dream, they will probably get quite big in that bucket. If you don't know gender, I would advise flowering them, and if one is male kill it, unless you want a whole bunch of seedy tweeds. If they are both female, you probably just want to try to grow them out, as to kill one of them would lead to a whole bunch of dead root mass in your medium, which wouldn't be too healthy. I have grown multiple plants in one bucket before, and while I don't like it, and don't advise it, it is possible I would recommend aerating the shit out of your bucket, maybe even put an air additional tube in their just going down and blowing into the bottom of the reservoir bucket, as this will help the roots stay alive and healthy, and keep them growing down instead of choking one another off.

Click to expand...

Junnk said:

Thanks for the reply.
All 3 plants are females, luckily. I currently have 4 air stones in that bucket (2 5inch and 2 1inch stones), and I have 4 in the other. I might switch another one to the bucket with 2 plants for the extra bubbles. Could I lightly trim plant to give more room for the other, not kill it but trim it?

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Yeah, you can definitely trim the lower growth back, but I woul try to use sticks and whatnot to train them to grow away from each other as much as possible. That is probably your best bet. It is unfortunate that it is pretty much impossible to SCROG in DWC, due to the necessity of moving the plants and buckets around, lifting out the plant, etc, because if you could figure out a way to SCROG them in a V shape away from eachother, you'd be golden. Multiple plants are also easier if they are Indica doms and stay fairly small, but when I grew blue dream from clones it stretched like a mofo in flowering. Good bud though, very solid, nice potency, good flavor, and a slight blue/purple tint here and there.

UPDATE: DAY 33, DAY 3 on 12/12

The plants are looking good, there is some bending due to the fan (Don't know if this is a problem). The hairs at the nodes are getting longer and I swear I can smell a little sweet stench coming from them.

UPDATE: Day #42, Day #12 on 12/12......Help!

The leaves of the 2 plants in the one bucket are starting to look weird. Maybe it's because I had 2 100watt bulbs near them and they got burned?

UPDATE: Day 46 of flowering.

I haven't made a post in a while, but here are the babies! The plant in the single 5 gallon bucket just exploded in growth, but the 2 that were confined to a single bucket, are less bushy.