So I found all of this great advice, what forum members have learned and posted in the thread below:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/things-you-found-out-on-your-own.503176/page-1
I couldn’t help but pick through this vault of valuable information and compile a lot of it into one large list for the benefits of myself and you all. I sort of kept to the side of very plant/growing related information and more so away from the old adages, philosophical debates and old school wisdom and common sense stuff that I should hope most of you already know. I also added some of what I’ve learned, all of it as organized as best I could make it. Hope it helps..
General Growing Advice:
1. Believe what you read with a grain of salt. Trust what you learn with a bag full of pepper.
2. Three people can keep a secret if two are dead.
3. You can always learn more.
4. Don’t think your badass and try and transplant a 4 ft tall plant alone.
5. Clean your space. Constantly.
6. Label shit properly.
7. Keep copious notes, a journal, and a calendar of day number, weeks and flowering dates.
8. Buy the best when you do decide that you must buy something cause you Need it..even then do research first.
9. To make growing cheaper.. become friends with the hydro store guy!!!!
10. Always check the pH, understand it, and adhere to it.
11. Pay for a quality ph meter.
12. If you don’t foliar spray less things will go wrong.
13. The biggest problems experienced by new growers are over feeding, over watering, over heating and under lighting.
14. As long as the roots are getting oxygen and food and the leaves are receiving some light they will grow.
15. You can get 3-4 times as much yield by clipping and vegging longer
16. Plants can more than double in size during flowering.
17. Never put a struggling plant into flower ( its like trying to bake with half the ingredients).
18. Don’t waste time with weak plants. Clone, Germ and Veg more than needed and 19. 19. Flower only the strong girls.
20. The best looking lady in veg can have the worst bud in flower - LABEL those clones!
21. More plants doesn't mean more bud.. usually the same yield... more plants, more popcorn given the same veg time (under one light).
22. Topping and supercropping work so well and improve yields.
23. If you work with small spaces and your new then flip them earlier than you want to.
24. Don’t consider anything to be "in flower" until you see those whiskers.
25. Check daily for banana's.
26. Hermies are 90% of the time down to grower error and not breeder error.
27. If its contained, don't be afraid to grow a Hermaphrodite to maturity.
28. Remember, plants can hermie at any time during flower!
29. Manipulation of the plants first leaves, the cotyledons, if you remove these a few weeks before they fall off on their own it can spur a growth spurt in many types of plants, including leaf.
30. Perpetual flowering should make anyone happy! If you go want to go perpetual you have to be on your guard and come prepared.
31. If you’re worried about getting busted, stay within your states regulations. This drops their ability to fuck you to next to nil.
Seeds & Genetics:
1. Buy real seeds. Quality genetics are a must.
2. Breeders are bullshitters.
3. Don't always believe what the breeder says. Especially when it comes to flowering times.
4. Feminized seeds being hermie prone is an absolute MYTH.
5. Its perfectly fine to germinate seeds by dropping them in dirt and adding water!
6. Plants grown from seeds found in cheap Mexican "schwagg" actually can be quite good.
7. Landrace sativa strains are a PITA to grow indoors, and don't do well in small setups. 8. Land race sativa strains need to be aggressively pruned and trained for a solid yield, much more so than indica doms or even sativa hybrids.
9. Keep a male and create your own seeds, you won't have the opportunity again.
10. There's a ton of variation between strains, so take everyone else's advice with a grain of salt.
11. You can be pretty sure a white seed is No Good. But I've had them pop (about 20%). Not bad for garbage.
12. If you press on a seed with your finger tip and it pops or snaps, it's No Good.
13. A good seed will not pop when you press down on it (hard enough) with your finger tip.
14. Shape is important. If it's not a smooth round/egg shape, it's probably No Good.
15. Some strains have a pale color without the tiger stripping (or very little). Nothing wrong with that.
16. A sinking or floating seed can't tell you if it's good or bad.
Nutrients:
1. Amino acids make a big difference in yield.
2. Root Excelurator Gold is golden when used in the veg stage.
3. Mycorrhiza (Great White, Orca) great for root health and transplanting.
4. Terpinator, Rock Resinator & Shooting Powder are touted as top notch add ins, learn how they work. Some love them. Others think they're a waste.
5. MOAB and other high phosphorus and potassium mixes are top notch for late flowering.
6. SUPERthrive rocks - add these vitamins in your grow. A small amount of SUPERthrive is great for clones as well seedlings if used in correct moderation. 1 drop per gallon at the start of flower gives the root system a nice kick-start! getting carried away with this stuff can cause stretching, so go easy.
7. Potassium silicate is great.
8. Indonesian bat guano will burn the fuck out of plants if you feed more than once every 1 1/2 to 2 weeks.
9. Schultz and Peter's brand fertilizer are on the level with ANY cannabis targeted fertilizer.
10. Calmag is great for veg, but adds high levels of nitrogen in flower. (Miracle-grow soil users watch out)
11. Dose nutrients in half, or less doses if you're using multiple nutrient solutions.
12. Always make sure the caps on the nute's are tight before you shake them.
Soil:
1. There is no substitute for flushing regularly if you do top feed drain to waste system.
2. Don't start a plant in soil and then transplant to a soil coco mix.
3. Sugar water is better for nitrogen overdose then flushing by far.
4. Miracle-gro can really SUCK (prepare for N toxicity during flowering.) Miracle-gro soil contains high levels of N. These nutrients stay in the soil for at least 3 months, so if you transplanted directly into it and didn’t use it for 3 months before flowering, your plants are gonna burn. Pay a little more for Happy Frog or Fox Farms soils. Learn to recognize the n toxicity symptom, claw like leaf tips. I learned the miracle grow is not the devil, you just have to understand how it works. Miracle gro actually works great as a fertilizer, so long as you pick the right type and use it correctly. Miracle gro soil isn't so great, though.
5. Diatamaceous Earth in the soil mix is a great thing.
Indoor/Grow Room & Lighting:
1. 35-50watts per sq. ft. minimum.
2. Scrog is the f'n shit!.
3. Don’t trust cheap timers.
4. An hour in the greenroom is equal to 5 hours in the real world.
5. A lock on the grow room door is advisable.
6. Carbon filters are the shit.
7. Cannabis Trellising solves problems.
8. Light is EVERYthing for good bud growth.
9. You have to have to have to have good air circulation and ventilation.
10. Don’t grow in an illegal state without a carbon filter, I don’t care how many miles away your neighbors live, you WILL have visitors sometime.
11. Training and topping actually can increase yields indoors. I think pretty much everyone accepts this now, but there was quite a debate about this two+ decades ago, with some authorities claiming that topping plants just created two colas of half the bud mass each and slowed down their growth to boot.
12. Small 'closet edge' light leaks are over rated, if your plants always had them they adapt just fine.
13. Short exposure to dim light will not cause otherwise stable plants to go hermaphrodite.
14. Buy a tent, don't build your own box.. unless you are experienced with construction and have access to cheap materials.
15. Aluminum foil does not create "hot spots" that can damage plants. Instead its actually is an excellent reflector, though it does have significant drawbacks of electrical conductivity and fragility, that can make other alternatives better, like Mylar. Flat white paint trumps it.
16. Naturally cool basements are awesome.
17. co2 isn't worth the investment.
18. Don’t buy cheap digital ballasts. If they don’t have a proper radio shield on them it will mess with local cable stuff (forcing cable men to your area).
19. Gorilla tape is WORTH the extra few dollars and blocks out all light! Fuck Duct Tape!!!
20. Never had humidity too low that it has caused problems.. too high is a different story.
21. You can get great results with CFL's. By the time you get done screwing with 15 cfls and splitters you could have bought a proper hps or even t5s and got better results.
22. Blue and red led's (Blurpes) will grow decent bud, as will CFL..CMH are just as cheap, and mostly better, if you have the correct situation/space. Cob lights are another option but the best LEDS are flat panel and bar style fixtures. Blurples also have a lot of variation, depending on model, size, etc. The Blurples with more, smaller diodes and greater color spectrum are best. Large Purple and Blue light diodes are often suitable only for veg.
23. Never trust the wattage 'on the box' of LED fixtures, often they're incorrectly advertised.
24 HID lights (HPS/MH) produce some of the best/biggest buds but require ventilation, heat/smell removal, ducting and other additions that LEDs often do not.
25. Don't do things involving lights when you’re stoned.
