Experimental Grow

GROWING MEDIUM / SOIL STRUCTURE: Gravel 90% (hence experimental), Sandy Soil 10%
POT/CONTAINER SIZE: 10cm Diameter Pot
LIGHTING & WATTAGE: 4 x 2700K 20watt CFL, 1 x 3000K 48watt CFL on 18/6
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE & HUMIDITY: Unknown
NUMBER OF PLANTS: 1 (i hope i dont regret this)
CANNABIS STRAINS & ANY COMMENTS REGARDING THEM: Bagseed from some decent herb

Decided to try gravel as a grow medium (unorthodox, i know.) and whacked approx 10% soil in there to hopefully hold onto some water and nutrients.
So far everything seems to be moving along nicely. Currently at day 17-18 (not 100% sure as I was not keeping track early on) from seed.

Here are a couple of pics from day 13-14. its about 7-8cm tall here






And a few from day 15-16. about 10-11cm tall






Will add update with pics tomorrow or day after but it has since grow another set of leaves.

Looking good I think...what do you think?
Im thinking it looks Indica-Sativa hybrid...pretty even both ways. Yea?

Im really starting to worry that Im going to regret plating just the one plant. If its male its will be very annoying...few weeks wasted. That being said, im also quietly confident that I will end up with a female as I've previously grown 6-7 plants (3 grows) to flowering stage and I've yet to see a male. So Im confident, but also worried...cant keep up 100% for ever. Fingers crossed.

Problem?
The first set of leaves (single fingered spikey leaves) are slightly yellowing (getting lighter in color), and slightly biased towards the tip end of the leaf. Normal? Problem?
I am definitely no Pro, but was thinking it might be the start a nitrogen deficiency. I believe the symptoms for nitrogen def are yellowing starting on the lower leaves and then progressing upwards. Am I wrong? Hopefully I am. When I update ill add pics to show.

And a quick question...
Should I mist the plants? --- Have heard it mentioned in the forums a few times but Im not really clear about it.

All comments welcomed!!!

Enjoy


DoctorMap

Ive just received a plant from a friend. Its in bad shape. It was in some terrible soil. Its 3 1/2 months old, Very stretched, tiny (1/4 the size of mine). But it has started flowering. I would rather put it back into veg if possible and let it grow under better conditions for a while. Can I put it back into veg without too much stress or whatever? Will add pics with my next update.

DoctorMap

DoctorMap said:

Ive just received a plant from a friend. Its in bad shape. It was in some terrible soil. Its 3 1/2 months old, Very stretched, tiny (1/4 the size of mine). But it has started flowering. I would rather put it back into veg if possible and let it grow under better conditions for a while. Can I put it back into veg without too much stress or whatever? Will add pics with my next update.

DoctorMap

Click to expand...

Yes you can put it into veg, just switch the light cycle to 24/0 or 18/6 something like tht and it should start vegging in maybe a week or two. But i wouldnt do it as it may take a while to get into good shape, and re-vegging stresses it more. I would just make it another experiment and leave it as is.

Back to your main plant, good job man! I am like you(i think) i grow for fun, i like experimenting and as for yield i don't care a whole lot i just enjoy growing as a hobby, something about it is just fun. But. Your plant is looking really good for just gravel and a little soil. How often do you water it? I assume it has little water retension. Buf wow that supprisedme how well its doing. Good job keep up the good work!

are u placing rocks on the soil i think that compresses the soil and crushes roots

ICantBelieveItsNotBud,
Cheers for stoppin by... I think you're right re re-veging. I wont bother...

Im currently watering 3-4 times a day because as you say the water retention is quite low. The positive thing about this is that its hard to overwater.

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Also, noticed a few roots starting to show themselves through the drainage holes. Im thinking I'll give them 3-4 more days to veg and strengthen its root ball and then transplant to its final flowering pot. Sound aiight?

And I just wired up a new light socket...and will buy another one tomorrow. An I'll get three 26watt 2700K CFL's. So that will give me total of 126watts. Not a huge amount, i know, but should be right for one small plant. Im thinking of having the 48w and two 26w at the top and a single 26w that i can move around the plant to promote growth of lower half of plant.

Keep tuned

DoctorMap

interesting will be watch

CyberSecks said:

are u placing rocks on the soil i think that compresses the soil and crushes roots

Click to expand...

No mate. If you read the thread you would see its an experimental grow using gravel (90%) as a grow medium. They're not doing any crushing or compressing. The roots are just growing in between them and it allows good air supply.

DoctorMap said:

No mate. If you read the thread you would see its an experimental grow using gravel (90%) as a grow medium. They're not doing any crushing or compressing. The roots are just growing in between them and it allows good air supply.

Click to expand...

Very nice bro, before long everyone's gonna be growing in gravel . Subcribed

Kush

this looks awesome. good luck. scribed.

Thats pretty ill man.. Good luck on your gravel grow..

.
Cheers for the words of encouragement everyone. Im happy to see there's a lil bit of interest in this.

Will try and get new pics up tomorrow sometime...I cant find the charger for the camera an its outta juice. its around somewhere.

KushLuvR said:

Very nice bro, before long everyone's gonna be growing in gravel . Subcribed

Kush

Click to expand...

haha that would be nice...to be the one to start up a new trend in growing. lol...but probably wont happen. not sure how well this grow will turn out. have hit a lil snag...see below:

Plant problem has sunk in: first spiky leaves, the single fingered ones, have taken a turn for the worse. in the last 15 hours it has yellowed a lot and tips turned brown and crisp. Looks like i may have given a lil too much nutes, whoops! I fed the day before yesterday. You'll see from the pics when i add them that its a lil ugly. hope it doesnt progress up the plant. Overall the rest of the plant looks healthy and green.

DoctorMap

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UPDATE: Pics











Now as you can clearly see those bottom leaves are buggered...but the rest of the plant is lookin good. Its smelling so pungent already too. Whats your opinion on the yellowing and crisp tip? Im assuming nutrient burn...

She (hopefully) is now under 128watts (4 x 20w 2700K CFL and 1 x 48w 3000K). Currently at around 7000-7500 lumens. That should be right for this one small plant ey?

Im goiing to put it on 12/12 and begin flower at the end of this week (week 3). And will get at least 1 if not 2 or 3 more lights for her to flower under.

Im half way through converting a tallboy into a grow cabinet. have all the drawers connected so they come off as one. Will attach the lights and fans (2 comp fans enough?) tomorrow or day after an when its complete ill post the pics.

So what do we all think? Seems to be coming along alright i would think...no?

DoctorMap

Bump... anyone?

Looking very healthy for the age mate. Interesting idea, the science is right, as it were, but it will be interesting to see how a plant that is used to pushing through soil deals with having to find root space through hard surfaces in the long run.

Light amount seems fine for the size of the plant (more than enough, based on my limited experience, for the size). You are right to plan to increase lighting as she grows.

If you give her a little TLC those lower leaves may yet recover, but if not, no loss, natural process to ditch leaves that aren't healthy.

To get the best from multiple light sources try to get lights equidistant with centre of the plant and each other (if you get what I am trying to say) to maximise areas of greatest light strength on the plant.

Looking forward to seeing the cab.

spindles said:

Looking very healthy for the age mate. Interesting idea, the science is right, as it were, but it will be interesting to see how a plant that is used to pushing through soil deals with having to find root space through hard surfaces in the long run.

Light amount seems fine for the size of the plant (more than enough, based on my limited experience, for the size). You are right to plan to increase lighting as she grows.

If you give her a little TLC those lower leaves may yet recover, but if not, no loss, natural process to ditch leaves that aren't healthy.

To get the best from multiple light sources try to get lights equidistant with centre of the plant and each other (if you get what I am trying to say) to maximise areas of greatest light strength on the plant.

Looking forward to seeing the cab.

Click to expand...

Cheers for the kind words mate. Its should be interesting indeed...but judging by how the roots are going already i would think it will be ok.

Could i then do 2-3 plants of this size under 150-170watts of CFLs? thats probably whet ill end up with in the cabinet and hopin i coult get at least 2 in there.

I can save the lower leaves? to me they look pretty much gone... Think i'll just let them go, drop of an take it from there and hope it doesnt progress to anywhere else.

And yea i get what you mean. Thats pretty much what im doing... got three 20watt'ers placed evenly around plant and the extra 20watt and the 48watt on top. only the second day with extra lights but seems to be liking it.

Ill updat later 2day or tomorrow with the cab pics.

Cheers

DoctorMap

UPDATE: Day 20-21 (will add pics tomorrow as Im quite baked right now)

Re-potted my little lady (fingers crossed) today into her final pot...13.5cm diameter, 14cm deep. Its not a huge pot but the plant is quite small and Im only growing with 128watts of CFL's so I am not anticipating a huge plant.

I changed the ratio of gravel to soil in the re-pot from 90:10 to 80:20. Hopefully the extra 10% soil will help hold onto some vital extra nutrients for flowering. I've got some Bloom Booster (NPK 6/15/17) nutes but I am thinking that I'll hold off a few days before giving a feeding.

After lights out today I set the timer to 12/12 so tomorrow will be Day 1 of flower. How long do you think I'll have to flower for? Im thinking//hoping 60-70 days...!?!? And 1 to 2 weeks until it shows sex?
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Finished converting my tallboy/dresser into a grow cab today as well. Came out alright. Not 100% light proof yet but its quite close, will fix that up tomorrow also. Had the lights on for 7 hours in there today and the temp hardly rose at all. The 70mm PC fan seems to be working quite nicely... well tbh it would be nice if it were a little quieter but its not too bad, considering it was just sitting around and didnt cost me anything. Am yet to paint the inside white or mylar but will get around to that soon.
I'll post some pics of the cab tomorrow as well.

Aiight...till then.

DoctorMap

I dont get the idea of this experiment...Unless you have the same strain and a soil grow to show the different?

Looking quite good nonetheless

growwwww said:

I dont get the idea of this experiment...Unless you have the same strain and a soil grow to show the different?

Looking quite good nonetheless

Click to expand...

Cheers mate,

The idea of the experiment is the fact that the grow medium is 90% Gravel... I'm not sure about you but I've never seen a gravel grow. I searched around the net and couldn't find and references to it either so I thought I would give it a go.

Also, I did start of with 2 plants, with one in soil but the soil one didn't survive. You'll notice I didn't start recording this grow until almost 2 weeks in...thats when the soil plant was scrapped. I was lazy and just used some potting mix that I already had around the house. Twas a bad move as it contained slow release fertilizer, so the plant was burnt and stunted.

Tbh I am quite happy with the results thus far ...tis growing at a better rate than any of my previous soil grows.
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Also, I have my first set of 7 fingered leaves. Tis looking nice. The plant is not tall by any means (12-13cm ish), but has 5 sets of leaves (6th coming through) and node spacing is quite compact...so far I have not experienced any stretching at all. Branch growth from the nodes is going quite well too...have at least 1 set of 5 fingered leaves coming through. And the stem is nice and thick and very sturdy. Ill try to take some pics to illustrate each point.

Peace

DoctorMap

Ya its really interesting! im keeping my eye out on this one.

growwwww said:

Ya its really interesting! im keeping my eye out on this one.

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Sweet as... Good to have you along for the ride.
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Also going to get 2 more seeds on the go tomorrow in case this one grows balls. I've got a feeling that its going to be a female. of the around 7 plants i've grown to flower in the past, zero were male....still yet to see one in real life.

DoctorMap