First grow - Easy Ryders under CFLs in soil

Looking nice, excited on the final yield!. Doing them myself as well.

Mel0w said:

Looking nice, excited on the final yield!. Doing them myself as well.

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Cool, good luck with your grow. I'll definitely be posting the yields from each of my girls, along with pics before and after chopping. It'll be another 2-4 weeks before all of them are chopped and dried. Wish they'd hurry up, I have another batch of seeds waiting in the wings ready to plant.

wow. very nice looking plants... mine are taking an inordinately long time to go amber it seems... 71 days today

bobhamm said:

wow. very nice looking plants... mine are taking an inordinately long time to go amber it seems... 71 days today

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Wow. Do you have some recent pics of yours that show the hairs? A lot of mine are amber already on some plants, but at the same time a lot of them still aren't. The plants range from day 50 to 55. I was totally expecting them to be done within 60 days, especially the shorter ones that have looked for a long time like they were going to be ready very soon, but they really seem to be dragging their feet turning amber. Don't think some of mine are going to go to 70 days though, but I can tell at least two of them will.

enonumus said:

Wow. Do you have some recent pics of yours that show the hairs? A lot of mine are amber already on some plants, but at the same time a lot of them still aren't. The plants range from day 50 to 55. I was totally expecting them to be done within 60 days, especially the shorter ones that have looked for a long time like they were going to be ready very soon, but they really seem to be dragging their feet turning amber. Don't think some of mine are going to go to 70 days though, but I can tell at least two of them will.

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in my sig link there should be a couple of recent ones that show the hairs, I'll upload some trichs later today maybe...when I say amber Im talking about the trichs not the hairs though... still have a decent number of white hairs on one , not so much on the other, calyxes have been more noticeable the last few days finally, yeah, I've been saying for the last month "looks like 10 days - 2 weeks"
Depends on how quick they "ripen" , not sure if they take a week - 10 days to go more amber or if its more like a couple, 3 days...

what also concerned me was seeing what looks like brown headed trichs here and there which is the stage past amber and no good..

bobhamm said:

in my sig link there should be a couple of recent ones that show the hairs, I'll upload some trichs later today maybe...when I say amber Im talking about the trichs not the hairs though... still have a decent number of white hairs on one , not so much on the other, calyxes have been more noticeable the last few days finally, yeah, I've been saying for the last month "looks like 10 days - 2 weeks"
Depends on how quick they "ripen" , not sure if they take a week - 10 days to go more amber or if its more like a couple, 3 days...

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Ahh, gotcha about the trichs vs. hairs. My smaller pheno plants have about 50/50 amber/white hairs. Have a 40x mic. but I haven't used it yet to look at the trichs since I know they're not ready yet. I've been saying 10 days to 2 weeks for about 10 days already myself lol. Seems these things mature in appearance very fast but take a long time to finish, at least with my smaller pheno ERs. My larger phenos have matured much more slowly, and still don't have that appearance of being coated with powdered sugar that my smaller phenos have had for like 2 weeks. Keep posting pics, I'm anxious to see what yours looks like when you've deemed it "ready".

thanks, yeah always more pics... it just seems liek its taking forever to go amber trichs

Hello Enonumus, your harvest is quickly approaching. Quick question, i've never had much training on this molasses business. Is it actual molasses? Or is it a nute that's simply a sugar? You mentioned before that they were reacting to the dose you gave them. Just wanted to see if you were still giving it to them.

Aspyre said:

Hello Enonumus, your harvest is quickly approaching. Quick question, i've never had much training on this molasses business. Is it actual molasses? Or is it a nute that's simply a sugar? You mentioned before that they were reacting to the dose you gave them. Just wanted to see if you were still giving it to them.

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Hi Aspyre. You might have already found your answer by now if you looked around, but yes, it's just regular (preferably) Black Strap molasses that you can buy at the store or online. It's hard to find the Black Strap stuff at the store, but you could also use any unsulphured molasses. The more minerals and vitamins (if any) in the molasses the better apparently, so keep that in mind. The one most people prefer from what I've heard is called Brer Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses, but I've only found it online and only in quantity. Most people say to use one TBSP (15ml) per gallon, although it can be kind of tough to measure since it sticks to all sides of the spoon if that's what you use, and it's too thick to really use any sort of measured dropper.

Seemed that almost everybody was using molasses and that it was supposed to really help make the buds swell during flowering, and enhance taste in the opinions of some, so this being my first grow I gave it a shot. I used it once a week for about 3 weeks, and I'm leaning heavily towards that being the cause of the loss of nearly all of my fan leaves, though I don't know why. The problem started right around the time I used it for the first time, and it seems like every time I've used it my fan leaves have started yellowing and falling off rapidly within 24-36 hours, starting from the bottom of the plant up. A week or so after each usage the problem slows down and just about stops, but that's always right about the time that I give them another dose since I didn't think that was the problem. I used to think it was related to changing my Brita filter, but since that time I've switched to distilled water, used Revive, seen the problem virtually stop, and then it started up again with a fury right after I used molasses again even though I was still using distilled water. That means it can't be the Brita filter, and could only be the molasses.

So no, I won't be using molasses again, but at this point I've lost pretty much all of my large and medium sized fan leaves, and only have the small ones around each flower/bud, and the ones up on the cola, and of course tons of sugar leaves. If it was the molasses, I should be fine to make it until harvest since it's been about a week since the last dose, and I still have enough leaves on the plants for decent photosynthesis. Not really sure how much the large fan leaves are needed in the last 2-3 weeks anyway, except that the plants usually pull Nitrogen from them towards the end. I'm sure it's affected my yield, either from the lack of fan leaves or the shock to the plant that was causing them to fall off, but I'm still going to yield around half an Oz. from each plant I think, times 5 plants plus my little Onyx, so I won't complain.

You'll have to decide for yourself if you want to use molasses. My advice would be to avoid it since you just don't need it. It may or may not help the buds swell a little, who knows, I've seen people argue both ways. But if it caused my problem, which resulted in the loss of at least 20+ fan leaves from each of my plants, I'm sure it hurt far more than it could have helped. If you do decide to use it, make sure you test your water PH after you add the molasses and any other additives or nutes and mix them up WELL. Be aware that you won't be able to test your water PH with one of those vial and droplet test kits if you use molasses because it changes the color of your water, you'll have to have one of those pen style PH testers. If you don't have a pen style tester, one person told me that 1 TBSP of molasses dropped the PH of 1 gallon of water by about 1 to 1.5. I can't confirm that independently, but it gives anybody reading this a clue about how it will affect their PH. Since I only have a vial and droplet kit, I just upped the PH of my water to about 7.5 before adding the molasses, to at least get me in the right range and not hurt things much if the PH was affected a little more or less than 1 to 1.5 down.

Its odd... I had a similar period with mine where most of the fan leaves went south on me, I have used molasses too, not consistently but Id say at least 3-4 times... maybe there is just some weird sensitivity with molasses and some phenos of ER? I'd say from chopping my main cols which should dry to about 1/4 that 1/2 oz per plant is about right for me, yours are doing better tna mine so look a little higher, maybe 3/4 on the bigger ones? anyway good grow, good luck, the last few weeks are a bitch

bobhamm said:

Its odd... I had a similar period with mine where most of the fan leaves went south on me, I have used molasses too, not consistently but Id say at least 3-4 times... maybe there is just some weird sensitivity with molasses and some phenos of ER? I'd say from chopping my main cols which should dry to about 1/4 that 1/2 oz per plant is about right for me, yours are doing better tna mine so look a little higher, maybe 3/4 on the bigger ones? anyway good grow, good luck, the last few weeks are a bitch

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Thanks for the feedback. I'm trying to be as conservative about my yield estimations as possible so I don't have my hopes dashed when I harvest my girls. Not so long ago I was estimating only 7-10 grams per plant, then 10-14, and now I'm just at 14 min. I hope. I can only base it on my lengthy experience as a consumer , and estimate the size of the cola and the other buds, without knowing how much they might shrivel when they dry. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I can't imagine my estimates being much higher than the yield.

Interesting to hear someone else complain of a similar issues possibly related to using molasses, although there can be all sorts of reasons for fan leaves to yellow and die off, so a person really has to be specific about the symptoms. I assume you're not talking about just the last 2-3 weeks where the plants naturally draw Nitrogen from the fan leaves all over the plant, causing them to partially yellow and die. That definitely wasn't what was happening with mine, since it was only around day 30 that it started (about when I started using molasses), and it was only at the bottom of the plant at first and then worked it's way up. In my case the leaves would start to become a noticeably lighter shade of green, then become very light green, then they start to turn yellow from the outermost tips and edges progressing inwards towards the stem. Once the whole leaf is yellow it either just falls off on its own or comes right off with very little effort. It happens to fan leaves only, starting with the biggest, oldest, lowest ones, and it happens at the same level of the plant. Since the leaves almost always grow evenly on both sides, I generally lose 1 or 2 fan leaves on either side of the plant at almost exactly the same time give or take a day, then it moves on up to the next large fan leaf above it. Sometimes as many as 6-8 leaves are noticeably affected simultaneously.

subbed, I have to see how this ends for you. Goodluck, its been looking really good besides the yellowing dilemma. I hope you get more of a yield than you think you will.

Thanks for all the info on molasses. Based off of your experience with it, I think it's best if I stay away from it. This yellowing of my larger fan leaves is making me crazy. They were nearly perfect, then from one day to the next the yellowing started taking over. It hasn't made it to my upper leaves yet. I thought perhaps it was a Cal/Mg deficiency since I use distilled water, so I picked some up and have been giving it to them. No real changes yet. I'll keep my cool and just assume it's in the genetics, after all, 3 of us here are all having the same issue. Thanks for having been so thoughrough with your journal. It's helped me a great deal.

MrSaint said:

subbed, I have to see how this ends for you. Goodluck, its been looking really good besides the yellowing dilemma. I hope you get more of a yield than you think you will.

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Thanks, welcome aboard. Just took a good look at my plants out of their box as I watered and fed them (and removed a ton of leaves ) , and it looks to me like Sarah is going to yield closer to 3/4 of an Oz. best guess, and all the others at least half an Oz. hopefully, except my stunted Onyx which should yield at least a 1/4 of really nice looking bud.

Hopefully others have learned something from this journal/thread, whether it's what to do or what NOT to do . I know two changes I'm definitely going to make for my next grow: Larger pots (2.5 to 3 gal.) and I'm going to cut out the molasses unless it's to experiment on one plant.

Aspyre said:

This yellowing of my larger fan leaves is making me crazy. They were nearly perfect, then from one day to the next the yellowing started taking over. It hasn't made it to my upper leaves yet. I thought perhaps it was a Cal/Mg deficiency since I use distilled water, so I picked some up and have been giving it to them. No real changes yet. I'll keep my cool and just assume it's in the genetics, after all, 3 of us here are all having the same issue. Thanks for having been so thoughrough with your journal. It's helped me a great deal.

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Boy I hear that. My plants were picture perfect until like you, practically overnight the problem started and just started wiping out my leaves. I was expecting the usual problems, a little burning of the tips from too much of this, or a little discoloration from not enough of that, and I was prepared to deal with those things. I wasn't expecting an inexplicable plague that seemed as if something was poisoning my fan leaves from the bottom up.

I find it curious that whatever it is attacks the largest, oldest fan leaves, bypassing the smaller, newer fan leaves as it makes its way up the plant. Then, when those nice big fan leaves are all decimated, it starts wiping out the smaller fan leaves from the bottom up, although it takes out more of them simultaneously, whereas it would only attack a couple of my really large fan leaves at once. Some of my plants have like 10 or 12 seriously affected leaves right now, it's pretty much the worst I've seen it. VERY frustrating!

I wish you luck making it to the finish without having to chop early, and without it affecting your yield too much. I bounce back and forth from day to day between feeling confident I'm going to make it to harvest ok, and not being sure if I'm going to make it or not without having to chop early. Today is one of those days where I'm really not very confident .

Hello Enonumus,
Not sure if I missed the post, but did you ever get your next batch of seeds from Attitude? Are you planning on using the same system? I just moved my 2 ER's into a larger tent from my cab. They're under 250W LED's. I just got tired of having to keep the portable AC pointed at my cabs intake, just to keep the girls cool. THe LED's keep the tent at a stable 80 degree's; about 4 degrees warmer than ambient temps.
Also, I was surfing thru some forums and found this one guy who's growing a single ER using bubbleponics, inside of a PC case while using Scrog. Simply amazing. His name is Aggreenvln, not sure how to link on here, but it's titled "First Ever Grow- Stealth PC Easy Ryder Bubbleponics". I'm sure you've already seen it. Just amazed by what some of these baby's can grow up to be.
Hope your girls are doing well,
Cheers.

Aspyre said:

Hello Enonumus,
Not sure if I missed the post, but did you ever get your next batch of seeds from Attitude? Are you planning on using the same system? I just moved my 2 ER's into a larger tent from my cab. They're under 250W LED's. I just got tired of having to keep the portable AC pointed at my cabs intake, just to keep the girls cool. THe LED's keep the tent at a stable 80 degree's; about 4 degrees warmer than ambient temps.
Also, I was surfing thru some forums and found this one guy who's growing a single ER using bubbleponics, inside of a PC case while using Scrog. Simply amazing. His name is Aggreenvln, not sure how to link on here, but it's titled "First Ever Grow- Stealth PC Easy Ryder Bubbleponics". I'm sure you've already seen it. Just amazed by what some of these baby's can grow up to be.
Hope your girls are doing well,
Cheers.

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Yeah, if you look back at one of the previous pages you'll see a post about my next batch of seeds. I received them a couple weeks ago, I'm just waiting until I harvest at least my two small phenotype ERs before I plant anything else, and I might wait until I harvest all 5 of my ERs. Takes a lot of will power though to sit on good seeds and not germinate them lol.

At the moment I'm still growing my girls in their original cardboard grow box underneath a large black desk using 10 23W CFLs. I added a second identical box at one point because I wound up with 6 plants and only had room for 4 in the original box. When two of my ERs got a little too tall and big for the first box I moved them over to the second box where there was more room and I could adjust the lights differently.

Temps were HUGE problem for me in the first month or more because it was the middle of summer here in So-Calif., and it gets up to around 115 here. I installed two 4" cabinet fans in my original grow box, and a single 4" cabinet fan in my second grow box, but the temps were still pretty rough (low to mid 90s sometimes). Once the weather started to cool down outside I was able to open the window directly behind my grow boxes, and with outside temps in the 60s or 70s at night that made a HUGE difference and cooled my box down to the high 70s to low 80s most of the time, sometimes down to the 60s at night.

What LED are you using and where did you get it, and what grow tent did you get? I've been shopping around for a good basic 2'x2' or 3'x2' grow tent that I can put in my walk-in closet, and I've found some really good quality deals between $75-$125, but I haven't decided on a light source yet. Sometimes I have people over that I don't really want to know that I'm growing, even though I'm completely legal, and with where they are currently the smell is hard to hide and there's a small chance someone might go in that room. I won't have to worry about any of that with a grow tent in my closet.

I've been really pulling my hair out though trying to decide between LED or a good old fashioned MH/HPS setup. I won't have the benefit of the cool outside air in my closet, so temps will once again be a problem if I don't use the proper setup. I'd prefer not to go the HPS route since it's inefficient and I'd have to add ducting and fans etc. etc.. Unless maybe I can add a low wattage HPS (like 250W) that wouldn't bump ambient temps up by more than 6 or 7 degrees inside the tent, keeping it under 85. No idea how much the various MH or HPs wattages bump up ambient temps.

This is just a hobby for me with no profit, and I don't consume much, so I really don't want to invest a lot of money in expensive equipment or I'd buy one of the top of the line LEDs like the Supernova (preferably the enhanced spectrum). If I can find something that would do the job of a 250w HPS for around the same cost I'd be happy, don't even need a 400W or 600W equivalent for my small setup. Obviously there are 90W-120W LEDs out there ranging from $99 to $599 that all claim to work as well as 400 or 600W HPS's, but you just won't REALLY know what you're getting until you try it out. I think almost all of the newer 90W UFOs and 120W LEDs will do a pretty good job in Veg., even the lower end ones, but only the quality ones will work for flowering. Problem is it's just not enough to know which spectrums an LED uses and exactly what peak points it hits, or even that they're 10mm diodes rather than 5mm, although those are good starting points.

I'd like to only spend around $200 for a decent LED and if I could spend less that would be great, but I'd spend a little more too if I knew it would work well for at least 2'x2' setup. At the moment I'm thinking about going with a 90w Illuminator UFO for $299 since the company is extremely reputable and offers a full 90 day performance guarantee. If you're not satisfied with it after 90 days (which is plenty of time for a complete Auto grow), just send it back for a full refund. I havent' seen any other company personally that offers that kind of guarantee, so I can't help but think their products must really work and I have nothing to lose except my time, effort, and seeds. If it wasn't doing the job I could always my CFLs to finish or supplement the grow, heaven knows I have plenty of them.

I welcome feedback and personal experiences with LEDs that anybody has. Please no LED bashing based on second hand information or things you've read. I've already done plenty of reading and research, and I'm well aware that a lot of the LEDs out there don't perform nearly as well as they claim, and most people dismiss them. I'll post it here when I decide what tent and light setup I go with. I'm still 1-2 weeks away from harvest so I have a little time left to decide.

saTime for some new pics! I pulled some of my plants out yesterday to trim away a bunch of the yellowing and dead fan leaves, so I took the opportunity to take some pics of Sarah, Tiffany, and Jennifer. Sarah, one of my two smaller phenotype ERs, is at 8 weeks and looks like she'll be ready around week 9, so I'm going to start flushing her and no more nutes. All the rest of my plants are just over 7 weeks. Tiffany, my only other small phenotype ER, looks like she'll be ready by week 9 too, so I'm going to give her one more feeding then I'll start flushing her too. Jennifer, Scarlett, and Stella are the larger phenotype ERs which definitely mature more slowly, so they won't be ready for probably 3 more weeks.

Not much else to report, other than my poor flippin plants are so devoid of fan leaves it's not even funny. Makes it really easy to see the bud development lol, especially in pictures where the leaves would normally make it hard to see, but it sucks for photosynthesis :-/. Oh well, they're all close enough and have already produced enough that I know I'm going to have a succesful harvest, it's only a matter of the final yield. I'm sure they're all going to produce at least half an Oz. each, maybe 3/4s on some of them come harvest time. Amber, my little stunted Onyx, is still hanging in there and producing as best she can with no real branches, just her cola and a couple of little buds on either side. She's up to 7 inches tall and it looks like I'll get maybe a 1/4 out of her when all is said and done, and I really like the look of the buds.

Without further adieu, here are the new pics of Sarah, Tiffany, and Jennifer...