New Grower My First Grow Journal!

[Grateful Zach]

Day 20

The ladies are really starting to grow now.. the past few days have seen a ton of growth! I know some of you guys are going to scream, but I topped the Blue Cheese and the Sweet Skunk.. they were really getting tall and I need to keep all these plants at roughly the same height. That was two days ago.. I also watered at that time and gave the first round of nutes (kinda). To each gallon of water I added: 2 tsp Big Bloom, 1/2 tsp Kangaroots, and 1/2 tsp Microbrew.. Not really a feeding but noted anyway. Plants seem to like it! Pics of course..

:Sharing One:

 

[Wienerwoods]

Woah, they're looking superb! Your grow environment is pure bliss to just look at

 

[Trapper]

Fantastic! They all look super healthy! Very nice uniformity, especially considering the variety. Great Job!

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 22

OK so the girls are taking off now, noticeable growth every day and tucking has become a chore! All plants have shown female except for the Psychofruit.. some of them a week ago. Trapper mentioned something earlier about some people having that strain hermie on them, so I'm watching her close. At this point, if I see anything suspicious she's gone.. and honestly I could use the extra room. The Blue Cheese is out of control.. moved her to the corner and chained her down. Now, I don't know about this technique, it's something I do with photos and it seems to work great.. Not sure about stunting an auto but we shall see. Basically I use a small chain and hook an upper branch to the container edge. This seems to stop all vertical growth from the chain down, as the plant cannot go any higher. All growth will be from above the chain. I attached a picture of the "chaining" as I call it!

The Crew



Love them females!



The chained one.. she been bad

 

[Gonzo]

Day 22

OK so the girls are taking off now, noticeable growth every day and tucking has become a chore! All plants have shown female except for the Psychofruit.. some of them a week ago. Trapper mentioned something earlier about some people having that strain hermie on them, so I'm watching her close. At this point, if I see anything suspicious she's gone.. and honestly I could use the extra room. The Blue Cheese is out of control.. moved her to the corner and chained her down. Now, I don't know about this technique, it's something I do with photos and it seems to work great.. Not sure about stunting an auto but we shall see. Basically I use a small chain and hook an upper branch to the container edge. This seems to stop all vertical growth from the chain down, as the plant cannot go any higher. All growth will be from above the chain. I attached a picture of the "chaining" as I call it!

The Crew

View attachment 356726

Love them females!

View attachment 356723

The chained one.. she been bad

View attachment 356725

View attachment 356724

Very nice, healthy plants. Seems that you are really on the right way.

Why dont you tie main stem down a little bit to promote side growth and suppress dominance of main bud? Plants would be lower and nicely bushy. They are not too old these days.

This chaining is very, very questionable IMO. Must be a lot of pressure upwards until receptors start to react, I guess. Plant has no brain, probably it will hurt itself until growth will stop. I just guess about it, but we would have seen this technique around the forum, if it would work.

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 25

Very nice, healthy plants. Seems that you are really on the right way.

Why dont you tie main stem down a little bit to promote side growth and suppress dominance of main bud? Plants would be lower and nicely bushy. They are not too old these days.

This chaining is very, very questionable IMO. Must be a lot of pressure upwards until receptors start to react, I guess. Plant has no brain, probably it will hurt itself until growth will stop. I just guess about it, but we would have seen this technique around the forum, if it would work.

Thanks Gonzo, they seem healthy so far! As a photo grower, I've always topped to create short bushy plants. However, this is my first auto run and I've been advised not to top autos from pretty much everyone. Although I did top the Blue Cheese and Sweet Skunk because they were much taller and with seven plants I figured why not and see what happens. I need to keep the canopy at pretty much the same level but I don't have the room to really do any lst. The Cheese is in a league of her own and is much taller and lankier then any others which is why I chained her down to slow down the vertical growth. The plant will continue to grow.. it just kinda bends out instead of up (I took a pic to show). I'm not sure how an auto deals with this stress but photos don't seem to mind. From what I've learned, autos are more sensitive to stress so we shall see how she deals with it! Banking on the +Speed and Sweet Skunk to finish in around 60 daze, advertised as 50 so maybe.. that will cut me down to five which is more manageable..

I watered plain water yesterday morning and they seem to have loved it! The pots were all very light, it had been six days since the last water. I refuse to over water! Anyway, hoping to keep veg growth a little slow while root growth expands by not giving much. Need to keep these things under control.. I gave each girl 48 ozs with no runoff so I think I need to give a little more! Roots are sticking out all over the bottom holes.. Plan on giving nutes and heavy water in two days. The girls responded really well to the watering and I had to raise the light yesterday evening and then again this morning.

Psychofruit is showing female but very small pistils, kinda strange she may get chopped. Watching like a hawk over here!

Been really busy but here's a few pics







Smoke on brothas and sistas!

 

[Trapper]

It seems to me (so far, in my limited experience) that pruning and other invasive tactics just act to temporally stunt the plant as it redirects efforts towards emergency repairs. With a finite amount of effort that will be spent on particular stages (an account, if you will) the time spent "back-tracking" is time that can not be made up, like it can be with photos...so it is a cost/benefit analysis of how you want (or need) to spend from your account. Everything comes down to the temporal reality of that.

I figured that the variety you were attempting would be the rub and it really is a juggling act...but I think you're doing a fantastic job!

Perfect example has been my need to stunt the top of my plant so it wouldn't get any taller. I effectively pushed pause long enough to get past the veg cycle into full bloom...lost growth, overall size and yield but did so to get something I needed.

 

[GMan]

They've come on in leaps and bounds since I last stopped by. Looking amazing man. Like the chain idea, please keep us updated as to how it turns out.

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 28

The ladies are a month old today and are really starting to fill up the grow area.. I took some pics but then accidentally deleted them, it's dark now but will try and get some pics later! Fed them all yesterday.. each plant received 16 oz of water followed by 48 more oz of nutes with very little to zero run off. Each gallon received 2 tsp Grow Big, 3 tsp Big Bloom, .5 tsp Kangaroots, and .5 tsp Boomerang. 64 oz of water total for each and they drank it all up quick! Will give plain water in two more days and plan to switch out the MH for the HPS in another week. Will wait to see if this feeding burns them, may get a little with the introduction of Grow Big. I plan on doing a serious Sledgehammer flush next weekend regardless, and will plan on introducing bloom nutes the following feeding.

The Psychofruit is definitely a female and I'm not worried about her anymore! Just a late bloomer I suppose.. she is catching up height wise with the others and looks great. The monster Cheese plant has been staked so I could bring the branches in closer to the middle as she takes up so much room! She is only a few inches taller than the others at this point, I'm glad I topped her and chained her down. The RRF has decided to go into full blown flower mode and seems to have forgot about vegging at this point. Wish I had the pics! I'm running out of room and am considering moving one or two outside to free up space, I'm not sure what to do.

So I will give plain water in two days, then flush this weekend. Starting next week, all plants will be given their own feed schedule as they are all at different levels and feeding requirements will vary. This is going to be a huge pain in the ass but I will try and keep everything recorded for you guys. Up to this point, all ladies have been given identical nute and water amounts.

Hope you guys had a great weekend, will have pics next time!

:tiphat:

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 29

OK just went down and got a few pics for you guys.. temps running about 80 and humidity around 60%. We've had a lot of rain and overcast days so not surprised RH is so high. This may become an issue as flowering progresses, will worry about that later. Blue Cheese is the tallest at 23 inches with the Russian only a couple inches shorter, the others are around 17 inches..

Here we go



Blue Cheese



Jack 47



Russian Rocket Fuel wanting to bloom



Psychofruit



Sweet Skunk



+Speed



Haze 2.0 (sorry bad pic)



Group shot from down low