New Grower Sour Diesel Auto - Humboldt seeds - DWC - First Timer

[Mistajim]

Hello everyone.

This has been such an exciting adventure over the past three months.

I have went through what I imagine everyone grower does his or her first time. The excitement of that first germination process which starts building from moment your seeds have been purchased. I couldn’t wait to get those gems into whatever media I had still yet to decide.

That turned out to be DWC.

I had started watching videos which mainly used coco as a medium and I became hooked on the thesis of faster growth which was only enhanced by extra benefits I had heard of such as the impossibility to over water and the ‘fact’ that you can’t get pests of you grow in DWC.

I regretted my decision as soon as I had unpacked everything in my cramped 10×10 room what was already filled with a generous pc rig, bookshelf and a wardrobe. I’m fairly handy so it didn’t take me long to get the tent up, the buckets drilled, airlines pulled through, hydroton pellets washed and pH’d etc…

By this point the seeds had been in the a glass of water in a ‘dark warm place’ for exactly 17.5 hours.
Perfect. I had 30 mins to spare before I had to remove the seeds which should have sank to the bottom – remember that it’s okay if they don’t, you can push them with your finger and they should break water surface tension and sink, then it will be okay – according to the video guide I had watched 3 times over the last few days.

By now you are maybe starting to see how I was operating.
Everything was analysed and verified and if I thought I could.. Improved.
I had spent a small fortune by now. A 2.5×2.5x5ft grow tent, two buckets for dwc bubblers, all the accessories, and a Migro 100W CoB led. I was probably around $1600 invested by this stage. Never mind the man hours.
30 mins pass and I open up the cupboard. Both seeds have sunk to the bottom. 100% success so far.

This is when I start to lose my cool.

By which I mean patience.

Not being able to help myself from checking to see if the tap roots are showing must have me checking them on an hourly basis.
For the next 3 weeks this habit continued. When the roots showed, I was obsessed about them getting to 1.5 cm so I could put them in rockwool, then I was obsessed about the roots showing out the bottom of the next pot, then the roots were growing but the leaves were not.

Every step was painfully slow.

Fast forward 4 weeks. I’ve been away on a work trip for 14 days. Its now day 55 and I haven’t seen my ladies in 2 weeks. They were about 10 inches tall when I left my girlfriend / friends in charge of EVERYTHING. Some of you will know the work required with DWC bubblers some won’t. It is definitely very easy to fuck it up. So kudos to Mel, Bax and JB for doing such a stellar job for 14 days.

3ft. My plants were 3ft tall and bushy as hell. And they were showing SEX!

This was stage two for my growing process. I realized then that I had been doing far too much. I had read it online, seen it in videos and been told it by people on social media. Let the plants do there thing, less IS more with nutes and keep the LED’s far away. I suppose the less interference the better.

Now I must say that I now plan to start learning how to properly train the plant as I feel having missed such a crucial growth period in the plant life cycle I still don’t have any real experience.

The large plants however meant I needed a bigger tent. My 2×2 was completely packed and the highest top was less than an ft away from my cob LED.
Enter the 4x4x8 tent. My room is now mostly taken up by my grow tent accompanied by a Meijiu 240W quantum board LED and a scrog net…
The tent and the quantum boards were a great idea. The scrog jet was a disaster.

​

After setting it up and tucking all the branches down and under to maximize canopy coverage, the letting the plants do their thing it came time to change the res waters.
A note to other first timers, a scrog net will make it very very difficult to maneuver your plants. This caused my res changes to be very difficult and actually cost me a good stem/tops as the scrog net decapitated the stem while I was trying to remove one bucket.


Anyway. I made it.


I finished the ladies up on day 110. 30 days past the advertised comprehensive cycle but I didn’t care. They were beautiful.

Both plants came out very different in size and shape. I put this down to grower error but it would be nice if someone said it was dodgy genetics.
Amazing to think these plants were under a 100w cob led (shout out to Shane @ Migro for making a quality product) for 85 days out of their 110 day life cycle. The remaining 25 days there was a 3000k Meijiu QB 240W led added.

So. I ended up with 240g of bud in jars dryed 62% humidity and 70g of trim and popcorn which I made into 500g of canna butter.

I made a lot of mistakes a long the way. Let the roots dry out when they were seedlings, over fed, under fed, didn’t do any training then did too much during flower. Found out about over-watering in DWC which I thought was impossible… I also got bud rot on my two largest cola’s on the biggest plant which made me harvest immediately. I seen a few Amber trichomes under my 60x when I checked the buds but not even 10% coverage so I probably could have went another week or so?
Not bad for my first time in my opinion. On to the next. Rdwc. Green crack. Watch this space =)
Peace. X

Edited for formatting.

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

hi and welcome.
i used to do that,then i couldnt be arsed if they sink they sink,if they dont they still go in the tissue,and 9/10 i end up with a plant.less is more...keep it stupid simple.the less you do the less can go wrong,and if aint broke dont fix it.
all things being equal,and if bothe plants were treated the same that points to phenotype/genetics.
i think ya got a green thumb,thems nice plants for a first go round.
been lurking for some time or first day here ? im archie gemmill your butlins blue coat hi de high site rep a few things well worth a read.

Site Terms Of Use
regardless if you read them or not,you have agreed to abide by them,so best cast your eye over takes 2 mins,in short no religion politics and dont be a knob
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/site-terms-of-use.13737/
Forum Etiquette
https://www.autoflower.org/help/forum-etiquette-policy/

New Member Intros
why not do an intro,tell us something about yourself your grow or your ferret
https://www.autoflower.org/forums/live-introductions.35/
Live Stoner Gossip bit lost or stuck,got a question ? a cuppa tea getting cold and a rocket to burn ?
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/september-to-november-2019.73512/page-80#post-2178250
some Guides and Tutorials
https://www.autoflower.org/forums/guides-tutorials/
start a journal in the new growers section
https://www.autoflower.org/forums/new-growers-grow-journals.44/

follow along with Ash-A-Ton from seed to jar thread
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/school-daze-seed-to-jar-live-guide.65331/

have a good look around,click on some signature links.

anything else just ask away or @ me
good luck n keep er lit

 

[Sour D]

Nice job Brah! How you like trimmin those sativas? Think I'll try wet trim next time.

 

[Deke]

Nice job! I'm using COBs myself right now, and looking at QB's to add in the future. You can thank that QB for adding to your harvest. You picked the right time to add light!
I'm impressed with being a first time grower and doing it without a soil medium.
And I had to be told many times to just chill out and let the plants be. I always wanted to be messing with them and worrying too much, lol. Now I check on them 3-4 times a day, not the dozen or more like I did at first!