Mystery Grow

[JuanHondo]

First off, huge thanks to Nebula, Sirius, and all the members of this site! I've made many mistakes, but thanks to all the information on this site I think i've got things in a decent place now. I'm a little late getting this posted considering i'm 4 weeks into flowering...but, I wanted to contribute something, so here we go!
This is my first grow...been waiting many years since I first smoked out of a tin foil pipe to grow my own. I say it's a mystery grow because i'm using random bag seed that has been in my freezer for more than 10 years so i have no idea what i've got here. i have a 2 X 4 tent, 315W CMh, 6" exhaust fan with carbon filter, and 2 - 6" fans for circulation. I'm growing with Bio Bizz Light Mix soil in 5 gal smart pots. Hand watering with tap water & Botanicare Grow, Bloom, and Cal/Mag. pH is usually around 6.7.

This first photo is my initial setup. I had very low confidence that any of my seeds would sprout so I only had the tent at first. 1 put 7 seeds in paper towels between paper plates with a 100W incandescent underneath for heat on 1/4. On 1/6 the first tap root popped out and another one on 1/7. The 3rd tap root appeared on 1/9. I threw the remaining 4 away on 1/14...i figured 10 days was long enough, but now wish i'd waited a bit longer. Once I saw the tap roots I threw them in solo cups with Ace Hardware potting soil that I had leftover from last summer. Went to HD and cobbled together a quick CFL set up. I was only watering with non pH adjusted tap water. Still very low confidence at this point.
I'll get caught up here soon.

[JuanHondo]

1/13 i had 3 seedlings that i had been over watering with non pH adjusted plain tap water. Things were looking promising so I bought a 315W CMh with digital dimmable ballast. On 1/18 i hooked it up at 50% power ~ 28" away from the plants. Temp was ~85F and RH ~ 60%.

[JuanHondo]

These photos are from 1/25. I continued to over water. I noticed some lower leaves yellowing so i decided to add some nutrients. I also bought a pH test kit. I started feeding with Botanicare Grow at ~2mL/QT. I think the pH was around 6.7 based on the color chart from the pH test kit. I added a big fan i had sitting around to get the temp down a bit and turned up the light to 70%. Temp was around 80F now. 3, the 3rd seed to germinate, was growing "strangely" but it didn't look terrible. I had been keeping a wet towel in the tent too to try to get the humidity up.

[alltatup]

Saludos JuanHondo, and welcome to the forum! I also waited for many decades after the tin foil pipes to start growing, and nothing can stop me now. Best hobby ever!

[JuanHondo]

Thanks a lot allatup! It's been tons of fun so far. My brain is mossy from all the new information .

I continued to over water while adding Grow at about 1/2 strength every other watering. I also started adding some dry cal/mag and "Regen-a-root" that i got as free samples from the local grow shop. Transplanted to 5 gal smart pots when the roots started growing out the bottom of the solo cups 1/27...being slightly root bound made transplanting vey easy...just cut away the solo cup and place in a solo cup sized hole in he new soil. I "wet" the new soil with about 3 qts. water + cal/mag + regen a root. I had been keeping pH around 6.3 at this time. I had been slowly cranking up the light power and moving it down. Photos are from 2/3. light was up to 80% power ~24" away. Temp stayed around 80F and RH ~60%. I replaced the big old cage fan with wo 6" fans that mounted to the poles of my tent. Soil had some algae growing on top from all the over watering that i would scrape off with a spoon and discard. 3 had grown out of it's awkward stage and started to look normal. At this point I thought 1 & 2 were the same strain and 3 was something different. Overall, things were looking OK.

[JuanHondo]

The day after the previous photos were taken, I topped 2 & 3 above the 5th node. This ended up working fine, but in hindsight it probably would have been better to top a little earlier. I waited till they grew 6 nodes...wanted to make sure they were healthy enough. Continued to over water with 1/2 strength Grow and replaced the powdered cal/mag with Botanicare liquid cal/mag...the powdered was free but a total PITA to mix. pH around 6.8 this time. Light was still at 80%, but moved closer...about 20" away. About this time i started noticing a yellowing between the veins on 1 and 2 that took me a while to figure out. These photos are from 2/8. Things were looking OK, but the yellowing had me scouring the pages of GWE for a solution.

[JuanHondo]

i started to suspect that the yellowing was caused by pH too low so i upped the pH to 7 for the waterings. Continued to give Grow at 1/2 strength + cal/mag. These photos are from 2/15 after I also gave them a bit of a "flush" with ~ 1.5 gal plain water followed up with ~1/2 gal water + nutes. This was the first time I had watered to runoff and the runoff pH measured about 6.3 which kind of fit with my too low pH theory. I had also started some LST and defoliation. My LST strategy for 1 & 2 was to create a 6 pointed star when viewed from above...kind of worked. Found what I thought to be male pre flowers on #3. All 3 are droopy from the flush and general over watering. Starting the get stinky in the house at this point...tent is in the basement but I could smell them as soon as I walked in the front door...I liked it, but it was starting to elicit some complaints from the Mrs...

[JuanHondo]

So I had been using a pH pen for the past couple weeks...and the readings and what the plants were telling me didn't add up. I checked the calibration of the pen and found it was reading 0.5 high...so all the previous pH numbers that I had been reporting were actually 0.5 high...so when I fed at 6.3 it was actually 5.8. This made sense based on what the plants were showing and once i got that cleared up, things were looking greener. i also kind of figured out how to stop over watering. I had a huge fear of under watering so any time they looked a little dry i would water...which is obviously wrong. I started using the "lift the pot method" which was a huge help. Settled in on basically watering to 10-20% run off -> waiting till the pots were light (4-5 days) -> watering with about 1 gal -> waiting till the pots were light (2-3 days) -> repeat. This has fixed my over watering problem. I had also been doing what seem like a lot of defoliation, but you can see that plants are still quite bushy. I continued to add/adjust my LST to try to create a wide/flat canopy. i hooked up a 6" exhaust fan and carbon filter. I was surprised how huge the 6" filter was. i have it outside the tent and hanging from the floor joists. Works great. At first I had the fan connected to a timer running 30 mins off/ 30 mins on at ~1/2 power. this was causing big jumps in humidity from like 80% -> 40% which didn't seem like a good thing so I eventually hooked it up to a humidistat set for 40-50% RH...now it runs for ~30 sec on/5 mins off. Seems to be working well...of course it runs all night when the temp drops and RH climbs...
These photos are all from 2/23.

[JuanHondo]

After the previous photos were taken, I wanted to double check the runoff pH, so I watered with only water at pH 6.8 to collect runoff which checked out at 6.2. So things seemed to be good...except for the fact that i just basically flushed everything out of the plants. Over the next week, without any nutrients, the plants started to yellow all over an signs of deficiencies like leaf spotting and red stems started to show up. I was frantically trying to find a solution before I realized they were starved. Of course i had to wait a bit to fix that since they go soaked and weren't drinking much. When things were looking bleak I was preparing for a weekend away so I watered Friday AM with 1/2 strength Grow and Cal/Mag and said F it, what's the worst that could happen? photos below are from 3/3. Things looked much better so I was happy. You can still see some yellowing and spotting, but that soon cleared up. From here i decided I would give nutes at 1/2 strength every watering using the basic watering plan from the previous post. This seems to be working well. I was also preparing for a week long vacation and i wanted at least 2 weeks in the flowing stage before then so I set the light timer to 12/12 starting 3/4. 3 was still really droopy at this point, but I was quite sure it was a male so I didn't really care and kind of shoved it in a corner. 1 & 2 i had been thinking were female based on pre flowers so i was extra careful with them.

[JuanHondo]

Not much changed from the previous post after 1 week at 12/12. I started feeding 1/2 strength Bloom + Cal/mag using my water to runoff -> wait -> 1 gal -> wait -> repeat schedule. on 3/6 i saw white pistils on 1 & 2 so i was PUMPED. 3 was confined to be a dude so he got kicked out of the tent after the below photos were taken on 3/8. He's now slowly dying on my dining room table...couldn't bring myself to chop it down...

[alltatup]

Juan, just be careful with the male not to carry any pollen with you back into the grow room.

[JuanHondo]

Below photos are from 3/15 before I left for week. All I've been doing is feeding with 1/2 strength bloom and a little trim here and there and LST adjustment to keep everything flat.

[JuanHondo]

3/24 after being gone for a week things look great and I've got Budlets!! had a friend come over and water once while I was gone and she did a bang up job.

[alltatup]

Lovely stretch during that week, too!

[JuanHondo]

Ok, that pretty much brings us up to date. these photos are from 3/29 (plus a couple plant photos from vacation you might enjoy). Not much going on other than watering roughly twice a week with 1/2 strength Bloom + cal/mag. i'll remove a leaf or two here and there, but i'm done with LST unless something get's out of control. 1 and 2 are starting to look like different strains, but who knows. Now I guess it's a waiting game and trying not to screw anything up. they've been at 12/12 for about a month so I guess i have at least another month to go. I'm sure I'll have some questions as I get closer to harvest. Thanks for reading!

[alltatup]

What a beautiful mango tree!! Adónde fuiste? ;-}

[ReeferMadnezz]

Rotting cashew fruit smells really bad. I couldn't eat cashews for about a month after spending some time in proximity.

[Thatguy147]

Lotta leaves man. I would have lollipopped them a bit and defoliated to get some light into that canopy. But like I said that's what I woulda done. They look good from my house 👍😎. My grow is only 3 or 4 days behind yours. I vegged a lot longer I think. I didnt read everything on your thread. My grow is surprised as well!! That's pretty cool. Almost on the same schedule. I'll have to keep up with yours.

[JuanHondo]

yeah, lotta leaves...i took some off last night, but only maybe 10 each haha...next time around I'll be more aggressive. Since this is my first grow, my top priority is to make sure I harvest something. I think i would probably veg a little longer next time too. i didn't know what to expect for a stretch and i was worried about overall height so my strategy was to try to keep things flat and change to 12/12 when the plants were about 12" tall. The stretch has slowed (maybe stopped) and the taller plant is only about 22" so I definitely could have vegged longer.
and to allatup, just so you know, i'm not a spanish speaker (native or otherwise) haha. The male is basically dead, so he's going out to compost this week. Mango tree is in Costa Rica...they had a grove of mango and cashew trees where we were staying...beautiful place. Thanks again for reading! i'll keep it updated till the end.

[JuanHondo]

we always used it to mean $100...sounds good so I used it for an alias occasionally...needed a fake name for GWE so it seemed like a good one...what does it mean to you?

[alltatup]

Deep or Profound Juan

[JuanHondo]

i think i like that interpretation better

[JuanHondo]

ok, so these photos are from today after 5 weeks from switching to 12/12. not a whole lot going on...check...feed with 1/2 strength grow + cal/mag...that's about it. i tried to thin it out a bit...yeah...that's about it...looking good i guess...starting to see a few pistils getting darker...buds getting a bit bigger...decided to call #1 Halley's Comet...

[KTM690]

Looking good

[alltatup]

Looking sweet!!!