First Grow

[Mitzi]

Thought it'd be fun to do a journal for my first grow, and would appreciate being told anything I'm doing wrong lol. I've got two auto strains from MSNL, the Gorilla Glue and the Tangerine Dream. Planted directly in medium on 23/04, emerged about a week later, been growing steadily since then.

I'm using this kit (SF2000 LED, 2x4x6 grow tent, fan and carbon filter): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225269127049

I'm using a 70/30 coco-petri mix, Canna Coco A+B nutrients, have some Cal Mag in case it's needed but I'm in a very hard water area. Watering about every over day. Currently on a 18-6 light schedule. Planning on doing no-topping low stress training, don't want to risk topping an auto my first grow.

Plants seem healthy so far, took a while to get started but think that was just the tent being too cool during germination. Little worried about heat as we get into summer, the rooms still fairly cool but the tent is already at 85f in the middle of the day. I'm currently moving the light schedule forward an hour each day so off time ends up at 10:00-16:00 next week to avoid middle of the day heat, not sure if that'll be enough.

Pictures taken today.

[Ckbrew]

Nice starter setup, you will need some type of tray under the pots to catch runoff. Grow on.

[Mitzi]

Thank you, I'll have a look for something to use

[OrganicCanna420]

...and I would add to that, put a little piece of wood or something at the rear of the dish so the runoff runs to the front. Also, I'm about to harvest my first grow. I did SO MANY things wrong, but with good advice from these good folks it looks like a great harvest. So just have fun!

[SoOrbudgal]

Hello and welcome Mitzi you've got a great start and nice clean setup ( yes i know it's new ) i can't stand seeing filthy floors. Some folks don't take 10min to clean the tent after a run and keep piles of soil an water rust stains along with moldy corners so do clean up after spills and runs. Beings you got autos i'm sure you've read that light leaks don't affect them so open all tent flaps and use a fan either in or outside that blows gently thru the tent. I think your wise just letting them go they look great. I hope you enjoy seeing your plants grow up there's not much more to do at this point just elevate those pots off the ground as they get larger you're gonna have runoff so get a couple those plastic floor protectors you put under pots in the house cheap like less than $2 ea. Hey i've blabbered enough, keep us posted

[Mitzi]

I'll try to keep on top of the cleaning lol thanks, that's a good point I've only got one of the three inlets open I'll get the other two done tonight and see if I've got a spare fan around

[AGH]

Welcome to growing and GWE forums!

I still keep grow journals...I even have color coded highlighters so I can easily see when I watered, adjusted lights, environment, had any issues, etc. You'll find that on future grows, you'll vaguely remember that you came across an issue or solved a problem but can't quite remember what you did, so having the journals makes it easy to see how you solved things. It will also be helpful for dialing in your grow. For example, when did you start/stop feeding, what lighting schedule/distance/intensity did you have when, etc.

While we all hope it doesn't happen to you, we also all know it will: you will make mistakes. But the important thing is to not see them as mistakes but as learning opportunities so that you can prevent the same issue in subsequent grows. Grow journals help with that too!

Looks like you're off to a good start, looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!

[Mitzi]

Quick update, I've put a couple of the suggestions here into practice (thanks everyone ❤️), an extra vent is open and I've added in a spare desk fan, together they've dropped the highest temperature from 84 to 81. I also got some trays that match the pot size a little too exactly, but they should hopefully do the job for this grow at least.

Other than that we're still looking healthy, the Gorilla Glue now has a distinct pleasant smell. Day/night is now only a couple of hours out from where I want it to be, moving by 1hr a day still. Both are about an inch too short to attach the main cola to the side of the pot, so holding off on giving LST my first go for a few more days.

[SoOrbudgal]

Those look great Mitzi . Say how far away is the light from top of plants? I've got a couple autos at nearly a month old also. I don't use " pullies" to raise an lower light i just put clean 2x4 blocks under the pots with my risers boost them up that way. My distance is now 25" from light and they are stretching i could tie them down but with these i'm letting them go natural no topping no defoliation yet. My light is 250watt yours is 200watt. Try getting them closer to light an see if they'll start stretching. This way you can space the nodes out so you can LST if that's the plan. If you don't want to it's fine, just a suggestion.

[SoOrbudgal]

Just showing you my way to elevate the pots. Garage sale baskets LOL but they work great under pots. These are OG kush autos at 29days now.

[Mitzi]

SoOrbudgal I may have forgot to lower the lights after seedling stage lol, thank you. I've brough the light down to about 2ft away from the tip of the plants as the lights manual suggests for the veg stage, the kit came with a couple of the yo-yo things in for suspending the light

[SoOrbudgal]

yes i have those yo yo's i just never used them i'm old LOL

[90Gizmo]

Hi Mitzi . Your temps seem high to me. I have 230 watts and I only see those temps on the hottest summer days. How hot is your room? With lights full blast my tent, same size as yours, will be about 8F hotter than the room. Do you exhaust to outside? Otherwise you are making the room hotter as you go making the tent hotter and so on. You mentioned opening vents but I keep seeing those rectangular screened vents looking closed. You need at least the big one opened for a 4" duct fan and all (three?) open for a 6" fan. Hope that helps.

[Mitzi]

Thanks for all the info. The room has been unseasonably warm, at a guess about 77f midday, I think it's a big part of the problem.

The exhaust doesn't vent directly outside, but the ducting goes out to an adjacent room, where the apartments passive ventilation will cycle the air without letting any go back into the grow room. Had to compromise a bit on that one as all the windows face out onto a shoppong street the police frequent a bit to often to have visible ducting, and the ventilation system can't be tied onto directly without messing with the airflow in the whole apartment.

Both the side vents are open, the big one at the back is closed because it leaks a bit too much light into my sleeping area overnight. The fan is 4 inch, so based on what you said hopefully the two side ones should be okay by themselves.

[90Gizmo]

Yes, the two sides vents should be enough. I calculated a need for 200 square inches without the filter but the filter reduces the flow of the duct fan so I think 120 square inches (like two 6x10 inch vents) is enough.

Well you won't want to exhaust outside. My setup is on the second floor and can smell it outside with the right breeze.

[Mitzi]

Slight disaster this week, quite bad what looks like nitrogen deficiency. I originally thought it would be a PH issue but after getting some test kits it looked like a healthy range for coco, eventually realised I was still doing a seedling feeding schedule. I've now bumped the nutrients to where they should be, hoping they will recover over time? Also thinking of removing the damaged bottom leaves to save the plant wasting resources trying to recover them. Was going to avoid defoliation as much as possible the first time but this has forced my hand a bit.

In happier news I managed do my first little bit of plant training, main colas were bent last week, although this was the exact same time the first signs of nutrient deficiency kicked in so was convinced I'd kill them for two days lol. Going to start tidying them up properly over the next couple of days as I remove the damaged bit I'll spread out the colas as well.

[SoOrbudgal]

Good catch you don't need those lower leaf anyhoo. The plant looks like it's beginning to flower.

[Mitzi]

Was confused for quite a long time but finally realised why the plants didn't recover. The PH meter I've been using wasn't calibrated properly, it's telling me my tap water is about PH 8 when it's normally about dead on 7, so I've been given them pretty PH neutral water all along. For next time I'll pick up some test strips as recalibrating the meter doesn't seem to work, but I think these plants are now pretty close to harvest? About half the pistles have gone brown and the trepenes are pretty solidly white, I've included a couple of pictures I took with a cheap USB microscope. Would love some opinions on this, given the poor health of the plants I'd like to harvest as early as possible incase they do die and I lose the crop, but also don't want to harvest too early and waste it.

Also sorry about the picture quality, dropped the phone a couple of weeks ago and now the camera doesn't want to focus properly 😔

[SoOrbudgal]

If you can be patient just alittle longer and allow the plant to ripen more. If they were mine i would not feed it anylonger do to it's lock out issues. I'm sorry you ran into this but we've all experienced it and still do at times. If the stems start to yellow then she's not taking anymore fluids up let her dry out. Hey don't feel bad you got decent harvest next round you know more.

[Bluey]

Most trichomes look clear to me.. Still to early. Flush and correct and keep em going if you cam...keep temps and humidity low

[90Gizmo]

Don't harvest early. Dieing is just another word for drying. You just don't want disease or mold. Is that a little humidifier? Unless you're in a desert you probably don't want that turned on at this point. If your pH meter is reading high then you've been give too low pH not neutral. Flush with lots of water with half the ph-down you've been using and some cal-mag. I think you'll easily get another week or two out of them. As SoOrbudgal says, I've done this my first three grows. Slow learner.

[Rootsruler]

Was confused for quite a long time but finally realised why the plants didn't recover. The PH meter I've been using wasn't calibrated properly, it's telling me my tap water is about PH 8 when it's normally about dead on 7, so I've been given them pretty PH neutral water all along. For next time I'll pick up some test strips as recalibrating the meter doesn't seem to work, but I think these plants are now pretty close to harvest? About half the pistles have gone brown and the trepenes are pretty solidly white, I've included a couple of pictures I took with a cheap USB microscope. Would love some opinions on this, given the poor health of the plants I'd like to harvest as early as possible incase they do die and I lose the crop, but also don't want to harvest too early and waste it.

Also sorry about the picture quality, dropped the phone a couple of weeks ago and now the camera doesn't want to focus properly 😔

Judging from your pictures I'd say you have around 2 more weeks before harvest. Your trichomes should all be milky white without any glass left in them. Your yellowing leaves look like normal leaf senescence. I wouldn't worry.

The ebay link you posted shows the setup you have. I noticed that setup includes a controller. Is your controller setup to run your fan? The controller should be able to handle the fan speed you'll need to be at to arrive at the setpoints you want. I haven't read anything where you mention getting your stats from your controller so I'm not sure if you set it up or not.

Is your tent in a bedroom or room inside your house or in a garage? The room your tent is in is called your lung room. This is where your tent will pull the fresh air it needs. To lower or raise temperature and/or humidity in your tent you'll need to condition the source air that is coming from your lung room and enters into your tent. Do you have a way to cool the air in your lung room?

As was mentioned, you need to exhaust the air inside your tent outside of the lung room otherwise you'll slowly recycle the humid hot air back into your tent. You want frequent air exchanges in the tent so that your plants have fresh CO2 to photosynthesize with along with moving out the hot humid air and whatever other gases like ethelyne that your plants produce. Rule of thumb is 1 - 3 air exchanges a minute. Your tent is 2 x 4 x 6 so you have 48 cubic feet of air you need to move at least once a minute. The more the better. Your 4 inch fan will pull a maximum of 205 CFM(Cubic Feet per Minute) but real world numbers are probably more like 160 - 170. Add a filter on it and it'll drop your CFM another 20% so more than likely your fan is pulling around 110 - 130 cfm with duct drops and bends. Basically the fan is pulling a couple air exchanges a minute which should be sufficient.

Your light is rated at 200 watts which should be enough for your 2 x 4. Not sure of the physical size of your lamp but it looks like it'll give you the coverage you need. I prefer bar lights as I grow photo period seeds in a 5 x 5 tent and use a SCROG method so I like to do wall to wall grows and bar lights allow that to happen. I suggest you download an app called Tent Buddy. It has a light meter that will show you how much light you're giving your plants. It will also convert LUX to PPFD and umol/m2/s so that you can apply the correct amount of photons to your plants in the growth stage they're in.

I'm going to include some charts that you can follow and will make your grow much more enjoyable. Some of this will not really apply to autos. Autos don't require a light change to signal flowering like photoperiod plants do as it's been genetically modified to do it once it reaches a particular level of maturity but if you decide to run a photoperiod plant then these charts will come in handy.

This site has some very experienced growers but if you really want to get in the weeds(Sorry, No pun intended!) check out a site called https://www.budbuilders.org





Vapor Pressure Deficit(VPD) chart

[Rootsruler]

5 x 5 I just harvested....





3 different photoperiod cultivars. I use an AC Infinity T6 6" fan with Controller 67 to control temperature and humidity in the tent. The controller does VPD so I don't have to do calculations but I check that it's reading correctly doing leaf temperature readings.

[Mitzi]

Last little update, based on the advice here I held off for another week before paranoia got the better of me and I chopped. Buds hung and dried for four days and have now gone into their jars, humidity meters reading a good range. After the dry it weighed about an ounce and a half all together, which for a first go I'll take as a win. I've also had a few test buds and the gorilla glue is good, tangerine dream is maybe my new favourite strain.

Little annoyed with myself that two of the three big mistakes were easy to predict and avoid, I should have checked the PH meter calibration properly, and should have remembered to switch nutrient quantities when the stages changed. The lessons have been well learned now though, and I'm going to wait till the middle of August to start the next grow so the area will be cooler by the time the light intensity is going up and generating more heat.

Thank you so much everyone for all the help with the grow, I would have definitely killed them off before harvest without all your guidance.