Update (1st grow): Do I water? Feed? Wait longer?

[realhuuuman420]

Thanks a lot for all your comments. I will keep checking, will also bleach the whole tent and the area around it.

I just went to inspect my other plants, which are 3 rooms away and outside, but, oh, crap, they are completely infested by spider mites, leaf miners, AND aphids. It's like all these fuckers are having Diversity Day Party.

So it's totally possible one of these hitched a ride on my clothes. Despite me changing clothes and washing after handing the outside plants, the fucker might have been on my skin or something.

I'll keep looking for them and try to take better photos, too.

Sure as hell hope I won't have to eventually kill the plant 6 weeks in, stunted or not... those buds are forming real nice, small as they are

[realhuuuman420]

Fuck... it's spider mites.

Looked around thoroughly. Nothing. So I picked a random spot on a random lower leaf, thinking that if I was a spider mite, this is where I'd be.

There he was, tiny transparent/white fucker, happily spinning his web. Totally invisible to naked eye or camera, but clear as day under a microscope.

Off to cry myself to sleep, then try and figure out how to deal with this.



Do I remove the affected leaves? This will mean removing most of the leaves at the very bottom - they are all very close together and all are probably infested. Plus there's some new growth there too

[Gingerbeard]

..........

[Rootsruler]

One more thing I'd like to add to this. One thing I've noticed over the years is that plants that are healthy tend to resist pest infestations for the most part. When an infestation happens, it is a sign that your plant is not at peak health.

All plants have a defense network they use to fend off bugs that are detrimental to the plant. Trichomes on Cannabis is one example. That doesn't mean that if a swarm of mites gets wind of your plant they'll leave it alone simply because it's healthy but what a healthy plant will do is make it much harder for the bugs to drill into the stems and leaves. Silicate is a good amendment to use to help fortify your branches along with early calcium supplementation to help the plant resist pests.

[Allenpro]

If the brix is over 8% bugs wont even see the plants.

[realhuuuman420]

Hello! I have come with an update and more need for advice. I done fucked it up again, or so it seems!

So. Right after I posted previously about the spider mites, I applied a mild alcohol solution. Not only it didn't work, but in the next 2 days, I have found 4-5 actual living spider mites.

Thus, I have chosen violence.

It was a bad choice.

First, I have removed most of the bottom leaves. They were almost touching the ground, were half-dead, and full of spider mites.

Then, I applied a soapy-solution in a spray. I needed something quick, and the only other things I had at my disposal were rubbing alcohol, and bleach. I later realized that the soap I applied was not exactly a mild one. Not only that... I put way too much of it in the water.

But this wasn't enough for me. I smelled spider mite blood in the air. So I decided to let the soap stay for a few minutes, then wash it off by spraying the plant again with alcohol solution, which I knew already wouldn't do any harm.

Except it did. I don't know if it was the soap, or if I put too much rubbing alcohol in the water. Or was it a chemical reaction caused by combining the two? No. Clue. All I know is that 10 hours later, the leaves that were heavily sprayed were..uhh.. how to put it mildly? Fucked up. Totally fucked up.

So I thought, okay, what is done is done. I've been checking for spider mites every day thoroughly since then. No webbing, no spider mites, and no signs of them either. Well, at least I got them fuckers, yea?

The damage was definitely done by one or both of the sprays, because the leaves kind of lost some color, and/or got burned, well, as if they were sprayed with acid. I figured it must have been too much alcohol. There was no change between 10 hours after spraying, and now, and it has been 10 days.

Until 3 days ago....I noticed leaves beginning to lose color. I didn't think too much of it, it was rather mild at first, but now, I am again in panic mode. A few of them are almost fully.. well, colorless? Not white or yellow, just.. losing color. Check the pics - they are from today. This discoloration was very mild only yesterday. It's progressing rapidly...

Please, good people of GWE, save me one more time. I am so close to harvest. Look at how beautiful those buds look like. Small, sure, but LOOK at them. My first baby. It can't just...die. Not like this.


Details:
watering: every 3-4 days, depending on weight, 1L of water (last 2 times only tap water)
feeding: every watering, except once, between 1-1.5ml of BioBizz Bloom. Last 2 feedings I started adding BioBizz TopMax 0.8ml.
pH of water going in: around 6.5. Last time was yesterday, and the pH seemed to be a bit too high. Could not get a reliable reading but could have been as high as 6.8.
Light was moved by another 5-ish centimeters closer yesterday. I moved it back up by 8cm right now, seeing the damage.
Temp: 29-31C. Stupidly hot here again.
rH: 40-60% (goes up to 65 after watering

Is this toxicity? Did I overfeed it? I mean I really gave it not even minimum, not even half of the recommended dose... actually more like 20% of the recommended. But it's small and stunted...

Or is this the damage from that soapy spray followed by the alcohol spray? Manifesting only after 9 days?

Is this some fungus or root rot? Did the spider fuckers return?

PS: if you see any visible strands of hair, that is cat hair. I try to remove it all the time but ... yeah, my cats shed a lot.
PS2: those little white dots on some bottom leaves are NOT from spider mites. That's the damage from those sprays - they appeared right the next day and stayed the same ever since.

Please, have mercy on me.

[Bluey]

Your plant will be ready soon. The yellowing of the bottom leaves is natural. If you want to turn them green again the best way is to use a green can of spray paint, but this will kill the plant.

Why did you wash the soapy water off the plant and the spider mites? It won't work if you wash it off.

Did the alcohol you use to wash off the soapy water drip into the soil? This is probably not good, although I havent tried it before.

Don't put anything on your buds. Ever!

Keep watering as per good watering practice. This will reduce as your plant approaches harvest time.

Your cats will continue to infest your plants with all wonderful types of pests unless you spray them also. Cats don't like being sprayed, so keep them out of the grow room.

[realhuuuman420]

I was under the impression that it kills the spiders on contact, and was paranoid that if i leave it on long, it might damage the leaves but thankfully, I was instinctively smart enough to not put any spray on the buds. Few drops may have ended up on the bottom ones, but the majority of the buds are untouched.

You are so correct, it is almost ready. I barely smelled anything until 3 days ago, but the scent is increasing exponentially every day. Now, the whole room stinks like hell. Because my fan is not powerful enough for my home-made carbon filter, I had to order a stronger exhaust fan urgently. I love the smell, but this is not stealthy!

The alcohol didn't really drip down, but the top layer of the soil was also lightly sprayed in an attempt to murder any surviving spider mites or eggs.

I just inspected the buds now and the trichomes seem to be... hmm... mostly cloudy actually. A very few are completely clear. Also, a lot of the pistils/hairs are curling and turning brown. These are all signs of harvest, right?

Should I wait until a few trichomes start turning brown-ish?

I cannot lock the kitties out of the room, unfortunately I will think about other solutions. Separating the grow area somehow from the rest of the room. May have to get really creative, but... yeah, it is what it is.

EDIT: Let me just emphasize that the pistils are way more curled in than they were yesterday when I took the photos. But I'm terrified of harvesting too early and having no potency. Guess I'll wait as long as possible.

[Rootsruler]

Lesson learned......more is not always better.

The problem with spider mites is they proliferate VERY quickly. The hotter the temps in the room the faster they proliferate.

You've beat this plant up so many times you need to name it Rocky. It takes a licking from you but keeps coming back!

[realhuuuman420]

Oh, tell me about it. I've learned so many lessons that the next plant will be..well, incomparable to this one. And yet, I love this one.

I'm naming it Speedy "Rocky" Gonzales. Despite everything, it looks like it's still gonna be ready for harvest before week 8... incredible. Just like the seed seller said. Or maybe it's because of the trauma and it just wants to die already )

[Bluey]

You're doing well. Give it a few more days minimum. Personally I'd wait until all turn cloudy, and then either harvest if in a hurry or wait a bit longer.

Soapy water doesn't exactly kill the insects. What it does is it dissolves their outer shell then they die and the dissolve bit takes some time...it won't hurt your plants all that much and they should recover in a day or two ready for another spray if they aren't all dead.

Some plants don't smell much at all and some come on strong only a few days prior to harvest, some for many weeks prior. I think it depends more so on genetics than environment.

[realhuuuman420]

I almost didn't believe I'll get to this part! Any secret tips or tricks for harvest and drying?

This one has been smelling for a few weeks, but only in the past two or three days the scent has completely filled the room up. Yummy! I think if it wasn't 1/15th of normal size, it would've been filling the room up weeks ago, and now it would be unbearable.

[Bluey]

Drying curing will depend on your environment as to how to go about it.

I use 60/60 to start with and go from there. I wet trim for that and 7 to 10 days typically does it.

[realhuuuman420]

Thanks for the advice, Bluey, everyone. Here's another question: the lowest leaves (the ones I've been panicking about losing color) are clawing up like insane. Like really curling up, and they look like they will die completely soon.

Should I remove these leaves? They are not really doing anything for the plant anymore, right? And are possibly just in the way?

I think drying for this one will be done within 3-5 days, given how tiny it is. Another question is, after the initial drying is complete, can I smoke a small sample before curing?

Also, how to tell that it's dry? Is the method of snapping some stems okay? As in, try to bend it and if it snaps, it's done/dried?

I've also installed a stronger exhaust fan today and a custom carbon filter. The smell is completely gone. Magic!

[realhuuuman420]

Thanks! Well I'm not aiming for anything, I will do what you recommend me to do and see how fast it dries. I'm just saying that with a plant of this size, I imagine it will be a whole lot faster than with actual full sized plants.

It is kind of hot and dry, so I will hang it upside down. How do I take it out of the soil? Just pull it out carefully?

Also, what do I do with all the trimmed stuff, leaves, etc.? Do leaves contain no thc at all? Should I save them up for rainy days, or to make oil/edibles with them?

Btw temps are quite high and I don't know how low can I keep them. Considering the light will be off, I am assuming I'll be able to keep temps down to 26C. But humidity is kind of an issue.

What are the worst outcomes from having humidity too low? I am worried I will not be able to check on it frequently enough, and might have periods of humidity being below 40%.

In other words, what should I absolutely do/avoid doing to not fuck it up in these last moments?

And finally, I noticed that a few of the trichomes (like 1 in 100) are turning brown, but the bud on the taller end of the plant still has more than 50% clear trichs. I'm waiting until more trichomes turn cloudy, and this seems to be coinciding with pistols curling and turning brown. Just saying - let me know if you see anything wrong with this approach.

The bottom buds are much less developed than the top ones - they started growing later as well and are very tiny. Should I worry about this? Should I wait until these are developed? I think that by that time, the main ones will start to degenerate and lose potency.

And, importantly, I have no way of checking humidity in a jar. My hygrometer is too big (duh). So I'll be just burping them twice a day and maybe try to squeeze a lil bit to see if it feels wet.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I know answers to most of what I'm asking, as I've spent months researching this beforehand. But, I also thought that I know how to water, and now the plant is stunted AF from overwatering. So I'm staying on the safe side and just assume I know nothing at all

[Rootsruler]

Yes to what Bluey said....

[Bluey]

The last two weeks of the grow 30% RH is fine. 40% is great at this stage.

Your harvest strategy is fine. I do that sometimes. Best you call when to harvest. Your top buds will be the most potent and largest so I'd harvest when they are where you want them. If you stagger the harvest you will run into a too fast dry situation which is the worst outcome in my mind so it's a compromise how you approach that.

You need to dry in a dark room out of any breeze. Just pull the plant out of the soil, remove the dirt, give the roots a rinse in a bucket of water and let roots drip dry and hang the whole thing upside down. Make sure buds are not touching anything including each other. Letting buds sit on a concrete floor is a big no no.

Hang some wet towels in the dry room or use a humidifier to raise humidity. Aim for 60% under normal circumstances but since you have such high temps you can go a little higher, just not too much otherwise bud rot becomes an issue. This will slow the dry down. Do you have a wine fridge? If so hang it in that at 16⁰C & 60% RH. You want minimal air movement, almost none You may want a sealed cupboard and stick a hygrometer in there and see what the plant can bring the humidity up to. I wouldn't go over 65% but I have dried in much higher humidity and not got bud rot but the dry took many weeks.

If your plant is looking healthy don't be in a rush to harvest.

[realhuuuman420]

Hello! How are we looking?

Approx. 10-15% of trichomes seem to be turning amber.
I think 50% or more are cloudy on the shorter cola, but most seem to be still clear on the taller cola? But maybe I don't know how cloudy trichomes look like...

Most of the hairs are now curled and I think more than 70% percent are brown.

Harvest tomorrow? Wait longer? Take it out ASAP?

Water? Last watering was 4 days ago, 750ml of pure water, nothing else, no nutes. Shall I give it one more watering?
rH now jumped up to almost 50% without a humidifier, interesting. Usually it stays hovering at 35% without a humidifier but now it went up by itself. So it's sweating, huh...

Attaching also a horrible pic of what my microscope sees.

[realhuuuman420]

Thanks, Bluey . Something in the middle I'd say? More sedation is not an issue, and neither is couch-lock. But I don't wanna go all the way there. As middle-of-the-road as possible.

What about the water though? No water anymore until harvest?

And, yeah, I'm planning on harvesting in 48-72 hours, the sooner the better, but at the same time, I'm not in a hurry.

[Rootsruler]

I say harvest now. If you're in the window and you have some trichs ambering then now would be good. Mostly so you can try it out but also so you can use everything you learned on this grow and improve your next one. Growing it longer isn't really going to change what you already have now.

Cut her down and learn to dry and cure with this plant while you setup(correctly) your next grow.

[realhuuuman420]

Thank you, Rootsruler ! I will harvest tomorrow, since I gave it a lil bit of final water yesterday.

Can't wait! Looks like I'm getting a few good buds out of it after all.

I am not cutting anything yet, as Bluey suggested to yank her out with roots and everything and dry her that way, considering it is quite hot where I am currently.

[realhuuuman420]

HARVEST !

Ladies and gentlemen, despite all the brutal violence I have done on this plant, thanks to all of your help, here we are!

The root system was surprisingly extensive and healthy. No root rot! I did not expect this. I expected a little root ball and that's it. Instead, I got a network that spans the entirety of the pot.

It was impossible to take out all of the roots. I just pulled it out, what you see on the pics is only the roots that remained intact.

And yeah, the plant had zero issues getting through the jiffy peat, which was one of my concerns in the beginning.

Let me know if you see anything wrong with the drying setup.. I mean, I just took out the pot and the light and hanged it there.
I have the small fan on lowest setting, pointed up, away from the plant. I read that a little airflow is good, so the air is not stale.

Exhaust fan is turned off and all the openings are closed.

I closed it and started the humidifier because I expected very little humidity. In 20 minutes, it shot up to 81% omg... I turned the humidifier down. It should gradually decrease, hopefully, and then I'll try to keep it at around 60%.

So exciting. It's tiny, but whatever the dry weight will be, it will give me a hell of a high hahah. Size matters, but it's not everything!

[realhuuuman420]

I did turn off the fan, as it was bringing rH down too quickly. Now I have a humidifier on a low setting, and it is barely keeping it up at 62%, so turning on the exhaust fan would likely bring down the humidity too much. I'm opening it fairly often to check the humidity, so there is some air flowing in and out, it's not always stale.

Remind me again, Bluey, how do I know when it's good to cut, trim, and put into a jar?

I almost said jars, plural, lol. I don't think I'll need multiple for this )

[Bluey]

What temps and RH do you have and is it moving up and down much?

When the lower branches snap but are still a fraction stringy is my signal to jar but I also put hygrometers in the jars and if it goes above 63% I burp more to dry a bit more.

If the buds are wet with resin I dry just a fraction more and aim for 58 to 60 just to be safer with mold.

[Rootsruler]

Just read your post. I agree with Bluey. Turn off the internal fan and turn your exhaust fan to a med low or low setting depending on where the RH lands.

[Rootsruler]

Turn on your exhaust fan. It'll help remove whatever moisture that the plant gives off in the dry sequence.

[realhuuuman420]

I tried to do that, it's not really possible. My exhaust fan is too strong for drying this little plant - or rather, the plant is too little. The exhaust creates way too much airflow and it sucks the air so much that the plant is dancing around like crazy. The humidity dropped by like 20% within MINUTES of me turning the exhaust fan on.

The temps are around 26-28C (it is fucking hot here again... cannot wait for the summer to end).
rH: by default, with everything off and closed, it's 40-45%. Humidifier on setting 2 - rH goes to 90% within 15 minutes. Setting 1 - rH goes up to 80% in around 30-35 min.

With my small fan pointed at the ground on lowest setting and the humidifier on setting 2(the high one), rH climbs up again very, very fast, plus although the airflow is minimal, it still makes the plant dance.

It's kind of impossible to balance this. I may have to just hang some wet towels around or something. I cannot set the humidifier on a timer, unfortunately - would be great to just have it turn on for 5 min every hour or so, but not an option.

But the problem is that overnight, rH drops down to 45%. I think that's way too low.. I really don't know what to do about it.

It's like, I can choose either 45% or 90%...

[Rootsruler]

What you can do is to use the timer you used to turn your grow lights on and off can now be utilized to turn your internal fan on and off. The exhaust fan can stay off.

As Bluey said, You want just a little air movement to move the moisture and gases away from the flowers. I would have it come on every hour for one or two minutes just to get a decent swirl of air going through the tent move the stale air.

Not sure what your exhaust fan setup is but you can do the same with that if you choose.

It'll take a second to dial in but it would offer the best environment for your dry/cure.

[realhuuuman420]

I think I have a problem. Have I overdried it already?

The smell is no longer that ultra potent cannabis smell. It now smells like old dried grassy weed. Is this something to be concerned about?

I do my best to keep the rH at 65%, but at night, it drops to 45% for a couple of hours before I wake up and adjust it again. It has been drying only for two days now.

I think also the volume has shrank a little bit, is this normal? It does not look as puffy as it looked while still in the soil.

Temps are somewhat stable at 25-27C. Thankfully, did not go over 27 despite the heatwave. Just the rH is problematic - I can keep it stable 60-65% during the day, but at least for 3-4 hours it drops down to 45 at night.

EDIT: Reading further about this, it seems like this hay-like smell is normal, and that the normal cannabis-like smell will return during curing.

Just to be clear: I could not care less about smell and taste on my first grow. I only care about potency. Things like smell or taste or harshness is a luxury I will care about when on my second, third, or fourth growth. I was just worried this might destroy the THC contents.

[Bluey]

You have wrecked it with uncontrolled appalling drying conditions.

The best grown weed in the world is worthless and disgusting to use if treated like that.

Drying and curing is probably 60% of a weeds outcome quality wise, maybe more.

Next time monitor your dry room and sort it out before you put your weed in it.

[Rootsruler]

Put your flowers in a jar and spritz the top with a couple sprays of water. This should rehydrate it somewhat but Bluey is correct. Drying and curing are where you separate the men from the boys.

You can also try to stick a piece of orange peel or lettuce and the moisture from both should also help in rehydrating your flower. When I was buying pillows of mexican weed in the early days it always came overdried. We would separate the pillow into pounds, deseed as best we could and wrap the turkey bag we had the pound in with leaf lettuce then bag the whole thing to keep the lettuce leaves touching the outside of the turkey bag. We'd leave it overnight and by morning the weed would be better hydrated and look better.

The best way I can illustrate the issue you have at hand is cooking. Add to much salt into your pot and you're fucked. Add a little and taste it and adjust is much better and easier to control the flavor. This is why SLOW dry is always recommended. Once you pass the point of no return its more about how much of it you can save. It's not a complete disaster but certainly a hard earned lesson.

[Bluey]

Since you are growing indoors you should be able to time your grow so conditions are more suitable to slow drying when the time comes to harvest. In other words ambient temps should be dropping as the plant goes into flower. Temps are key here and 25/26⁰C temps are too high for drying. It destroys the flavour and aroma.

Your issue with RH swinging wildly and quickly is because your dry room is very small for the humidifier you are using. You could offset this with a small AC that will temper the swings in humidity and bring temps down but it' can be difficult to control sometimes unless you have done it before and know how your dry room behaves with the different inputs.

[realhuuuman420]

So the suboptimal conditions were 'only' present for around a day, more or less. Afterwards, I found a much better way of keeping the humidity stable - hanging a wet towel inside brings it up to 70%, a little bit of air brings that down to 68%ish and then it takes more than 15 hours for it to drop down to 65 or less. Much, much easier to maintain. You're right, the humidifier that I have sucks.

The temnps are still 25-26, and yeah of course I should have timed it, and it wasn't the best idea to grow during peak summer heatwaves, but here we are.

Bluey Rootsruler should I now jar it up, like Root said, with an orange peel and a bit of sprayed water? Or keep it in the tent?

If the only thing destroyed is flavour and aroma, then that's great! Come on, beggars can't be choosers here. It's a learning experience, and this is just another lesson for me

[Rwise]

Even if the taste is gone, BROWNIES!

[Rootsruler]

Don't do both. Do one or the other. Orange peel trick would be my second choice. Th peels can bring mold into the jar if you leave it long enough. Better to try the spritz on the lid method.

[realhuuuman420]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an entire gram (or perhaps it is even 1.3? hard to tell, my kitchen scale does not see such small numbers. The whole thing including stems, roots, and a bit of string mmeasured at 3 grams, lol) of Speedy Rambo Gonzales!!!

Mixed in with some cat hair for flavor. sigh...

I would like to thank every one of you for helping me along this journey. It has been enlightening, to say the least. I will be planting my next seed in two weeks, and will inevitably make another post, as I'm bound to run into issues. Regardless, I've learned so much. Next one will be an absolute winner.

I will be curing it from now on with spritzing a tiny bit of water on the lid in an attempt to rehydrate it slightly.

But, after sampling a small amount already three times, I can say with confidence, this is the best weed I've ever had in terms of potency. In terms of smell and taste, yeah, it's like that third grade weed offered to you by a sus guy in a hoodie at a train station, or in a dark alley.

Thank you all, I cannot express how much I appreciate all the help I received here.