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"i try to play the ball not the opponent."--Roger Federer -
I'd guess the most important elements of a successful grow are...Originally posted by Flockshot View Post- Strong, direct light (whether it's from the sun or a grow light) - this directly powers the growth of buds. With weak light you'll have small yields and airy buds that lack potency
- Good root environment (air and water) - At it's most basic, the roots need constant access to both air and water for the best results. There's different ways to provide this environment. You can even grow with your roots hanging in the air with water being misted on them! (here's a picture). You can use soil or coco coir, or even grow your roots directly in water (with bubbles being made in the water to provide a source of oxygen). When it comes to picking a grow medium for cannabis, if you want the fastest growth you want to choose something that maximizes the water and air to your roots. That's why growers add things like perlite to their soil/coco, to make air pockets in the soil, or why they grow in fabric pots (lets air in from the sides). The less air the roots get, the slower the plant tends to grow. So when you have plants growing in relatively thick soil like pure composted soil without any perlite, the plants tend to grow slower than they would in an airy soil mix or hydro. That's always why plants that are overwatered/droopy grow slower - the plant isn't getting oxygen at the roots.
- Comfortable Temperature - Plants can't stand freezing or incredibly hot temperatures (though some strains are bred for cold climates, while some from hot regions can handle the heat)
- Nutrients - If you're growing in heavily amended soil, you may not need to add nutrients since they'll be there in the soil. However, once a plant is in a pot for a while, it uses up a lot of the nutrients. Generally if you're growing your plant in a container and you're not going to add extra nutrients, it's recommended to transplant your plants to fresh soil periodically during it's life, and especially right before flowering, to make sure your plant is getting what it needs. However, for the fastest growth you can give nutrients to your plants directly in the water. This gives it the right ratios in the most easily absorbable form, so you don't have to worry about running out. You don't even need supplements to get really high quality bud. Base nutrients is all you need to get to harvest with amazing results. The main thing about nutrients is your plants need lots of Nitrogen (N) in the vegetative stage (any all-purpose plant nutrients will do the trick) and then it needs high levels of Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) in the flowering stage (Flowering Nutrients, Cactus Nutrients or Bloom Boosters provide lots of P and K).
- Seeds/Clones - Obviously you need a cannabis plant
I personally feel like growing in something like coco coir under a small HID light like a 250W MH/HPS or 315 LEC is one of the best ways to ensure good results the first grow if you're just looking to grow 4-7 ounces.
The reason is that those lights are incredibly efficient and easy to understand how to use. With fluorescents like CFLs and T5s, the yields are relatively low for the electricity used, and with LEDs it can be really tough to get the light distance "dialed in." It just adds a lot of variables that make it easy to burn your plants. I like how with the small HID lights you just keep the light about a foot away from the tops of your plants and forget about it, yet you still get those really dense and potent HID buds because of the light intensity. The small HID lights also don't put out a whole lot of heat, so you don't usually need to worry about an exhaust system unless you're growing in a very small space without ventilation. A 250W HPS puts out about the same total amount of total heat as an LED that pulls 250W of electricity out of the wall.
Coco coir offers a great root environment with beautiful water-holding and drainage ability, so you get above average vegetative growth rates. Any hydro or coco nutrients made for cannabis will do a great job. Growing with coco coir will also teach you about pH and overall get you really familiar with the cannabis plant's nutrient needs. By the end of a coco coir and small HID grow, you'll have learned 80% of what you need to know about growing in either soil or hydro if you choose to do that down the road. You'll also have a good base knowledge if you wanted to move onto bigger grows!
So what does a grower need? A grower needs to make a good environment for their plants with decent temperatures, bright light, and happy roots. Even if you don't do anything else, you'll be able to make it to harvest with really high quality bud if you just do those things
The last incredibly important thing is to always dry your buds slowly and cure them after harvest! A lot of growers skip those steps, but they are necessary to get buds with the best smell, smoothness and potency. If you just smoke buds directly off the plant it will taste horrible, give you a headache, hurt your throat and possibly not even really be potent! The dry/cure will dramatically increase the overall quality and appearance of your buds!Comment
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Three thingsOriginally posted by kingfish View Post- Light - and a lot of it! This may be the most important part. Your buds need direct exposure to bright light or they won't grow. However on the flip side, too much light will burn your buds so more is better, but only up to a point!
- Strain - choose a high-yielding, dense strain. Some strains, like many Sativas and Hazes, will never grow dense buds no matter what you do! Trying to get dense buds with the wrong strain can be a lesson in futility.
- Dry/Cure - Buds tighten up during the dry/cure process (plus it makes them smell better, smoke better and feel more potent!)
Other than that, I think the main focus is keeping plants healthy and keeping the temperature down in the flowering stage (very high temps can cause loose buds and burn away potency/smell). Give plenty of light but avoid light burn. Not really related to adding density, but if you have dense buds you NEED to make sure you keep the humidity under 50% RH to prevent the chance of bud rot
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That's a good question! When people say 24/7 they just mean 24/0. It's not a special light schedule. They're just using that saying about "24/7" meaning "all the time"Originally posted by bobsakamoto View Post
Yes, it's true that a plant that appears female at first may end up being a hermie. However, the tendency to herm is caused by a plant's genes. The idea is that if you use good genetics, every plant should be either fully male or fully female. In the breeding world, one of the most important aspects of breeding is that you should always throw away a natural hermie, and NEVER breed with it, because you can't create sinsemilla (buds without seeds) any time you have plants growing both male and female flowers. So with a good breeder, all your seeds will be just one gender because the tendency to herm has been bred out.Originally posted by bobsakamoto View Post
So I think most people assume that if they started with seeds from a trustworthy breeder, that if the plant appears female at first that it will continue to be female. The seeds you need to watch out for the most are seeds you find in your bud that isn't supposed to have seeds. If the bud has seeds it means that either a male plant was in the grow room, or a hermie was. Most growers know to remove males, so there's a strong chance that bag seeds were pollinated by a hermie. If you grow bag seeds and every one appears to be a female, you can pretty safely assume that a female plant pollinated another female plant, which means that these seeds have the tendency to herm in their genes. So it doesn't definitely mean they'll herm themselves, but it adds evidence that they might since at least one of their parents did.
But like you said, even if you believe a plant is "safely" female, it still may herm naturally or especially in response to stress. In fact, almost any female cannabis plant will put out some pollen sacs or bananas if you stress it enough in the flowering stage, or if you let it go on for several weeks beyond when it should be harvested. It's an emergency response by the plant to make seeds in a really bad situation, known as rhodelization.
But good seeds should never herm in regular conditions, because they have been bred not to
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I personally think dry ice hash is the best extraction method, and I'll tell you why.Originally posted by Vapo69 View Post- It's cheap and safe - all you need are bubble bags and a few pounds of dry ice (find a local source here)
- Best yields - probably the best yields of any home extraction method.
- It's easy - you put the cannabis and dry ice together into a bag, and just shake it. The hash falls right out the bottom.
However, the downside is that if you want to get the biggest yields from this, you will end up with some green matter in your final result. I personally like having a little green in there, because it adds extra smell/taste to the hash, and I think it makes the potency and effects more complex. However, some people consider green-tinted hash as less "pure". if you want to get the really, really pure hash that comes out golden, you can do it with dry ice hash by using the finest mesh bag from the Bubble Bag kit, but you'll end up with lower overall yields.
I've tried making bubble hash/ice water hash, and although the quality of the result was good, I got much lower yields than with the dry ice method. I also didn't like how you have to dry the hash afterwards. One time I lost a whole gram of ice water hash to mold because I didn't realize it wasn't completely dry when I packed it away
With dry ice hash your product is immediately ready to use, or you can press it if you want a solid block, but you never need to worry about mold.
I'm too afraid to make hash using chemicals and solvents, but here's the ones I know of:- BHO (Butane Hash Oil). Not only is it dangerous to make, I also read a study about how a private group tested the BHO up and down the California coast and in Denver, Colorado. They found that 99% of the BHO samples they tested had significant amounts of butane left, and some had dangerous levels. I wasn't surprised because BHO often has a chemical taste to me. Since I read that I've never smoked BHO again!
- CO2 extractions seems to be much healthier for you, so it's good to buy at the store, but it needs really expensive equipment so it's not a good choice for home.
- The other main "class" of solvent hashes that I know of are the alcohol based ones like QWISO (Quick-Wash ISOpropyl) or RSO (Rick Simpson oil). In these cases you basically soak cannabis in alcohol, since the THC and other cannabinoids will bind to the alcohol, then strain away all the inert plant matter. So you are left with an alcohol-hash mix. Then you evaporate the alcohol, and what's left is hash. However, with the alcohol methods, the resulting hash usually isn't all that great for smoking.
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NebulaHaze, what micron bag do you typically use for the dry ice hash?
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Outdoors, growers count from when they first see flowers forming. The hard part is deciding when that is. A plant will start showing pre-flowers when it's 3-6 weeks from seed, even if it's still in the vegetative stage, so you can't just count from the time when preflowers appear. You have to count after the buds start forming, after you've got more than a few pistils per joint.Originally posted by LuckyAcres View Post
I think indoor growers tend to count from 12/12 because it is an exact date, as opposed to when it "seems" like the plant is flowering. I think it helps give people more precise comparisons. If I'm growing White Rhino strain, for example, it's more precise to say "9 weeks from 12/12" than "~7 weeks from when you first start seeing flowers." Trying to judge the beginning of the flowering stage is a lot more subjective than an exact day count.
I have noticed that breeders tend to give flowering times that are about 2 weeks too short for most strains. Breeders say it is because they're counting from the beginning of flowering, as opposed to the flip to 12/12. That may be part of it, but I personally think they choose to do it that way because seeds sell better if they are listed with a shorter flowering stage! I used to work in retail, and it reminds me vanity sizing. Vanity sizing is the idea that if I'm a Size 10 but I find a pair of jeans that fit me but the tag says Size 8, statistically I'm a lot more likely to buy the pants because it says that I'm smaller, even though my actual size is unchanged. In the same way I feel like breeders tend to estimate that their plants will be ready to harvest sooner than they actually will be, because everyone wants to get to harvest as soon as possible!Comment
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Unfortunately our plants are made up of about 80-90% water. Just like how humans are mostly made of water. There's no way to be able to lose the water and still keep the water weight. If you want to dry your buds out enough to be able to cure and smoke them, unfortunately you need to accept they'll lose 70-80% of their weight after drying. Because of that, I never weigh my buds until after they've dried! If you want to reduce the difference between the "wet weight" and the "dry weight" you could stop watering your plants for a few days before harvest, but ultimately that doesn't increase your final yield at all, and if anything you want to slow down the drying process in most cases, as opposed to speed it up by reducing the water levels ahead of time.Originally posted by PaganRich View Post
Hmmm, that's something I'm not an expert on, so definitely take anything I saw with a grain of salt! I hope one of the organic growers might chime in! However, I don't see any problem with alternating just off the top of my head. It seems like that's a good way to make sure you soil gets a good amount of bothOriginally posted by PaganRich View Post2) Is it advantageous to alternate between bacterial and fungal teas when watering organically in soil instead of just one or other depending on where you are in the grow? Thank you Fungi and bacteria work together in the soil, so I don't think it would hurt to give them together, either. If in doubt, it's always a good idea to contact the company that made the supplements. They will be experts on how to use their products for the best results. I've found that every nutrient company I've ever contacted has gotten back to me within a few days if I email them from the website
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This is a little late chiming in but Big Foot Gold contains several beneficial microbial strains on top of endomycorrhizae. When it comes to fungus though I generally worry about establishment early on as the mycorrhizae should flourish alongside the root system naturally so long as conditions are correct. You could always brew your tea and add in a fungal inoculant to the dilution immediately before use as well.
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Is there some form of reference schedule or table or guide as to what levels of ppms or EC are optimal for each stage of growth? Preferably week-by-week. And also recommending/estimating both the EC/ppms going in to the plant and the EC/ppms going out of the plant.
I'm asking as a soil grower, but others might prefer knowing specifically for hydroponics.
It seems the topics of plant nutes and feeding is a lot more complex than most of us beginners understand, and it's not simply a matter of mixing nutes and adding them in every week. It's a delicate matter i've been led to believe.Originally posted by 420n808
If you are new to growing, the first time you see the balls, you'll never forget the sight. You will know M-F from that point on.
Oh my days, now that this has happened to me... SO TRUE!!!Comment
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Oooh, this is a great question! So here's the thing. You need base nutrients, and that's it. You can get all the way to harvest with the most amazing and top-quality buds ever, with even the cheapest base nutrients and nothing else.Originally posted by BuddMarsh View Post
However, obviously it's more complicated than just that.
One thing I'll say, and when you talk to growers who have tried a lot of different nutrient lines, you'll often hear this: Your environment has a MUCH bigger effect on your final results than the specific nutrient system or supplements. When I've tried different nutrients brands, I've had a really difficult time telling the difference. A lot of growers will tell you the same thing.
The biggest difference I've noticed has been between nutrients that use mineral sources of nutrients vs organic sources. I feel like in my experience, the mineral nutrients tend to get slightly faster vegetative growth and increased potency, while the organic nutrients tend to produce buds with a stronger/more complex smell. But the difference is relatively small and you can definitely still get really smelly buds with mineral nutrients, and you can get really potent buds with organic nutrients!
Besides nutrients, there are some supplements that have a well-established use:- Root supplement - something that protects your roots like Hydroguard is really important if growing in hydroponics to prevent your roots from being attacked by root rot. But if your plants aren't being attacked by root rot, it doesn't really make much difference
- Cal-Mag supplement - if you're growing in coco coir, or if using very soft water like reverse osmosis or distilled water, you'll need to add extra Cal-Mag to prevent Calcium and Magnesium deficiencies. However, if your plant doesn't need Cal-Mag, it won't make much difference.
- Silica supplement - Silica is often found abundantly in water, but if you don't have a lot of silica in your water, your plant's cell walls aren't as strong. As a result, if your plant is low on silica, it has weaker stems and is more susceptible to heat stress. However, like the others, adding silica when you don't need it doesn't make a difference
- PK Boosters & Shooting Powders - These add high levels of P & K. If you're not giving your plants specially made flowering nutrients, they need another source of extra P and K. So for example if someone is growing in soil without adding nutrients, a PK booster is perfect for the flowering stage to make up for what the plant has used up in the soil.
Then you've got supplements that don't necessarily "fix" a problem, but "enhance."- Sugar and Carbohydrate based supplements - These claim to increase potency, and appear to increase bulk. However, I'm not 100% certain they add anything but sugar to the bulk, because if a grower uses a lot of these types of supplements the plant can start oozing sugar sap. If you taste the sap, it's sweet and not potent at all. So I almost wonder if that extra "weight" is just sugar being stored in the buds and doesn't necessarily add to the potency.
- Other Enhancers - Then there are the more nebulous types of supplements which are meant to give overall improvements. For example supplements with Amino Acids, Vitamins and other non-essential plant compounds. These are a lot harder to measure the results. I'm sure some of them do what they say, while others are basically snake oil. It's a lot harder to prove one way of the other with these, because it's difficult to test unless you do a big side-by-side controlled experiment with a bunch of plants. And unfortunately, the industry just hasn't quite reached that point yet!
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My biggest question is a bit of a though one. I wanna know the DNA make up of each cell that suports the color transfermation of the different colors. Long story short how to make buds turn blue purple pink orange ect... there has to be a chemicle compound in the celluar lever that recates to diffent chemicles to turn the buds color. I know there's chemicles out there like purplemaxx that turn parts of ur buds purple I have used it but I wanna know what chemicles make what colors in the buds and why they produce that color.Comment
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those things are in the realm of genetics, just like with people, you wont get black kids from Caucasian parents, but if one of them is black it may pass on the genes, same with plants, you would need to breed with a purple of pink plant to find the offspring that got those traits. im no expert and im sure nebula will explain better but i wanted to share what i understand
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Honestly, I feel like it really is a matter of mixing nutrients every week according to your nutrient schedule, then just watching how the plants react. If you're using good nutrients, then generally any adjustment is just a matter of increasing or decreasing the dose (adding more or less water overall) as opposed to any other sort of fine tuning.Originally posted by GreenArmadillo View Post
The PPM is a good way to sort of keep an eye on the overall "strength" of the nutrients in your water, and to compare against yourself over time, but it's not comparing apples to apples with other growers.
Here's all the things that can affect PPM numbers:- Each plant is different, and some want more nutrients than others.
- It's better to react to the plant than to a number. If it seems like the plant is getting pale all over and especially near the bottom, then it's a good sign it needs higher levels of nutrients overall. If you see tip burn and/or dark green leaves it means you've hit the max the plant can use. It's better to listen to what the plant wants than aim for a specific number.
- PH is much more important than PPM.The biggest contributor to nutrient deficiencies is the pH being too high or too low. At the incorrect pH, your nutrients take on a different chemical form that's difficult for plant roots to absorb. As long as you're using a decent cannabis nutrient system, paying attention to pH is FAR more important than paying attention to PPM when it comes to preventing nutrient deficiencies.
- Each nutrient system has different optimal PPM levels, and some are "stronger" and easier to burn your plants with. Chemical (mineral-based) nutrients in particular burn a lot more easily than organic nutrients. Imagine if water just had a bunch of inert dirt in it, it could have 2000 PPM and would have almost no nutrients in it, but 400 PPM of chemical nutrients could be enough to burn and kill your plant (since it's so easy to absorb the plant would take it all up at once).
- Different mediums hold onto nutrients differently. Heavy soil holds onto nutrients very well and need overall lower levels of nutrients, while nutrients drain away easily in light soils.
- Every person's starting water is different. Your water could start with basically 0 PPM (Reverse Osmosis water) or 300 PPM (like my terrible tap water), which affects how the plant absorbs nutrients and what the final PPM should be.
- Environment plays a big role in nutrient uptake. For example, plants need lower PPMs when it's hot or dry and they're drinking a lot
- Different TDS meters measure PPM differently. To make things even more confusing, different types of TDS meters measure PPMs differently, and won't match with each other. You could measure the same water with two different meters, and get two different results. They'll be consistent against themselves, but not against each other.
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Thank you for such a detailed answer. It's lovely to see you simplify the matter as opposed to complicating it.
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it though, cause my plants are definitely showing me signs that something is wrong, and my pH in and out is on point. The only thing "off" is my run-off ppm readings which are waaaaaay above 1000 ppms. I had run-off ppms as high as 5000 two weeks ago.
It makes me think there is a complex form of problem going on with my plants, maybe causing lockout or root damage, preventing them from being in optimal form, and showing up as a plethora of leaf symptoms (dry, crispy, beige leaves/little brown spots at the leaf tips/dying leaves falling off/inside pattern of leaves turning pale green/leaves not happily reaching up).
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Measuring PPMs in Hydro
This is how I do PPMS in hydro if anyone is interested- Mix nutrients according to schedule at half strength and adjust the pH (most nutrient companies give way too high levels of nutrients for a plant like cannabis, but their ratios are good)
- Check the PPM and then give the water to the plant.
- Pay attention to the plant to determine if PPM needs to be adjusted. At that point I can use the PPM measurement as a reference to see how the plant responds.
- If plant is getting overall pale or lime green over time, I know it needs increased PPMs
- If plant is getting tip burn on the leaves, or the leaves are getting dark green, I know it needs lower PPMs
- Maintain PPM of the reservoir. If the PPMs of the reservoir are dropping as the plant drinks, it means I should be topping off with nutrient water to replenish the nutrients to keep it at the "correct" PPM. If the PPMs are climbing as the plant drinks, I know I should only top off with plain water to lower the PPMs.
- Next time I mix up nutrients, I'll make it stronger or weaker as needed. So maybe the plant got nutrient burn when I gave it nutrients at half strength. I'll mix my next set of nutrients at 40% strength according to the schedule. Then I'll measure the PPMs and that will be my new "base" number to compare to. I've found that optimal PPM numbers change over the plant's life, but I don't worry about that. At least for me, every time it's about measuring the nutrients out according to the schedule, then seeing what the PPM is. Not the other way around of trying to aim for a specific PPM.
With GH nutrients, you can mix up nutrient water up to two weeks ahead of time. So I'll usually mix up a jug of full-strength nutrients (stronger than what I would normally give the plant) and another jug of pH'ed plain water. I use these to top off the plant, so I can use them to raise or lower the PPM as needed. However, when PPMs get used up, the plant isn't taking everything equally. It's taking more of some nutrients than others. So over time the nutrient ratios get messed up even if the PPM measurement is staying the same.
I've found that in the vegetative stage, you can go weeks without a full reservoir change if you follow that method of topping off. However, I've found that in the flowering stage you really have to completely change the reservoir once every week or two even if you're topping off that way to keep the ratios just right. Cannabis plants seem to be a lot more finicky about nutrients and pH in the flowering stage.
Each time I mix water, I forget about the PPM from before because that was from a different part of the plant's life. So from the above example, I know that half-strength nutrients was too weak. I'll measure the next set of nutrients (from the schedule for this week of the plant's life) at 3/4 strength. Say I measure the PPM and it's 670 PPM. Now that's my new "base" number and I compare my new observations from that until the next reservoir change. You'll notice that at different points in the schedule, your PPMs will be different after nutrients are measured out.
In Summary:
Basically I let the nutrient company determine the ratios, and the plants determine the strength. The PPMs are just a way to help measure the "strength" as experienced by the plant.Comment
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To add to what 9fingerleafs said, we know of a few things that helps bring out colors (like warm days & cool nights), but as of yet the main way growers get plants to turn colors is to grow specific strains that have been bred to grow colorful buds. I actually recently wrote an article about how to grow pink or purple buds if you're interestedOriginally posted by tyler_ hobbyist View Post
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I'm very interested in that thank u nebula
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I do understand u need genetics but correct me if I'm wrong but don't all weed plants have Anthocyanins and different pigments in there plant cells to some degree? Thats why I think it must be possible somehow through chemical reaction to change colors of the plants. I'm very interested in this topic thank you for your answers
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