Indoor Jack Herer: First time grow

[Rapha El]

The first post is always the most awkward.. so: "Heeeyy"
I found this board a few days ago and yesterday decided that I wanted to be here too. I've got experience with plants in general (I grow tiny trees and cross breed peppers for fun) but this is my first venture into this area.

At the beginning of the month I germinated and dropped a Jack Herer seed into my 20 Liter fabric pot which is conveniently located inside a 3x3x6ft / 1x1x1.8m tent illuminated by a Mars Hydro 400. Of course Jack wasn't to feel left alone in this big empty tent so I moved the best of my current Pepper generation in aswell. A fan, dehumidifier, heater or other I have not in the tent but the air is fully replaced every 30 seconds. I do pay heed for the temperatures to stay between 83f/28c and 70f/21c at a relative Humidity of 50% at 79f/26c.

Jack's living arrangements may be sounding a little unorthodox to most of you when I tell you he lives in pure coco I have sifted out the bigger particulates (those I use to plant the peppers in). Additionally I don't wait for the substrate to dry out at least a little bit. Every 3 days I water with (currently) half a galon(2 Liters) of full stength run of the mill garden center nutrients. I know this all sounds highly unusual and destined for Failure.

I suppose if ever, now is the time to compound that with the lighting. From seed until day 18 my light was about a foot (30cm) away from the plant and on full spectrum. On day 16 I topped it and switched to a blue spectrum while moving the light 2 foot away(60cm). Day 16 only because that's when my beloved Jack started to grow into his first 7set of leaves. During early development (into the 5set) I pony tailed a little to give the lower shoots move light(unfortunately that kinda bent a few leaves out of shape).

The Images are taken under the blue/red light of the LED and color corrected a bit in photoshop. Here is Jack at day 18:

Jack and his Friends

JackaBoy

Up close and personal

The Fertilizers I use are just 2 kinds you can find at any garden center for 5 bucks, here are their Profiles:
Green:

• [N] 10%
  • 2.5% Ammonium
  • 2.5% Nitrate
  • 5% Carbamid

• [P2O5] 4%
• [K20] 6%
• [ B ] 0,01%
• [Ch] 0,002%
• [Fe] 0,02%
• [Mn] 0.01%
• [Mo] 0.001%
• [Zn] 0,002%

Brown:

• [N] 4%
  • 4% Bird Guano by vol. w/EDTA
  • 2.8% Ammonium
  • 1.2% Nitrate
• [P2O5] 5%
• [K2O] 6%
• [ B ] 0.01%
• [Fe] 0.02%
• [Mn] 0.01%
• [Mo] 0.001%
• [ S ] 2%

In seedling stage (first week) I watered twice, 2 liters each time, with 1ml/L of green. During Veg I water every 3 days 2L alternating between 2ml/L of Green and 5ml/L of Brown. The PH I'm eyeballing around 5.5-6.2.

I'd love to know what you think.
-Druid

 

[9bear]

The first post is always the most awkward.. so: "Heeeyy"
I found this board a few days ago and yesterday decided that I wanted to be here too. I've got experience with plants in general (I grow tiny trees and cross breed peppers for fun) but this is my first venture into this area.

At the beginning of the month I germinated and dropped a Jack Herer seed into my 20 Liter fabric pot which is conveniently located inside a 3x3x6ft / 1x1x1.8m tent illuminated by a Mars Hydro 400. Of course Jack wasn't to feel left alone in this big empty tent so I moved the best of my current Pepper generation in aswell. A fan, dehumidifier, heater or other I have not in the tent but the air is fully replaced every 30 seconds. I do pay heed for the temperatures to stay between 83f/28c and 70f/21c at a relative Humidity of 50% at 79f/26c.

Jack's living arrangements may be sounding a little unorthodox to most of you when I tell you he lives in pure coco I have sifted out the bigger particulates (those I use to plant the peppers in). Additionally I don't wait for the substrate to dry out at least a little bit. Every 3 days I water with (currently) half a galon(2 Liters) of full stength run of the mill garden center nutrients. I know this all sounds highly unusual and destined for Failure.

I suppose if ever, now is the time to compound that with the lighting. From seed until day 18 my light was about a foot (30cm) away from the plant and on full spectrum. On day 16 I topped it and switched to a blue spectrum while moving the light 2 foot away(60cm). Day 16 only because that's when my beloved Jack started to grow into his first 7set of leaves. During early development (into the 5set) I pony tailed a little to give the lower shoots move light(unfortunately that kinda bent a few leaves out of shape).

The Images are taken under the blue/red light of the LED and color corrected a bit in photoshop. Here is Jack at day 18:

Jack and his Friends
View attachment 647723

JackaBoy
View attachment 647724

Up close and personal
View attachment 647725

The Fertilizers I use are just 2 kinds you can find at any garden center for 5 bucks, here are their Profiles:
Green:

• [N] 10%
  • 2.5% Ammonium
  • 2.5% Nitrate
  • 5% Carbamid

• [P2O5] 4%
• [K20] 6%
• [ B ] 0,01%
• [Ch] 0,002%
• [Fe] 0,02%
• [Mn] 0.01%
• [Mo] 0.001%
• [Zn] 0,002%

Brown:

• [N] 4%
  • 4% Bird Guano by vol. w/EDTA
  • 2.8% Ammonium
  • 1.2% Nitrate
• [P2O5] 5%
• [K2O] 6%
• [ B ] 0.01%
• [Fe] 0.02%
• [Mn] 0.01%
• [Mo] 0.001%
• [ S ] 2%

In seedling stage (first week) I watered twice, 2 liters each time, with 1ml/L of green. During Veg I water every 3 days 2L alternating between 2ml/L of Green and 5ml/L of Brown. The PH I'm eyeballing around 5.5-6.2.

I'd love to know what you think.
-Druid

Welcome aboard Druid
I'm sure you'll find the accomadation quite suitable . Lots of great people here to help if needed but looking at your background and your plants I 'd say every thing looks more than adaquate . In my humble opinion .

 

[Rapha El]

Thank you
yeah the lovely Jack looks to be about on track, which does make me happy for sure. So at the very least my first grow won't be completely rubbish.
I've already read about 200 pages of grow journals on here so suitable would be a good descriptor

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

hi and welcome
sounds like you know your onions,canna should be wee buns to you.

 

[Rapha El]

hi and welcome
sounds like you know your onions,canna should be wee buns to you.

Ooooh I hope so.. because.. well.. I kinda just ate some of my fan leaves. Don't misunderstand me, I used them as seasoning on some mushroom ravioli and didn't like munch em straight off the plant.

Why oh god would I do such a weird thing? I had the light really close the first 2 weeks so the first 3 nodes stacked really close (statically more stable for the branches). Unfortunately that also meant the 5set fan leaves were not just occluding but also obstructing the growth of the shoots below and I had to take them off. The 3set below and 7set at the topped apex I have left on of course.
I'll provide some pictures of my madness tomorrow.

 

[Rapha El]

As promised here are today's photos. I manually added some depth of field to make the object of our desires pop a little more. So here is Day 19

Orbiting shot

The ufo is overhead

Approaching the landing zone

Setting down

We landed in the shrubbery

Let me know what you think

 

[Rapha El]

It's a girl

On day 20 Jack is measuring in at 6"/15cm.
Since it was another feeding day and I wanted to explore the limits of how far I can push these lovely plants I fed 3L of this solution (teaspoon of magnesium sulphate & 25ml of green on 5L of tap water). That's an increase of 250% in nutrients.

Today's photos were taken under some proper lights.

 

[Rapha El]

Day 21, yesterday after feeding the massively higher concentration of nutrients I increased the room temperature by 1.5°c and lowered the lights to a distance of 1 1/2ft / 45cm. This morning I fed another quart/liter of the same strength nutrient solution. So far there are no adverse effect to be observed except for a slight curling in some leaves. This could be because of the massive growth spurt though (compare img 3 of day 20 with img 1 of today). The 7set fan leaves were tucked below the topmost branches.
I'll continue with this strength solution at 1 quart/liter per day for the next week or until I spot a negative reaction.

Edit: Pure coco in this particulate size compacts at too high a rate to remain effective throughout the growth, next round I'll use a substrate of 60% backed clay pellets of 4mm size and a coarser coco batch. This will decrease the required feeding interval but lower the volume while allowing better airation.

 

[Rapha El]

Day22: Yesterday evening I removed the topmost 7set so as to let more light down to the small growth. Unfortunately I also went for some LST which turned out not so low in stress. Aaaand I snapped a branch. Luckily it seems to be doing well enough in the water now.
I gave another quart/liter of the high strength nutrient solution and have yet to see any burning or lockout symptoms. This morning I readjusted the like 2'/5cm upwards to stay at 18'/45cm and switched it from full into blue spectrum to get some stretch.

My little one looks so small now

 

[Rapha El]

Day 23: I estimate around 3 more days until it reaches it's former dimensions at the current rate of growth. I'm trying to keep the RH between 40 and 50 so it does take up more water but with all the other plants in the room and tent that's not all that easy.

I'm also looking into ways of trans-planting using sts.. unfortunately there's a lot of fuzzy information out there when it comes to concentrations but I think the recipe below should do the trick.

Is anybody actually reading these?