New Grower First Grow in 10 Years (Coco/Perlite, Mephisto Genetics)

[Cooterjuice]

I think I'd move that light up a bit. Maybe 16 inches? 12-18 inches is your range I believe but 12" seems awful close for young plants

 

[Frank_Spencer]

Day 6:
Temp: 82f / 27.7c
RH: 70%

I added about a half an inch of coco on top as per the suggestion by @Frank_Spencer and the plants are now perfectly upright. The leaves are continuing to grow and I haven't noticed any more stretching.
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Day 7:
Temp: 81f/27.2c
RH: 67%

Still no more stretching, but one of the seedlings looks as if she is just starting to curl/canoe a little. I don't think it's heat related since the temp at the top of the plants is only 81f. The light is a 400w MH and it's 12 inches away in an air-cooled hood. I did have a small 6" fan blowing gently on them. It doesn't oscillate, so I'm thinking too much wind. I'll buy an oscillating one today.
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I know I'm just being overly paranoid about my babies, but I'll feel much better once they make it past the seedling stage.

Yeah still get like that about my young ones

 

[JSH1973]

If your tap water is crap have you looked into using Ecothrive Neutralise?

 

[Kazman420]

I think I'd move that light up a bit. Maybe 16 inches? 12-18 inches is your range I believe but 12" seems awful close for young plants

Just moved them up to 16. I initially had them way too high and both girls got really stretchy, to the point where they were falling over and I had to add more coco. So naturally I'm totally paranoid about that happening again! Typical new grower stuff, hehe.

If your tap water is crap have you looked into using Ecothrive Neutralise?

That stuff looks interesting, thanks for letting me know about it!

 

[Kazman420]

Day 9:
Temp: 90f / 32.2c
RH: 55%
Light Distance: 16"

I had a little scare on Day 8. I noticed a few individual strands of spider webs on my babies. Then I noticed a few black specks on the underside of the leaves. I didn't see any actual mites, but I was looking with my naked eye. Being only a week into the grow I was kinda devastated. I bought one of those Hot Shot No Pest strips and some Neem oil. I put the pest strip between the two plants and turned off all the fans in the room. This brought the temperature up to 90f and dropped the RH down to 55%, but 24 hours later and no new webs have appeared. I've turned the exhaust and other fans back on and I'm going to leave the Hot Shot strip there for a few more days. Just until any eggs would have a chance to hatch and die. I know those things are controversial but I figure using it for only a few days this early into the grow should be fine.

I've been using 1ml of Silica per Gallon and the stems are strengthening up nicely. Both girls no longer have any problems supporting their own weight. I did noticed one of the them has developed an interesting little "curl" on one of her leaves. Maybe it was too much heat or wind or something when it was forming? I doubt it's a cause for concern, but I figure it couldn't hurt to show everybody a picture of it.

I need to start playing around with better ways to take pictures on my phone. Starting to think that just using 'auto' mode isn't going to cut it.

 

[MassMom]

I think you are doing super! Talk about a paranoid, over-watering, over-bearing, over-worrying cannabis parent...thats me!

 

[Kazman420]

Day 12:
Temp: 82f / 27.77c
RH: 62%
Light Distance: 15"

It looks like I caught the spider problem early enough. Haven't seen any new webs since putting down that No Pest Strip.

One of the girls is doing great, but the smaller one with the curled leaves is having some issues. I think it was either having the light too close or having the fan directly on her but she looks pretty stressed. There is a little bit of new growth appearing, but not much. I also noticed one of the fan leaves on the 3rd node has a mutation. It only grew 4 fingers instead of 5. (Or maybe stress can do that, not sure). I'll keep doing what I can do give her the best chance, but I suspect the damage was done during those first few days.

Tomorrow I'm going to look at increasing their nutes. I'm following a GH Flora Series schedule that was designed for coco, but the PPM of my runoff was 160 and it was 350 going in! If I'm understanding correctly that means my girls are very hungry. But I'm also hesitant to start changing things because I know new growers have a tendency to overdo it.

 

[Kazman420]

Day 18:
Room Temp: 82f / 27.77c
Leaf Temp: 78f / 25.55c
RH: 60%
Light Distance: 16"


The smaller/sickly plant (Skywalker) is still alive and putting out new growth. I don't know if there was damage done to the roots, but all of her leaves are canoeing and have burnt tips. There's also weird mutations going on. I see leaves with 4 and 6 fingers. There is also something odd going on with her stalk. The second to last node has split in a weird way, almost like it's becoming a tri-top. (See pictures). Hopefully things don't take a turn for the worse.



The larger plant (Forum Stomper) definitely had signs of a Magnesium deficiency, but this was likely because I didn't use any CalMag the first week. I also forgot to buffer my coco, but I've been told that bricks of Canna Coco Professional Plus are pre-buffered so maybe I lucked out with that. I've been adding 5ml per Gallon of CalMag for over a week now and I'm keeping a close eye on the new growth. It's so hard not to try and 'over' fix these things as a new grower. I just have to remember that "less is more" and the plants will tell me what they need, hehe. I think the slight curling on the larger plant is because my oscillating fan is to close. I need to adjust it.

 

[Kazman420]

Day 21:
Room Temp: 80f / 26.66c
Leaf Temp: 77f / 25c
RH: 59%
Light Distance: 14"


Low Stress Training begins! Bending over that stem was one of the most nerve-wracking things I've ever done. I'll be taking it slow and steady, getting her to 90 degrees over a day or two.

I'm not going to bother with LST on the stunted one. She has enough problems as is right now, hehe.

 

[Kazman420]

Day 27:
Room Temp: 78f / 25.5c
Leaf Temp: 75f / 23.8c
RH: 55%
Light Distance: 14"


It's a girl! I noticed the first pistols last night. And this morning the other plant had put out her first pistols as well.



Not much else to report. LST continues. I decided to do a bit of very very light training on the small/stunted one. She already had this weird tri-top thing going on, so I figured I would just open her up a little bit.

These girls are very sensitive to nutes. If I go above 350ppm (.5 scale) the tips start burning. Not sure if that's common for Mephisto. Next week I'll try and raise the ppm again since they will be starting to flower.