Outdoor Shadowbuck's go at an outdoor grow

[Shadowbuck]

Well I'll be damned if after day 1 thinking things would go smoothly if I didnt come home from work today on 'day 2' to find most the plants had stretched about an inch and are now leggy as hell. Fuck! Grrr... I'm trying to figure out what to do now. I know I'm going to have to repot them deeper for starters. Just scraping a lil soil around the stem isnt gonna work. I'm surprised they act like they arent getting enough light. I have some veggies down there too and they havent stretched like that at all. I'm using two flourescent shop lights for lighting. Ones a dual T8 and the other is a dual T12. And a random aquariam light I had layin around. All together there's about 12000 lumens which I would have thought would have been enough to start em with without them getting leggy. But alas no. The whole setup is by a southern facing slider door and it appears as though as soon as the sun started shining thru they just instantly stretched for it and said screw the flourescents. Sigh...

I guess all I can do now is repot them deeper as carefully as possible, and try to use the sun to my advantage and get them closer to it and just use the lights for supplemental during the early morning and evening hours. All I see in my mind is the hours of work ahead. Damn it!

 

[Shadowbuck]

Ok so first off...Apologies for the pissy rant earlier. I hate my job and am in need of a day off...for multiple reasons. Then coming home to things askew with the grow was less than desireable. So I cleared my mind a lil bit to let cooler heads prevail. After a complete rehash of the lighting and positioning of the plants I decided not to repot...at least not yet. I got them as close as possible now to where the sun shines in. Also moved the lighting around somewhat and lowered it a tad. Raised the time for "lights on" from 18 to 20 hours. And also made some lil bent paper clip supports in case the taller ones stretch too far away from the light towards the sun. While I did have to push them into the soil pretty close to the stems, I don't think they will have done too much damage to the roots. Probably not as much as repotting would have done by the time I got through with it.

So I will let these changes set in and see how they look tomorrow when I get home. If it doesnt seem to help or they still keep stretching worse I will go ahead and repot. I just checked on them a lil bit ago...about 3 hours after I made the changes and the leggy ones seem to have straightened up a bit and are perked up a lil better towards the light (T12 directly overhead...about 3-4 inches away). I don't want to lower the light anymore than that because then it will block the sunlight that comes in. The tripoid looks much better and straight stemmed and perky than it did before the changes...so let's hope this fixes the stretching issue. I think part of the problem was indeed planting a lil too shallow and/or removing a lil soil from above the seed to check on germination. I say that because some of the last few I planted and didnt go diggin in the pot for have stayed relatively compact thus far. One other thing I will add is that I have a couple tomato seedlings in there as well and I noticed today that the tomato seedlings have purple stems and veins in the leaves and also have a noticeable purple hue on the under side of their cotyledons. Any have an idea what this could be representative of? As in PH, weak soil, hot soil, too much or too little of something nute wise? The other seedlings of various things haven't shown these symptoms, but I'm curious if any useful info could be garnered from the tomato seedlings as far as how it would relate to the cannabis seedlings.

So anyways here's a pic of the tallest ones with the lil paper clips...You can see the tri in there...lookin like a lime green daisy lol...



Peace
-Shadowbuck

 

[JM]

ok... ph on the purple hue... most likely...


goto the refernce section and read the thread "PH The Manual"

on the lights... you'd be very surprised how much intesity is required:



also see:

http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/guide3.shtml

:tip: Welcome to AFN!

 

[Shadowbuck]

Yea im gonna check ph tomorrow after a light watering and see what it says. Its only the tomatos with any purpling though. The canna doesnt have any real recognizeable ph symptoms. BUT like I said; Im gonna check it tomorrow and see what's up.

 

[Shadowbuck]

Well so much for tomorrow. Couldn't sleep with it weighing on my mind. Finally just got out of bed and went and check the soil ph with my lil basic three prong ph/'fertility' meter. It seemed to move back just a smidge from 7 and stayed locked between 6.6 and 6.8 and wouldn't move again. Tested a couple pots. Same result. Don't know why the one tomatos are turning purple but apparently its a light issue and not a ph issue as far as the leggy auto seedlings as the ph isn't off by much at all. But I think the steps I took earlier with moving the lighting and plants around should address this. Will know more tomorrow if they either stretch more or decide to start putting on more foliage...But they havent stretched any more since moving the stuff around. The taller ones appear to be content for now...like they've gotten into their lil happy zone with the light, so whatever. The real test will be tomorrow when the suns up as to whether they stretch out too much again. However they are now closest to the window out of all the plants so they should start getting all the natural light they want without stretching all out of whack to get to get to it.

I'm considering either giving a very very light feed (like 25% of the light feed dosage) of the bio weed stuff or using tiny dab of vinegar in the next watering to bring the ph down just a hair. I'm leaning towards the vinegar method as I don't want to introduce too much nitrogen as that can make leggyness worse. But honestly I don't think the ph should be causing this. I've seen people with seedlings in cheap ass topsoil without any ph check that look just fine in comparison to mine...but they had better lighting. I dunno. Like I said...Tomorrow will be a good barometer as to what the next course of action should be. To either leave alone or start foolin around with the ph

 

[JM]

https://www.autoflower.org/f74/self-diagnose-your-plants-basic-deficiencies-list-11.html


tomatoes like a ph around 6... probbaly lockng out phosphorus..

doesnt sound like you're too far out in ph... see if you can get that intensity up a bit... and maybe a light adjust with the vinegar... remember tho... vinegar only lastsa a day or 2 then it will climb back up..

 

[Shadowbuck]

I didn't see any more stretching today...at least not the ones closest to the light. A little bit by some other shorter ones but I half expected that. It was overcast here today so no chance to see the suns effect on them. Really wanting some of that sunlight... Got a couple things lined up that I'm gonna do later on. Create a lil more air movement to encourage the stems to grow a lil sturdier. May make up a light feed of bioweed and bioroot in a spray bottle to give a lil spritz to the top of the soil of the bigger TDs and tomatos. That should also help a lil with bringing the ph down. Or I may wait til tomorrow to try that...or give it to the tomatos today and use them as guinea pigs to make an educated assumption as to whether or not those few TDs will tolerate it tomorrow or not. The only reason I'm even considering it cause the tomatos ARE showing signs of some deficiency. Was talking to a guy I work with about the tomatos today and he said it very well could be from a lil nutrient deficiency...and the ph like jm said. The promix ult org is pretty weak stuff. And the lil 'fertility' function on my ph meter is saying its very low in nute content. I'm just wondering if a light feed would address the soil fertility as well as bring the ph down bit by bit the natural way. Hmmm...I will let these ideas weigh in my mind for a lil while and make a decision a lil later this evening.

 

[Mr Piggy]

With floro you have to keep the light right on top of the seedling, five inches or so. Looking at those seedlings I'm not seeing any major stretching, at least from this point of view. I also wouldn't re-pot seedlings nor would I bury them much deeper, they don't like soil around their soft little stems at first.

 

[Shadowbuck]

^^^^at mr piggy: yea... They arent too bad. Just kinda freaked me out the one day cause they stretched like an inch or so when the sun peeked in thru the window...I was like shiiiiiit lol. I was startin to worry a lil bit cause I was thinkin they were on their way to gettin TOO leggy. But they have leveled off somewhat and havent moved much since...especially since I reconfigured the lighting. So I'm thinking they reached their lil happy zone with the light. The taller ones that did the stretching the one day havent stretched since anyways. The light was never really very far from them...which is what was kinda throwin me for a loop there at the start. Originally they were maybe 5 or 6 inches from the light but after a lil reconfiguration of the lighting the one day that I had a lot of stretching, the tall ones are now about 3 inches from the light and seem happier for it. Havent put on a whole lot of foliage since then either. A lil bit more growth but not much to write home about. So I'm assuming that since the leaves havent grown much (they have grown a lil bit) and they havent stretched much either then that must mean they have been busy the past couple days focusing their effort on root growth and expansion to catch up with and maintain the stretch growth above ground...which is perfectly A-ok with me if that is indeed what they are up to. I havent repotted them yet. Don't plan to...yet. As long as they don't stretch too much more then I will just let them do their thing as is and kinda let them grow themselves into stature...as I dont want to be too much of an eager beaver and repot or do too much and stress them out. Did not end up doing any super light feed or none of that either. Honestly I think they will be ok now...for the most part. They just need a lil patience and a watchful eye and they will do ok IMO. It was cloudy the past couple days and that kinda eliminated the sunlight factor but today its supposed to be sunny so we will see what happens.

When after they get hardened off and planted at the site (a ways to go yet) I will plant them a lil deeper up the stem but for now I'm just lettin em go and seein what happens the next couple days. A lot of my attention has been focused to the first four or five that sprouted a couple days before the others and now the others are getting to the point that they may start stretching...so I'm gonna start focusing my attention on them and make sure they do ok now that I know what to expect. That's all for now... Will prolly post some update pics tomorrow or later today. Thanks for the thoughts and posts guys as it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of or to give suggestions when ur too busy having a mental clusterfk lol.

Peace
-Shadowbuck

 

[Shadowbuck]

Hi Everybody. I know its been a lil while since the last update. Just been really busy lately. Mostly with this project here. But anyways here's an update. It's now day...um...1,2,3 carry the one...um I think its

DAY 14 or so...

Ok so here's what's been up. They got their first lil low strength feed on i think it was monday. That consisted of CalMag, Bioroot, Diamond Black, Bioweed, Biomarine, and Biogrow. I know it seems like a lot but the ratio's were pretty low. So anyways they took that first feed like a CHAMP! Well the feed part was ok, but I over watered them a lil bit. As a couple days later the soil was still wet and I had a lil leaf curl here and there. But no tip burn or anything from the nutes. So after thinking for a while what the leaf curl could be about here's what my thoughts were. Overwatered as that's what the main symptoms pointed to. Fert burn although I didnt think so as the growth was still going well. Or micro deficiency as I noticed the soil levels had gotten low...mainly from stuff being washed out from the watering and the big holes in the fiber pots. Sooo to address all three (I'm 99% sure it was just overwatering) I decided to give a good flush of just water which would compact the soil even more. Then top off the pots to max capacity with some remaining promix I had. By adding the dry promix on top and tamping it down, this would do two things...well three actually. First the dry soil on top would wick excess moisture from the bottom (which it did), and as the moisture wicked upwards, the small lil particles of nutrient goodness would be pulled down from the fresh dry soil (it did...or so in theory im pretty sure it did). And thirdly this helped to shore up the leggy stems (which had gotten really tall...perky and straight, but tall) and thus allow the now buried stems to start rooting before they are taken to their permanent home in the great beyond. They've also started getting bits of outdoors exposure and direct sunlight in an attempt to do a lil pre hardening action...which they have thoroughly enjoyed.

So how is the growth coming? Pretty good considering they spent all their energy the first few days growing stems to reach the light (which I lowered, and that helped) instead of foliage. They are all generally around the same size...ish. The triploid is a freakin monster with the 50% more leaves lol. Wish somebody would breed THAT quality into their breeds (cough, talkin to you dutch passion, cough) as it would make for some super SUPER fast seedling growth. The triploid is transplant size already and the others are kinda sorta too...but not like the one...you will see what I mean in a min. Oh and by the way; By last weekend they were already STINKING up the place with random whiffs of straight skunk. And now they definately have a STRONG smell...which threw me for a loop that such small and young plants with only a couple nodes could be already smelling like a straight up lit joint lol.

So before I get to pics I thought I'd also mention that the holes on site have been filled with the soil mix I made. Filled a third to halfway, threw in a handful or two of the espoma and the filled up to the top. Any old dirt clods from digging the holes have been broken up and raked away and hidden. Raked in some natural mulch of leaves and twigs to cover the areas around the holes and some of the actual hole as well. The coverage that was barren when I picked the spot, but took a gamble that it would grow in by the time the plants arrived, has definately grown in...and thick! I love it when a plan comes together lol. The only shortfall is I only dug 8 holes, only ended up with enough soil mix for 8 holes,....but I had all 13 seeds germinate and grow into worthy lil plants lol. As of right now I'm planning on using the existing holes for the 5 best TD's and the 3 best BM's. Sooo I'm wondering what to do with the other 5 (2td, 2bm, 1bagseed). I thought about just finding a nice sunny spot somewhere and just taking a post hole digger and digging a hole just big enough for the pot and then burying the pot for the other 2 BM's (one is a deformity and prolly wont do shit anyways...has badly twisting leaves from birth). My thought and curiosity was that if I just buried them somewhere as is and still fed and watered them I could force flower them into some quick lil tiny micro plants for a quick smoke in the near(er) future. Does anybody think that would even work? I've heard root restriction will force flower autos but curious if my idea is worthy of a try or not. The two TD's and bagseed will prolly be held in reserve and grown a lil longer (they are the smallest...but not by much) in case nature kills one of the "chosen ones" and then used as a replacement plant. And if that isn't needed then I will prolly just go dig a hole somewhere, break up the natural soil, throw in some nutes, and plant them...then feed and water them but keep my expectations for them rather low.

Ok time for pics....drumroll please....


ok so at 9oclock is the other td that's in one of these other pics. at 11 is the mutated BM with twisted up leaves...looks like a hurricane symbol lol. 1 is a BM. 4 is a BM. 6 is a BM. 7 is the bagseed. and in the center is the biggest BM.



The 7 TDs...notice the monster that is the triploid lol.


That is the FIRST leaf above the baby leaves on the triploid. Look close. It's got lil trich's all over HAHA! Hell ya can't wait to smoke u up baby lol.


Closeup of the triploid. What a beast lol. Now you know why I wish they would breed triploids into the genes lol.

All the plants since adding the dirt are around 3-4 inches tall now. Except the big BM and the tri TD are six or maybe a hair over. They ALL SMELL like a lit joint already. Starting to dig the soil/organics thing lol.

That's all guys. Til next time...

Peace,
-Shadowbuck