SAgrower

By monitoring and watching the development of the the pre flowers. Female pre flowers are shaped like a spear head. Male pre flowers look like a crabs claw.

Very interesting thank you.

So 2 out of the 5 are male. They are both so similiar that I decided to keep both and will do a pollination round with each.

How do you know the sex on such a young plant?

Thanks for all the help guys. 
 
Turns out that my local nursery stocks Just Cannabis soil. Not sure how good it is, but i bought a bag for R300. 
 
Will be using it for my  first grow. That gives me time to make my own soil mix the TLO way for the next grow (hopefully with clones) 
 
Only about a 1/3 of the the way through the book, but it's been very informative thus far

How much soil was in that bag? For R300 it better be a lot of soil.

You must start flowering. Time is becoming short to still complete the flowering cycle before spring.

Yea... Time is very very short... I don't think peeps can finish an outdoor grow if they flip now. 
Will likely try reveg if left too long. 
Spring is 1st of spring, but tons of shit is growing before then already. 
If you guys plan on using the sun much longer, you must be diligent with bringing them in at night to sleep for as close to 12 hours as possible... I'd even say you can go up to 14 hours of darkness for the last 2or3 weeks of flower

Yes, started on Saturday with the flip. There will be a couple of days between pulling out the current plants and planting the new plants into the same soil.

What do I need to do with the soil if I want to use it again@SkunkPharm ?

Also, I plan on running grows like this from now onwards instead of having huge plants at the end of the grow. If I grow 4 / 3 plants at a time it will give a nice variety.

I wanted to veg a bit shorter but yeah, life happened but its ok.

My plants get exactly 12 hours sleep a night but will definitely let them go longer later in the flower cycle.

With my first grow I noticed that the sun and wind really did a number on the plants and those are things I want to avoid going further, but not yet fully indoor grow.

Thanks for all of the suggestions thus far.

Well. Good job bro.
Fron the pics i have seen. It seems like u got some solid growth from the light.
Nice height aswell.
So from following the grow. It seems like you vegged the plants for almost 2 months?
 
 

Yes, 2 months and a couple of weeks. They are supposed to be a bit bigger but yeah, tough life they have had thus far.

I think the light worked out nice if you want to veg your plants with it. Sun is obviously best but if there's non, this will do.

Thanks bro.
So did u use the light for the entire grow?
During veg and during flower aswell?
Or do u have a seperate flowering light?
 

No I just flipped them to flower on Saturday but I will continue to use them during the time where the sun sets and the time when they need to sleep which is at 1900.

The sun will do the rest of the work.

 

 

 

Thanks brother. 

I have the 150w led.

 

Just trying to get a good idea how its working for our fellow growers and find out how they using it. So that i can get the most out of mine.

 

If its not too much trouble. Would u mind walking me through how u use your light? ( light distance. Duration. Is it being used in flower and veg. Etc)

I would really appreciate it brother.

 

I just used it for veg when days were overcast. I literally just hung it between 2 shelves in the garage and the pots were under it. The light was about 50cm away from the pots but I never changed the height of the light as the plants grew taller.

 

As I said, I don't know anything about lights, purely going on by what other forum members suggested so I cant say how much the light helped but Im happy with the results.

 

Regarding duration, in the beginning I had the light on for 20 hours and 4 hours off and after 2 weeks it was on whenever the sun went down

 

@SAgrower howzit brother.
 
Hows your grow going? And hows that LED working out for you?
Any pics?

Hi there, I actually flipped them on Saturday seeing as it's only an experimental grow. They have had a pretty hard life with my daughter trying to destroy everything she can see. Not only her but also the new puppy, that one pulled out a 4 day old black D.O.G I tried growing.

I really really hope the Malawi (tallest plant) is female. I am currently trying to source everything for this year's outdoor grow but one thing is for certain, I won't grow as many plants as last year, I will rather grow 4 at a time, although I will then be growing throughout the year.

The LED light works very nice I must say. Im have no knowledge of lights etc but it did the job and I think I might also buy one of those qb75 lights for next years darker months.

The plants have been grown in only soil, no nutrients have been given at all.

So my daughter fell on the special queen 1 which I started to mainline. The one side is broken off as can be seen in the last picture so where to from here? Any suggestions how to proceed with that plant?

The other plants seem to grow extremely slow but probably due to it being winter, the over spraying of the insecticide etc etc.

I love this place's operating hours :-)

Is your tank water brown? 
That cutting won't make it sadly... The bacteria and shit in the water will rot the stem tip... Cloning needs sterile water or you run the risk of losing cuttings

No its normal rain water from the rains we had last week so fairly fresh water. Im just going to leave them like that and hope for the best.

The tomato and basil etc plants are not showing the same symptoms and they also receive the same water and I leave them outside always.

The tomato etc plants also received the organic pesticide and not signs but Im almost certain it was too much spray on them whilst still so small.

Thanks for all of the help thus far, appreciate it. Have a nice evening

Could the tank water cause these issues? Some of the leaves are brittle and breaking off. I took the cutting from the special queen 1 and placed it in tank water to try my hand at cloning but I see similar signs on those leaves but also, that part of the plant also received the Margaret Roberts insecticide so now Im not sure anymore.

I want to water them but obviously not if there's a possibility that it might be the water from the tank. I have not added h202 as yet, completely forgot about it

Don't stress bro, we all go through this stage hehe. 

A lot of new growers mother their plants to an early grave hehe but it's all part of the learning process bud! 

I honestly have this emotional connection (not a weird connection) with these plants. I had my first male on my first grow and I was honestly feeling kak for cutting it down but yes, I understand what you are saying.

 

Why are you spraying pestaside on the plants still? I thought you sprayed already? 
One application should be more than enough for the little things plants ... 
I would even spray that shiny layer off the leaves with some clean water.
On little plants like this that have a small amount of leaves, I just squash all the bugs I can see and it seems good enough.
I would rather avoid spraying your babies with anything while so young
 

@CreX Agreed exposing the little ones to such intense chemicals from a young age really can be detrimental :(

Thanks. Will spray them down a bit.

Do you have a fan directly in them? When last did you water? And how often do you water?

No fan at all and they were watered on the 15th of June last. I have given them 3 treatments of the pesticide on consecutive days. Not 3 per day, once per day only.

 

The water I use is rain water from my tank which is in a bucket with an air pump 24/7.

 

 

 

The plants are showing signs on the leaves that something might be off. Any ideas or recommendations?

I could only find some Margaret Roberts organic pesticide but not sure if its it which is causing the issue.

I have read through another thread regarding keeping the plants warm during winter etc.

What will happen when it gets too cold? My plants are in the garage (Cape Town) at night without a heater and they still seem fine but Im not experienced at all so was just wondering as I dont really want to go through everything and then have them die when its time for flower.

Noice!! I really like them. 
That's a shit load of light @40cm away
You could even raise it a bit to get better coverage if you need to stick more plants under it

I would have to make some sort of plan soon to raise it yes.

@SAgrower, what light is the 150w LED?
Regular spot light led or a grow light of sorts? 

Its that LED 150w from ACDC

Looking good. Are the still under that led flood light? You will see it double in size now every week. If all goes well. 

Yip, still under the same light unless there is some nice sun like today

Yea! Growth will be booming now that real leaves are out. 
As for the growth with the LED, the light it emmits will deminish greatly every 30cm away from the plants. 
So it looks like you have a few plants that need the extra light, but if you were able to lower the light and focus the light over the plants, growth will then start catching up with the sun... The sun is pure power though

Thanks for the tip. The light is currently hanging about 40cm from the plants but today they are enjoying the full sun.

Another weekly update.

Cape had some cold, dark and wet weather the past week which meant the plants were under the LED light most of the time.

 

I find it interesting the amount of growth from one day of sun versus an entire week under the LED lights. I know the light is not correct for growing but this is what this entire grow is about, learning things by seeing how my plants react to different circumstances.

 

I transplanted the Malawi gold yesterday but some of the roots were stuck through some hole in the cup which broke off. I continued with the repotting so will see if it survives.

 

 

 

 

The biggest of the plants is the special queen 1 which I would like to mainline. I am busy doing research on mainlining bit was wondering if I should let it grow a bit more or if shes ready. I am not planning on keeping the 2 biggest plants in veg for my longer, probably another 20 to 30 days and then flip

 

 

 

 

The second biggest one is the badazz og cheese. Does anyone have suggestions for an interesting stress technique to do, something not too difficult?

 

 

 

The plant in the green pot is a blue dream which my wife is growing, some type of bonsai / nano grow.

 

 

 

Hope you guys have a nice week ahead of you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I looks like possible spider mites. But I maybe wrong. So below you will find what I spray on a weekly basis in veg. You can continue with the ecobuz products during flower. 

Thanks. Will head over to builders and get some.

Just a small update on the grow. The special queen is steaming ahead, almost time to mainline.

The badazz og cheese looks weird but its fine. The seem to really like the soil. I have only watered them twice since planting them in the bigger pots.

I have unfortunately also noticed some bugs and white spots on the special queen. I noticed a white pest on one leave yesterday so hope someone can educate me on what they are and how to get rid of them.

The plants are in the garage when there is no sun so I expected some bugs and pests to find their way there.

Just a little update since the last pictures. The special queen is doing well, the badass og cheese looks a little weird but coming along.

 

The smallest one is a Malawi gold and then a blue dream which will be replanted this coming weekend.

 

I am still vegging them under the LED in the garage but when the sun is out they are outside.

 

I will soon start mainlining the special queen.

 

 

 

Just some clarification... Are you using pool water on your plants? 
It's not the end of the world... But pool water is treated water and can contain excess amounts of chlorine and chloromains which could hurt your microbiology already in the soil. 
I use fresh tap water - in a bucket - left to stand until use. 
I use a 150l tote for my water, and actually go through quite a bit of water in a month... If I had a Jojo like @Bospatrollie2 I would also consider keeping the bacteria in check.
But pool water is a no no 

No no, think you misunderstood. The jojo tanks are connected to the gutters but currently the water inside of the tanks are used to top up the pool.

I now use the tank water (rain) to water the plants, not chlorinated pool water.