My first grow

[Crentz]

Fantastic if the EC is correct mate, then your off to a great start

[Dinafem-Mark]

Firstly thank you for getting a dedicated diary going for your Dinafem endeavour on UK420 

 

Seckndku this thread certainly has attracted some attention (in a good way) with some excellent members dropping in I can see this being and epic grow

 

You have 2 great strain

 

White widow 

Blue cheese

 

Our blue cheese is a favourite of mine and will be very interesting to see how she performs in your grow environment which looks great by the way

 

Nice happy environment for the ladies and a thread that is already off to a flying start 

 

Let's keep the traction going and make this a grow you will not forget. 

 

Needless to say I'll be along for the ride and watching with interest 

 

Will be back in on the next update to check progress out 

 

Until then thank you again for starting your Dinafem diary. Let's see what you can do

 

All the best 

 

Mark.. 

[highlo]

Your spot on with Coco mate it is just more watering and obviously being inert you have to make sure all the goodies are provided, a wee tip though do a flush with plain ph'd water every so often to stop excess salt build up or it can cause nute burn , also I know how hard it can be not to check on seeds when your starting off and you want to see any form of growth to see your progress but honestly once you've planted them just keep the media damp and leave them be, checking on them will only stress them and slow them down , it is normal for a cannabis plant to look like it's taking forever at the start but just remember that's because what is happening is the growth beneath the soil ( more roots growing and filling out the pot or pellet, only after that root system is established does a plant start to take off , a lot of first grows don't do as well as they could because of the new grower over thinking and trying to fix something that's not wrong, for example I grew dinafem white widow as my second grow in soil side by side a Barney's farm vanilla Kush in a hydroponic water farm, I had the ww as a back up incase I messed up the hydro as it was my first time at it, I literally watered them with the leftover nutes from the waterfarm when I was changing the reservoir no EC checking and no pH either and it grew with no issues and produced lovely dense buds full of trichomes and flavour and I still rate it as one of my best plants, so much so I recommend any new grower to try it as it was so forgiving and a good smoke, I got just over 2.5 Oz from her under a 250w hps in a wardrobe with a crap extraction setup and my temps were always 30°c and about 14°c at night , it was only my second grow after all and nowhere near ideal conditions so don't think you have to be in about it all the time ,  leaving them be and letting them do there thing is the best and as the plant shows you what it wants give it to them, that EC is pretty high mate I wouldn't go much above 0.6 for any seedling and remember they will still grow fine with just water ,less is more , personally I use formulex at 4ml/l right from the first true leaves and I havent experienced any root burn, it seems pretty hard to overdose with it as it is designed for seedlings I love the stuff, once I start veg nutes I'll mix up some at 0.6 and see how the plant reacts, if it goes pale I up it if it goes dark and droopy back it off to 0.4 the next time and give a flush of plain water in between , the main thing is patience, we all want to see our plants thrive but more nutes doesn't necessarily mean more growth it's about finding the proper dose at the right time and only a plant can tell you that  but it's a lot easier to up the feed on a hungry plant and it will only start to grow better from there on where as if you over do it they will stop taking roots slow down their growth rate and you'll have to flush it out (basically overwatering a young plant which will slow it down even more and after all that then have to try and see what it takes and chances are you will have to start off low and wait to see if you can increase it next feed , I know this because I've done it and trust me it is a real headache and added another few weeks to the grow time

[Grower not a shower]

Cheers for those words of wisdom @highlo  if only you’d been here 2 days ago haha. 

 

As as you say constant tinkering with seedlings will only lead to trouble. Of the original 4 I planted only BC2 is thriving. I checked on them this evening after work and shed jumped up some more and shed her cap 

 

unfortunately this is where the good news ends. After killing WW1 earlier by pissing about I’ve tried my best to kill her sister, WW2! Tonight I noticed she was lying on her side getting baked by the light. In order to save her I soaked one of the spare root riot pellets in water, wrung it out and planted her with her little taproot pointing down. She’s in my prop box next to BC1 and my backups  BC3 & WW3 which I haven’t touched since planting them last night except to make sure they were still moist earlier. Which they were. They’ll be staying in the airing cupboard, under a towel, checked once a day until I see them sprout. Then it’s off to the tent to keep BC2 company. 

 

I really wish I’d just used root riots from the beginning instead of into the small pots of coco as I think I’d have tinkered less. Oh well, first lesson learned I suppose. As well as this diary I’m writing everything I do down in my own diary so I can keep track of feeds etc for future reference. Due to my tinkering I got paranoid that I’d killed them all this morning so jumped online and bought another 3 seeds of WW & BC just in case haha. If all goes well and I don’t need to use them I’m going to grow these next anyway and see if I can learn from any mistakes I make this run. 

 

 

[sroporilshoot]

Hello mate ...It's all a learning curve. Patience isn't easy, I was the same on my 1st grow ( only on me 3rd now)  I went down to one plant from initialy 4 seeds but got it through to the end, with it getting all the light I got 5 oz off it.  Like you I used riots, still using them, probably because I've picked up a few tips for the next time.  They do dry out easy and its a bit wobbly getting the right temp in their environment to pop the seed and have it humid enough to keep the riot from drying too fast. But like I say, don't be disapointed if only one makes it through...It'll be getting all the sunshine .

 

Cheers

 

Edited November 28, 2017 by sroporilshoot

[Grower not a shower]

5 hours ago, sroporilshoot said:

Hello mate ...It's all a learning curve. Patience isn't easy, I was the same on my 1st grow ( only on me 3rd now)  I went down to one plant from initialy 4 seeds but got it through to the end, with it getting all the light I got 5 oz off it.  Like you I used riots, still using them, probably because I've picked up a few tips for the next time.  They do dry out easy and its a bit wobbly getting the right temp in their environment to pop the seed and have it humid enough to keep the riot from drying too fast. But like I say, don't be disapointed if only one makes it through...It'll be getting all the sunshine .

 

Cheers

 

I think if I’d just put the seeds straight into the pellets, into my propagator then covered with a towel in the airing cupboard they woulda popped cos I wouldn’t have tinkered with them. They seem to stay pretty moist for 24hrs in there. But I’ll know for next time. If I can get 2 or 3 to pop I’ll be a happy man this time. Next time I’ll be better prepared 

[Crentz]

I have great success with the paper towel method mate

Put paper kitchen towels folded 3 times into a lunch box then add tap water just until all the paper towel is wet and pour out any excess water, put your seeds in and cover with paper towels folded 3 times and sprinkle water until it is wet. 

Add the lunch box lid but leave it open slightly open for air circulation and leave it in a warm dark place, I cover mine and leave the lunch box on a radiator with some cardboard under it so the seeds don't get too hot. 

Check them after 24 hours and if they didn't crack leave them for another 24 hours, don't keep checking them all the time

the paper towel just needs to be moist not soaking wet, I've only had one seed not germinate this way

Edited November 28, 2017 by Crentz

[highlo]

Your welcome mate and as sroporilshoot says it's all a learning curve and we all learn by our mistakes, just don't get disheartened you may even find 2 or 3 plants works better in your space anyway , I have had more yeild from 2 plants than I have from 4 before , if they get more air and space they will perform better than being cramped up and growing into each other, too many plants you end up with a heavy canopy that  won't let light through to middle to lower bud sites so lose a lot of yeild, perfect example is my last grow diary in autoflower section, dinafem blue kush, I thought they were autos but turned out to be photoperiod and got way too long of a veg and became uncontrollable , beside the panicking your grow is going fine, you have 2 possibly 3 plants in the right conditions so have no reason to worry they will pop a shoot and will give you plenty nice buds, it can take over a week , for a shoot to show on some strains just have to resist the urge to dig for a look

[Grower not a shower]

I keep hearing of people germinating in the paper towel and radiator/PlayStation for heat, but stupidly I didn't want to do that as I thought I'd end up harming them when I moved them to pots!

 

I do think I haven't kept them warm enough and I've definitely been fiddling too much but hopefully I'll get at least 2 through till the end.  1 of each strain and I'd consider it a small victory. I'd originally only planned on growing 1 plant in a 15l smart pot but followed advice from a few members on here in another thread to go for 4.  

 

Thanks for for the advice once again @Crentz and @highlo. It really is much appreciated and I'm writing it all down in my notes for next time

[Crentz]

No worries mate, we are all learning from each other

 

Just keep a humidity dome over them when they pop and temps between 20 and 24 degrees, you can mist the inside of the dome to keep humidity high

 

[Grower not a shower]

5 minutes ago, Crentz said:

Just keep a humidity dome over them when they pop and temps between 20 and 24 degrees, you can mist the inside of the dome to keep humidity high

 

 BC2 has been in my tent under the light now for a couple of days after she broke the surface. I didn't have a dome over her to keep humidity up but it was around 30% in there. I've just stuck a plastic bottle over her to keep her happy. 

 

This is might sound stupid but I'll ask anyway. What colour should the stem be after sprouting? BC2 is currently purple. You can't really see it in the photo I posted yesterday but it's definitely purple. She's on,y had 1 watering with formulex so far. Just plain tap water rest of the time. 

[Crentz]

You want humidity at least up in the 80's for seedlings mate, sometimes the stems do be purple on seedlings it's not a big deal.

It doesn't need cal mag at this stage so that's ruled out, cold temps can also cause purple stems. 

If you keep them under a dome with high humidity and keep the temps between 20 and 24 degrees the stems should turn green in a few days

[Grower not a shower]

So a quick update. 

 

Pf the 6 seeds I originally planted, only 1 has survived. I binned everything else and will just be concentrating on the 1 Blue Cheese that I have. I was gonna try germ another few seeds but thought I'd killed enough so far. Also, my pal has an incredible bulk that he's been vegging for the past month so when mine is a similar size we're gonna throw them in together to flower. 

 

I checked on on her this morning and could see little roots sticking out the bottom of the pot so took this as a sign to pot up. So her she is sitting in her new homeive still got a dome over her for now and the light is almost right on top of her. Temps ranging between 24-28c with humidity between 35-55%. I'll leave the dome on for a few more days until the second set of leaves have grown then whip it off. You can't really see it in the photo but they're starting to sprout now. She's had about 300ml of water with 4ml/litre of formulex since potting up. I'll throw in some SuperDrive once she's had a few days to get settled in. Stem still looks really purple but maybe this has something to do with genes? 

[sroporilshoot]

It's on the way now man, you'll learn plenty with this to do the other seeds justice. 

Did you sort the issue with the pH pen?

 

Cheers

[Grower not a shower]

11 minutes ago, sroporilshoot said:

It's on the way now man, you'll learn plenty with this to do the other seeds justice. 

Thats what I thought too, no point wasting anymore. Use this as a trial run and learn from my mistakes. 

12 minutes ago, sroporilshoot said:

 

Did you sort the issue with the pH pen?

 

Aye turns out there was no issue and I’ve just got really good water haha.