This my first grow and I need some advice please... This is a soil grow (FF Ocean Forest) and I will be using 5 gallon smart pots. I have 8 seedlings in pint-size cups that I plan to transplant into larger pots for veg this weekend. The plants are ~3 inches tall and just starting to show some roots poking through the drainage holes at the bottom their pots. 3 of the seedlings came from feminized seed, so I will move them directly into the full-size pots. The other 5 seedlings are not feminized...so I want to sex them before moving into the full 5 gal pot to save soil. What is the best way to do this? I was planning to veg them in 1 gallon pots to get them more mature, then take clones and flower them to get the sex. Is there a better (and quicker) way? Also, what are your thoughts on the medium? I plan to mix the FFOF with some more perlite and some mycorrhizal fungi. Should I mix in some other additives? Dolomite lime maybe? and how do I know what I should be mixing into the soil at this stage? Thank you!
If you want to veg thoes in 1 gal pots you can transplant to bigger size later when you find out the sex of them. If your trying to get some moms to bush out for the perpetual grow, flower the clones and check the sex of those, the other plants in the gallon pots have time to grow and bush out, toss the males and your left with female plants that are already in veg longer. Then you can get more clones alot faster that way. Hope that made sence. I think thats what you meant, but seems the fastest way to go to start. Also Res can chim in and stear you to the good soil mix he does, I hear thats great.
https://forum.growkind.com/threads/easy-organic-soil-mix.39450/ Here was that link to Res's organic soil.
I agree with JCIO. Take clones from each and then as soon as they are rooted you can put them in 12/12. As soon as they show sex then toss the males and you will have all girls for flower. Plants are like people, meaning if you have 4 white widow seeds there is always a better stronger plant out of the seeds. Take clones from each of the girls that you flower out and then when you test the finished plant you can determine the best out of said 4 plants and keep that one for future clones. I'll be looking forward to your grow.
mark your clones and take notes. from experience i can tell you if you take clones early and sex early you will not truly know the traits of each pheno. i absolutely agree with the advice given by JCIO and Mrg...but i'm adding even if you have say 4 out of 8 being girls, those 4 may not show all their actual traits until they mature (alternating nodes) so it may be the second time you clone before you know which one you want to keep as a mom. i was running some jackberry and sexed the plants early. I killed the males (only got 1 female) but first run it barely showed any color. By the 2nd cloning when they flowered the entire buds were purple. I've seen with numerous others strains as well (not referring to just color, but traits in general) always take notes and mark clones. same strain has many different pheno and even some plants may root quicker, be bushier, etc but you will not know this if you flower and sex early. But you do want to sex early lol so you don't spend time and effort dealing with males.....but don't kill your other females until after 2nd run
Great advice nippie. What kind of notes should I be taking? What attributes should I be taking note of during growth and after harvest?
you're going to have some phenos done at 8-9 weeks, others at 10+ from the same strain/ plus the smoke, whats better etc, weight, bushy, what clones best etc. growing is easy. but there is a science behind it. you have to find what works for you in your garden and no one can remember everything. we've all made mistakes, lost strains etc from sloppy work. at least you get to learn from our collective mistakes and what we found to work......but you'll still make mistakes lol because theres a learning curve it takes forever to dial in a strain. after you find or at least narrow done phenos in your garden you can adjust feeds to see how far you can push before getting actually harming the plant, what needs more cal mag in veg to stop a problem in flower, etc. This all comes with experience and frankly unless you have a memory like an elephant, id find something even if it's a calendar in your phone to take notes on. Timing is everything with a boaster, none us can help you with that but give you the basics, that up to you to figure out if it's best on your plants at 5, 5.5 or 6 weeks if even at all. Some just don't like boasters, others will increase weight by % easy if hit at the correct time This site works for that as well, say you post a grow log, you can revisit that years later and see what you were doing when. or if you have a problem and mention it, someone else might be able to give you a fresh set of eyes to figure out the correct solution. But if this is your first grow, concentrate on not killing the plants....that's your only job, don't kill em. That means whatever you think you read about doing this special thing or that...DONT DO IT!!!!! Follow the soil guys advice, watch for burn if using straight fox farms soil as it may be a little hot. More nutes is not better....less is more in a lot of cases. Dont feed because the bottle says this, don't get all the snake oils and spend useless money Have fun, don't do anything you read on the net about some guy who knows a guy who shoot his load on his plant during this lunar cycle etc etc etc....forget all that and just have fun and don't over do it. You'll have a problem, someone here will tell you how to fix it, after a while you'll be telling others how to fix problems.
One real important thing about feeding. Depending on soil and nutrients I tell people to start at have strength with nutrients when they are first learning to grow in soil. The reason is what nippie pointed out. Some soils have more nutrients than others. I think the Fox farm should have enough nutrients to last the first 3 to 4 weeks of growth with out adding two many nutrients.
If you repot at the beginning of a cycle Fox Farm soil has food for pretty much a full flower cycle. If you veg and flower in the same pot feeding will start midflower. It's a little hot for some plants. If you like the FF soil I'd suggest cutting it by adding another 25% volume of perlite or vermiculite, helps stretch your $$ and plant roots seem to like it better that way. Nip got you set on cloning and why/timing/notes. Cool. Since we're throwing out tips, I use a plant stake/tag on every plant. On it is the day that plant was cloned, the day it went into the veg garden, the day it entered the flower garden, first day of fertilizing, and strain. This way I can grab any plant and know it's history. If you buy plastic stakes and a grease pen you can reuse the stakes for years. In case you didn't notice, good stoner gardeners use notes, lots of notes. We're stoned, we got lots of little things going on, we forget because we're stoned and can't remember lots of little things. Notes or info stakes Fully agree on keeping clones for at least two cycles. First round is sexing. Second round is pheno hunting. Unless you do it a different way. Grow out the seed plant. After an abbreviated veg top and trim the plant before going into flower. Root those tops and trimmings. Throw out any appearing males and associated cuts. Wait and see which girls are the best. It saves about 2-3 months of fucking around. Doesn't get you as good of a pheno read as the other way, but saves a shitload of time.
