One Papaya seed, 38W LED (19Wx2), Organic Soil

[pjay_dubya]

First post here. I used to creep OG 1 as a kid and my parents caught and ended my first CFL micro grow in ‘06, about 3 weeks in… Then, in 2012 I vegged a clone in my closet and litterally “tree-planter-style” slapped er in a farmer field in the spring and never went back till late september only to find it crushed BUT STILL clinging to life and growing horizontal… pulled less than a half oz of dried bud off lol.

Now, my first real grow and I should have got myself some real nice genetics but I found 7 seeds in a quarter of Papaya I got last summer! Loved the strain it’s a sweet hybrid that I think smokes more Sativa. I like a good one hit wonder first thing in the morning that I can still be productive on. Problem with these seeds is I don’t know the breader and they are old and only one or two looked properly mature… wonder if it was a hermi in an industrial grow?

Anyway. I only got one to pop!!! So this is kind of funny. I don’t even know how old the seeds were but they were probably at least a year and not stored in ideal conditions.

So I’m working on vegging one little seedling and just hoping for a female. I will top and clone before I move this (F1?) outside in May/June… Also hoping it’s not autoflowering genetics obviously.

Got this light from homedepot for 67 bucks after tax:
https://www.feit.com/products/grow-lights/blue-spectrum-dual-2ft-led-plant-grow-light/

Just using generic top soil I had in the garage for the seedling stage. Didn’t even take the time to get perlite but I manually aerated the soil with a tooth pick a few times after it sprouted. I also sliced the crap outta the pot for more drainage and air flow.

I’m going transplant to a 1.75 gal pot in the next couple days. I’m also basically going organic here.

Light: 19W blue/multi spectrum LED 24hr

Air: on the bathroom shelf, temps ~ 20*C, humidity lower than ideal, probably about 50% or less, 12V computer fan circulating near the plant

Soil: sprouted in pH7 top soil with less than ideal drainage and aeration. moving forward with 1.75 gal pot:

4.5 tbs kelp meal
1 tbs blood meal
1 tbs bone meal
7 cups worm castings
11 cups perlite
9 cups peat

= 1.9 gal of soil that’s reading about 6.7 on pH after soaking with tap water.

Water: hard (no water softener) tap water comes out about 7pH, Mixed 7.5ml Farm Boy organic apple cider vinegar into a 1.2L decanter to come out about 6. After transplant just using straight tap water in my acidic soil.

Day 6

Day 7

Day 9

Day 10

[pjay_dubya]

Feb. 26 seed successfully germinated… almost didn’t survive planting, went sideways after poor planting and watering, gently realigned and sprinkled soil and continued to gently water and sprinkle soil to keep dark and moist.

Mar. 1 seedling sprouted! husk just wouldn’t fall off! one Cotyledon visible but I ended up very carefully removing the seed shell from the other one

This thing barely made it this far but it is alive now and I may have gone over board by swishing a pinch of bone meal into a watering a few days ago.

So we’re on day 15 since germination and day 11 since I peeled the shell off the sprout… what day am I on???

[ReikoX]

Thanks for posting up. Can’t wait to see how things turn out for you. That light is good for seedlings, but you might need more as the plant starts to mature.

[pjay_dubya]

Almost 24 hrs after the last pic. Day 12 after sprout.

I’m wondering about the small hole on the first leaf and the blotchy spots on the second set of leaves… Seems to be growing everyday and getting darker green though. Also notice the purple veins in between the leaves… will continue to monitor as the next set of leaves emerge.

I’m thinking of transplanting to the 1.75 Gallon pot on Wednesday after I mix up that soil, just waiting on the perlite and kelp meal to arrive from amazon.

[Muleskinner]

it looks good to me, those spots you’re talking about must be pretty small, it seems healthy. I don’t see a rush to transplant, I’d wait another week. If you turn the container upside-down now the whole mess might crumble apart in your hands, in another week the roots will hold it together better.

one plant…only a 50/50 chance of female- could be a long wait to start over if it’s male - have you thought about starting a few more of the seeds now?

those lights are cool if not a little pricey - 19w won’t be enough for flower, but adding another one of these when flowering starts might do it:

https://www.feit.com/products/grow-lights/led_grow_lights74303/

PS, yikes, looks like Home De Pot gouged you, these are only $40 at most retailers:

https://www.frys.com/product/8974513

[pjay_dubya]

Yeah i’ll be disappointed if it’s male, but I don’t want to flower indoor. My plan for this space is just to use it as a veg zone.

I guess I should move this thread to Outdoor since I’m planning on finishing this outside. But I intend to top it and then continue to veg indoor until about June when I’ll move this outside.

I was considering cloning that cutting and trying to keep the clone as a mother plant for next year. if i veg a clone for a year it should be a viable mother plant right?

So I’ll continue this thread as I hopefully successfully clone and continue to veg indoor. I’ll link to a new thread in outdoor growing once I move this plant outdoors for the growing season.

[Muleskinner]

sounds cool, I’d probably try to start 4 seedlings in that space, moving them to 1 gallon pots after a couple weeks. Another 2 weeks and they will show sex via preflowers, they usually show 4-5 weeks after germination…then you can cull the males.

another good option to boost the light would be a few cheap LED bulbs, any 3000K, 4000K, or 5000K bulb would be good.

[pjay_dubya]

Yeah I saw after that even Lowe’s has it on for 50 bucks. Shoulda done a quick google as soon as I saw it on the shelf.

Thanks for the feedback on transplanting. I was just planning on cutting the little plastic pot and throwing it away.

Reason I wanted to go sooner was just to get it into the superior soil asap. The top soil is only pH7 and had poor drainage. Once it’s in the pot I can stop worrying and micromanaging and just let this thing settle in and take off. The next thing I’ll look forward to will be topping and cloning in a couple weeks I guess.

[pjay_dubya]

Yeah if this one ends up male I’m going to get some quality seeds and do exactly that next year.

Kinda just rolling this dice on it to get my feet wet this year and hopefully I’ll end up smoking some homegrown in the fall.

[Muleskinner]

your reasons for transplanting sound good - you can always make it work, just be careful and hold the soil together. If anything goes wrong, just stuff the roots & stem into the new pot, get it pointing upward, and cover with a humidity dome (plastic wrap w/ holes will do) for a couple days, it willl recover

*edit I see the spots in the first photo - maybe a touch of nute burn?

[beacher]

Well if you found them in a bag chances are the seeds are ‘feminized’. It looks good, personally I’d wait like 2-3 more weeks before transplanting. Keep er a bit smaller…

[pjay_dubya]

thanks for the encouragement, that’s what I am hoping. unless the mother plants which grew that bud we cloned from a mother that came from regular seeds that would make sense.

[pjay_dubya]

Day 13 after sprout.

A little stretchy after I moved it down to 20” from the light. Moved it back a bit closer, sitting at 16” as per the minimum manufacturers recommendation for vegging… I know it’s a puney light but I think I can veg and keep a mother with this 19W LED.

Slashing up that little 3 inch planter really helped with drainage and air flow. That pH7 top soil dries out in about 36 hours in there. Watered with pH6 tap water acidified with apple cider vinegar again after work at 3:30 am this morning. This pH meter really inspires confidence and the “moisture setting” is also very valuable… 15 bucks on amazon.

Today I got all my soil stuff and mixed it up. Now I just need to decide when to actually transplant. Thanks for all the advice. We can all continue to monitor… I do think this 3” planter with just top soil will be hurting my results very soon. I can transplant just by literally cutting the pot off with an exacto knife, it’s paper thin so I’m very confident I can accomplish the transplant without disturbing the roots when the soil is dry. Won’t even need to turn upside down.

That being said I do think I actually nute burned this poor baby just with a pinch of bone meal in a about a litre of water! i don’t know why i had to try to be a hero and do that… less is more. So maybe just continuing to flush that out with straight water in the top soil for the next week will be more beneficial before I get it into this heavy duty soil.

SOIL MIX:

1.75 Gal planter:

4 cups worm castings
5 cups perlite
5 cups sphagnum peat
1 tbs blood meal
1 tbs bone meal
5 tbs kelp meal

after soaking that mix with my pH7ish tap water it came out in the low 6 range so that should be good… Now I can just easily water with straight tap water to save time and effort moving forward.

[ReikoX]

@pjay_dubya

SOIL MIX:

1.75 Gal planter:

4 cups worm castings
5 cups perlite
5 cups sphagnum peat
1 tbs blood meal
1 tbs bone meal
5 tbs kelp meal

I would cut the kelp to 1 TBS and add 1 TBS dolomite lime.

[pjay_dubya]

I’ve been reading up on kelp meal and it is ph neutral and they call for 3 tbs per gallon on the label… Of course that is without also using the bone and blood meal but again those are supposed to balance each other as well… So I know 5 tbs sounds like a lot but this stuff is supposed to be so good for micro nutrients and less for macro anyway.

3tbsx1.75gal= 5.25 tbs/gal so i just mixed it up with 5 tbs, not heaping, actually a little undersized tbs. so let’s call it 4.5 in 1.75 gal…

Yeah and I won’t be filling the full 1.75 gal so I probably should tone it down a bit. OK, going to up my ratio of organic matter and perlite to get the percentage of nutrients down. Another 2 cups of worm castings, 3 of perlite, and 3 of peat should work well. I’ll keep track and document the soil mix in percentages of ingredients so I can recreate it.

[ReikoX]

Dont forget some kind of liming agent (dolomite lime).

[pjay_dubya]

ok i don’t even know about limiting or pH buffering really… I always just assumed people used lime just to raise pH in acidic soil. I have acidic soil right and now i’m going to put lime in?

[ReikoX]

Dolomite lime not only helps buffer pH, but also contains calcium and magnesium. I’ve also made mixes of gypsum, oyster shell flour, glacial rock dust, and basalt rock dusts as my liming agent…

[pjay_dubya]

hey thanks a lot eh. my wife is gonna be pissed when i buy one more thing for this soil mix though!

[Tinytuttle]

I don’t see much perlite in your soil mix looking kind of heavy and wet IMO. I’d try adding a bit more aeration to the mix.