Oranje's Adventures in Vegging

Would you mind posting a picture of your light set up in your tent.

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If you mean the tent of death, itā€™s currently disassembled for maintenance :grin: But the fairly concise overview of what I was running before shutdown:

  • 2ā€™ x 4 T5, 96w, hung at 2 feet. Standard Grow Bulbs.
  • Mars Hydro 300 (I think 150 watts at the wall) blurple LED, hung around 3.5 feet.
  • Two 8" fans for in-tent circulation, and a surrogate housefan positioned at the corner of the open tent for fresh air.

That last part non-ideal, fully acknowledged, but the winter was actually worse: to keep humidity and warmth in, I had no external venting at all.

I kept the plants I was trying to keep healthiest in the relative-shade of the T5. At least psychologically, I trust T5s more than LEDsā€¦ Iā€™ve been growing stuff under fluorescents for 30-or-so years, Iā€™ve been using LEDs for 10 months. To some extent, those in the T5 half actually seemed to have healthier growthā€¦

There was also one male guinea pig which only got LED light, and it was a horrible, tortured freak of nature. I should have taken a picture, but hindsight is 20/20. It was basically stripped of fan leaves, but each node had the leaf growth tips for a branch that could beā€¦ and just never grew. The actual branch growth tip looked more like an indica-style bud (platter of dense, small leaves), with bleaching from the veins.

Iā€™d say thatā€™s pretty good evidence that the light is (but was not always?) a problem, though that plant had been tortured in a lot of ways over its life, so I unfortunately canā€™t definitively blame the light.

Ahem. Picture, thousand words, that probably covers it. Sorry for my high ramblings :wink:

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Oranje - I think light-burn is the culprit. I just realized that my new veg lamp (LED) was too close to the plants - the leaves on top were starting to get the same variegated appearance as your pics. Itā€™s different looking than the light burn that happens in flower. I knew this might happen, I wasnā€™t sure how close to put this new light. I dimmed it down by half and the leaves jacked up within hours.

I did consider this, but then it loops back around to ā€œwhy wasnā€™t it a problem before?ā€ Donā€™t get me wrong, looking at that LED fixture was like staring at the sun, and after I nearly cooked some seedlings under said fixture, Iā€™ve been paranoid about LED burnā€¦ but assuming it is that LED, something changed because I had taller, healthy plants under the same fixture back in the spring.

In the meantime, Iā€™ve swapped out the LED for another 4x2ā€™ T5. Itā€™s so, so dim in thereā€¦ it makes me sad. But as I donā€™t have any plans to flower soon, Iā€™ll keep using my flower tent for veg, because:

Look! Growing plants! Some of them are even fairly healthy! And those that arenā€™t that healthy have pretty straightforward deficiencies! That ChemD x Sunshine Daydream in the front right has revealed herself to be a beautiful young lady. Might have to stick her in a 15 gallon pot and go HAMā€¦ she smells like danger :grin:

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I will be so happy when you fix everything and can change the name of the thread. It is so sad. :grin:

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ā€¦ youā€™re nice, so I changed the title now. Thank you for your support. Iā€™ll change the category once my plants are all the way back in their happy place.

The good news is that one of the Apollo 11s popped some female preflowers, so looks like the ChemD x Sunshine Daydream gets a buddy when flower time arrives.

The bad news is that I found a few fungus gnats in the tent while looking for preflowers :laughing: I dusted a spoonful of neem meal on the soil of the likely culprits, but have readied the Gnatrol in case it becomes necessary.

Iā€™m not even mad ā€“ my plants are growing and I have to take care of them, which is what Iā€™ve been missing for the past 5 months :grin:

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Ha! Ha! Much better, maybe it will start a new beginning. :grin:

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There you are growing again moving forward and up!

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Still growing!

Yeah, the big ones need a drinkā€¦ Iā€™ve been keeping things on the drier side this week due to a rapidly growing (but now declining) fungus gnat party. On the plus side, most of them are in pretty good shape!

Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream looks to have moderate-to-severe Mg deficiency, but thatā€™s my classic problem when using RO water. Iā€™ll probably start adding 1/2 tsp/gal epsom salt weekly and see what happens. Iā€™ll probably clone this girl today, as she smells ridiculous :heart_eyes:

Other end of the spectrum, hereā€™s the Nirvana Mystery Bean I used to test my seed starting mix (verdict: itā€™s ā€¦ fine). Iā€™m beginning to suspect that this beanstalk is sativa-dominant. Just a hunch. Also, Iā€™m about 90% sure itā€™s a male, so itā€™s going to get turned into soylent green soon.

Edit: pic makes the leaves look sickly, for some reasonā€¦ thereā€™s not actually any inter-veinal yellowing, probably just weird lighting from the HPS.

I always feel so bad culling plants. They just want to live, dammit. Who am I to decide who lives and who dies?

Concluding pic, this is the confirmed female Apollo 11, and sheā€™s a beauty. Bushy beast, vigorous growth, smells lovely, and no obvious deficiencies :slight_smile: Sheā€™s getting cloned soon, too.

Once the Blueberry triplets reveal their genders, might be time to start another round of flowering.

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Cull that little bastard! Just did the same with a mystery male. Didnā€™t want to do it either, butā€¦ We do get to decide. Muwahahahahaā€¦

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Nice plants, i hope soon i have some like those! Cheers man!

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Thatā€™s one nice lineup there @oranje!

Iā€™ll be paying attention for sure.
Whoā€™s your favorite from that tent, so far?

Keep up the good work.
Stay hazed,
Jake

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:thinking:

Yeah I canā€™t pick. Top 3 in no particular order:

I like how the Apollo 11 is turning into a happy fun ball ā€“ it seems to be putting more effort into growing wide than growing tall, and Iā€™m okay with that.

Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream has impressed me with its vigor, and smells like it could be killer.

The Blueberry in the center of the group shot doing the whorled phyllotaxy thing also has a special place in my heartā€¦ assuming sheā€™s a girlā€¦ and if sheā€™s not I will be very disappointed and never forgive her.

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That is not politically correct, you should acknowledge everyone is special in there own way and should be accepted. Ha! Ha! :grin:

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I hope I am incorrect, but I am another who has been watching. These symptoms and what I have been seeing screams Broadmites to me. Iā€™ve been growing damn near 40 years and these somebitches were the very worst to diagnose because I had never heard of them.

They are very similar to the spider mite only way way smaller and not even seen really with a 30X power loupe. I ended up investing in a microscope soon after I knew what I had but found them with a 60X soon after a friend discovered them who I had gotten cuts from months previous.

Here is a link to a story on them I just Googled, so I am not sure how good this one is so proceed with caution.

If you do indeed find you have these guys, hit me up and I will give you the way to eradicate them.

I lost 38 strains about 6 years ago to these bastards, but the war is won once you know you have them.

I hope I am wrong but my gut tells me otherwise.

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I was actually going to put an addendum, but I suddenly remembered that I have a job and had to run. ahem, ā€œThen again, this is a vigorous, healthy plant. If itā€™s a male, might be time to try making my own seeds.ā€

Whorled phyllotaxy aside, the stem girth is absurd on this plant. Iā€™ll get a pic this weekend, but the stem on a 6-inch plant is thicker than the 2-foot sativa in the back.

Iā€™ve heard of them, and have even read the page you referenced :grin: I read a lot of GrowWeedEasy before I discovered that OG had returned. Anyway, right now ā€“ knock on wood ā€“ all is going pretty damn well. Iā€™ve got some minor deficiencies on a couple of plants, a rapidly-dwindling fungus gnat population, some plants that hold water too well, a couple where the peat seems to have gone perma-dryā€¦

But these are workable imperfections, and Iā€™m trying to address them by listening to my plants instead of working on a schedule. Organic is hard.

Anyway, new growth is vigorous, and almost universally healthy. As said above, the Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream ā€“ I think ā€“ is dealing with some magnesium deficiency:

Lightening between the veins, almost exclusively on old fan leaves. Iā€™d also guess that itā€™s approaching potbound, which doesnā€™t help.

Back to to broadmites: the leaf damage seemed to follow an extremely specific pattern, both in symptoms and in emergence. The bleaching on new growth, for example, was always triggered by watering, particularly when feeding. Itā€™s almost as though the plant would have a growth spurt and forget to color in what it grew.

Upon moving to the new tent, those symptoms disappeared in a few days.

So, I think (and reallyreally hope) that I donā€™t have mites because they would have come along for the ride to the new tent, and Iā€™d probably be panicking. Iā€™ll give them a good once-over to check for insect-looking leaf damage, but the majority of the leaves on all plants look healthy at this moment. Thanks for popping by, and if Iā€™m wrong and flipping out in a few weeks, Iā€™m taking you up for that eradication advice :grin:

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Quick update before the clone wars (and topping wars, and training wars, and purging the ones I donā€™t much care for wars). Might have to turn the flower tent back into a flower tent for halloweenā€¦ Iā€™ve never been good with costumes.

Fungus gnats are well under control, thank you potent combination of neem meal, mosquito bits, diatomaceous earth, and @ReikoXā€™s malted barley suggestion. I couldnā€™t find any in the tent today.

Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream (tall one in the center) really needs repotting, hopefully tomorrow. Itā€™s starting to show some other deficiencies beyond Mg, which would probably be best addressed with plentiful space and good soil.

Nirvana Mystery Sativa Male in the back will soon be turned to compost. I like it, itā€™s a cute lanky sativa, but if Iā€™m not going to use it for breedingā€¦ Might do the same with Space Candy #1. Sheā€™s a good girl, but the high is not my cup of tea. Her more difficult sister, Lumpy Space Princess, will advance to the next round.


All three Blueberries are girls, oh no :smile: Theyā€™re built like tanks, throwing out those nice fat indica leaves from stems too thick for plants that short.


The big Apollo 11 is so, so bushy. Love it. Also needs repotting, but sheā€™s almost as wide as she is tall with no trimming or training. Iā€™ll probably have to stake her up to flower, such are the sacrifices we make for our loved ones.

ā€¦ and that angle. Will she stack? She will stack.

Of the seedlings moved in, Iā€™m at 5/7 confirmed females, 1 confirmed male, and the smaller Apollo 11 is taking its timeā€¦ I have a feeling itā€™ll be a male, but that one Iā€™d be inclined to keep :slight_smile:

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I love your english, i get all the nuancies and ā€œmind gamesā€ without losing anything in the translation. Teach me lol
Happy to see that almost everything is back on the track; sorry to say that reading your worries was passionnating too.

big up

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Why thank you, I really like your thread, too. The plants look better, any DIY pics immediately get my attention, and the thread title made me laugh :laughing:

This thread is mostly my vent so my poor ladyfriend doesnā€™t have to listen to my grow-related ramblings. She likes looking at the plants (when theyā€™re healthy), and sheā€™s pretty okay with the end result. To anyone who enjoys my ramblings, I give you a nod of affirmation.

I seem to have smoked something and melted portions of my brain, so Iā€™ll try to be concise with this update and fail miserably.

The last remaining seedling of the summer has had a coming-out party and Apollo 11 #2 isā€¦ a girl. phweee. Anyway, after a string of shit luck (4 dead seedlings and 2 males), I now have 6 healthy females from 7 seeds. The only male was Nirvana Mystery Sativa that proved my homebrew seedlings starter was capable of supporting life ā€“ it served its purpose, and will soon be sacrificed to the worms to appease Weed Gods so they continue to smile upon me.

On the other hand, I now have more females than I have space, so I really need to get my veg tent back into working order. Itā€™s going to be so hard to pick a guinea pig from a collection of healthy plants, but if Iā€™m going to cull one of the Space Candy girlsā€¦

I guess I have a bit more hope for the veg tent now, as itā€™s no longer the peak of summer. Ambient temperatures are down by 10Āŗf, and relative humidity is up by about 25%. I do not trust the LED fixture anymore (but I got my $60 worth of entertainment), but improvements are comingā€¦ oh yes.

Anyway. Itā€™s nice to have plants that drink like sailors, and grow like things that grow a lot. In August, Iā€™d give these plants 250mL of water, once a week, and half of that would run through. In the past 3 days, the Chemdawg x Sunshine Daydream has taken 1.5 liters, no run-off. Yes, she needs to be repotted :grin: tomorrowā€¦

Hereā€™s my poor little Wreckage, comparing her in August to earlier this evening:

Sheā€™s actually healthier than she looksā€¦ the leaves are rather shiny :grin: Also, did you know that happy marijuana plants lay lemons?

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that must be where the limonene terps come from then hahaha XD

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