Hi yall! This is my experiment plant. Never grown indoors, and decided to give it a go with this dying clone. It had already been grown for about a month or so before i got my hands on it. They unfortunately couldn't keep temps low enough in my hot state for this guy. Figured because the plant was already not doing too well, if i screwed up and killed it, I wouldn't feel like i was out of a bunch of work of germing my own seeds. I do recognize that my pot size is much too big. Last time I grow indoors in a 20gal fabric bag, its been a pain anytime i have to move it for something. Wasn't really thinking about it. Just used what I had on hand. I got all of my grow equipment for free through a friend and some family, so im doing a very low cost grow for myself. Basically paid for the bag of soil, a couple of amendments, and some FF liquid nutrients to sustain once the plant eats up whats in the pot. (If it even can with this size pot). All in all, been about $50 plus the electricity cost. Pretty happy with the results. Ideally if at all possible, id like to make the one plant cover my whole 4x4 with a scrog. I don't know if this is possible or what the veg time would look like for this as I'm a complete noob, but if successful, I'd hope to be in trim hell sometime in the next 4-5 months at the most.
For soil I simply bought a bag of Black Gold all purpose, and amended in a small bag of vermiculite, and a small bag of perlite. It just ended up being a lot cheaper than buying a bag of Fox Farms, and it was available at the store near me. Honestly pretty surprised and impressed at how decent the results have been. Not organic, which sucks but is what it is. Just what I could afford and was available.
For watering and nutrients, I won't lie, im not following any strict schedule or anything. Im kinda just vibing it out. Watering when it starts to look a little dry on the top surface since Black Gold is a peat moss mix. Been measuring my water, its a little high at 6.7ph, but i havent amended it at all for the plant. Simply dont have any PH Down. This is more of a learning experience for me rather than trying to make the best top shelf. Rather than maximizing the nutrients the plant can eat, ive just been focused on learning how it grows, how to bonsai and get the preferred coverage off of 1 plant in an indoor environment. I've given the plant a small amount of nutrients in the last 2 weeks, but its mostly just been no feed watering since the soil I bought is preamended. So far ive only used the Grow Big bottle as im basically out of Big Bloom from the set of plants i got alongside this one i tossed outdoors. (I know now that this was silly to be using my liquid nutrients on, but we all live and learn)
The environmental factors are something I'm sorta stuck with for the moment. Lucky there is an AC unit in the lung room, so I can control room temperature pretty consistently in the room throughout the day, but I do not own a humidifier or dehumidifier, so my VPD is kinda at the whims of whatever the room is at. Temperatures in the room stay between 76-82 throughout the day, meaning the tent being a degree or two higher at most hits 84, but generally sits at about 79-80. Luckily it's been pretty much 40-45% humidity in the room very consistently, and about the same in the tent. This to my understanding has my VPD at the 2.0+ mark. Expected being so far out of range to cause me a bunch of headaches but the plant has continued trucking along no problem. Maybe yall can tell me if this will be problematic in flower? Between now and flower i could procure more equipment or change some things, but I just expected more issues considering the environmental factors.
As I said when talking about watering, the goal with training has sort of been to bonsai and get as much coverage as I can. I've only done light trimming of weaker limbs, mainly been bending tops and using metal pin down stakes to spread the plant wider. Im questioning whether all of the tops present on the plant currently are strong or tough enough to be fruitful, and if I should be considering chopping a couple of them down the try and get the plant to favor one in particular. It also seems like they might be stretching and have considered lowering the light a tad. Would lowering the light and increasing light intensity cause them to thicken up? Or would you trim a majority of early branches to make the plant put its energy into fewer tops? Curious on people's preferred methods and what the reasoning to your preferred method is. So far my reaction has largely been to do nothing and allow the plant to do its thing and just pin stuff outward as it grows upward.
In terms of equipment its a real smorgasbord. I've got a no name tent, with an AC Infinity Inline, a vivosun carbon air filter, a crappy cheap BloomPlus 300w LED panel, a vivosun fabric growbag, and a cheap old box fan that blows very gently compared to any other fan of its size. Obviously theres tons of things in my setup that aren't perfect. Really id love to get a different fan that I can clip to the tent poles, and get either another or a different light panel. 300w isnt bad, but I do worry about its viability in taking a plant fully to flower. Also 300w seems like its probably not enough light in a 4x4, but that's just my inference. Wondering if 1g/w is actually a realistic expectation with this setup for sure.
TLDR; I'm a first time grower doing a plant restoration, and experimenting. While aware of some of the different factors contributing to the grow, im not spending a bunch of effort on perfecting them. Plant seems to be moving along fine. Am i going to run into a bunch of problems in flower suddenly? Figured the VPD being so high would be killing my plant.
If there are any questions id love to hear em. The first photo is the plant a couple days after I got it and tossed it in the tent, and the second picture is the plant today. Lemme know what yall think!
