My largest struggle has been space while at the same time trying to keep a res supplying the tents from getting funky. I use air stones to keep the water moving and frequently drain and refill the water. I top feed so the res is only water! I have read and watched on ways to keep it clean now I just need to do it and push forward. The plastic non rigid container is nice for portability but also makes it difficult to stay clean trying to get into all the corners.
If anyone has some tips and tricks to do while the run is going I’m all ears! Trying to lock this down before moving to an autofill setup.
After 4 seasons of outdoor growing, indoor growing is the biggest challenge, sort of. It’s more decisions and results than challenges. When you’re new it’s more about risk management than tough problems to solve because there is a long list of problems that you don’t know how to recognize, much less solve yet. My first grow was with “beginner” genetics. I remember it as one plant, but there were also two little “mistake” plants that I played with and learned from. Hedging bets is about planning for more than you need so that when “challenges” arise you can afford to lose some. I don’t need to grow indoors, so it is no big deal if it’s not delivering as expected.
I could spray BT to prevent bud rot due to caterpillars. Or I could manually pick the caterpillars off, miss some and just accept a 5% loss. Now that I’m in a position to grow more biomass than I want to check daily, I’ll be adding BT to the routine. Knowledge and experience let you make different hedges. Scale effects what hedges to make. It’s about doing enough homework to make smart decisions. Some rookie growers don’t know enough to check for herms or caterpillars or PM. From social media posts, it seems a lot of growers have “doing your homework” as their biggest challenge. The more knowledge and experience you gain the more you can make proactive decisions versus reactive decisions.
If I need 300 grams of harvest and expect over 1000, I don’t need to whine when I cut out a rotten bud. In 2024 I lost 75% of my crop (some might say weather is the biggest challenge for outdoor growers around these parts), but still met my yield goal. Growing way more than I need is a lot of extra labor and not cheap. But I give a lot away (e.g. to veterans). Sometimes it is a challenge getting folks to believe that “I only give it away” and “I’m not that good”.
One of my goals to grow big dense buds outdoors without mold. In this climate that is less of a challenge than a suicide mission. But it is the difficulty of the journey that drives learning not reaching the destination. Participating in that challenge is the objective.
gizmo designer at heart here so…. (yep everything is overboard)
My biggest quandary remains trying to enumerate soil densities/types, water drainage and retention requirements, aeration, etc.
With lots of sensor recordings in hand over multiple grows/experiments, separating strain specifics from grow media, vs water usage, vs, etc etc has become very interesting to me, yet perplexing at the same time.
I spent a year trying to get rid of them, predator mites, soap sprays, plant dunks, neem oil, pyrethrum 5EC, bug bomb fumigators.. Could keep them in check, but persistent buggers kept coming back.
In the end I admitted defeat, took a couple month break and got a new tent.
I’m pretty sure they came in on a tree surgeon friend who came round after work a couple of times. I learned how important prevention is. If you’ve been gardening/working outside where pests are present put your clothes in the wash when you get home or risk bringing them in with you!
Biggest challenge was getting seeds to germinate and live past seedling. Was large in part wasn’t able to provide stable environment for em and now have a dedicated area just for the new growth. Getting into trying dwc so that is currently biggest challenge to keep those numbers in check at stages whats needed
I’ve had plenty of challenges in my garden over the years. Most of them came from trying to figure things out on my own, but the biggest lesson I’ve learned is knowing when to let go.
Last summer I was traveling and brought home a few clones. I did quarantine them, but about three weeks in I noticed thrips. This was my second time dealing with them — the first time was awful and my yield suffered badly. This time, though, I had four Jelly Donut clones a friend gifted me. They were spectacular. They looked healthy, strong, and were standing as tall as me.
But no matter what I did, the thrips wouldn’t stay dead! On top of that, we were in the middle of selling our home and moving, so everything hit at once. Eventually I had to make the hard call to let that run go.
If you check it out, you’ll see how crazy the situation really was. Thankfully, I had a big harvest right before that one, because growing in the new place has brought its own set of challenges too.
They weren’t the only plants I lost that grow. I had two Fast flowers by Seedsman, and 2 other clones from my trip. Tough decisions but I realize there will always be another grow!
Grow On!!!
My biggest problem (which is a nice problem to have) is increasing production indoors
My early growing days I averaged around 2.5 ounces per plant. I continued experimenting in soil and managed to get the average up to around 6 ounces per plant. Now I do tightly trim my bud which does result in lower yields. Then I decided to switch to Hydro and Jack’s Nutrients. I still have some grows in soil and yield around 7 ounces per plant in soil now. The Hydro in AirCubes have brought my average production up to 12 ounces per plant with reducing the cost per plant. I just took a Seedsman Gorilla Bomb out of my dryer (I wet trim and then dry) and its yield was 22.06 ounces!
My biggest challenge is some times germination. There is times when I have everyone hit and times I will have 1. This year I was doing my usual OG kush. 2 days into germination. I checked them and one had a tap root an inch long and nothing feom the others. No idea how that happened. My other biggest is August heat. Last year I had 6 wilt on me in that heat. I left some alone and some I pruned the dieing leaves. I should not have proned at all. The ones I did not touch came back. I tried to order Afgan this year being that they handle heat well but they were sold out
You can mix mosquito bits into your soil or add the bits to water, wait a half hour, strain, and water your plant with the water. They have bti which is a bacteria that kills the gnats in the larva stage and won’t interfere with your plant. It takes a little time but it kills them in the long run and prevents them from getting out of hand later. For the adults I use insecticidal soap. Usually I see a significant drop in adults within a day after I hit them with it, and about a week to 2 weeks for the bti to show is effects.
Some of the biggest challenges growing has been keeping numbers within legal limits! Getting stocked up on seeds before the law is in affect November. There are so many good strains out there. Bugs would be another one. Right now battling fungus knats, we’re using BTI water, drying back, using sticky traps. These things are relentless. Starting seeds with an infestation can cause a lot of seedlings to fail. Which sucks big time.
A big challenge for me is trying to learn how to train my girls, and fighting off pest. Especially for an outdoor grow. Had a ton of caterpillars one year. Had to use a water hose to spray them, and pick them by hand.
The biggest challenge i faced learning to grow was and still is the “learning”
Originally getting into growing, information wasnt too easy to find. Im extremely grateful for the content creators on youtube and online communities that have built up over the recent years because originally i was basically scouring through threads online and learning through trial and error.
Its easy as a new grower to constantly change inputs and cause problems/fixes without even realizing what the cause was, eventually i realized to implement 1 thing at a time when it came to dealing with a problem to then study the results after a few days - doing this over years, i now feel comfortable identifying and addressing any issue in my garden. My biggest advice on starting out is too try one method (coco, organic, hydro), before hand learning a decent amount of information on “does and donts” when you see a problem look online for help and make sure to only implement 1 thing at a time to be able to realize what actually worked.
When it came to the “newbie learning” phase though, some things i thought i really didnt need to consider too much - specifically environment. Eventually i realized dialing in the environment temperature and humidity wise, is EXTREMELY important. I realized this eventually after my 3rd/4th crop got “bud rot”
So to cap it off, basically - piecing everything together until i felt comfortable i was able to deal with any problem that would/could/will come my way was my biggest challenge
There are so many challenges that new grower to an advanced grower face.challenges will always arise and it’s all about learning from your mistakes and being willing to learn something new.im getting into bioluminescent microbes now, so you can even teach old dogs new tricks.even if you are the best grower you could get bugs,bluemat flood,power outage temperature outside changing with the season that needs constant adjustments to your environment and so many more.we have a great community going here and so many great growers that are willing to help.thank you seedsman!
Germinating older seeds, I’ve tried combinations of scarification, soaking in aloe/ asprin/peroxide/water solutions, using worm castings for microbial breakdown of seed outer layer.. that being said I havent done it enough to say it doesnt work or won’t continue using these methods, but it is challenging and have not been as successful as I wish i could be..
My biggest challenge so far has probably been when Personal Production Licenses first started under Medical Cannabis in my state. It was new and a hassle because the plant limit was 16, but only 4 at a time could be in flower, so it was a constant effort to grow 4 sets of 4 and stage them so that when 4 were harvested, 4 were ready to flip, and 4 were behind those, etc…..and also…..pests.
My biggest challenge has always been the high humidity. I live in an area where the humidity is usually over 60-80% throughout the year when it rains. And it rains a lot here
Definitely over watering My first run was with soil and stunted my plants by a week from over watering. This is my first run with coco and I almost made the same mistake. I really have to check myself in the beginning stages, but thankfully everything is improving every time!
My first run was with soil and stunted my plants by a week from over watering. This is my first run with coco and I almost made the same mistake. I really have to check myself in the beginning stages, but thankfully everything is improving every time!