Hey im trying to help a friend grow and his plants have weak stems that he needs to support with string and plastic forks lol. I have a few pics of the plants and i will post them. But im wondering if the light hes using is strong enough? it's a 24 watt T5 flourescent and its about 2 inches away from the plants. Does it need nutrients? More light? More fan? More Cowbell? haha someone help me out! or is it too late for these plants? .... oh and he doesnt know the strain of the plants he's growing either because he got the seeds from a friend.
man what a state. a 24w cfl is not enough light for a cress plant. you need to have at least 100w of florescents for the first plant and at least a further 50w for each further plants. the stems have done that as they are trying to reach the light. you need to get some serious light on them if they will survive. may be a bad idea but i saw a post by somneone who had ruined plants like those ones and the buried some of the stem in soil when re-potting. maybe a bit of that and the extra light might help. it is not food.
thanks man. at first the plants were under a piece of crap 10 dollar fluorescent from walmart which wasnt doing a thing obviously. then we went to the hydroponic store and the guy there recomendded the t5 light for vegetating. so you're saying one 24w t5 won't get the veg job done? will they die?
the t5 wont get the job done. its all about lumens which are the measure of light. you dont want less than 2500-3000 lumens even for one plant. i think that a r5 puts out about 2000 lumens. you simply need more light.
I guess the guy at the hydroponics store is just trying to rob us. He paid 45 dollars for that light and its for nothing its looking like. He told us it was enough light for what we needed and that it had enough lumens. he told us it had 5000 lumens but i think thats a lie. maybe.... next step i think is a 400w MH light but i dont know when that's going to happen.
www.homegrown-hydroponics.com/901591.html it gives guidlines for lumens there. a hps is a better light than MH. its true that MH lights are better for veg but if you are going to buy one light buy a HPS. maybe you could try to acquire a 70w HPS or MH in the interveining period.
Ya hes getting a 400w HPS on friday. but for veg im thinking that a 400w MH will be better than the one 24w t5 haha. ... So is there any hope for those plants? or start fresh with a new light?
if theres any hope, you need to start training it, rocky style. i mean, your gonna have to get some more light, pronto. even 2 more 50w cfls would do alot for it. and if you want that plant to survive your gonna have to gently bend that stem every day, without snapping it. but within 10% of snapping it. then give it a stick to support it. and do the same thing the next day. and continue to tie a stick to support it. eventually itll get stronger but its a lot of hassle for probably little more than an 8th
Okay im back. He found 4 more lights in his garage i idk what kind of lights they are. cfl i think fluorescent. He has two 14w lights, one 30w light, and one 26w light. and we narrowed it down to only 2 plants. They still have weak stems and can't support themselves. So with 4 more of these lights will they survive or is it still not enough light?? and more pics of the set up. pretty ghetto but thats all we got goin right now haha. Help!
looks like that will have to do at the moment; as long as you do get a better light nowish. as someone else mentioned above bend the stems daily. find backup seeds just in case good luck
Ya we've been bending the stems a little bit and there's now a fan blowing on them plus more light. so hopefully they pull through. and we have 5 more seeds germinating. im thinking we give up on these and just do the 5 we have going right now. but thats all up to him haha. will these skinny plants we have now be even worth it to flower? will these plants have a really low yield or if they pull together should it be normal or what?!
45$ for a fluo? woah that 50% of the price of a HPS ballast. They are still very early in growth and you can still easily save them. I just dont know why you're buying fluorescent tubes. You have few plants, and the tubes are longer than the space you need to cover for the plants. just buy a ton of CFL, coolwhite/daylight. You dont need to go to a hydro store.
Somethings off, i just cant put my finger on it wait..wait.. I just gotta have more of that cowbell! good luck with the grow
I don't normally venture into the indoor growing arena, but... All you need to do is repot them in deeper pots and carefully bury them up to the cotyledons. If they continue to stretch use pipe cleaners. See the first post in my monster thread (link below) for an example.
That fan you have blowing on them will help the stems alot... all I have is 4 48" 40 watt fluro's for 2 3 month old plants and they are fine.. try to keep fluro's 2 inches from the tops at all times. It looks like not only did they not have enough light, but the light was too far away causing them to stretch.
UPDATE!!!! we burried them up to an inch away from the first leave sets and it looks like it is doing a lot better now. the fan helped a lot too. But now the problem is is that on one of the plants it has a couple brown spots on the leaves. we just got some Maxi grow powder nutrients (10-5-14) and we added it last night. but the brown spots were there before we added it. PH problems? nutrient problems? or what?? also the stems are purple. the guy at the hydroponics store said this is normal and it is storing nutrients for bloom. is this true?? here are the pics of them.