Whats up GC. Been a member here for a quite a while but this is my first post. I've been gathering info and decided to try my own little experiment. Got 2 rubbermaid bins bolted to each other with lights on a power strip duct taped to a piece of particle board and hung from the top by chains. Everything was going great, germinated in wet paper towels and had first sprouts on 5/19. Have had a relative 18/6 light schedule since then with an exhaust fan and a fan blowing on them constantly. 4 26 w CFL's, i think 27k. Recently though, my plants have shown signs of what looks like a potassium def/burn and I want to save my plants and make this is as fruitful as possible. My questions to you masterminds here at the city are: 1) What exactly are my plants experiencing? I have my lights on at night and off during 12 - 7 (hottest time of day), but I've had an incident or two where the fan got unplugged or the lights were left on longer than they shouldve been. Also, my temps are usually pretty cool, although i dont have a thermometer. 2) When should i transplant to a bigger pot? (I was thinking this week) 3) Do I have enough lights? 4) When should I make the first top cut and when should I LST? Thanks for the help and I can upload more pictures of higher quality if requested. The second last picture was taken during 2 weeks when the plants were younger and healthier looking.
What day of the grow is this for the plants? How long did you run 24hr lighting after sprouting? That looks magnesium related to me. Check this thread: http://forum.grasscity.com/general-indoor-growing/374679-essential-plant-nutrients.html
This would be day 20 of the plants life. I had the lights on 24 hours for maybe 4 or 5 days after they sprouted. I thought it was magnesium related and so I tried flushing the soil and adding some magnesium. It looks potassium related. Maybe i just need a bigger pot..
def upgrade the pot size. get square pots too, makes more room for roots & neater in smaller spaces. looking good though, the damage isnt that bad.
Thanks for the advice guys, I transplanted today. Things didn't go too smoothly, Im hoping that I didnt kill these little guys (or gals haha). I tried finding square pots, as that wouldve helped immensly, but all i could find were windowsill pots that were too big for my box. So now Ive got probably the most ghetto setup ive ever seen, with plants in all different pots. I can only hope that by some miracle I put the females in the biggest pots. We'll see... Anyway, When should I top these, and if i want to LST, when should i tie them down? Also, these plants really arent looking too healthy... Should i just switch to 12/12 lights and see what I can get? I dont want these babies to die on me after all this work Day 21
Replace the aluminum foil with some white paint or mylar or something. The foil always crinkles up and reflects the light in the wrong direction. It also reflects more ultraviolet ray's than mylar which is harmful to the chloroplast in the plant (which could explain why the plants are yellow in some spots) Also you should remove any leaves that are over 50% dead. I was just going out on a limb there. I hope it helps, goodluck
Wow good suggestions, I never thought about some of that. I just thought that silver duct tape would work well since everyone uses mylar. Guess its all just part of the learning process haha. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do from this point on? Im pretty damn sure my plants are dying so what should I do so that i can still get some kind of flowers out of these babies?
Well IMO I think that the silver duct tape is much better of a choice than aluminum foil. You can keep the tape flat where as the aluminum foil is all bumpy. I'm right there learning with you though haha
I think my transplant actually went pretty well. The leaves are a lot less droopy and all new growth is nice and green and flat. This is the last week of veg before I turn it to 12/12 next tuesday I'll post pics later.
On your topping Q' and LST, with mine I topped it twice, first one didn't make two branch growth..at first..so i topped it at 5 sets, then again 3 later. I didn't run into having to LST mine until maybe the first week of flower when it was growin like made and I wanted to get as much light coverage as possible. My second one that I sprouted too early, as I haven't had the means to build a second box, has been tied down since i first topped it at 5 which made it into 3 branches. Poor lil thing has been forced to flower since seed. Its just kinda livin in the corner of my cabinet usually just gets runoff or whatever water is left in the bucket heh. good luck. will be watchin
Nice man, thanks for the input! I think that I'm just going to let them keep growing and if I need to I'll LST. I kinda screwed up by growing 11 plants instead of 3, but theres always the possibility that a bunch of them will be male. Anyway, these plants are reaching the end of their veg life cycle and here are the current pics of the best plants. And there ya have it, hopefully I could collectively get an ounce out of this grow, but I think I saved these plants by transplanting so anything would be awesome . When I start flowering i'll use my better camera, the thing eats up batteries so my phone works for now.
whats up man.. im kinda in the same boat!! i dont know what to do with my plants!! keep going fuck it bro!!
Day 26. They've def recovered, but lacking lower leaves due to cramped growing conditions. I think i'm gonna let them veg for one more week for a total of 5. Will sex show up within the next week even if i dont initiate flowering?
depends on if they are automatic or not. usually with non automatic they wont show sex until 5-10 days after you switch to 12/12 sometimes sooner if ur lucky. had a male pop up after 2 days of 12/12 so its all about the plant i guess. if they are auto's then you dont even need to switch the lights, they do it all themselves good vibes! ps: getting the same size square pots would save u alot of space and make everything much easier, just a suggestion if u could find some cheap. lookin good though bro
Thanks for the input, they arent autos, so I think I'm gonna keep 18/6 for a few more days. I went looking for square pots but had a hard time finding any. Idk i think I'm maximizing my space usage with milk containers haha. just a poor college student trying to grow money
4 cfls for 8 plants? You need 5,000 lumens per plant and if I remember correctly each cfl 6500k is about 1,500 lums so eventually you will need 4 per plant. If I was you I would select the 4-5 that look the best and kill the others, some looks sick and theirs no reason to keep them hanging in there while taking resources from the others. transplant to at least 2.5 to 3 gallon pots with some fox farm soil. go to your local home depot and get a pack of 20 2700k cfl for flowering. I highly doubt that you are going to be able to support a 5 foot plant so I would start trying to sex after about 20 days by using 2700k's at 12/12 lighting.
Ok, I guess I'll trigger flowering tomorrow so I can determine sex within the next week. I just don't want to pull out the smallest ones if they end up being female and the larger ones end up being male, if you know what I mean. Ok so let me get this straight: 1) get 27 k lights tonight, trigger flowering tomorrow. Try to fit more lights in the box. 2)Determine sex, get rid of males, make room, and fill box with 27 k lights 3) buds? haha Could I use both 27k and then one or two 65k lights for flowering?
I definitely agree about the square pots. They can be a little harder to find. But if you get good ones, you can always clean them out and reuse them. You'll save a lot of space. Remember the micro-game is about turnover. 3-5 good healthy plants that can be cloned, flowered and harvested over a 75-90 day period over and over again is a good year-around goal for a micro grower, IMHO.
Yeah, i just used bagseed for this grow, but i think some of the seeds might be auto. They are starting to smell . I added more lights today and plan on giving a friend of mine the 2 plants in the solo cups as well as the one in the soda bottle container. then im gonna switch to flowering and hopefully one or two will be male which should leave me with 3 or 4 females, making me a happy happy guy.