Hey guys after many years of research and planning I finally embarked on my first grow. I acquired 20 Lemonhead x Alien Kush from my cultivator friend in Maine. One of his own strains. The supplies I am using are a 400w mh/hps fixture in a closet lined with Mylar. After germinating 5 seeds I now have 5 babies. My only problem is ventilation and humidity in the room. Right now I have a humidifier that is not blowing directly on but over the plants which is in turn cooling them under the lights. I keep the door open a crack for fresh air and there is a 4" hole in the wall for exhaust I'm waiting on my fan to Come in the mail. All the girls look good except one but I blame it on too much stress. "I dropped the cup it's in haha". But anyway my questions are. What would be the best ventilation solution for the room? and I know once they get bigger I'm going to need to keep the door closed for light loss. I keep the temp at 76-79 degrees but my humidity doesn't break 39% when lights are on. What should I do? Any and all advice is appreciated!!!
Also my medium is Happy Frog Potting Soil mixed with 25% perlite. For drainage. I read to water every 3 days so there is 30% runoff is this correct and I also read that taking the soils Ph from the run-off is the most accurate is this true?
No. That's not correct. You need to adjust the pH of any liquids (water/feed) that go INTO your plants to a range of 6.3 to 6.7 (for soil grows). If you correct the pH on the liquids before going in, the soil pH will generally stay fine throughout the grow. Also, make sure that you have a good reliable instrument to check your pH with. pH is a big deal as far as keeping your plants healthy and you need to know for sure that the readings you're getting are correct. The super cheap testers you can get off Amazon and Ebay aren't worth wasting your money on. Buy a good one and you'll only have to buy once. You only water when the cup (or container they are in) is totally dried out. To keep these plants healthy throughout their life cycles, you have to maintain defined wet/dry cycles. Keeping the roots moist all the time will only cause root rot and other not so fun things you have to deal with on down the road. So leave them alone until they use up all the water in the cup before you put anymore in. Since you're using good soil, you won't be needing nutes till further on down the line a ways. Leave these in the cups until they have had the chance to grow as tall and as wide as the cup and even letting them get a touch root bound in the cup before transplant is a good thing. Then pot them up one size and do the same thing all over again. Confining the space that the plant has to root into only speeds up the foliage growth. Putting a small plant into a huge container will slow down foliage growth since the plant does all it's root work first and the more space it has to root into, the longer it takes for the foliage to start back growing again. The biggest killer of plants by new growers is over watering. Resist the temptation to "do something" to them and leave them alone to do their thing. These plants have survived for thousands of years on earth without any special attention from man and are much hardier than we tend to give them credit for. Keep a close eye on the one you dropped. I've dropped them and spilled the soil out of the container and just about anything you can possibly do to one...but if they're healthy, they should pick right back up and forge on...in other words, dropping one shouldn't cause any major issues if the plant was healthy before it was dropped, so keep a close eye on that particular one just in case it does have issues other than the dropping of the cup it's in. Sooo.....all in all, don't over water them while they're still small and growing and give them proper lighting and you should be good. I flower under 1000 watt mhs lamps and 4 is the most I attempt to flower under each of those lights. Don't overcrowd your lights when it comes time to flower these off or you'll shoot yourself in the foot as far as yield goes. You can harvest more off one plant that gets everything it needs than you can 4 or 5 shoved into the space that only one should have been flowering. You don't mention the dimensions of the closet you're growing in...only the light, but I do know that that particular size bulb is only capable of covering so many sq. feet. The light manufacturers always want you to believe these lights will cover more area than they actually do, but you have to be realistic about what you can actually grow under that one light. The biggest challenge with growing in a confined space like a closet is managing the heat emitted from the lights. I hope you're using a cooled reflector, ducting and fan to pull the heat out of the area and always have fans inside the grow space so there is constant movement of the plants. This helps with heat but also acts sort of like an exerciser for the plants to help make them strong. Once you're through with this "book" I've written (LOL), get on the new grower threads here and read.
One other question I have is how do I decide growth time when do I initially say ok it's in veg state ? and how can I see if my plant is up to the weekly milestones it should be hitting. 3 of the girls the larger 3 all broke soil on November 18 and I did record that but I know that really doesn't count toward veg time. Please someone clarify growth scheduling
Thanks widow and the room is under a staircase but I boxed it off with the Mylar so it's 4x5x10 and the hood I have is just a basic wing reflector budget is key for me here and I got this ballast and lights for 90 on eBay and I agree with the ph meter I purchased 2 different meters for 20 each and they both give me different readings not much different but I know 1.0 is 10x greater. My ph is at 6.5 and I'm using bottled water with a ph of 6.7 and I'm not using any nutes at all knowing the happy frog was loaded with good stuff.
Buy a cool tube reflector on ebay an inline fan and some cheap ducting. The heat will become an issue especially once you run HPS. Im running a similar grow to you. Growth time is once your plant gets to between a half and 2/3 of the size you want your final product to be. Also keep in mind that your 400w is only going to provide you 3.5 square feet of good light coverage. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
I think I'm going to get a 3 bulb CFL unit for more light less heat? and ducting I am going to get in a week but yeah that is exactly what I was thinking and I don't really have the money to drop on a cool tube unit I would have in the beginning if I did but I have 2 fans running now and the CFL will only run me 40$. Thank you for your input @qbsillest
Just fyi you can get a cooltube for like $37 on ebay. Well worth it Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
if cannabis "needs defined wet/dry cycles or you will end up with root rot", how does hydroponic gardening, bubble buckets or organic soil in self irrigating planters work?
Don't get me wrong - the very last thing anyone wants is a wet, heavy and waterlogged soil that doesn't drain well and hinders oxygen to the root zone. Instead, make sure that the soil is light and reasonably fluffy; ie: it NEEDS to drain well. Once this is taken care of the soil or growing medium should, IMO, always be kept "just moist". Allowing a soil to fully dry out does nothing but kill off ("air prune") fine, tender root hairs that's only job is to bring more and more nutrition to the plant. Now, they will always grow back but why on earth kill them off in the first place? Just make sure that the medium drains well and that O2 getting to the plant roots isn't a problem. J
Because hydro has oxygen going to the roots WITH A PUMP and soil does not.... once the oxygen is gone from dirt ITS GONE...thats why you need a dry cycle.... if you ran an air pump to soaked dirt you would be fine too.... seriously you ask that hahaha... self irrigated organic. ...LIKE A DRIP... ya thats constantly new oxygenated water too....no rocket surgery there
"once the oxygen is gone from dirt ITS GONE" How so? I beg to differ. In a well aerated/draining soil even simple watering draws oxygen back into the soil. There certainly isn't a vacuum like in space... "Because hydro has oxygen going to the roots WITH A PUMP" Well, first off, you're only referring to one type of hydroponic gardening.such as a bubble bucket - but those roots are still constantly wet - no dry cycle. What about an Ebb & Flow system or even a passive hand watered system? The roots are still constantly moist, even wet. This always and forever comes down to, like I said and will say again, making sure that the soil is well aerated and drains properly. A well made potting soil with sufficient drainage added will work like a vacuum - as water flows through it, air follows. It's not like once you water the soil locks up into a vacuum with no air behind it. For many years I ran passive hand watered drain to waste setups where perlite and vermiculite mediums were watered 6-8 times daily with nutrient solution - where was the "dry cycle"? "self irrigated organic. ...LIKE A DRIP... ya thats constantly new oxygenated water too....no rocket surgery there" No - it isn't. Head over to the organics forum. Many folks use SIPs (self irrigating planters) to keep their (well aerated/draining) soil constantly moist - no dry cycle whatsoever and growth rates are much, much better. And no, no air pumps are used. This is a passive setup where Smart Pots are set on a bed of perlite which is set into a larger container. Picture a kiddie pool (just as an example) that has 8"-10" of perlite added. The pool is then filled with water around 6" deep so that the smart pots only touch the wet perlite - the moisture wicks into the smart pot keeping the (well draining) soil constantly and steadily moist. Btw - it's called "rocket science". I don't believe they do surgery on rockets. Yes, of course roots need oxygen - that's Gardening 101. Make sure that your potting soil has plenty of aeration added (perlite, buckwheat hulls, rice hulls, lava rock - whatever) and moisture no longer becomes an issue and by keeping the soil steadily and constantly moist and trust me, your plants will thrive much better than allowing those fine root hairs to constantly die off and then need to regrow. At the end of the day this is the deal - plant roots do need Oxygen - that's a well established fact. They do NOT need to dry out, though - ever, and allowing them to dry out does more harm than good by allowing fine root hairs to shrivel up and die. J
self irrigated means something like this. Not always a drip and does not need an air pump. Water wicks up into the pot keeping the soil evenly moist at all times unless the gardner isn't diligent allowing the sip to dry out . As long as the soil isn't water logged, wet/dry cycles are completly unnecessary. In organic soils its actually damaging the micro organisms to dry out.