Hello. I finished up my first grow earlier in December. They were 4 autos from Delicious Seeds, Northern Lights Blue Auto. They were all in 3 gallon pots with Ocean Forrest, the only nutes I used were calmag and FF Grow Big + FF Big Bloom. I used a a T5 panel and CFL side lights for a total of 530w. I made a few mistakes here and there. I wasn't aware I needed calmag with RO water and I wasn't able to keep the temps where they needed to be on a few nights. Other then that, it went well. They all produced over an ounce, a few of them were an ounce and a half, and the buds are fairly dense and look good. The taste is great and the high is awesome. It's a great medical strain. I am only growing for myself and one other person in my family (we're both mmj patients) so my next grow is just going to be two seeds that I got when I ordered the Delicious Seeds. The strains are Great White Shark x Mazar and Northern Lights x Skunk. They are both from World of Seeds. I would like to start these soon because I'm excited to see what I can get from a full sized photo plant since I did pretty well with the autos. This time around I will be using 7 gallon smart pots. I plan on keeping everything the same, just adding Tiger Bloom and Cha Ching to the list of nutes and going with larger pots. The plants will be under the same amount of lights (530w) which is much more then recommended, as opposed to my last grow where I had less wattage then recommended. Now that you have the details, does anybody have an idea of how much I can get from these plants? I can't grow them taller then 4.5 feet so that may hold me back a bit, but I was thinking I would try topping one of them this time also. Plus the extra wattage and usage of smart pots should help. Any guesses? Thanks.
I'd say you should be able to easily pull 5 oz each. Rough guess cause everyone grows differently. Also, look into geopots sometime. They are square bottomed like the smart pots and the fabric is a little thicker. Couple bucks more. Also, RO water is not necessary for growing good weed. I set tap water out for 24 hrs and I have never had a problem. I use FFHF soil with FF nutes as well. I would top them if I were you or look into scrog if you want to even out the canopy to get better penetration to the buds from your CFLs. Good luck
Good to hear. Yeah I was going to top one of them since it will be my first time doing that, that way if I mess up I'm not out both plants. I seen the geopots before but the smart pots were local, that's why I went that route. As for the RO water, our water is TERRIBLE, we don't even drink it or give it to our animals. I refill 5 gallon and 1 gallon bottles at a local water place and it's RO water, so it only costs me about 50 cents extra to water with RO.
For your best yield, scrog them and use a long veg period to take advantage of the 7g pots. Do not waste your time and grow 4.5 ft tall plants when your lighting only penetrates 6" to 12" at best. I say about 2 to 3 oz each.
I agree with joker. Cfl or fluorescent lighting in general dissipates really quickly.. If u grew your plants tall, the buds within 6" of your lights may turn out but anything after that will be whispy and undeveloped. Build a screen with dimensions equal to or a few inches larger than ur t5 fixture and scrog your plant canopy like 3" under the lights. Once the screen is about 60-75% full go to 12/12 and slowly start trimming EVERY node under the screen (do this gradually though as to not shock your plants). After a week or two of trimming the plant under the scrog should just be stems, which will allow the plant to focus all its energy onto the flowers above. This is prolly the best way to obtain a decent yield from t5's IMO And as far as how much? There are LOTS of variables (strain, veg time, ph, ferts, temp, co2 just to name a few)
I think I'll try the scrog. It's been so cold here lately that I haven't bothered starting yet. I use clamp lights with 40 watt (actual wattage) CFL's with 10" reflector bowls that I put on the sides of the plants. The way I have my lights set up, there is no one spot getting much more then the rest, because every part of the plant has decent wattage 4" away. I think that's why I yielded more then expected on my first grow. The buds on my lower stems were 3/4 the size of the ones on the stems towards the top. The scrog would make it a total bitch to water though due to the way the closet is set up, but other then that it sounds good. As for the variables, I listed most of them already, I was just asking for an estimate anyway. I know estimates are always off, I was told that I wouldn't even get an oz out off an auto with T5's by most, yet I averaged 1.5 per plant of some really good stuff. I just haven't done regular plants yet and was looking for some estimates on the strain listed in the conditions listed with the nutes listed.
Nice, I think I will. It's supposed to start warming up here starting tomorrow so I may start it up this weekend.