Alright so my babies are about 2 weeks old under 11200 lumens of pure fluro light. I will flower with hps and fluros togethers. I am using conadian gold potting pix. in 14" pots. This is bagseed btw. If this grow goes well i will buy some seeds just dont want to waste money. Anyway tell me what you think. I decided to start a grow log because i think i will get the most help in here so. I will be here from start to finish.
Kind of small for 2 weeks old but your using floro so its understandable. Last grow you had very little yeild and you pm'd me for help. Canadian Gold Potting Mix : AKA Black Gold Potting Soil... is a 100% Organic potting soil rich in earthworm castings, Canadian sphagnum peat moss and pumice. Also also contains alot of micro nutrients. so First thing to tell you is Dont feed the plant any nutrients, that will be a big mistake right now. Suggestions : 1. Look at your last picture. See the very new growth at the top?? Thats your 4th Leaf set... suggest when that grows out that you can see the stem below those leafs and the 3rd set below it you TOP the plant (cut the main stem right below the first Leaf Set. This will form a Y in the main branch giving you 2 Main Collas instead of one. 2. You mention you have an HPS suggest you already start using that along with the flourescents you have to promote better / faster growth and branching. 3. Pick up a bottle of Schultz Liquid Plant Food Plus at your local ACE/HOme Depot/Lowes or wherever for future use, you will start to need it in about 2 weeks, you will water with that every watering (its 7 drops per Quart of water) so it goes a very long way and very cheap under 5 bucks. This will give the plant what it needs all the way until its time to flower at which time i will ask you to go and buy Schultz Bloom Booster (its a powder). Anyways get that hps on there or add more flouro's to speed things along. Make sure the Flouro's are DAYLIGHT type not Cool White or Warm White, you dont need that as you already have HPS available. When that top has grown out take another pic so i can help you on where to cut or check my Sticky in the Beginners section on Topping and Fimming.
Oh btw... you say your in a 14 inch pot.... thats good at least you wount have to transplant. Suggestion while watering, do not water the plant directly at the stem, water around the plant in a diameter around the leafs diameter. you want the roots to go exploring for the water, dont water it directly. The more roots you encourage the better/Faster/Stronger your plant will be. See pic below, darker area is where you should water.
Awesome i didnt know about the watering around the plant makes a whole lot of sense though. And you suggested topping them. This i have thought about but i have also thought about LST'ing them. Would topping be better at this point since i am inexperianced. I do grow grapes in my backyard so i have a little experiance with training plants. Although Cannabis is a whole different ball game. Also with topping; in your sig it gives the impression you top and LST. Is this true. And now that you said to go with schultz food that will save me money cause i was planning on buying some fox-farms. And i was planning on adding my HPS in soon but i got to fanagle things in my closet so i can get maximum light to them. Also i have been having to correct my waters pH which is around 7.5 for some reason. I have been using vinager since i have a but load at home. Im taking it down to 6'ish. Now when i start feeding them do i need to adjust before i add food or after i add food. I've heard that you can lock out nutes by adjusting at one of those times. Thanks Dier for all your help man.
PH should be between 6.2 and 6.4 optimally... be careful with vinegar it drops it very quickly as it contains alot of acid. Yes i Top and LST... reason is i have 2 growth points to start tying down and branching off of, so its double of everything. Main reason i asked you to top it is so that it shows it sex early without having to put it in 12/12. and also so that the main Y in the branch will be close to the soil like allowing you to tie it down more easily.
Wow i learned something again. I didnt know topping will cause the plant to show sex thats really helpful. I will take another pic in 2-3 days and post. And with the vinegar haha the first time i did it i put 5 ml in 1 quart of water and my ph dropped like 2-2.5 points i was like whoaaa Dont need alot of that stuff do ya. I made my girl laugh.
Alright So an update with pics tell me what you guys think. Are they ready to top yet dier. And alos what makes them show sex when you top. I also watered today with 6.0 pH water my runoff last time was a bit high. Thanks
Hmm, I am not sure, but I think the idea is to sex the topping (the part you cut of). But I am not gonna put words in his mouth. But that's how I read it.
Alright then that makes a little more sense. I was thinking on how just cutting it could cause it to show sex. Thanks for clearing that up for me fred.
So all of my plants are still living...So thats a plus!!! Anyway an update on how my plants are doing. Still just regular watering with no nutes.. Although i am gonna start nutes next watering. One is looking a little parched but i did water them today . So tell me what you guys think. -Peace
check out the link in my sig to Direwolfs topping and fiming thread. itll go a long way for ya. it you top it now, in a few weeks you can pull one to each side and have a nice LST going.
Alright so for anyone wanting to know i added my HPS last night while my lights were off. so now i got around 22000 lumens on my plants. Hopefully i will see some dramatic improvement in there growth.
You do NOT!!! have to be in 12/12 to get your plant to show sex... Topping the plant speeds along the process (forces) of the plant showing its sex. Doesnt have to be put in 12/12... if that was the case i would never know what sex i had until i started flowering. Showing sex has nothing to do with flowering its all to do about the maturity of the plant, and maturity all has to do with the size/strength of the plant. from seed INdoors (18/6 schedule) i top my plants at 3rd leaf set and a week or two weeks max after that i see sex, about 3-4 weeks old total. If you dont believe that, then go ahead and grow your plants until your ready to flower only to find out its male then. Shimen, do not add nutrients yet, they are still small, you should have added that hps for a while now... HPS aint all that great for growing compared to MH but it will help you out since you were only using flourescents before. AS for Topping, hold off for that last set of leafs to come out.. for some reason your main stem looks very fragile for the amount of leaf sets you have.
I was thinking the same thing about my stems. I have a fan lightly blowing indirectly on them. So hopefully they will improve soon. And do you count leaf sets by the first real leaves above the cotelydons(SP) or by the first set of three that pops out perpendicular to the cotelydons. I will not at nutes yet then Dier. Thanks for your help Do they make and MH conversion bulb for a 75w HPS ballast. I have not been able to find them.
no they dont make those. you count from the first set of real leafs. yours is already forming the 4th leaf set but i would still hold off because of your main stem thickness. Suggest you raise the soil level over part of the main stem to help things along in that area as well.
Alright then i will raise the soil level. But on most of them i cant go more than a half inch or so. Why do you think some of my stems are not that thick. A few of my plants have very hardy stems thought so i am clueless on why this could be happining. Are they looking alright so far except for the stem problem.
So heres another update. After adding my HPS lighting along with my fluro's my plants have grew a considerable amount today. the forth leaf set is actually unfolding now. Dier I know you recommened not to top them but i got to excited so i went ahead and topped them. I thought that since i am LST'ing also that is should not matter if the stem is able to hold up the ne growth because it is going to be sideways anyway correct. But i could be totally wrong. And dier i liked those pics of your poop cave man. I love jade so that was really neat to see. anyway will have more pics in about 2 days. -Peace. Is it ok to leave your fan on all night. Or should you turn it off. Might be a stupid question but i thought i would ask.
Alright so i think this is 2 days after i topped them. The main leaf sets have been getting bigger and the stems are getting stronger also. But i do not notice any new grow where i topped them yet. I watered them today and gave nutes. they are 3 weeks and 1 day old. Dier I was wondering how to raise soil level cause the bottom leaves are so close to soil if i put any more in there i will be covering up the bottom leaves. Next grow i am gonna go with a 14" square pot instead of a round pot. Anyway tell me how i am doing good or bad. Any comments are appreciated.