First Time closet Sativa grow

Looks like you got 3 or 4 weeks left to me. All your hairs are still white.

 

I'll have to agree with Tbone Shuffle above. Your plants look nowhere near finished to me. Your plant is a perfect example of why you don't flower with fluorescent lighting. Your buds are very under developed. So before you are ready to flower again, you need to be thinking about ways to upgrade your flower lighting. Actually, the better lighting the plants get throughout their whole lives, the better plant you end up growing. Lighting is THE most important factor of an indoor grow. Secondly, I would say understanding the plant, how it grows and the proper way to grow it to get the most out of it. You can have a grow palace, but if you don't know how to tend the plant, you'll get nothing. The only way to know if your plant is actually ready to harvest or not is by looking at the individual trichomes through some serious magnification. Growers generally use the jeweler's loupe for this. They're relatively cheap...you can get something that will do the job for around $20 or probably even less on line. I bought mine at the hydro store. But you're looking at the percentage of amber in the individual trichome. You need at least 25% amber before harvesting and letting them go longer just increases the amount of amber per...and the herb becomes stronger. \

We run 4, 1000 watt hps fixtures per room for flower and this is what you end up with when your plant has adequate lighting to finish properly. Please don't take this as a "brag." It's not meant to be that way. It took me a couple of years to put together the grow room setup and get even one room the way I really wanted it to be, so I know it's a process, but the strength and quality of the lighting you use makes all the difference in the world when it comes to the development of what you harvest. Everything you might have questions about has already been discussed multiple times on the forum, so you can search just about any topic you can think of for answers or issues. But the more you know about what you're doing, the better the product will be in the end. You can start in the beginner grower threads and read till your eyes pop out because the more you know, the better you grow!! TWW

5 by The Widow White posted Nov 3, 2015 at 12:31 PM

 

I don't know if you're kidding but the guy did say it took him years to get the room the way he wanted. Don't take it the wrong way. We're all trying to learn. I'm 100% he's trying to help and you're getting good advice.

Anyway, what is your plan for your new setup once you get a light? What lights are you looking at? Are you doing 2 rooms, veg/bud? Are you running soil/hydro/coco? Autoflowers or bagseeds? Ventilation? Nutrients?

 

After seeing what they can do and how cheap they are to run I don't see why anyone would run hot mh or hps lights. Yes the prices have dropped because everyone wants an led but people forget about the electric bill. I'm running a p900 and a p450 plus fans/pumps. My electric bill has only went up a little over $100 a month. I'm pretty sure I'd be paying twice as much a month for a comparable setup with hps plus my room would be hotter and harder manage temp wise. It's not worth the trouble or electric cost IMO to save money on your initial investment in a light. The yields are comparable especially in small scale gardens.

The advantage in managing temp and the cost of electricity make it really hard to not go LED. If you want to go led on a budget I don't know what light is cheaper that can actually grow bud than the mars 300. Since it's the older version and not the mars II. They're going for $89 bucks. Two of those in the bud room and one in the veg make a very decent setup for less than $300. Yes there are LED's that are way better but they are many times more expensive. The only other one I'm considering as a cheap backup/supplemental is the galaxy hydro 300. It's a 9 band so it has that advantage on the older mars with UV and infra-red. They're $99 on amazon right now.

I wouldn't attempt a room on any kind of scale without venting it to the outside. I say it's imperative the output of your fan goes outdoors. Otherwise you will have heat issues with 600 watts of light.

 

I don't think you can beat the mars300 for the price for one plant all things considered electric bill, ect. They're actually only 132 real watts, crazy cheap to run. I would say don't believe me and look around for yourself. There's plenty of journals with the mars300. The p450 is a better light but it's $500+. I've seen the mars hydro in action. It works and it's bright. The other one I was really curious about is the galaxy hydro 300 it's only $10 more but has IR and UV. It should yield slightly more than the mars 300 which lacks those. I haven't seen the galaxy in person but it's the #1 seller on amazon in that category and gets really good reviews in the comments compared with the mars 300, which isn't bad but it seems to have a slightly higher failure rate.

Don't let the failure rate scare you off. From what I've read the LED's are pretty easy to repair. My buddy has had one in his veg room for most of a year without issue and it grows healthy plants. I've read a few grow guides where the mars lights have failed mid grow and had to be sent in. Kinda scared me so I went a little more spendy.

That's another reason I want a back up light, if one of my main lights go down it can step in and save a crop while the main is getting repaired.