Here are my 2 month old indicas that have been kept short using defoliation and topping. I'm going to start flowering them within the next week or so. Just want to hear what you think.
Topping and lst are means of keeping a plant short, not defoliation.....all defoliation will do is reduce your yield and stunt flowering as there are leas leaves to produce energy to make buds. Im not sure why you eliminated all side branches, thats where you get a lot of yield, you are only going to get one bud per plant this way. One main reason for topping is to create multiple top colas so im not sure why you trimmed side branches??? Other than this, plants look relatively healthy though....just use lst to keep em short next time and leave the leaves and side branches alone. What kind/how much light to you have? Looks like they may be a little stretched?
Well they are under a 4 foot 4 bulb t5 with two 6500k bulbs and two 3000k bulbs. Also a 2 foot 6500k on the wall for side lighting. 22,000 lumens and about 240 watts.
I think I'm going to get at least a few ounces for personal use. That's all it's for anyways. Next time I'm going to try growing like 6 plants that ill veg for around 3-4 weeks then switch to flower and focus on growing the main colas. Kinda like a SOG of some sort
Thats less than 100 watts per plant, thats why your plants are tiny for being 2 months old. They should be massive bushes after 2 months of veg, not short single twigs. Id add more light for flower, or you will only get very loose buds and low yield. Thats the downfall of growing with fluorescents....same amount of time and effort as growing with HIDs but for a fraction of the yield.
So how about I flower next week, take the males out and only keep like 2 good females. Would that work?
You will hAve a hard time getting 3 ounces with those plants and lighting.... Topping for multiple colas and last for even, multi-cola canopy would have helped you much more.....with those twiggy plants, only the tops of the plants will be close enough to your t5, with the rest of the plant only getting weak side-lighting. I think you are looking at closer to 1/2 per plant. Get some HIDs for next run.....to me, 4-5 months of work for only 1-2 ounces is craziness when you could pull 10-16 ounces off of a 400 or 600 watt light and be set for a year plus with the same amount of time and effort.
That was supposed to read 1/2 ounce per plant. Obviously, taking out males will help your cause, how many plants do you have under that little lighting?
T5's are much better for veg than flower. You have to get the light so close to the plants to get a decent yield that they aren't very practical in flower...... Unless you run a scrog or top and train them to keep the low and wide with multiple tops. You only get a few inches of light penetration with fluorescent lights as opposed to a couple of feet with HPS. T5s are fantastic for vegging plants, but i would upgrade to HPS for flower if you want decent reults.
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-FLORALUX-400-watt-Metal-Halide-Grow-Light.asp - how would using this 400 watt MH system work for my next grow?
Yes but you want hps not mh for flower. You will need to improve your ventilation to run hot hid lights too
Just get an hps ballast with bulb then buy one of the MH bulbs that can be used with and HPS ballast. Or you could buy LED if you're interested in this route PM me for info.