Hello fellow smokers. As you might know I am new to the world of growing. Although it seems pretty easy so far. I seem to think I'm missing something. I think my plants should be a little bigger then they are. First off, my plants are 19 days old. I have 3 plants. The first is 7 inches. The second is 6 inches. The third is 5 inches. Like I said, I am not complaining because I think I am doing fine for my first time. I am using 4 4 foot long floro's for vegging. I am vegging in a 38 inch tall by 50 inch long by 18 inch deep box. I know plants should veg for 8 weeks to reach full maturity. I plan on taking a few clones at the 1 month mark. I will flower those cuttings to find the sex. . I have another box curently under construction.I plan on keeping all plants 18 inches tall, since all plants double in size while flowering. That leaves 36 inches total for full flowering plants. I will be flowering 4 to 6 plants at a time to increase my yield. So do I have enough space and light for vegging 3 plants untill I find my perfect mother plant? Then can I keep 1 mother plant and 6 clones in this box? The reason I ask is, I would like to use this box untill my new one is finished. At which point all plants will be transfered into new box.. Here are my plants at 1 week old.
First of all, if you want to post a lot of questions, it's helpful to break them up somewhat, rather than have them all in a continuous string of sentences. A question that I have for you is how close to the light are your plants? They didn't look like they were stretching to me, but tube lights aren't the most intense lights in the world, so if you can get the plants closer without them getting too hot it'll help growth a lot. Another question is whether or not you're fertilizing; it's a bit early for it, but you'll see lots of good growth once you do start using them. There are other things you could tell us too, such as soil type/composition, strain, etc. It would also be very useful to know how much light your lamps are putting out in watts, and the color temperature if you know it. Those heights aren't bad at all for plants 19 days old under fluoros. Also, you don't have to veg your plants for two months to get to full maturity; one month is generally good enough for that. Two months makes the plants bigger, and gives you more budsites that will develop into smokable product, so if you've got the space, I say veg as long as you'd like. As for flowering, it's not true that all plants double in height. You'll see lots of growth, but some plants even triple in height. Knowing the strain would help a lot in determining this. If you don't know, you could look into ScROG, it's a great way to make sure that your plants height doesn't get out of control, and it'll increase your yield a lot too. Whether or not your current box is suitable for keeping a mother and six clones, that depends on how much light the tubes are giving off. A good rule of thumb is 100 watts/plant, but you can get away with less for a mother and clones pretty easily. Your plants do look healthy though, so I think that you're right to be pleased with your progress. Best of luck with the rest of your grow, and let us know how it goes!
First of all thanks for the replay. I understand but it is easier to list a few questions. so what i will do is space out my questions so that they all relate to the same thing. I would like to clear something up. the plants on the first post were only like 6 days old. This new post will have the correct info and pics of my current grow situation. 1. for lighting i am using 4 48 inch long 40 watt floro tubes. 2 tubes are day light bulbs and the other 2 are warm light bulbs. The daylight tubes produce 3500 lumens each, these are just a higher lumen cool white bulb. The warm light bulbs produce 1750 lumens each. so thats a total of 10,500 lumens. i am using the highest output bulbs that I can get for the time being. My lights are kept 2 inches from the tops of my plants. I only have to raise them about every 2 days, so far. Lights are kept on 24 hours a day. I am also thinking about adding 6 more cfl's of 42 watts each. 3 cool white and 3 warm light bulbs for sone extra side lighting. The side lighting should also help light the tops. 2. My soil is just your average miracle grow type. As far as the strain of my plants, I don't know. It's just some bag seed that I got. The smoke was actually really good. I do have 5 purple kush seeds that I am saving. I wanted to try with expendable seeds first. 3. I water the plants every 2 days so far. I only water when the soil is almost dry, but I do check it every day. My temp. stays between 78 degrees and 82 degrees. I also mist the plants with carbonated water 2 - 3 times a day for some extra c02. My humidity stays between 32% and 48%. 4. I have 3 plants. Plant 1 is about 6 inches tall. Plant 2 is about 7.5 inches tall. Plant 3 is about 5 inches tall. All plants are actually only 15 days old. I miscalculated in past post. I am using 2.5 gallon pots, I think. Since I don't know the strain of the plants, I call them chronic 1, 2, and 3. Based on the fact that the leaves are fat. I think they might be somewhat of the Indica family. I wish i knew the actual genetics! 5. So here are the pics I said I would post. Please send comments All are welcome. I want to make sure I'm on the right path.
1. Your lighting sounds pretty good, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Adding more lighting, particularly side lighting, is always helpful with a CFL grow, because you don't have to worry too much about bleaching. The side lighting will especially help with side branching and bud development when you get to the flowering stage, just be careful of temperature. 2. As long as it's not Miracle-Gro potting soil (or any soil that has nutes in it), then you won't really have to worry about anything. Too bad that you don't know the strain, but that's not a big deal. And if you liked the smoke before, just wait till your grow finishes, homegrown is almost always better than the weed you got the seeds from. And good thinking using bagseed for a first grow, much cheaper. 3. It sounds like the conditions in your box are great for growing, no problems there. 4. All of that sounds great, especially if the plants are only two weeks old (just for curiousity, is that two weeks since you put the seeds in soil or two weeks since they sprouted?). The only other thing I would recommend is to think about transferring into bigger pots, if you have the space. If not, you can still grow just fine in 2.5 gallons, but more space for roots makes for bigger plants in the long run. And flowering will give you a better idea of whether or not the plants lean towards sativa or indica. 5. Your plants all look healthy and perky. #2 especially looks good, lots of nice branches and big fan leaves! I think that your grow looks like it's going great, it's only been two weeks so don't fret too much. It's very easy to get paranoid about your grow not going as well as it could be, I know I did it with my first couple grows. But if you keep things up the way you have been, I think that you'll be very happy with the end results.
well i germinated which took about 3 days, then i planted the sprouts into peat pellets on the 4th day.then transfered into the pots they are in now. I started counting the days when the seedling first poked its head through the soil. was that correct? so it all started on 10/26/08. keep in mind, I want 1 mother no bigger then 3 feet tall at all times. which i think this is when prunning comes into play, right? and i want 6 clones vegged untill they reace 12 to 16 inches. then i will flower the clones for 8 weeks. i hope to keep this cycle going every 8 weeks using the sea of green theory. my end result is to have about 180 grams of dried finished smoke. are my figures right. . please check this post out every day or so if you dont mind. you seem to know whatyou are doing, so your imput is welcome and i apreciate your words of wisdome.
I'd be happy to check back here every day or so, and feel free to PM me with any other questions you might have as well. Whatever wisdom I've got, you're welcome to. Yes, the best way to count days of veg growth is from the day you see a sprout, although I guess it doesn't make a huge difference. Pruning the mother will help to keep the size down, and you can also trim the roots to make a bonsai mother. Just be careful with that, because root damage can cause trauma to the plant. There's a guide about it somewhere on the internet, but I can't remember where right now. Your clone scheme sounds pretty good, but remember to start doing the SoG as you're vegging them too, you'll have better results than if you just do it during flowering. There's no way to know how much your plants will yield without knowing the strain, so I can't tell you if 180 grams is realistic or not, but if you're flowering every 8 weeks you shouldn't worry about running out. You could also do a perpetual harvest system, putting a new clone into your flowering box every week or two, and then harvesting a plant every week or two as well. That will increase the amount you have at any given time. A final thing to mention is that you should look into getting a small microscope (Radioshack has a pocket microscope for $10, I have one that is great) that you can use to check the trichomes towards the end of flowering. This will help you pinpoint when is the right time to harvest, so you'll get the highest quality bud possible.
yo man, thanks for all your input.i have to say that you have been the most helpful. thanks for your time. oh. i do plan on a perpetual harvest. like i said i 180 grams would be nice. well i do have some some blueberry seeds that a friend gave to me. he did not remove the males before they flowered so hes got plenty of them . i got 20 right now.. you know thanks again for the invite on pm. i will add you to my list . i will up date pics tonight . it sucks because i have to use my cell phone for the pics but oh well. any thanks man.
sorry i was mistaken. you were right purple kush is mostly a clone . and any seeds may come frome a hermie i would imagine. the seeds are actually grape kush . sorry for the confusion. purple is what i had smoked , my bad
Nice looking plants! They look great, I think that you're in for a nice harvest. And I'm always happy to help someone get started in this very satisfying and extremely rewarding hobby. Come back with questions anytime.
DUDE, how the hell your plants so big?? you sure they only 22 days old? if so them things are monsters!
I don't think my plants are all that big. Three weeks old is not that much time. and yes i know how old my plants are because it was the 20 th. of October. and today is the 12th. of November just do the math. No I'm just kidding. they really only 23days old now. I think my set up works ok. All I do is germinate the seeds. When the crack I put them in peat pellets. and after the first 2 weeks. They have roots comming out the peat pellets. then I put them in bigger pots. water them every 2 days. when the plants are small, like 2 to 5 inches i keep them in this plastic propagation box. you know, the kind with the clear top. for the first 2 weeks. I keep my lights 1 inch from the top of the box.remove the lid 3 times a day for freash air. so you see all I did was keep my plants cool average temp was between 78 deg. f. and 82 deg. f. I always had my lights no more then 2 inches from my tops. I am useing 4 4 foot floro tubes each tube is 40 watts each. but the bulbs is what make a difference i think but you should ask around. my bulbs are 2 daylight 2700 lumens each. and 2 warm light bulbs 1750 lumens each. total lumens is about 8500 lumens. i use a grow box that is 38 inches tall by 50 inches long by 18 inches deep. it will hold 4 to 5 plants with no problem so far. that simple. as far as my plants go 1 is 8 inches tall and 1 is 12 inches tall and 1 9 inches tall. this site helps a lot also many good people give some good advice all i can say is read and practice what you read everyday get good garden habits treat you babies well lots of tender lovin care. and just grow and practice and learn as you go . be ready for mistakes its going to happen. like i added 4 more cfl lights , it got to hot plants used water fast. and wilted real bad.i just gave them lots of air and freash water freash co2 just by opeming the doors of grow cabinet for the night . in just 7 hours they have improved about 50 %. they will bounce back if you help them. plus i had been doing alot of reading over the past year. almost every night all year. thats about all i can say . now i have to post some more questions . if you need help just ask someone.
+rep you're def doing something right, i've got a bunch of peat pellets for my garden (non weed lol) and they've always worked good for vegetable and flower sprouts but i've never heard anyone using them for mj. does anyone else here use peat pellets for sprouts??
i use em.... im only having about 10% sucess rate with them though... (using healthy looking bag seed)... that may be the reason...
afternoon ppl, im new on here an would like some advice please. I have 3 plants at 3wks and 2days old but i only put them in my nft 12days ago, so lets say 12days old. I have a 600wtt hps with cooltube but i only have a crap fan heater to bring air in. My temps are at 36.8c bad i no but this weather is so unprodictable at the moment. I wanted to no if my plants look ok in size an is the any thig i cando about temp with out spending.lol bit broke at the min. Oh one more thng, how do i upload pics?