Alright this is my first post here, Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm looking to start my plants indoors this year before transplanting them outdoors. This will be my first time growing indoors and im having a really hard time deciding what type of grow light i should be looking for. I should have quite a few seedlings and they will be indoors for at least 2 months before going outside. What would be the best kind of light for my situation? Links? id be happy to provide more information about my situation. Also wondering if anyone else uses this method to start their plants inside, and how you guys do it? Your setup? Thanks in advance.
i use this method. works fine with a couple of those florecent "GROW LIGHTS" you can find at wal-mart. theyre about 10 bux but would i would do, rather than have a ton of seedlings is grow a few and LST them. look that up, its called low stress training. it will maximize the amount of stem you get. then you should sex the plants by cutting the light back on your timer from 18/6 to 12/12. within a couple weeks to a month, the plants will show their preflowers. you discard the males and clone the females several times. you can end up with a good 20 clones from each female. have 2 or 3 females like that and then theres your crop for the spring. and the best part is they are all females. -gm-
If you are just starting your babies inside use a florescent shop light with one cool and one warm bulb. This will be sufficient to get them going and won't cost you a fortune. I'd start them about a month before planting outside (1st of June in the Northern US). Make them strong by letting them dry out and staking minimally. Set the light about 6 inches above your tray. Try to time their growth with the local vegetation where you're putting them. This will help them blend in and compete with other plants. When planting remember to clear everything that might compete with the plant. I'd leave grass and small forbs to help them blend in though, just remove the big stuff ( a couple stalks of corn or other big plants - just don't make an obvoius hole from the air ). Use PlantSkyd instead of fence to deter animals and keep your camouflage, remember to reapply every time it rains when they are young to keep deer and other creatures away (I find that peeing by them works good too). Fertillize with fert spikes and or fish emulsion every few weeks, especially when flowering and don't let them get too dried out. Boost your yields by supplimenting water the last month or so if possible and kick up the nitrogen. Never let anyone see you visiting your plants and don't tell anyone, I mean anyone about them. Harvest by yourself and don't let anyone knwo they are there or that you grow period. Good luck, ~kali bud of the day: blue mystic song of the day: Change the World - Ten Years After
Damn thats a good idea, i never thought of doing it like that. Ive been reading up on lst'ing and i think i could pull it off. thanks for the input i really appreciate it!!!
Thanks for the advice i really appreciate it. I'm also from Ohio so im guessing you start yours inside around June for Ohio weather? when do you put them outside? late April? would it be to early to start them in Feb. or Mar. wouldn't this just make them bigger come time to put them outside? thanks again for the help
Oh another Buckeye huh. Well nice to meet you. Yes, you can start them earlier but if your not careful you can trigger them to flower by putting them out in the spring (sometimes not a bad thing early) However, this doesn't work well in OH because of the short season. You can calculate the precise number of hours of daylight by using this formula: D = daylength L = latitude J = day of the year P = asin[.39795*cos(.2163108 + 2*atan{.9671396*tan[.00860(J-186)]})] Use a radian mode here, but latitude should be entered in degrees. D = 24 - (24/pi)*acos X (times) sin(0.8333*pi/180) + sin(L*pi/180)*sin(P) ----divided by----------------------------------- cos(L*pi/180)*cos(P) Remember with MJ you want to put them out when this exceeds 12 hours per day or they will start flowering and then they will revert to veg growth and this slows them down once they go back by 2 at least 2 weeks. I find June 6th works well in Northern Ohio. A good rule of thumb is to start them a month ahead of time. They should be good an vigorous by then. You might want to start one early and trigger it to flower inside for some buds to hold you over though. Usually there is more than enough other growth and the corn has been sprayed and all is fine. Good luck! ~kali oh and if you hate math and know your times see this one http://www.wsanford.com/~wsanford/daylight/daylight.php
great info kali. crawford- most of my posts are nonsense but maybe you can get some ideas from some of the pics. I too am starting inside and moving my plants outdoors. http://forum.grasscity.com/general-outdoor-growing/315754-growing-tree-09outdoor-snazy-pics.html good luck and happy harvest
Thanks for the info kali, im down in central ohio and find that mid to late May seems to be the optimal time to stick em in the ground around here. Since this is my first year doing it this way i think ill star a few each month up until mid April and ill see who does the best. Worst case scenario a few will bud early and the others will reach their full potential. im defiantly leaning towards CFL's at this point due to the cost and they should work for my situation. i think ill run em 24/7 for the first 2 weeks then cut back to 18/6. Thanks for the link KSimms4200, i really like you setup and hope to have something very similar. Sounds like you use this method of indoor to outdoor often, how does it work for you? any pointers/hints? thanks again
Nice posts. Like the guys above said, the advantages are:cheap with fluos, safe growing if your yard is visible, stronger plants after 1 month (ok for out), only put females out. 18/6 for veg. 12/12 for flowering. A long veg. period will give you too big plants if your season is long, so time it right. Indoors is also used before outdoors if you want to extend your grow season (able to start them in winter/spring indoors, then take them out big in the summer and harvest). K Simms will tell you all about better than me though. I start in my yard outdoors for 2 months, then they go out for good. I'm growing all females and my season is long so I don't need to get a bigger veg. period indoors or start real early to get big plants. I start in May from seed. I prefer avoiding the whole indoor set up thing but it can be useful if you have bag seeds or non femmed seeds, like Greenmeany said. Good luck.
thanks Corto Malteze, i think you summed it up perfectly. I'm trying to extend my season by getting them strong early then putting them outside in spring to finish out in the summer. BTW does anyone know where i can find a cord to plug into wall outlet and the end will be a light socket or preferably multiple light sockets?
But I think KSimms is in Cali so he has a long grow season. I think he takes them out bug and flowering, so that they flower before the natural flowering date. It's too late for them to veg back as kalikrush explained, so they just go on flowering. Check out KSimm's super early and beautiful nuggets on some HUGE trees (hence the title of the post!). I think the goal is to harvest very early even if you're in a region like California. I'm just using 10 female seeds, and I know they'll give me plenty of work this summer! Ksimms'll help you out, no problem! Edit: that's "big and flowering" not "bug and flowering" lol
i think that if i were to take them outside they would be shocked by the temp change where i live, so ill only take them out a few times very close to when i plan to put them in the ground. As for early budding, my concern was that if i start them 3 or 4 months in advance inside then put them outside will they try to bud when i put them outside due to the light pattern change? or if the light pattern is the same will they try to bud due to being 3 or 4 months along already?
im actually a good ol' boy from south carolina. wish i was in so cal I like being able to harvest a couple of plants early (gives me some smoke and keeps me from picking at the rest of the girls) but this method is prime for people in your situation with a shorter season. I bet its cold as hell up there right now! Put them out when it starts to warm up and they should flower ( with respectable results) If you want them to veg through the whole season.. just put them out a little later ( scoop yourself up a farmers almanac and look up your daylight schedule) check this out. its a link to last years grow. i started a handful inside early febr. and the rest outdoors around late march when it started warming up. you can clearly see the difference in maturity and will give you an idea of what to expect. size/flower wise. - Im sorry there are no harvest pictures... damn!- ha http://forum.grasscity.com/general-outdoor-growing/252267-my-08-grow-lot-plants-lot-pics.html As far as lights i like to snag a clamp work light from walmart for bout 5-6 bucks and three Y adapters to accomodate four bulbs. google is the shit edit- plants should be put outside for a couple hours a day ( i like early morning when its not beating down on em) for several days to wean them out.
Ksimms's plants are already flowering when he takes them out (flowering triggered indoors with 12/12). If you don't trigger it, they'll just flower naturally. Some seeds have an autoflowering tendency and can show sex if the veg. is too long. Those can be hard to keep as mothers or for a long veg. period indoors.
Oh my bad. I guess they just flower with the difference when taken out. Sounds pretty cool. Ksimms, were your plants flowering when taken out? Thanks.
they were switched from 24/0 to 18/6 for about two weeks before we threw them out. They started showing sex about a week and a half later and really started stretching mid april If we were thinking we would have induced flowering earlier to eliminate the extra work/money spent putting the males in the ground. I blame the weed. edit- i think genetics have a lot to do with flowering times as well. /shrug
LOL! Yeah but that would man more time flowering indoors and not allowing them to grow some more for 2 weeks. They looked bomb! That's interesting. So they started to flower on their own 10 days after taking them out. I'm interested for my grow possibly, could you say when they started flowering, and how long you vegged them, and what was their size when taken out? And finally, when do plants normally start flowering in SoCal? From what I remember your plants were flowering about 45 days before the regular flowering date. I would hate my 3 foot WW to start flowering in May after spending 2 months under fluos. Your method would be good if you have a nice indoor set up (like you) to get a big plant out and have it flower in advance. With a small indoor set up, "in and out" method serves to get all females ,and sturdy plants for the bush, and a longer season. Pretty complicated! I'm a smoke some of Corto's 2008!
haha yea im confusing myself... The dates in my head arent matching my last years books. I definatly lost a good bit of weight as the early bloomers were only about 1/2 the size of the rest in the garden. if i had not of topped it and let it mature long enough in the closet i probably would have been dissapointed with the outcome. Think Ima smoke something too and get try to answer these questions correctly
AAAAAh! That feels better. I think I'll take advantage of the fact that I have some good female genetics and do it all outdoors. I don't want to mess them up with my indoor incompetence. Maybe with the bagseeds to get females I'll throw near a stream in mid Summer on their own !