Hi everyone! Long time toker, first time grower...I have 2 plants in their 6th week of flowering. Their last feeding was two weeks ago (Dec. 8th) and last week (Dec 15th) I flushed them. However, prior to feeding I noticed that the leaves of one plant isn't as green as her sister plant. They both were started at the same time, both have the same medium 1/2 Miracle Grow Moisture Control (I know, not the best, but it was all I had to work with and couldn't afford to buy the good stuff) and 1/2 Sphagnum Peat Moss in a 5 gallon bucket. I feed them MG All Purpose. I also mist them daily with fresh tap water. As you can see from the pics, one plant that has light green leaves, is tall and lanky. The other is more dense, with dark green leaves but much smaller than her lanky sister. The taller one is 22" tall and the smaller one is 12" tall. The taller one seems to have some discoloration on the stem. Room temp is 75 degrees day and night. Lights are 3 cfls. 2 are 120 Watt Equivalent and one is 68 Watt Equivalent. The two 120's are about 3 inches above the plant. The one 68 Watt is between the two plants in the middle so that light may reach the bottom of the plants. My questions are, do my plants look healthy? Especially the tall and lanky one. Is it missing something? Is the discoloration on the stem normal? And based on what I've described and what you see in the pics, will these plants yield anything worth while? I'm growing for personal recreational use only. Any and all info will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Aside from the fact you need more light and you could have done some more training everything looks good. Maybe a little behind for week 6 but it could just be your particular strain. Also MG moisture control is the worst MG soil you can buy. Their regular potting soil is the way to go if you have to go that route. If you're going cheap i would use a seedstarting mix over cheap soil any day. With cfl's equivalent watts don't mean a thing. You need to go off their actual wattage. It's 100w for the first plant and 50 for everyone after so you would need 150 real watts of cfl's. You can also do 50w per sq foot, i like this measurement better myself. As your plants mature the leaves will develop some kind of fade on them weather it be yellow, pink, purple, black. It's what happens when the plant starts using the nutrients up in the fan leaves and it is completely normal. It should actually always happen toward the end of the flowering cycle. Whatever you do don't give them more nitrogen thinking that will fix the problem that doesn't exist. It will affect your final product and not in a good way.
Thanks my friend! This is very helpful info. The only reason I used the MG product is because it's what I had in my shed. I use it for my indoor plants and they do great with it. But once I started using it, I noticed that when I flushed the plants, the water would just stay on top. My neighbor, who is a really good gardener, gave me the sphagnum peat moss. So I took most of the soil out and replaced it with the peat moss and now the water drains nicely. I read somewhere that feeding should stop about the final two weeks of flowering. So I stopped feeding at the five week mark. I've flushed twice. Once at the second week of flowering and then again at the fourth week of flowering. I imagine that I should flush one more time before harvest. I will look on line and see if I can find lights that I can afford. Thanks again for the quick response and assistance...
SupaaBaked is right on the money. You have flushed, got rid of excess nutes. Thats good. Light cycle is lowered for flowering, less light to leaves. Thats good. Thats part of why they are light green. More light is always better. Your yield should be decent for the set up you have. You should be happy with your first grow, looks like you made no real mistakes. Next grow step up the lights. Thats always my advice, big lights=big buds there is no magic or free lunch there. If somebody said " I have $250 to set up a grow, what should I buy" it would go like this. $210 1,000w MH/HPS $16 buckets/pots from dollar store $14 for potting soil $10 10-10-10 plant food.
Yeah but snoop. There is no fan, he would be able to fry eggs in a grow room with a 1000w and no ventilation. You can get a 600w cooltube for 160 with everything and a 440cfm fan with a filter and 25 ft of ducting for 150. Lights aren't cheap and neither is ventilation but it will more than pay for itself in the first harvest. My first two grows i couldn't even pull 2 oz a plant under 300w of cfl's. now i have a 600w hps and 75w of cfl in the corner and i'm expecting a half lb + this time around off of two plants. As far as flushing goes let me start by saying this. A lot of times people get leeching and flushing confused and they don't like to listen to me. Flushing is just giving your plant plain water every other watering or every third watering to keep the salt buildup from the nutrients out. During the last two weeks just water normally with nothing but plain water for those last two weeks. I do 3 gallons of water to a 5 gallon pot from the get go. Leeching is when you don't flush normally and end up with terrible salt buildup thats burning your plants or causing lockout. Thats when you need to give plain water 3 times the pot size. So a 5 gallon pot you would do 15 gallons of water. You've done a good job so far by the looks of it. Much better than my first grow lol.
I have 2, no fans running , I also dont try to grow in a tent or tiny box. I just hang Mylar light curtains that do not impede air flow.
Thanks supaa. When I first started, I read a ton of different topics from this site and really got overwhelmed. So I went to Youtube and viewed a few videos and kinda figured it out. I'm a long time gardener and know a little about the life of plants. But the life of cannabis is a whole 'nother story. So I farted around with this and that, read what you nice folks had to say and jumped into the game. I made a few mistakes, like maybe I didn't veg long enough. At first I had low lights because I thought too much light would jack up my electric bill. But so far so good. I have the plants in the basement and didn't know about Powdery Mildew until it was pointed out to me. I used the hydrogen peroxide mixed with water and sprayed the plants and that resolved that issue. I thought my basement was warm enough until, and I think it was you Supaa, that told me the temp should be around 70-75. So I purchased a heater. Now the room is nice and toasty. I mist daily.. I have a 5 gallon bucket of water near the plants to provide some humidity. I just ordered some new lights from Amazon. See below. I thought they were pretty reasonable and are actual 105 Watts, not 105 Equivalent. They are actually 400W equivalent. Hope they help. So all in all, I'm not expecting 1/2 pound. Hell, I would be happy with an ounce or two for the first try! But I'm glad I have you guys to help out this old dude. I'll get it right I'm sure, and then I'll go for the pounds! LOL! Yeah right! A couple of ounces is fine by me. Thanks again fellas! You're a great help! LimoStudio Set of Two 105 Watt, 6500 K Fluorescent Daylight Balanced Light Bulb for Photography and Video Lighting, AGG878Sold by KimOutlet
Yeah i learned the hard way myself there's really no point in growing it unless you have at least 45 days of veg. I like to go 60 days though. 105 watts wull be plenty for what you need. Especially if you keep your old lights in there too. You may be happy with an oz or two at first but growing the ganja gets addicting and i know i was blowing through my harvests long before my next one came through. You will be shooting for pounds sooner than later my friend. Oh and if you're ever bored. I mean really bored because these videos on average are about 40 minutes. Check out The weed nerd on youtube. It's subcools show and he's always giving good indoor grow tips plus they show some phenomenal gardens on the hunters of the dank episodes.
Good morning Supaa. Thanks for the lead on the youtube video. I'm definitely going to check that out. I'm growing because of my arthritis. I've been a smoker for over 50 years. I used to smoke to get high then as I got older I smoked to relax after a hard day at work. Or to treat my ailments. My arthritis holds me back from doing a lot of things that I like to do. I have found that grass helps with the inflammation a lot better than the drugs that I have been prescribed that can lead to heart attacks, liver failure and bunch of other stuff. So every now and again, I take a couple of puffs and I'm good to go. But where I'm at, it's illegal. Vicodin is legal but pot is not! LOL! And it's getting expensive for me to buy from our local seller. But not only that, it's getting a little dangerous. God knows I sure as hell don't want to do time for POT of all things. So I figured I would grow my own and see how successful I can be. That's why I'm not interested in pounds. It usually takes me about two to three months to smoke an ounce. I know because that's how I divvy it up for myself. But as an avid gardner, I get very excited when I grow stuff and see it flourish. So I'm looking forward to seeing my little weed garden grow. Maybe by the time it becomes legal over here, I'll know what I'm doing and can open a shop! LOL! Wishful thinking! Thanks again for the info above.
No problem. I corgot to mention in my last post that you don't meed to spray your plants daily. You really shouldn't be spraying unless they are seedlings or you're starting to get a defeciency and you can use a foliar feed to help slow it down on the outside. You still have to correct the soil or it will be messed up. I like to say foliar feeding is a short term solution to a long term problem. However if i'm a day late watering and the leaves are really dry i will spray an entire water bottle on them when the lights go out and they will be all perked up when the lights come on and won't be so dry. Unless you have pests and are trying to save a crop there is no reason to spray a flowering plant. I only do that if the leaves really look affected by underwatering and only in veg. There is no reason to spray a flowering plant at all unless you have pests and are trying to save a crop or you're washing off pollen in a breeding room.
Good info Supaa.. Thanks. I will hold of on the daily misting and see how my ladies respond. I did get a chance to check out The Weed Nerd on Youtube. Wow! That guy has tons of videos! So I'll be browsing them. Thanks for the heads up on that! I really didn't think that such a weed would be so complicated! LOL! Talk to you soon my friend!