Hi Folks! This is the panic room! Let's get to basics: Room is built from scrap wood material and very makeshift, although sturdy! Currently I do not have the room divided although I plan to soon. Until I do, all plants inside remain on a 20/4 light cycle. It has been put off for a while, (switching to flowering) but I plan on flowering very soon. All plants come from random bag-seed. The room is so crowded with mothers, new seedlings, and clones that I have to move everything out when I need to get inside. Pic #1 is looking at the room from the open door, #2 took from standing inside and looking at where the plants usually go (it's impossible to move inside the room with all of them inside). Pic #3 is a shot of all three of the mothers, with a pair of skis for size reference. Pic #4 is the largest of the mothers, and also the most resilliant and healthy. #5 shows that the plant is close to 4 feet from the ground, and about 3 from the soil. The last few shots are of my *very* stretchy seedlings. They take up the small amount of space the the other mothers dont use, all crowded around the single 400 watt HPS. They obviously want more! Additional info: FFOF soil, 1 gallon containers for the mothers, 3 inch square containers for seedlings. The mothers are about 4 months old ( I know they need to go, I've waited far too long) and the seedlings are about 1.5 months and showing sex. Using Botanicare organic fertilizer and tap water from an open container minimum 24 hrs. I have a few questions of opinion and that's the main reason I'm posting. #1. When I flower, should I try to flower all three mothers? Should I keep one in veg for cloning? Should I flower any of the seedlings? #2 Should I do anything to the mothers? They have been growing without being tied down or branches spread out for their whole life. Would taking one plant and spreading/tying it out produce more bud than 2 or 3 of them with no restrictions? (They are VERY branchy and I have topped/cut pretty much every branch multiple times) #3 I know that they want more root space, I also know that if I give them more space they will get bigger. Should I transplant and then flower? If so I'm going to have space issues, so again how many should I flower? Thanks for reading my post, any and all comments/advice is much appreciated and welcome! I can provide specific information that I may have left out and more detailed pics if you are curious.
Looking very nice.... If you dont want to flower all your moms now maybe you could prune them a bit, if you want to still keep... or just keep the one that you like the best and flower the others. Which ever route you go your probably best bet is to transplant them into something bigger... but from what you have going on looks like ya got a lot more experience at this than me
I think you need to go to the next step dude. seperate your rooms, get your square footage locked down so you can get the plants in flower. Once you have that locked in you will have to identify the availible height and then you can decide what is the best avenue...... Hope this helps man..
they all need bigger pots, id flower all the moms, & keep some clones as new moms, & just keep repeating the process. yes spreading branches will increase yeild. so basicly flower all of the ones u have clones of, & keep 1 clone from each mom, for moms, & flower the extra clones, but transplant them b4 u do. the rule of thumb is 1gal pot per ft of plant, eg: 3ft plant = 3gal pot
I don't have too much experience but I'm trying to gain some here lol Thanks for the help Bud! I definately need to split the room, flower and get rid of the big ones and get some clones going. Well if I transplanted them all I would have way too much to fit under one 400 watt HPS, but hopefully in the near future I will have twice the power. Either way, it would be pretty crowded if I flowered all of the mothers and seedlings at the same time. I will take a pic of it all together under the light soon.
Even if you put them in 5g pots... they are 12x12... the plant itself is going to take up more space that the pot... you will be fine... whats the size of the area your going to flower in?
Update! So it's been a long weekend for me, I rented a rototiller for my garden and was expecting some help from the roommates but I ended up doing it all myself. 6hrs on Saturday, 7 and a half hours on Sunday . I am soo exausted, and on top of that I started getting sick sunday and now I'm in full contagious capability yay! Anyways, heres some pic updates! Pic #1 is just a foliar shot showing 2 of the 3 mother plants. I've been having some issues with PH. #2 is a close-up of one of the worse leaves, am I right about PH or is it something else? #3 just shows how big the mothers are. #4 shows how branchy they are, especially the lower branches trying to reach the light. #5 is the seedlings, still stretching for light!! I'm going to buy a MH today so hopefully by the end of the week they will have what they want. #6 is the second batch of clones, I need to open the lid on those babies more often though because I had one leaf that was molding. #7 shows how it would look under the 400 watt HPS if I were to flower all three at once....I probably will end up flowering one at a time or 2 at once, because I would rather have less good weed than a bunch of crappy popcorn buds. #8 shows plant M1 growing past the reflector. #9 shows not only the mothers but seedlings as well, all cram-packed into the panic room (I need more space for that many plants but I just cant bring myself to kill some, so I keep making clones lol). # 10 is a pic of some of my work I did organize the power cords yesterday, along with a good full cleaning. I've been battleing low PH, because my tap water is just over 7, and after adding nutes I'm at 3.5-4. I hate adding a bunch of chemicals..is there an alternative to bring PH up, other than "PH Up"? Or is it not a big deal to be adding a lot of chemicals as long as the PH is ok? Yeah I realize the plants are the space-consumers... Room is 6' long by 6' 1" tall and 3' 9'' wide. There is a small raised platform below where the light hangs that is 2' deep and 1' 2.5'' tall. As soon as possible I hope!!!
Lol, hopefully you can teach me a thing or two as well! Have any idea what that afflicted leaf is caused by? Either way they are doing better than they were a month ago so I think I got it under control (hopefully). Right now I'm just waiting on a new light to arrive so I can start the long-needed flowering. So which plants should I flower, since trying to do all 3 mothers is out of the question? I was thinking either flowering M1(the biggest) and either M2 or F1, both about equal size. That way I could give them a bit more space to fill in the lower branches. Then I could just clone/chop up the other one to make fit in whatever other space I have. OR I could flower just the big one, chop up the other 2 and put some seedlings clones to flower as well... Any ideas? I'm just undecided in what to do, but I'm sure I can make a decision if I have to lol.
Looking good . I feel you on how hard it is to let the babies go, I even have trouble pulling my males. Let me try to help w/ what I can: Something seems seriously wrong w/ this picture to me. I know that in hydro, even w/ RO or distilled water, full strength nutes shouldn't drop the pH below 5.0, AFAIK. EDIT - I now see that you're using botanicare. Don't know anything about it, but what strength and how often? Maybe some ppl who've used that in soil can chime in on what's "normal?" You are absolutely right to be concerned! pH up will react with the acidic components of your nutes, converting them to inert salts. Obviously, it's not a problem in very small doses. Usually, fairly-clean tap water would be the best alternative to pH up. I may be missing something, but I don't think you have enough vertical room to flower any of those huge ladies without seriously tying them back. You don't want them to ever get above 18" under the hood. Am I right that this is the first time you've grown this strain? Once you get a feel for them, CannaStats Home Page has some info that might help you plan out flowering, not before you've seen them in action, though. In any case, I think it's always safe to be on the conservative side and I think an overly crowded jungle will present more problems than if there's a little bit of unused space at the end of a grow. It's been my experience that the latter is more likely to happen anyway. Oh, and take it from the self-proclaimed master of the cubby himself; finish everything before you move those large ladies in, if you haven't already. As soon as you turn your head, they'll get "grown-in" and will be to large to move back out. EDIT - I almost forgot, remember The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Don't Panic!
Thanks for all your input! Yeah it seems kind of wrong to me as well... I've been fertilizing once every other watering, or once every 2 plain distilled tap waterings. I've been having some other issues going on lately so I havent been able to update lately, (housing inspections, electrical work, ect.) Plus it's spring time so a lot of my efforts are towards my garden outside. I have recieved and set up my additional light and switched to flowering recently, but I should probably just do a full update lol. That way you can get a better idea of whats happenin' in there now and give me more awesome feedback!! Well, its sunny outside right now so I got to get a few transplants done, bye for now!
Finally I update! I've been dealing with some various issues, (girlfriend, lost job, depression, blah blah blah) so I haven't been able to update, but there is some definate progress since a month ago. I used the rest of my 25' roll of mylar to cover the inside of the flowering room, and what was left (ceiling and floor) I just painted white. It is a noticable difference in light! The two large plants are in about day 24 or 25 of flowering, i forget, and I have another 2 seedlings and 3 clones that are day 20 or 21. Im thinking about adding another couple plants just to stagger them, but it's so packed in there already! Heres the 8 clones from the seedlings, first clones of those plants. All of them seemed to pull through, thanks heat pads! I usually top/fimm pretty much everything if I remember. Heres a pic of my room I have to work in, its used as storage as well so it's kind of tight but I manage. I got a few house plants that love the diffused light, since my house faces north and recieves minimal light (why someone would buil a north facing house with no south windows is beyond me). I probably have about 30 clones, 4 seedlings and 1 neglected large mother plant in the veg area....Way too much foliage. Seedlings... Mother plant lurking... This is where I pile all of the clones and seedlings under after I'm done watering, just giving an idea of what kind of space I have. I kind of just make-shift built a wooden frame to hold the light since I don't really have to worry about smell. M1 mother plant in the flowering room. Sorry about the HPS glare, I can't fit the plant outside of the room anymore. M2 supercropped branch, it has grown into a crecent and is producing little colas going off the side of the branch, should be an interesting looking bud. One of the larger M2 colas. Oh, and have a good one GC!
Yo! Looking good man and good to see you back around. I been waiting for this one to update! hey, I think you need to upgrade something in one of those pics.... Ditch the MILWAUKEE'S BEST!!!! LOL
Lol, I know, thats why I put it there, cause it's THE BEST! Usually I be drinkin Black Butte and Moose Drool and anything dark.
Good job, man! I'd probably have kept the moms in the veg room and flowered a whole lot of clones, but that would require alot more maintenance. Keep it up, my good man-doulce!
Yes I would have done that, if I had the space, but I have so many clones right now that it is impractical to keep the large plants around, so I figured I'd turn them to bud. I can make a mother out of any number of the clones, since all plants are either clones or have been cloned.
awesome job bro...looking GREAT! My dumbass didnt buy a timer and now i have preflowers! i wanted them to get another foot taller before i flowered! but oh well! I am more worried about building my box first ! THEN i can worry about growing bigger and better!..but i am trying to get the basics setup to keep things roling on a small scale! so any input you have will be very usefull!
Don't get me wrong, I am not being critical, but what I meant about flowering the clones is to take clones and flower them as soon as they take root good in the soil. My flowering room/box is basically 2' x 2' x 3' high - I will be fitting 6 rows of 5 - 6 clones in that tiny space. That is up to 36 plants in a 2' x 2' space! The idea is to start a new row of clones every two weeks and to pull a row for harvest every two weeks! Based on my first grow, I should get between 1/4 oz to 1/2 oz from each plant - so that means I should be pulling over an oz every two weeks! The main drawback of this system is that it is high maintenance! Small pots (mine will be 20 oz pop bottles) require watering every 2 - 3 days - with 36 plants, that will be a lot of work! But, because I enjoy growing, I don't mind the work!
Hehe no prob man, sorry if I sounded short. Yeah I have a few more than that, and some in bigger containers and I believe you when you say it's a lot of work! Between that and my two veggie gardens outside I spend a lot of time giving things water. Eventually I would like to have it where I have only 1 mother of each strain and clones prepping for veg, but right now I'm still trying to figure out my balance, I can't bring myself to just kill the extra plants..lol. Maybe I should just stop being a panzy and get rid of some just for the sake of starting a clean slate... On another note, my landlord has informed me that the wiring in my house needs to be completely replaced...not too sure how this is going to affect the grow. They will just be replacing old wiring and installing a few outlets and a new breaker box. Hopefully all goes well, but at least I get to control when they come and work. Well, I'm off, I got 2 interviews today at some resturants, one of which would really be a good job to put on my resume. Seafood here I come! Wish me luck.