My plants are desperately ready to go to the 12/12 cycle ( fan leaves turning brown and falling off, new fan leaves with weird number of fingers ) but my new 600 watt HPS light had to wait to payday to order and will not be here until at least the 7th ( 3 more days). My question is: Will it cause any problem if I change to the 12/12 hour light/dark flowering cycle before I have the flowering bulb and only have my 6500K bulbs?
You can switch to 12/12 now. In fact a lot of growers don't switch the spectrum until about 2 weeks or so into 12/12 photoperiod, because while the flowering hormones build up in the dark periods the plant is still going to be vegging. There's really no downside to doing either, unless you're afraid you will run out of space and need to flower now. IMO the first week of 12/12 under 5000k or 6500k spectrum is good. If you're using a 600W MH bulb then I'd say flower away.
First thanks for responding so quickly and with the good insite and info. Alas no, I do not have a metal halide yet, my new HPS when it comes, is also capable of being either and can take 200,400,600 or 1,000 watts of either. Currently I am vegging under 3 125 watt 6500K CFL's and one over-driven twin socket 32 ( over-driven to 64 watt ) 6500K grow lights, as my space is only 12 sq feet. I will change the light scale ASAP and THANKS again and wholeheartedly!
Ah I see, well if you grow light is going to be there in 3 days, it's up to you. Keep in mind when you flip the switch they are gonna really start growing fast, so if you want to save space you can start now, or if you want to wait for the HID lighting and get more initial growth you could wait. Even if you started flowering now though they would still be stretching by the time you got your light, so you can do whatever you'd like.
Uh, oh, they are about 32 inches now and the ceiling is 5' 6". Another reason I wanted to flower. The Feminized Bubblelicious are no problem as they are compact plants, the Pure Power Plant and the Atomic Skunk are the tall ones that could be a problem. I have been trying to keep them topped as much as I can but do you think I may have to butcher a few inches?
Is there any chance that you can do any LST on them or are the stalks too thick? I'm not sure if this is possible for your space, but a method of training larger plants using LST is to tie twine (not too tightly) around the stalk of the branch you want to train and tie the other end to something like a paint bucket handle, and then just move the bucket a little bit each day. The branch will grow and bend diagonally, and will save you several inches in the end, along with more growth at each node on that branch.
I do not know what LST stands for, but I have been doing something similar. I have been using 1/8th inch string and small fishing weights to pull the branches down a little at a time and each day manually pulling them down just a little bit more and letting the weight hold them. The oscillating fan also helps with this process. Is that about what you are talking about?
yes, that's Low Stress Training. it keeps the plant main stalk growing sideways, and all the "side branching" is now top growth, reaching for the sky. better harvest this way.
Yep LST = Low stress training, and it's tying back the branches to raise the growth nodes above the top branch, which will give them a growth spurt and a priority on nutrient uptake. That's usually done early on in veg and continued though, the method I explained in my previous post is a less invasive way of doing the same thing, but since the stalks are usually too thick to bend at that size it's the next best thing.
I'm on my first grow and did the same thing. I didn't even know what it was yet, but it just made sense to pull branches out of the way so the growth underneath get more lights and hence grow faster. Didn't know what it was called at the time, but it works great. I'm in week 7 of flower in my first grow and should have something nice in a couple weeks.