I've been into gardening and also into weed, but never had the nerve to go and combine the two. I've been growing herbs and some small veggies in my backyard as well as a few small trees indoors, but these are quite different from a cannabis plant as I would imagine. Anyways, I'm not expecting to outfit a grow room and try for dank nugs, I'd be more than happy if I could get a plant going and flowering with mids-quality buds or even shwag...this is more of a moneysaving/hobby endeavor. I read a few guide and they mentioned that Flouro lights are acceptable, but not as effective. By flouro, I'm guessing that regular compact flouro lamps from home depot that fit in desk lamps will suffice....if so, what wattage/design should I get. Aside from lighting, I am a complete noob to genetics. Pepople have mentioned "parent" plants as well as "feminizing". I understand that thew female plants are the one you want to smoke, but how do I get a female? Is it random? If so, what are the odds?
allright here is the first bit of advice read a grow guide cause you dont know very much but since im a nice guy I will hook you up a feminized seed is a seed that is 100% female most are expensive 50-120 dollar range but female seeds has the cheapest so far you can get them at seedboutique and Dr.Chronic if using regular seeds throw twice the amount for number of females you want also most growers use 400 watt HPS if there growing 4-5 females and a 600 watt if 6-7 females so 100 watts per plant is a good rule to go by www.insidesun.com has the cheapest systems and www.1000bulbs.com/category.php?category=2086 has the best choice of floro's on the net and a cheap way to wire them up is too purchase an extension cord and a ceramic socket then cut the cords on the female ends till there are two wires about an inch long if you want you could also get a Y adapter so you could put two bulbs in one socket it should be in the same ailse as the sockets and for your mother plant question its mostly used in hydro setups by picking your best mother out of three or four then cloning it for as long as you want
I'll give you some simple answers, even though I've never grown I've been reading on here for a while and the answers are generally the same. CFLs may not be as good as a HPS/MH grow, but some people are able to do crazy shit with them. Take a look at vokal420's grow if you want a good example. It's pretty rediculous. As for wattage, the more the better. Don't try to grow a bunch of plants if you don't have enough watts. You'll want some lights around the 6500k and 2700k color temp. The 6500k is better for the vegetation stage and the 2700k is better for flowering. Some people say 2 2700k to 1 6500k, but whatever you can get your hands on will work. If it doesn't have the color temp listed, people can tell you what to look for (cool white or soft white or daylight, I don't know offhand). About genetics and females, I haven't read as much into this but I guess femenized seeds cost a bunch more. And if it's more of a hobby/money saver you may want to either buy some cheap seeds or just use bagseed to see how it goes. The odds of getting females is probably near 50/50, but you could have a run of bad luck and get a lot worse odds. Just germinate like 4 seeds and hope you get at least 1 or 2 females. As for other stuff, just read the guides out there and use the search. vokal has a nice little guide with some good info, and there's plenty more guides with good stuff in them as well.