Pot sizes

Are u starting off with seeds or cloans I usaly put strait in to 10liter pots after cloans have decent roots and then ther ok in them pots to harvest them. there are other ways wat will work fine I just recon this way saves alot of messing about

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Depends on what you feed them. You can get bigger plants out of smaller pots if you use bottled nutes, but if you go that route then organic soil would be my last choice as a medium.

Not saying it's a bad idea, but organic soil + bottled nutes is certainly less efficient (and more dirty) than hempy, soilless, coco, hydro, or any of a dozen other substrates that are better suited for chemical grows. Just thinking out loud, no idea what your plans are but it's something to consider.

 

Yeah you can sow your seeds in your final pot so you don't have to transplant, (I think that's what you're asking). There are some advantages of stepping up a few pot sizes though. Why do you want to avoid transplanting?
Be careful not to water too often as a large pot with a tiny plant can easily take a couple of weeks before it needs watering

 

What size is the grow area? And what lights will you be using with it? Big lights mean big plants, which will need big pots. If you were doing a small grow for example with a few CFLs then you can often get away with a smaller pot without loss of yield

 

A 5 gallon pot is plenty big enough then. Will you be adding more lights, or changing the lights? It's just 300w CFL will be very stretched to cover all that space.

 

Even a 400w HPS will be pretty stretched to cover the whole 16 square foot area. I'm assuming it will be an HPS, and not just adding another 100w CFL. HPS gives off over twice the light as CFLs while using the same amount of electricity so much more energy efficient.

You could use 5 gallons if that's what you have, but with low lit grows you can often get away with smaller pots with less soil so it's cheaper and less work, but if you already have the pots it will be fine, just be careful you don't over water when they are young

 

In a 1.2m x 1.2m area I would recommend at least 600w HPS (90,000 lumens).
To get that light intensity with CFLs you would need to run 1500 watts. A 300w CFL will cover one plant a 60cm x 60cm area ok

 

I wouldn't say there is a problem as such, but large bodies of soil take a long time dry and so can stay wet for longer than small pots. This can lead to the roots having access to less oxygen. Using a well matched pot size to the size of the plant creates a quick wet/dry cycle, this gets lots of oxygen to the roots and supercharges growth.

Another advantage of stepping up pot sizes is the roots tend to fill out the pot a bit better. With a big pot the roots generally grow outwards, hit the side of the pot and then encircling the body of soil. As the soil starts to dry it shrinks, pulls away from the sides of the pot and those roots become exposed and can dry out and become damaged.
But when you transplant, those outer edge roots get positioned inside a body of soil where they are more efficient.

On the flip side, as the roots start to fill out the pot, grows slows due to a lack of nutrients. They recover well once transplanted but growth is usually effected for an amount of time.
When you can simply veg the plant for a little longer, these slow periods aren't much of an issue. But when growing autos this can definitely be an issue because when you aren't in control of the vegging/flowering period, every day counts.

And of course there will also be some degree of risk when transplanting, especially if you do it too early, the soil can fall apart tearing fine roots as it does.

Keep in mind that these are all very fine tuning issues and are pale in comparison to using good lights, good soil, and the correct concentration and balance of nutrients

 

Gradually lower the light until the tops of the plants are about 26-28°C. You will need a thermometer which has a remote sensor so you can position it right at the top of the canopy. The closest part of the plant to the light will be the hottest, all other parts will be cooler. Most plants usually start to show heat stress signs at 30°C, but some strains handle heat better than others.