Hey, good lookin out 4 a rookie. Thank you very much.
Getting back 2 the roots of things. LOL. 2 have a strong root system. ... Wouldn't it be right 2 start vegging under a flowering light 2 start strong roots then bring in the vegging lights 2 keep them growing slowly?
... About cloning, wuts the light schedule 4 them, under what light(b4 rooting & after rooting)? I've got'em under or near my 6700k 24/7. I didn't find any gel so I made a paste out of hormone powder mixed with tap water(that's been in a jug for at least a day) and used the same process u mentioned. I'm hella stoked my 1st couple of clones rooted & transplanted after 1 week with the same light schedule. I didn't plan on taking this grow this far but this is really cool, so I just clipped a few more clones. As far as time and space; I'm good 2 go. Its in my living room(I've got pics 2 post).
Lighting, what I have now was either given 2 me or I bought 4 real cheap at Walmart(2 6700k 10w = $10pr).
I think I'm gunna keep reading about nutes and other lights but yeah I would definitely like 2 step up my lighting if move my plant outta the living room.
I was sweatin balls but did it! I just FIMed the mother! Should I do anything 2 the cut? The part I cut wasn't much, so the clipping's garbage/useless, right???!
... Should the plant go back under the light or wait 4 it 2 heal??? What should I do?
I don't think that starting with a flowering light would help. The plants in veg don't use much of that light spectrum. I beleive there's always an advantage to mixing the two spectrums, but I'd go heavier on veg lights during veg and a lot heavier on flower lights during flower.
You have the right idea on lights for rooting. 24/7 under vegging lights. I can't give you much info on vegging with CFLs because I use 4' fluoros (32w). I have them under 4 of them, but have been told that two would work. I will be vegging after rooting under the same lights, so I keep 4 on.
You got a clone rooted in a week? Are you using plugs? That's great time, but don't worry if some take 2 weeks in plugs.
After rooting you should start increasing lights. Generally speaking, the more light the better. You can have too much light, but with CFLs you usually don't have to worry about it too much.
No problem on the nutes, they're important so learning more is good. But every strain is going to have it's own needs. Don't get stuck in the trap of thinking that what's best for one is best for another. Though the different strains are usually close enough to feed them the same things and get similar results.
Also, I just found out today that plants need a small level of chlorine. Too much is bad, very bad. But none at all can cause necrosis and something else (can't remember). I think my plants are suffereing from necrosis, took me 2 weeks to figure this one out. lol Anyway those nutes I suggested to you have a very small ammount of chlorine (0.1%), only reason I haven't gotten any yet is I'm still looking for the folliage one they have. That stuffs hard to find around here.
$10 is a good price, but HIDs at htgsuppy.com are only $120 or so delivered. Only problem with them is cheap hoods that give off a lot of heat and will require some pretty severe heat management. In my grow room it's 80 degrees at the tops of the planters under the lights and 2 feet away is't 61 degrees, sometimes lower. Waiting till you have enough money for a set up with a good hood (cool tube or A/C cooled hood) is probably best.
And I have another bit of info for you that I just found today, it's to help you build strong roots and to help speed up cloning. It's called Mycorrhiza you can read up on it here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza This is found in many products that you can find at your grow store or a nursery. But the grow stores are much more expensive ($40 per qt) then a nursery ($13 per qt) and most of the nurseries close for the season right after X-Mas. Just on tip, if you want to disolve it in water try to find something without vermiculite, perlite, peat or anything else in it that might not disolve in water. I didn't think of that when I bought mine. lol
You can disolve it and soak your plugs, fill the tray, and water your plugs with it. Wiki will explain why it helps rooting. When you mix your pots you'll want to add some, and for any plants you have now, you can dig 4 holes and put a tablespoon in each hole plus if you disolve some in water you can use it that way too. When you dig your hole make sure you dig it at the outside of the width of your plant. Something else I learned today is that the roots are generally as wide as your plant is.
That also helped me with watering. To get the roots to grow to the pot walls, start watering at the edge of your folliage and water out to the pot walls. Dont water under the folliage because then your roots don't have to looking for water. Once the plant's roots are at the pot walls (you'll know by the folliage) then you can start watering evenly across the surface of the soil.
After FIM you can throw away the tip. You can't really use it for anything.
After the FIM just grow her like nothing happened. You should notice in 2 or 3 days she'll start growing again and you'll see some new growth. If it worked the tip wont grow any farther, the new top growth will be redirected to the 4 points shown on the chart. If the tip starts growing again, then you missed. The leaves on the sides of the tip will still grow, those become 2 of your new main stems. It's easy to confuse them for part of the tip iteslf, especially when the tip is small.
If you miss you can try again, but every time you do it you'll stress the plant, so I wouldn't try too many times on one plant. (2 or 3 tries max). And you don't need to FIM more than once if it's successful. Like I said though about the cut, it takes practice (most of the time) before you can do it 100% of the time.
Sorry it took me so long to respond, I've been upgrading & learning all day. It's been a long day.
