first grow

[siq]

first time growing, not 100% on the sex of them, i got them separated in different rooms. i got a few pictures to post please put any 2 cents u want. using newbie soil mix ;( should have went to hydro store to get the good stuff. ohwell to late now to move them. i am 1 week, 1 day into flowering (2week 1 day if u count transitioning) on 12/12. i used 24/7 for veg. they didnt get grow too tall during that time. which is what i wanted. i want smaller plants for my own medicinal use.
going to start using power bloom for soil formula in 2 days on next feeding. then going to repeat every 3 watering.

first one, i cut 4 sets of fan leaves off to make it open, this one is under 400w 2700k with about 6,000lumens in 3 bulbs. 1 200w 2700k on top, and 2 100w 2700k on the sides.

side view

top view

second one is under 700w 2700k with about 10,000lumens in 4 bulbs.

full view

top view

side view

please leave any comments, everything is constructive criticism =)

Also im having a Calcium problem at this moment, my ph lvl's were at 8.5 - 9.0!!!
I flushed with distilled water that is at 6.0ph lvl, i used a little under a gallon. good recovery on the plant so far. (2nd plant) its mainly effecting the larger fan leaves below, hope by tomorrow they start looking better.

 

[BquamB]

looks good with many little sucker leaves. i am not normally one for trimming... but those little suckers will cause more harm than good in my view. I dont know your strain all that well, but have noticed a much higher yeild with CFL if I remove the sucker leaves that would only get me small small popcorn nugs.

Because you have the wattage i think you might be okay... but do some experiments. keep them this grow and remove during flower next time and compare the crops, density and so forth.
Best of luck!

Again, this is only my opinion on the matter. You can do what ever the FUCK you wanna do =)

-Bq

 

[siq]

Yeah i been thinking about doing it, but just not sure. i figured they would only make some smaller buds. I may go through and take a few out. i figure the less picking i do the less damage and wait period for recovery. will post pic tonight.,

 

[BquamB]

Do not remove Fan leaves. they are grown for a Reason.
I know there is a reason for the small suckers... but I find this the exception.
I only removed the bottom 2 tiers on my two bag seeds and the tops are FAT and the bottoms are large Dense guys, thumbs each.

 

[siq]

i removed 2 bottom ones, that were not getting much light. and a back one that would of been getting over powered soon. so all in all i only removed 4. going to get some Cal-Mag tomorrow for the lower set of fan leaves. hopefully that cures it from the calcium problem. Heres a few pics

back view

the view of the back has weak growth. but the front and sides are coming along quite well. now that i got everything bent down and moved for better lighting. this up coming week should be interesting. once the leaves get healed up going to give it power bloom soil formula.

 

[whymedeisgns]

It looks like you are suffering from something really similar to what i was experiencing.

My solution was to put overhead lighting. In your pictures it looks like your primary light sources are on the side, so the normal plant growth won't get much direct light. The plant is contorting itself to reach the light you're trying to give it.

Get some 8 dollar desk lamps with bendable necks or find some way to get overhead light, the plant looks like it's suffering

 

[whymedeisgns]

Also, form the picture coloring it looks like you're using lower spectrum CFLS. They are casting a yellow light.

My bet is they are somewhere in the 2700-4000 range. The reason your nodes are so long and spindely is because yellow red/light causes elongated internodal spacing. Making branches longer, and can often cause support issues.

From the picture you are in veg, and considering the frailness of the plant i suggest getting some 25w 6500k cfls and trying to put some overhead lighting. Keep that plant in til the noes aren't falling down, because it's not doing so well atm.

EDIT:

You said you are in flowering already? The plant looks like it's suffering, it may not have been ready. I don't know what advice to give you about lights/stages now, pretty sure the plant is supposed to pre-flower before you throw it into the flower light cycle.

Either way, it's a first time thing, not sure how much you expected, but my personal opinion is the plant wasn't ready for flowering.

The best thing you can do right now to make sure they don't suffer more is break down what type of lights you are using Wattage, Light Temperature (this is a number in the thousands with a K after it) and if you know the lumens, give me those. They may not be listed on consumer bulbs.

I am only asking about your ligths because i can't see your original break down of lights being correct when compared to the images seen. Those 2 CFLs in the stand white lamps are not 100W bulbs. they may be 100W incandescent equivalents, but you need to not go off equivalents to a bulb that wouldn't grow plants anyways (incandescents do not work at all) They look like 25-40W CFLs.

You also said you have a 200W CFL over the top. I don't see it in any of the pictures, but I don't think it's 200W, but if it is, it's WAY TOO FAR AWAY. CFLs need to be up close and personal to have nearly any effect on plants at all.




These are two 25 W cfls at 6500 (i'm in veg) for side/spotlighting, and an overhead 60w 10,000k and 60 W 2100 K Cfl in a coralife fixture. Notice how close the 25W CFLs are to the plant. it won't hurt it (unless of course yours actually are 100w, which blows my mind because they would normally need to be 3-4 times the size)

 

[whymedeisgns]

There also appears to be some nute burning or deficiencies, it could also be a parasite. I'm unable to tlel from the pictures and their resolution, i would suggest getting some food grade hydrogen peroxide (nice grocery stores sell this, so do hydroponic stores).

If it's a deficiency the PH is locking out nutrients, if you're using plant food/nutrients you're adding to the water what kind are they?

hydrogen peroxide will slightly lower the ph, and in my experience is a good thing to mix in in low quantities with the water you feed the plant.

The ph is important because certain nutrients plants need get locked out by different phs.

Hydrogen peroxide will also kill off dirt born pests.

Food grade is 30%, 3% is about the most you should expose a plant to. I would suggest taking like 40 parts water 1 part food grade hydrogen peroxide. I use a 500 ML water bottle to water my plant right now, and I put 1 capfull of 30% (the screwtop lid to water bottles) of hydrogen peroxide in that with with my organic plant food portioning and fill the bottle with water.

It will make the soil bubble and aerate the dirt, making it easier for roots to grow, and if you do it about 30 minutes before you turn the lights off the reaction from the H2O2 will release oxygen that the plant needs for cellular respiration (sleep time). The only products created by h2o2 reacting with soil are oxygen o2 and h2o water.

If the soil starts to bubble don't fret, but make sure it doesn't bubble too much, it'll raise like a earthy sponge and then recede back down.

I saw a 20 fold increase in healthy growth when I started using hydrogen peroxide.

 

[slumdogg95]

When can i flower this???? first grow

 

[whymedeisgns]

View attachment 2429393View attachment 2429394 When can i flower this???? first grow

Your plant is a perfect example of what almsot pure red/yellow spectrum light does to a plant in veggign stage. You get long thin leaves, long thin stems, and little folliage.

If you wanted to get a good yield off it, I would switch the lights to a blue spectrum bulb and veg it for like 2-3 more weeks, hopefully folliage will fill in. You definitely do not need more height though.

When i say blue spectrum I mean pretty much anything from 5000k to 14,000k, this is the light color spectrum, more correctly known as light temperature.

Pretty sure if you try to flower it as is it won't survive the long nights because of the lack of strength in the stems.

It's really easy to tell if you have the right lights by just taking a picture of the plant + light with a digital camera with the FLASH TURNED OFF. the color sensor will drop the contrast and remove most of the white light, showing the color of the light more clearly than eyeballing it (and less painfully). Your light you show is VERY red, and it should be blue for vegging.

if you go up and check the picture i attached you will see a blueish tint coming form the light bulbs, not a yellow/red.

What red/yellow ligths do is basically inject your plant with hormones. The plant produces the hormones required for stem growth, and sexual production based off these light spectrums. When the plant isn't matured it sends all of these hormones into stem growth because it can't push them towards flowers that aren't formed yet.

Since the plants foliage needs blue spectrum for dense leaves and photosynthesis the plant will send it's leaves up toward your red light trying to grab the very few blue lumens put off by a red bulb (very very few actually) which is what causes this precarious height growth. If you insist of using red bulbs for vegging you need to put them closer, or your plant will just grow really tall and dedicate all of it's production to achieving height.

In the flowering stage, once the flowers have formed and the plant is matured, the more red light it receives the more hormones it will send to the flowers, make them swell. This is why people favor HPS or red/yellow spectrums for the flowering stage.

 

[slumdogg95]

i'm going to get a new bulb this week, how exactly do i know if a light bulb is between 5000k and 14 000k though? i also have another cfl bulb, same kind but green. any suggestions?

 

[whymedeisgns]

depending on where you buy the bulb, they will defintiely have some identifiers. Uusually these nubmers are printed on the packaging for major brands like GE, Sylvania, etc.

the most common variants are 5000k and 6500 at hardware stores. You want light bulbs that have the word "daylight" in their description. What a company calls it is totally up to them, but anything with the word "warm" in the description is definitely going to be the wrong light for vegging. Warm usually implies red or yellow.

I have no idea what kind of fixture you're using, it looks like a heatlamp almost (not sure?)

What kind of budget are you looking at, and are you planning on using a DIY or hardware store like lowes/home depot?

EDIT:

The only place you will likely find 10,000k CFL's is at a pet store, a fish store, or potentially a specialty light store. Or maybe a hydroponics store. The only 10k lights I've seen at hardware stores are metal halide or full on floro tubes (t5's)

 

[siq]

well whymedeisgn, true they are not actully 100W let me break it down for ya on how ive done my grow so far.
i ran 24/7 veg for about 5weeks. used 2 26watt 6500k for the first 2 weeks, once they started growing i added in 4, 42watt 6500k 2800lum per with a overhead hanging light.
i got a 2 way on both sides to hold 4 lights.

Yeah im in flowering, i dont want large plants. this is only for my medicinal use. i just want to get one plant under my belt before i start to grow trees.
my flowering lights are 4, 42watt 2700k 28000lum per and 2, 26watt 1600lum per. i got the light hanging about 11" above the plant and the sides ones are about 6" away
(i got 2 42w on the side, and the rest in the over head light. (2, 42w and 2, 26w)

for my browning on the leaves my Ph lvl were at 9.0 ;( but i got some new distilled water that is at 6.0-6.5 ph. flushed it with about 1gallon of that, and read up that it was probable calcium problems
so im gonna get some cal-mag tomorrow from the hydro store and see if that helps.

Also the fan leaves are bent down so they dont block light from the new growth. they arnt really like that. here a pic before i did it

this is about 6days after the last pic of where i bent the fan leaves down. so its gotten a lot taller

So i think that is about it, think i should try the Hydrogen peroxide and water trick for the leaves problem?
Also my heat stays around 77-82 so i keep the light in that area to keep it cool in the closet.

 

[whymedeisgns]

Touche. They do look alot better.

I can't see close enough up on the lower fan leaves to tell if the burning has gone away or not.

It looked like it could have been phosphorous or calcium burns, and phosphorus would happen if you were using a high phosphorous nute.

Glad you got it flushed.

using distilled water will probably help out alot. 10% solutions of H2O2 are usually around 5.5-65 ph, so they can help stabilize phs also. They also provide alot of other beneficial affects.

the second round of pictures showed a very distressed plant, the latest picture looks more capable of flowering, Wish you the best of luck man, my only real suggestion is to try and get the cfls closer if you can, it will help alot.

 

[siq]

OH i used super power bloom soil formula, i used 7.5lm /1gallon of water during transition week. but i noticed the spots the 2nd week, (when i was switching to 20.0ml / 1gallon. it only got one feeding of that before the spots got too bad. and read up on it, then flushed it. its still in recovery, but the leaves still look bad?? i havent used anything besides the distilled water (~6.5ph) its growing good and showing results everyday..

 

[siq]

today pic
Leaves are still bent down, should i not do that? im just trying to help provide light to the sweet spots.

im going to get a another fan in there to keep it cool. so i can lower the lights.

also my "1,000watt" is actually 259.7 cfl wattage

 

[whymedeisgns]

If you used blooming nutes early on that would be the cause of the issue, flowering nutes are very high phosphorous, vegging nutes are typically very low phosphorous.

If you put vegging nutes in with a plant growing in veg it will almost always give it phosphorous burns.

If you're trying to train a small plant for personal use, I would say make the ligth transition more gradual, because it will slowly stunt the growth and curve into flowering. 20/4, 18/6 16/8 14/10 and then 12/12. Helps a plant survive the transition without drastic change ensuring it gets stressed as little as possible.

LST works, but it's unnecessary if you manipulate the light correctly.

The brown spots are still an issue, i would really consider the peroxide thing and go slow on the nutes, you're nuting in soil that already has fertilizer (i see the nitrogen bombs in the dirt) so really be careful on OD'ing. Most nute dosages are for unfertilized organic soil.

Also bear in mind, LST works great for HID lighting like MH or HPS, but the penetration on CFL is so low that if you're tying leaves down, you're moving them ALOT farther away from the light source then they need to be.

LSt shouldn't normally be necessary for CFL growing, realistically. It's highly suggested for other types of growing.

Next time around, if you want a short bushier plant i suggest vegging with ALL 6500s, and when switch to flowering keep the 6500s until buds start to form (preflowering) and then when u hit the 12/12 in the gradual transition throw in 2700 CFLS.

What I'm seeing is when u switched lights they basically got a shot of steroids and grew out rapidly, without even entering flowering development at first, and all this stress is going to make it difficult for them to transition correctly.


For now, still consider the hydrogen peroxide because from the msot recent picture it doesn't look like you're out of the phosphorous shock yet, and it won't go into flowering until it stabilizes in my experience.

 

[whymedeisgns]

Oh yeah, and be really careful when leaves make contact with the soil. The stuff plants like on their roots they don't necessarily like on their leaves.

Leaves laying or being pinned to the dirt can start to rot or get worse nute burns. Not to mention it makes it easier for pests to spread.

LSt is designed around keeping the canopy low, making a sea of flat green, and having your light source close and flat. But you really don't want the leaves laying on the ground, humidty, mold, pests and minerals all become more of an issue here.

Basically consider that non organic fertilizers actually do alot of damage if they hit the leaves in my experience, a single droplet of drainage water from miracle grow put a 1 inch nute burn in one of my plants leaves. it just dropped off the bottom when i was moving it around, and it hit a different plant. So when you're watering with potentially unorganic fertilizers don't pour over the plant, and if you do mist the plant, definitely do not mist with water with ferts in it.

The ferts are designed to mimic naturally occurring nutrients in the soil, something the leaves aren't designed to accommodate,

What chemicals do to plant leaves could very similarly be compared to what chlorine gas does to your lungs,.

 

[iiKode]

sorry mate that thing is a bit lanky i would bin that thing ad start over, you might yield a joint or summit off it i dunno

 

[whymedeisgns]

no matter what, you can always clip it down and reveg if you don't want to start from scratch again.

But he is right, as is without almost a 180 turn around you're not going to get anything really great off it.

What you really need to consider is what soils you use.

You can get normal soil, perilite, and peat, and piss on it on the back patio in a pot for a few weeks, the urine has amonia in it, which will start a nitrogen cycle, if organic soils aren't an option.

I do Genuinely, really think that if you peroxide flushed it and put it under some blue veg lights you could save it though.

You could look at the clones sub forums and figure out how to slice a node off (preferably the healthiest one)

I know almost nothing about cloning though, i never do anything for production, just for experimentation and consumption.