CFL grow startedd 9/11/10

hey dudes, this is my first indoor grow. i have grown twice outdoors but i have never gotten a harvest due to thiefs... but anyways i have been reading many different forums the last 3 and half years on growing and was hoping to get a more direct answer in particular for my grow op. So i started them on 9/9/10 and they sprouted on 9/11(it was a sad/happy day for me). right now i have 3 shop lights rated at 660 watts per fixture which are 10" wide. i have (1) 6500K 42 watt bulb and (1) 2700K 42 watt in a Y adapter in each fixture minus the third fixture b/c i jsut got it. right now im waiting for a new shipment of bulbs to come in. the order is (3) 105 watt 2700K bulbs and (1) 105 watt 6500K bulb. i didn't have enough money to upgrade all my blue specturm bulbs but i figured flowering is more important than vegin and the 42s have been doin fine thus far. So under the two working shop lights i have three sprouts in solo cups under each light and i rotate them hourly. i also have a mirror on one side of the plants. i have about 3' 1/2 feet of height so i really only have about 2 feet between the space needed for the pots and lights. i also plan of LSTing all of them. i am using mircle grow organic garden soil. the only ferts i plan on using is coke a cola and molassess. i have a 12" fan blowing on a group of them and a 5.5" fan blowin on another group of plants.

the plants are only a inch or so high maybe 2" tops.

so my major question is will i have enough light for each plant?
and will my plants have enough nuts to grow?

Sound like you have enough to me. You could technically get away with one, it would just be a smaller yield. Pretty much the more the merrier.

yea thats pretty much the rule to live by... more lights = more buds. has anyone even gotten over 4 ozs off a CFL plant b4? cus i've read that post about putting the lights on every leaf of the plant but how much more will you get in yield for all that extra money and power? idk i think i eventually want to suround the plants with smaller watt bulbs but its a work in progress

anyone else got any ideas for me? i'll be adding pics once i get my computer back from cali... its been getting repaired for like a month now. do you guys think im better off using the four light i have on the six sprouts all together? or should i kepe them the way they are. i also feel like they haven't really gotten any taller or wider the last day or so. maybe they are just going theirr roots out?

I'd really love to have some more feed back bros... get at me.... honestly any comment would be good; negitive or positive.

Dare we ask what strain this 9-11 grow is???

the seeds are just some bag seed headies... i think the strain was called mango kush... idk i guess i'l know more about it once it flowers... i still have more seeds from that batch so if it good maybe i will grow another round of them once this one is over and done with. I also wanna see if i can find someone local that can sell me some cutting for next time and quicken up the process. i jsut hope i can get a few onces to last me through till the next harvest and maybe make my money back from all that i spent on setting it all up.

do you guys know if it would be better to have a large light footprint but weaker lumens/wattage or a smaller light footprint but its more contrated/more lumens and higher watts

also do you think it would be worth spending the money on the clamp lights or just buy the string sockets and just use them without reflectors?

has anyone else used molassess or coke a cola as plant food in theirs grows? im curious to find out how much they really helpt he plant

Jr.Grower said:

has anyone else used molassess or coke a cola as plant food in theirs grows? im curious to find out how much they really helpt he plant

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Nobody has used Molasses, Pepsi, Coke, Honey, Maple syrup Etc. as a primary plant food. They will have to list NPK on the label before most growers try it as primary food. IF it doesn't list NPK, it aint plant food... but it might be some kind of micronutrient.

Schultz "Safer" brand fertilizer is derived from sugar beet molasses... that being an exception to the above rule.

Molasses feeds the microbes in the soil, then the microbes feed the plant. There's a couple dozen molasses threads in the Organics section that get more detailed about feeding microbes. Those who have ever made Shoofly Pie may be inclined to say screw the microbes & soil... and hog the molasses for themselves.

lol yea i think i read one of those posts already about the molassess. what i got from it was that molassess is good for root deveoplment and flower development. and plus the microorganisms it feeds too like you said. what do you think about my light set-up/amount of plants i'm growing? i hope i have enough light to get a desent yield... i really need this harvest to last the amount of time it took to grow it. im try to be more sustainable and spend less in my lifestyle and that starts with stop paying for weed. so hopfully this all works out. i just waterd the plants again. they are already growing thier 2nd nodes and its the sixth day in the veg so far so good. does anyone know when these are gunna start to explode... i'm hoping by the fourth or fifth node the plants start to grow a bit faster.

The light sounds OK.. maybe some of the small CFL growing experts could offer better advice light wise. The lights you have on order sound a lot better.

Reflectors are good. Without one, there is a lot of light going to places other than the plant. I haven't tried this... but those giant 13qt stainless mixing bowls for about $10 at warehouse grocery clubs might be a decent reflector. It costs the same $10 as clip ons, but its a lot bigger. Some assembly and DIY required.

Rule of thumb, if you have to ask if you have enough light.... then maybe you don't have enough... I'm just saying. For my taste, the giant big as a 2 liter pop bottle CFL's 125 watts++ is entry level CFL that I would be happy with. Anything that fits a standard Edison socket is too small, for me YMMV .. and there are plenty of grows on RUI where people did get decent mileage from Edison socket sized CFL's.

Looking good so far.I would have used a turkey pan for a reflector instead of getting those clamps.

ok so i watered the plants at 5:00 pm and two plants in the group 1-3 (my better plants) are turning slightly yellowish. A day or two ago these plants were very very foresty green color but now they are a light green with some yellowish color on the leaves. i think im gunna go back over that plant sickness guide and see why they might be turning yellow after only a week of growth


so after re-reading the "Guide for diagnosing plant problems...A Must Read!! I think i narrowed the problem down to one of these deficiencies: Nitrogen, Zinc, Iron, or Mananese.
is their anyone out there that could help me out? im really lost and i want to get these plants back on track asap.

do yous guys think it could be heat stress? i doubt it but i really have no idea anymore...

Jr.Grower said:

so after re-reading the "Guide for diagnosing plant problems...A Must Read!! I think i narrowed the problem down to one of these deficiencies: Nitrogen, Zinc, Iron, or Manganese.
.

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Nitrogen usually has a fairly textbook appearance. It starts from the bottom and works its way up. The yellowing I saw was on the cotyledon, which is normal. It will die off and "shed off" any minute now, but first the plant is sucking out all the nutes from it.

The big 3 micro-nutrient deficiencies [Zinc, Iron, or Manganese] start kinda randomly in the middle to top of the plant. The cure for all the big 3 are the same.... and regardless which one it is, all 3 deficiencies are treated at once. Pretty much any micronutrient formula has the right stuff to correct deficiency's {ideally just about any Nute / primary plant food should have enough so there aren't deficiencys...}.

My IMHO, the plants look fine for the stage of growth they are in. It should be a couple few weeks before they suck all the nutes out of that soil, and start requiring extra anything.

should be a descent grow buddy!

thanks for the feed back guys... thats great to know that everything is normal so far... i was getting worried because the other group of plants are still really really dark green and the taller ones are that yellowish-green color.. but if its normal then im happy. do you think i might be able to get over a few ounces?

Don't make the same mistakes I did and over worry. I burned my plants by overnuting them and I root bound them by over watering. This was just three weeks ago and I'm already more confident in starting my next few seeds. Just watch em grow man. While they are still really young I would only water every three days or so. Just make sure to watch your temps and make sure they don't get high. I crispied a few plants that were on a day they were going to be watered and the temps spiked. And don't nute yet. I made that mistake too.

Jr.Grower said:

has anyone else used molassess or coke a cola as plant food in theirs grows? im curious to find out how much they really helpt he plant

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This is really random, but I recently poured a pint of flat coke into a plant 2 weeks before harvest, it seemed to have absolutely no effect whatsoever either positive or negative. Next time I'm trying redbull

boonierat and spindles thanks for the comments, i will deff be more patient and to help me with that im gunna start a cab grow op too. i'll post pics of the CAB operation once i get it going. the lights are going to be coming on soon for the main grow so hopefully the plants start to look a bit greener or bigger at least. i wonder if some perlite would help out at all

alright so i just checked the plants and they seem to look a bit greener. i moved the light over plants 1-3 up a bit so it was 3" inches away from the tops of the plant. plants 4-6 still look much healthier than 1-3. the lights over 4-6 are 2.5" inches away from the tops of the plants. i watered all the plants well... they were bone dry. i check back in later tonight

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this is the cabinet im gunna turn into a cab for growing a few plants in

Looks like it can be done.Line it up with panda film and you are straight.

good looks wyteberrywidow.... i'll start workin on it this week. where can i find that panda film?