Growing Medical Marijuana with T-5 Flourescents only

Hola Amigos!

I started another thread about my growing attempt but I thought retitling and starting over with a more accurate(and properly spelled) title was probably a good idea so here I am

I started from seed right into soil on April 9th, I didn't want to do the paper towel technique since I read somewhere that the sprouts produce micro-roots that embed the paper towel and are torn out when moving so I figured I would try doing it the way nature does.

So far things have worked out for me it's looking like. The plants seem to be taking off and doing just fine on the veg growth phase, now I just need to wait until time to switch the bulbs and timer to the flowering stage to see how it does.

I am doing a soil grow using Roots Organics soil and Fox Farms Neuts along with some Cal-mag and Earth Juice micro-nutrient solution and R/O water cleaned down to 3 PPM for a base.

I have never grown before, so this is a double experiment. Do I have anything close to a green thumb and can I get enough floral growth to sustain an average medical marijuana patient.

The seeds went into the dirt on April 9th in the early evening.

How long do you guys think I should leave them in Veg before switching?

I gave them their first application of Neuts at 1/2 strength yesterday ( 5/3 ) and checked them this afternoon and they seem to be doing ok. No obvious signs of leaf tip burn as of yet.

Here are what they look like at almost 1 month old. and a few shots of my grow area. I will continue to give updates on my status and reports on how well the T-5 system functions both in Veg and flower.

I sure could use any advice or suggestions you would care to make and hope that this will work as a guide (if I succeed) to those who can't use HID lighting for whatever reason.

Anyway, I am outa here to go ogle my plants again.

Wish me luck!
Zero

alot of people say wait till the plant mature some say wait till u have atleast 5-7 nodes or 10'-12'inches.
Im on my frist grow i veggi mines for a month and they had 6-8 nodes i started flowering 4 dayz ago and they were about 8-10 inches tall.

Im a newbie but it looks like ur badies arent rdy to start flowering maybe another month of veggi
good luck bro nice setup

Jester22 said:

alot of people say wait till the plant mature some say wait till u have atleast 5-7 nodes or 10'-12'inches.
Im on my frist grow i veggi mines for a month and they had 6-8 nodes i started flowering 4 dayz ago and they were about 8-10 inches tall.

Im a newbie but it looks like ur badies arent rdy to start flowering maybe another month of veggi
good luck bro nice setup

Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliments on the grow room Jester. It's a work in progress. Things keep getting added as I discover new problems. Such as the fan/exhaust. I initially went with an all t-5 system because I thought that would mean I wouldnt need to spend the money on a vent/fan setup.

Boy was I wrong. I got the mylar up and the light hung and then went to run the lights on a dry run with with just them empty room and lights.

All I can say is HOLY CRAP! 6 4' T-5 bulbs heated that closet up to over 90F in less than 15 minutes.

The lighting would probably be fine in an open air environment and they are a lot cooler than HID's but if I knew I was going to have to put the fan in anyway I probably would of went with a cool tube or some other HPS/MH system.

On the upside, this gives me the opportunity to see if I can get a useful amount of medication with the lower power usage of the T-5 setup. Call me a "Green" grower. LoL

I may be moving in a few months if I get better enough to take this sweet job I was offered and if I do, I will set up a larger area so I can test the same strain with everything being identical except the light source as a comparison (I may be having to medically retire from my old job due to physical constraints caused by my injury, I will tell you guys what that one was when I am no longer an employee in that field) working for a political/social advocacy group that I have been a part of for the last decade with almost 2 million members as an organizer/ representative/lobbyist. (They have NOTHING to do with MMJ, its a workers rights coalition)

And I fully intend to take the skills that I learn and the contacts I make there and utilize them to help in the fight to reform our MMJ laws both at the state and national level.

The best part about it is I told the prospective employer up front (I pride myself in being forthright and honest with people unless they force me not to) about my use of MMJ when they asked me if I would be interested in accepting the position and the only restriction that they asked me to comply with is to not medicate while in the office or while conducting business.

Since they knew me pre-injury and post injury prior to undertaking MMJ treatment and saw how much it improved my ability to function and the improvement of my "quality of life" as well as the reduction in "legal" pain killers like the Oxy I have been on forever that occurred after using MMJ they were not only supportive, they actually encouraged my activism in this area!

They said as long as I didn't use my title in their organization when pushing our MMJ agenda in the political arena to have at it! (Thats pretty progressive attitude for an employer to have regarding this issue in todays political climate I feel).

Anyway, I digress, back to the plants. <--- The rambling is his fault.....

I am ending up with tons of nodes on one strain already. They are growing real squat, maybe like 3-4 inches tall total but already have like 4 or 5 nodes with more jumping in every day! I am soooo stoked. I will take a better profile shot of that one later, but here is what it looks like from a poor angle. I think I will wait at least another week before switching to veg unless someone tells me otherwise. I freely acknowledge my Noobness.

Wow, they sure have come a long way, went into flower yesterday right after taking these shots.

I watered them, switched the bulbs to 3K and put them on 12/12 however I didn't have the start timer set right so it didn't come on for 16 hours after they went off.

Can I gradually adjust the 12 hour day to get it on the schedule I want? Right now it is 10am-10pm light but I would like to migrate it to a 4am-4pm schedule maybe cause of heat in the day but still have some daytime hours to work on them.

Zero