Hi, i am sorry about the crippling disorder, check out
http://stenkraft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1&Itemid=31 for some video relating to the herb being a medicine.
Any way to your grow, remember that cannabis is a weed and wants to grow however if you are growing in doors, the thing you need to do is make the plants artificial environment as close to perfect conditionas as spossible. Some people would go into the perfect light, the perfect ph, the perfect temp, C02 enrichment, blahh de blahh. I would suggest that you stick to a few basic rules if you want to grow bud.
PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION AND SOME PEOPLES WILL DIFFER.
1. Try to keep your temperature around the 30 - 36 mark you can do this with a number of different systems but i have had great success with a fortex system which you can buy
here. A point to remember is that when your bulb is on (depends on what you use) you will find that your growing area builds up heat and when its is off it looses heat, this system will control a heating circuit for when it gets to cold and a cooling curcuit when it gets to hot. You simply set the desired temp and the system scans it and adjusts it.
2. Buy a better bulb, if you want to go for the low power option then you could use LED, however some people dont like LED as some people say it does not allow the plants to yeild a dense bud. LED lights are a mine feild, In my experience i would suggest you stay away from the Growboards (
here) I say this because i know them to be a total load of ...... The next LED could be the UFO (
here) some people like them some people hate them as far as i am concerned, cannabis pleants dont like them when they are flowering no matter what people say (but thats just me).
Another low power
bulb is the CFL, they normally come in BLUE spectrum (for non flowering also known as the veg), red spectrum (for the flowering stage also known as budding) or dual spectrum (both red spectrum and blue spectrum). They dont use to much energy normally around the 120 to 300 watt mark. They also dont produce much heat so your heat exaust does not have to be as efficient (we will get to this in a bit). In my opinion they are really good for veging and do produce bud, but once again, the bud is not as dense as it could be.
The other side of things is the
Hight Pressure Sodium (HPS) bulb and the Metal Hallide (MH) bulb. The HPS has a good red spectrum however it does have a bit of blue in it, but not that much. This means it is excellent for flowering but lacks in the veging department. The MH bulb has a predominently blue frequency, this is great for veging but rubbish for flowering. Some people use the MH for veg then swap to HPS for flower however a large number of people use HPS for both veging and flowering. (Remember there are exceptions some people will dissagree). The downer about HPS and MH is that they use large amounts of power and create large amounts of heat, this heat needs to be evacuated and cooled.
3 Intake and exahust is one of the most important things. If you plant is in the wild it does not need an exaust or an intake as there is an abundance of fresh air (because your outside... lol). If you plant is inside it is very important that you have a good circulation of air and intake to bring cool (C02 rich) air in and en exaust to take out hot (C02 lacking) air out. This not only gives your plant everything it needs to breath but it also helps to keep your growing area at a nice temp and stops the plant from burning. A great cheap fix for a small growing area is the trusty
12 volt PC fan, this can be wired into a 9 or a 12 volt DC adapter, it does not use much power and is quite efficient in moving air about. And most importantly, it is cheap!
4 Reflectors are important, for example its no good having a growing area painted in black as this will not reflect your light around the room and will waste alot of the light energy.
Diamond mylar is a great reflector however it is expensive,
standard reflective mylar is also good however if it is not perfectly smooth it can produce hot sports (spots where the light is focused a bit like a lens). These hot spots can damage the leaves. If all else fails, paint it in white, white is a great reflector. Do not be tempted in using tinfoil as this is no good as it absorbs alot of the light spectrum.
5. PH, try to keep the PH of your growing medium whether it is soil, coco, or anything else to the suggested PH of your plant, if you do not know, my plants respond well to a ph of 6.5 (some people will dissagree, its all about finding what works for you and your plant). You can acouplish this by using
PH up and down and you can mesure this with a
PH meter if your on a budget you can buy PH meter really cheap off ebay and you can use vinigar to take the acidity up and baking soda (mixed well with water) to take up the alkaline level.
6. NUTES - the liquid fertiliser that use, needs to be diluted in water to the levels it indicates on the bottle (at the very least) I would suggest buying a EC or PPM meter to monitor the level of nutes disolved in the water. Remember seedling will need less nutes than a full size plant. If you are growing in a soil, then ensure it is full of goodness as the plant will be drawing its nutes from that. I find adding guano (shit from various animals) to my soil helps the plants grow better, i suppose it is simple logic.
7. Watering is what most people fall down on, remember this, its better to have your seedling in search of water than to drown it. If your plant looks like it is in need of water then give it a good watering, if your drainage in your pot is good then it will be difficult to over water it, dranage is the key if you are not confident in your watering abilities.
8. Humidity is also important, when they are young they like more humidity, when they get bigger and stronger they can handly not having as much, when they are in flower they like less as a large amount of humidity can cause mould and rot your bud.
Well, i have covered a few things in a fair bit of detail, no doubt there will be people who dissagree with me, or think i have missed things out, all i can suggest is if your one of those people, just have your say too.
Hope this has helped.