Today marks the completion of week two of flower, ~7 weeks since germination. Crazy how the time has flown by. The girls are looking good. The tall one has lots of bud sites along the main stem, and few lower ones as well. The wide girl is developing many sites as well, though a little slower than the tall one. After having its middle layer of foliage removed 2 weeks ago, the short girl (finally
confirmed a girl, though I knew already) is starting to show multiple bud sites (~9) at the lower levels. I've raised the hps probably twice in the last 36 hours because the tall one is 21" as of 11:30 this morning. I turned on two more cfls that are now over the short girl, and the temp has been holding at ~83.
The humidity, which I thought was a problem before, seems to hover around 39%, which should be ideal going forward with bud formation. I'm concerned it might get a bit more humid at night than I want, as it has done that in the past, so I may need to find a way to bring it down. But, for right now, I think it's doing good.
I do have a new concern, though, and it could be disastrous...the big girl may have gone HERMIE! NOOOOOOO!
While it may be a little premature to tell, there are two dangly balls hanging from two lower/middle nodes. It is possible they will sprout hairs, but I've seen a lot of balls recently, ane it looks pretty comparable. I'm not sure what caused it--maybe stress from dropping the light? It's right in the area where it happened. The lower sections of all the plants have been getting excellent light coverage from the the 65w cfl that is on a bendy thing. I stick it in the now-exposed section of the stem where the light fell, trying to promote undergrowth/lower bud development, and I think it works pretty well. The t5's are also coming in handy now, as the tops are just starting to stretch past them. The 26w cfls on the other side are also doing a nice job getting the middle sections of all plants. There is light shining in just about ever crevice I can find...and yet I know I can fit more. Later for that thought.
So, I may have a hermie. I'm going to give it until tomorrow to sprout hairs, and then I'm snipping them off. It's going to be tough, but I'm going to have to be vigilant to make sure none of the balls burst open and pollenate the other bitches.
I just checked the ph of the filtered tap water and its 7.6, which is a little high I think. I'll have to get some distilled water and check the ph of that. And we'll see what happens with the runoff ph after I water next. Maybe I'll do an experiment to try and figure it out before I feed them...
Anyway, enough rambling, here are the pics!
The "Tall" girl. Not sure why those middle nodes stretched like that, she was never that far away from the light. The ruler blocks it in this shot, but the lower nodes are much tighter spaced. She's looking good though.
Here's one of her top
The "Wide" girl. Always lookin a little droopy...wonder if its from the ph? I'll be working on that situation
Here's the side where the light fell. Lots of little bud sites going on down there.
Here are what I'm presuming to be balls.
Looks pretty ballish to me (ignore that little white hair, it's from the cat)
One side of the "Short" girl, with lots of lower bud sites forming.
Here's the other side
And some close ups of the tops...I think is shorty
I think this is the Wide girl
This one must be the tall girl then...
So, the rewarding part of the adventure finally begins! I'm trying to get as much light to every bud site that I can, and I'll probably construct some sort of stand to affix some cfls. We'll see what happens.
Haven't checked the seeds yet...some have probably already cracked, but I'm going to wait just for fun.
I had a thought about the 12/12 from seed girls...why not just top them above the second node to make 4 main colas? Might keep them a little shorter? Just a thought.
Here's how the girls now while in their setup. You can see the many levels of light described above--hps on top, t5's on the left near the tops, 26w cfls in the middle, and the 65w big guy on the bottom. Good coverage so far I think. But, could be better, so I'll try to do that.
There you have it. Feedback is always welcome!