slow grow

I have 3 1/2 wk old plant. It was at first looking a lttle week and the 1st 2 leaves turned yellow on the ends and are dying. So I swiched from a grow bulb to a cfl 2" above plant ,stopped watering it so much. Only water it when soil is dry. Now the plant looks heathy but is only 4 1/2" tall,has 12 leaves from 1/4"- 1" long. Is this alright? Or is it growing too slow? And I would like to know if it's alright to move the plant outside on nice sunny days, or should I just leave it inside. Today it will reach about 72 degrees outside and sunny.

Are you feeding any nutrients yet? Normally around two-three weeks in you want to start with nutes.

Are you using fertilizor yet and exactly what CFl are you using? One really isnt enough to make a plant grow at a fast rate should hang 2-4 all arround your plant and on the sides. I have heard of people bringing there plants outside during the day and inside during night but I have also heard that you shouldnt do it because it can stress them and cause hermies. Who knows only one way to find out.

Mighty Buddha

your signature about willie Nelson I just used it as an Away message on AIM last night I didn't know u had it on here haha .. just ironic to me

I used a fish emulsion fertilizer a week ago. It has nitro,phos and potash. It says it won't burn the plant. I think this is one thing that helped my plant. I'm just using 1 24w cfl right now. I think I need about a 45w. would 3 be enough? Another question is I heard if your plant start growing balls(male) and you cut them off, the plant can become female. Is this true? Thanks

mookab said:

I used a fish emulsion fertilizer a week ago. It has nitro,phos and potash. It says it won't burn the plant. I think this is one thing that helped my plant. I'm just using 1 24w cfl right now. I think I need about a 45w. would 3 be enough? Another question is I heard if your plant start growing balls(male) and you cut them off, the plant can become female. Is this true? Thanks

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24w CFL doesn't sound like much. I'd get a couple of those 45s(I see 42 around a lot. I've got a 125w cfl in a sunleaves reflector, that plants seem to like so far.
I've never heard of castration working like that. I think life would be easier for all growers if that one was true.

im just growing grapefruit right now and and god blimey was they slow in veg 5 inches tall at 4 weeks but at 5 weeks they went through a spurt and ended up 12 inches.so dont panic yet just be patient and they should go through a growth spurt.have you any pics.

I'm going to take some pics soon. Another thing I heard is if during the time you have your lights off for say 8hrs and you turn them on for an hour say at the 3rd hour then turn it back off. This will encourage the plant to be female. Has anyone heard of this? Thanks

the only thing that will do is increase your chances of having males.erratic lighting = male plants.one tip is to say give your plants 16/8 light apparantley that encourages female plants.also a little bit of a lower temp increases your chances of females as well.have you tried using female seeds before.

I'm doing 18/6 right now. Should I cut back? I was just experimenting with a few seeds I had, This is the only one that sprouted. I looked on line at Lowes home improvement. They have a 60w cfl. Could I use that with my 24w? Or go with 2 or 3 of the same?

keep your light at 18/6 but if you want to experiment to try get females.give plants 16/8 .also try a slightly lower temp as this will encourage female growth.as for the cfl i dont personally use them i use a 600w hps for 7 plants.but i have heard that you get good results for growing just not as much yeild.just make sure you get a blue spectrum for veg and a red spectrum for flower.how big is your setup.could you use an hps.if so you would dramatically increase yeild. basically you need 3000 lumens per plant for good results.my babies are lit with 15000 lumens each.thats a lot of light.

First things first, you can put the plants outside on good days, but make sure the temp's are the same as your grow room give or take a degree or two..and also keep the plants on 18/6 it's the best for them during veg growth.don't mess around with the light on and off times too much or you will end up with hemmies.also get as much light as you can. i have at the moment a 250 watt mh plus three 4 foot flo's the more the better...hope this helps and all the best.