Stretching...help please? +rep for advice

Ok, by the picture below im pretty sure my little girl is stretching like hell. She got 3cm taller overnight.



This is a Short Stuff/Lowryder #1. She is under 600w HPS.

I had her covered, but looking at her this morning i have decided to take the cover of and let her catch the breeze from the fan, hopefully this will strengthen her stem. Is what im doing okay, please advise...

Any advice would be great....

Here is some advice, Im a first time grower but I have done my homework and research on stretching, because my 4 babies looked exactly like yours...

1. You said your running a 600 watt HPS, FIRST THING I WOULD SAY IS YOUR LIGHT is to far from your plants, its STRETCHING to reach the light, but in this case you are (were) in the dome still, so I would take out of dome and put a couple 26 watt 6500k cfl's on them about 2-3 inches from the tops. The 600 watt HPS is a little too strong for your seedlings. This will stop the stretching,I would leave the cfl's on it for about a week or untill you get the first ''true'' set of leaves.

2. you already have a 4 inch stem, so im going to tell you wht i did to fix mine. After letting them stop stretching, I transplanted into 3 gallon pots and put the soil all the way up to the first set of leaves, the smooth round ones. I buried my 4 inch stem..lol..

3. I put a small fan blowing facing the wall so the wind would bounce back across them strengthening the stems with-out direct contact which can cause more stress.

I let my plants veg for 60 full days because their first month was so messed up. Now they are in their 4 day of flowering and my tallest is 29 inches with about 1/4-3/8 of an inch stem at the base.

I hope this helps you with your problem, but like i said, im a first timer so i may have left out some important stuff but it worked for me!!

Good luck and let me know how things are

I say it's too far from the light as well. I've never used MH for veg, I've been using T5's for my mom's and clones and it makes them grow nice and tight. I keep them about 4 inches above and adjust the height with growth. I know you can get nice big plants fast because of the intensity of the MH but I've got 4' moms and a 2 month old Sour Diesel x Casey Jones and she's huge. (the tumbleweed looking one in the middle)

I'd get the light closer or veg under T5 for another week to 2 then put under MH. Just my opinion. Good luck with the girls.

Best regards!

Okay, i done the best i could....

I have replanted into 6ltr's. I buried them up to there necks and moved the lights closer, i have added the only cfl i have which isnt much.... 100W equivalent. I cant put it any closer coz the HPS is gonna cook the housing.... probably will at this range too...

Im worried they wont survive the move. I would move the HPS closer but im worried i might cook them. But time will tell. Here's some pics.

600w hps is FAR to strong for this stage of the plant.
Yea its stretching to get to the light but you would need the light 8 inches from the top of the plant to stop this. 600w will fry it in matter of hours if you put it that close.

Get some cfls and put them 2 inches away from the plant to stop them stretching......i personally wouldnt have recommended transplanting them either....burying the stem may cause you problems in the future due to mold...the stems not meant to be under the soil and may start to rot.

i would of never of buried them like that. you need to get a flourecent light of some sort and drop the lights.

thing that can make a plant stretch is your RH and lights what is your humitity in there?

Okay, so im gonna put this down as a fuck up. But im gonna have to go with it. I dont have any more CFL's, and cant get any for the next couple of weeks... i live rural area and wont be going to town for a while... These are the first attepmts so im gonna see what happens... will be better prepeared next time. They will probably go hermie on me now, or die, or rot.... ah fuck.... this sux. I might take them out of the box tommorow and put them in the window. We got clear skies tommorow. Is that a good idea?

haha dont beat yourself up over it dude...its a mistake....we all make them even the more experienced growers lol. Look at my thread for example...sprayed my stuff with some chemicals no ones heard of lol

Pull the stems up out of the soil...problem solved

If you have decent weather...then stick them outside for a while...sunlight is far stronger than any bulb but wont fry your plants because its not as hot as a lamp....i mean the light spectrum is perfect from the sun, and it gives off way more than 100k lumens

Chill............its a learning curve You havent killed them, they can take a fair bit of abuse

sputniknz said:

Okay, so im gonna put this down as a fuck up. But im gonna have to go with it. I dont have any more CFL's, and cant get any for the next couple of weeks... i live rural area and wont be going to town for a while... These are the first attepmts so im gonna see what happens... will be better prepeared next time. They will probably go hermie on me now, or die, or rot.... ah fuck.... this sux. I might take them out of the box tommorow and put them in the window. We got clear skies tommorow. Is that a good idea?

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sorry if I came off alittle harsh, just keep it simple and they will be fine. There are way more things down the road that, little advise start reading and soak up all
the info you can. good luck

imo that is not too much light, ive done lots of grows using my 400w hps(with added blue spectrum high output bulb) right from the start. using cfls to start is fine if you like, im just saying i have faster growth when started under the hps personally and thats my opinion on it.

theres a massive difference between a 400w and a 600w hps.
I used to use a 600w but the heat was stupid...im now using a 400w hps and the temp difference is amazing. Easily cut the temps by 10-15c

I think a 600w gives off something like 110,000 lumens whereas a 400w only only gives of 47,000 lumens.

ok so here's is the sucky news.... y'know how i said it was clear tommorow, well apparently not.... cloudy as coz we got the cloudy bug all day tommorow.... so i done something different, put these things over the plant, hope to difuse the light but keep it close and prevent frying, ive cut some holes (not in the pic) so the fan can still blow them around to strengthen the stems. i have also cleared about an inch from around the stems, thats all im gonna do... im fussing too much over them. hopefully they are alright in the morning....

NOTE TO SELF: Im gonna by a propogation thing VERY VERY SOON.... for the next crop.

my girls are looking much better today... stems look stronger, leaves are getting broader will post some pics in a couple of hours

I have found that when I use the CFL for the first couple of weeks of their life, the stretching is nil and they get nice and bushy. Then after they make it through the seedling phase and into the steady growth phase, you can blast them with all of the light that you want!

They all have covered your problem. Suggest you get a couple 6500K cfls next time you roll into hardware store ot a t5 two bulb fixture for seedings and/or clones. The 600 is way too hot for babies and keeping it too far away will only stretch them. I use LEd Ufos to startthe seed- little heat, lots of lumens, short fat plants. Added 1 26 w 6500K cfl to keep temp up in cab. Now have a blackstar which would be way too powerful for babies in the cab at week 4. They are weeds afteralll and can take some abuse- I burned mine being too quick onthe draw with nutes. careful with that- go very very slow. if you keep cfl on them for a week or two, they will thicken up. Once established, would suggest supercropping them to keep em short and bushy early. I did it by accident and the carmelicious I cracked at week 2 is a bushy monster. Also did LST on the rest except for the other one I accidentally topped- check uncle bens topping technique . Have four main colas on the one I accidentally snapped off now at above node 2 and just did it to another troubled widow that needed a kick in the ass. Seems to be working. The lst has opened up a ton of growth on sides and kept height down. Good luck. Lots of info on here . Luckily my screw ups actually helped.

Hello Everyone, I am a brand new member, Wanna,WannaBWasted here. Iam also a brannew grower as well. I was lead to believe that growing was no big deal all I had to do was basicly plant and watch.....HA,HA the F%*&$#g jurk that told me that is not going to get any treets from me, or it is going to cost him.lol But anyway I did plant (four weeks ago) and it is not going well so far but I must say since I started all this I have become TOTALY addicted to the thought of getting these babies to go.lol Sooo ya, I planted three seeds and put them in the window, but of course the light was not right and they stretched and I ended up loosing two of them but I did a hole lot of resuch,tucked the last one in a closet with the 12/12 light cycle and fan. It appears to have stopped stretching and I just trans-planted the way you sugested I will let you know how it worked for me but thanks for the tip. but one question, What would of happened if I would have "pinched" it?

well...maybe I should have tryed to pinch it, the last of my babies are dead. shoulda,woulda,cudda??? I don't know

with the 12/12 light cycle 4 weeks old plants died as they weren't ready for flowering and because they didnt have enough light throughout the day they thought its autumn and commited suicide

howdini said:

with the 12/12 light cycle 4 weeks old plants died as they weren't ready for flowering and because they didnt have enough light throughout the day they thought its autumn and commited suicide

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thats not what happened.......