- Hey, it's almost 5 weeks since my Lemon Skunk FEM plant has been growing. I'm growing her under a 400w mixture of 6500/2700k cfls. It's my first grow, so I had a few problems with nute burn (mostly not over-feeding, but I think I wasn't giving my plant enough water for the first couple weeks -- only wetting the first 3 inches or so of the soil -- causing the nutes to build up) which stunted growth pretty bad for a couple weeks. I flushed her and have been giving her a good drench every 3 days or so now, and she seems to be growing WAY faster and healthier! Just wondering how much longer I should wait at minimum to flower, and have an okay amount off her at the end. (I know I wont be getting very much anyways lol). Please look at the pictures and give me your opinions and any tips you might have
When should I flower?
- Thread starter Dop3yd33
- Start date
phillipchristian
New Member
To be safe figure that your plant will triple in size after you put her into flower. If you have a ceiling or limited space that you have to worry about then flower her when you have reached a third of the height you can grow her to. If you have no height restrictions then grow her as big as you want. Just remember; since you are using CFL's you won't be able to give her enough light if she is tall unless you have a lot of them positioned around the plant. I'm talking like 6-8 of them.
racerboy71
bud bootlegger
when you water, you should always water till you see a pretty good amount of water running out of the bottom of the pots.. about 20% or so of the total amount you watered with is a good rule of thumb..
as far as how long to veg them till they're ready for flowering, that depends on several things.. the first one that affects most people is how much head room you have for the grow.. if you don't have much, it's better to flower them sooner rather than later as they will at least double or possibly triple in size from the time you put them in flower.. this means a plant that is 12 inches when you flip the lights can easily end up at around 24 / 36 inches, depending on the strain of course.. indcia dominant strains tend to stress less, and sativas will stretch more..
i don't have any head room problems, so i always like to let my plants veg till i see pre flowers.. there are plenty of pix around of what preflowers look like... preflowers indicate that the plant is sexually mature and is ready to be flowered at anytime.. of course you can flower sooner, but it's like a 13 year old girl having a baby vs a 22 year old having one..
lastly, the larger the plant is in veg, the more bud you will get at the end of the day.. it's just science, lol. the bigger the plants, the bigger the root system, the more bud you will get..
oh yah, also, it's another rule of thumb to use one gallon of container for each month of plant growth, so if you veg for 2 months and flower for 3, you'd want a 5 gallon container.. of course you could go bigger or smaller, but going smaller will give a smaller yield generally..
hope that helps out some m8, and if you have anymore questions, don't be afraid to ask..
as far as how long to veg them till they're ready for flowering, that depends on several things.. the first one that affects most people is how much head room you have for the grow.. if you don't have much, it's better to flower them sooner rather than later as they will at least double or possibly triple in size from the time you put them in flower.. this means a plant that is 12 inches when you flip the lights can easily end up at around 24 / 36 inches, depending on the strain of course.. indcia dominant strains tend to stress less, and sativas will stretch more..
i don't have any head room problems, so i always like to let my plants veg till i see pre flowers.. there are plenty of pix around of what preflowers look like... preflowers indicate that the plant is sexually mature and is ready to be flowered at anytime.. of course you can flower sooner, but it's like a 13 year old girl having a baby vs a 22 year old having one..
lastly, the larger the plant is in veg, the more bud you will get at the end of the day.. it's just science, lol. the bigger the plants, the bigger the root system, the more bud you will get..
oh yah, also, it's another rule of thumb to use one gallon of container for each month of plant growth, so if you veg for 2 months and flower for 3, you'd want a 5 gallon container.. of course you could go bigger or smaller, but going smaller will give a smaller yield generally..
hope that helps out some m8, and if you have anymore questions, don't be afraid to ask..
Well thank you! That's how I've been watering now which has improved the plant alot! I have about 4x the space of the plant left to grow, so I'm thinking around 6 weeks of veg i'll start to flower. Right now I have 5 23w (equivalent to 100w) mixture of cfls around her, but now I also have a lemon kush seedling and a vanilla kush waiting to sprout. I put a flouro above the area and the cfls kind of all around. I'll have to get another light for flower since I'm going to have 2 new plants along side of her also!
racerboy71
bud bootlegger
sounds good, but you're right, you should honestly look into some more lighting, especially if you think that this is something that you're going to want to stay with for a good amount of time, lol..
i'd say a 250 watt setup would be perfect for one or two or even 3 plants, lol, or you could do a 400 if you'd like to grow maybe 5 or 6 down the line at one point..
i started off with a 250 hps / mh and used it for like 2 years or so before getting a 400 watter... you can get decent hid sets from htg supply online.. they have decent prices and great shipping... they have some systems that have a ballast built into the hoods, which means you don't need an external ballast.. the ballast is required for all hid bulbs, they take the electric that comes out fo your wall and raises the frequency so that it can fire the bulbs, and after it fires the bulbs, it drops it back down to normal operating frequency.. cfls' have a built in ballast, that's the long part down near where you screw it in..