Bonjour Gentleman,

All your plants look really nice keep up the TLC. My plant is really quite young still, only 2 main "chronic" leaves and the 2 smaller leaves with a node coming up through the middle of the four. Its Under two daylight spectrum 23 watt 1500 lumen lights giving it 3000 total. Should i tie the plant down with a twisty tie or paper clip? What does this do: I hear making the stem parellell to the lights is also good? When should I start topping / Fimming.

Help a young scholar out

Those will help maximize your usage of the lights you have, but the main thing it sounds like you need is more lights, 3000 lumens just isn't enough for the plants to grow quickly, 8000 is the minimum lumens you should be aiming for, investing in some more CFLs and keeping them close to your plant will give you far greater results than LST or topping. The general rule is once the plant is six inches tall or more you can begin training.

I like your name sir - have you heard the dj shadow song entropy? Yes i will invest in another CFL. should i go another day light spectrum or get a cool white or soft white cfl? Also what about tying the stem down?

When you tie the stem down otherwise known as low stresss training(LST) you have all your bud sites all level(same height) and it causes there to be all main colas(guess their not MAIN colas) instead of just having one big main cola and a bunch of little buds

hope this helped out

peace
k-town

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EVERYTHING THAT I SAY HERE IS COMPLETELY FALSE AND THE ONLY REASON I SAY THESE THINGS IS SO I CAN SOUND COOL.

There's a good tutorial with illustrations here somewhere!
hold on a second and let me see if I can find it

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EVERYTHING THAT I SAY HERE IS COMPLETELY FALSE AND THE ONLY REASON I SAY THESE THINGS IS SO I CAN SOUND COOL.

Yeah it's called " How To LST (low stress training)" and it's by TillthedayIdie420

Just type that in the search box at the top of your screen it'll probably help you out a lot!

peace
k-town

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EVERYTHING THAT I SAY HERE IS COMPLETELY FALSE AND THE ONLY REASON I SAY THESE THINGS IS SO I CAN SOUND COOL.

I haven't heard that song but am downloading it now...

Get some cool white or daylight CFLs, they're higher in blue spectrum light which is more beneficial in veg growth, the soft and warm whites are higher in red spectrum light and work better for flowering.

Also, I don't know if you're in the states or not, but check out your local Lowes and Home Depot if you are, they often have 150w and 70w HPS lights for $20 when they're on clearance. Best bang for your buck so far as cheap lights go, they do run fairly hot but you will be more than pleased with the results.

Oh, and check out thrift stores for cheap bulb fixtures, from $1-10 it's the shit.

Your lighting is fine as long as you keep your lights close to your plant. I currently use 3-20 sum watt cfls and they work well. If you wanna get more lights and can afford them get them. the more light the more energy for growth. however there are a few things u should know.

1. U have to keep lights about an inch away from the plant to get the best results using cfls therefore u have to be careful when usig a lot that your grow area doesnt get too hot. Ive had more than a couple burnt tips from just the three cfls.

2. If you dont spend a lot of time at home you may want to keep the plant from growing too fast and up into the lights before u have a chance to adjust the height. The amount of time spent before the plant needs water again will also shorten because the extra heat will cause more water to evaporate so more than a weekend trip could dry the plant out.

Ive also just recently started using paper clips and string to stake and position the leaves for best coverage. I highly suggest it. be careful not to break the stem though. bend it a little first to see how well it bends. then put your first stake above the second true leaf set as far from the main stem as possible. This increases the light coverage of your plants leaves. Then put stakes at evry 3rd node after that and guide the plant from the center to edge of the pot then all the way around the edge and back to the middle as the plant grows. it will look strange at first but give it a good 24 hrs and your leaves should all be turned back up towards the light. move them around and use strings to tie leaves back and get the most coverage. coverage is important when using cfls because they dont penetrate as well as other lights. The energy saving cfls That say like 100w but they are really 24 or something are the better of the cfls because they penetrate more.

One thing u really have to learn when growing pot is to adapt. every plant is different. just as every grower is different. just try things and see how the plant responds. love it and learn from it and itll grow fine.

PEACE

4 sho, as i munch down on my 2 sandwichs. I say werd. My plant is young tho maybe 2 inches so i think imma wait a few b4 i low stress. However when should i begin topping and fimming? does anyone have suggestions?

i just trimmed my plant b using the fim method i will take a picture of it and post it on my journal it is still young but im going to use the scrog/vbog method to see what it will produce in a very small area if you read what i have done you might be able to improve on it....

good luck on your grow
420Noob

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Smart is consecutively anticipating consequences.