CFL / Fluorescent Porn...

everytime I've used a molasses tea in flower I have had burn/lockout issues, mainly due to PH and not checking it or my soil being hot already.

If you don't let your tea bubble enough it can throw off the PH of the tea and cause issues that way. Ideally you want your microbes to eat the majority of the molasses, so a 24-48 hour is good IMO. TBSP to a gallon of water and make sure you're using unsulphured black strap molasses as it has the most beneficial gunk in it compared to the sulphured which is pretty much devoid of anything good but Calcium and Iron. Plants won't die from sulphured molasses I used it for about a year but you're not getting the most bang for your buck. Sometimes blackstrap is hidden in the organic section of the grocery.

Using a tea bubbled for under 24 hours or with more then 1tbsp per gallon is one of the only times to check PH levels with organics. Molasses can do funny things.

I've had good results using tea's in a really light soil, but in a heavier soil mix like I have been using the tea's do more harm then good.

Good info @Mr.Head cheers for chiming in, last thing I want to do is give wrong info and stuff up his grow!

eastcoastmo said:

Nice work @SwankyDank looking very frosty indeed

@Silky T molasses is usually used in a compost tea I think. Im only new to organics so could be wrong, bit i think you brew it up using some compost, kelp meal and molasses. Put some compost and kelp meal in some water with a tablespoon of molasses and a couple air stones and let it bubble for 24-48 hours. May be best for you to look it up though man as I haven't done it before. Basically, you need a hit of phosphours and potassium for the buds to fatten up.

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Cool, thanks. I was wondering why they are just staying hairy and not fattening up.

eastcoastmo said:

Good info @Mr.Head cheers for chiming in, last thing I want to do is give wrong info and stuff up his grow!

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"her" grow. Just thought I would throw that in. That is, if you're referring to my quest for molasses recipe. I jumped the gun last night and added a half a teaspoon to my nute mixture (didn't make tea bc I got the directions from groweedeasy) and so far, no sign of danger. I did pour in some plain ph'd water afterwards just in case.

eastcoastmo said:

Nice work @SwankyDank looking very frosty indeed

@Silky T molasses is usually used in a compost tea I think. Im only new to organics so could be wrong, bit i think you brew it up using some compost, kelp meal and molasses. Put some compost and kelp meal in some water with a tablespoon of molasses and a couple air stones and let it bubble for 24-48 hours. May be best for you to look it up though man as I haven't done it before. Basically, you need a hit of phosphours and potassium for the buds to fatten up.

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You said, "Basically, you need a hit of phosphours and potassium for the buds to fatten up." Explain "hit". I've been using Fox Farm Big Bloom, .01-0.3-0.7; Liquid Peruvian Guano 0-.2.5-0; and Bio Marine Cold Processed Squid 2-3-1. I've been using it for about two weeks and I'm real "skingy" with it, in other words, I'm afraid that I add too much to my tea, so it's probably too diluted. Can I go wrong with too much of it? Can you give me a good combination of these for my buds to fatten up? Seems like they've been the same for a month with no change. My plant's leaves and the buds seem normal otherwise. It's just growing really, really SLOW.

I'm so sorry Silky T, I assume way too much, I appoligise I offended you
By hit, I mean from about week 4 of flowering, buds want to swell and for them to do so, they need available potassium and phosphorus. I'm not the best person to advise how to do it organically as I'm only new to it myself but from what I've read the microbes make the potassium in mollasses and the phosphorus from kelp meal more available to plant roots so feeding once a week with a compost tea made with them (and maybe some worm castings) will help with the swell. Hopefully someone like @Mr.Head will correct me if I'm wrong...
The stuff you are using has both phosphours and potassium in them but they also have a fairly high reading of Nitrogen which the plant requires less of during this time but also becomes limiting ie. It cancels out some of the P and K as its uptaken by the plant roots.

eastcoastmo said:

I'm so sorry Silky T, I assume way too much, I appoligise I offended you
By hit, I mean from about week 4 of flowering, buds want to swell and for them to do so, they need available potassium and phosphorus. I'm not the best person to advise how to do it organically as I'm only new to it myself but from what I've read the microbes make the potassium in mollasses and the phosphorus from kelp meal more available to plant roots so feeding once a week with a compost tea made with them (and maybe some worm castings) will help with the swell. Hopefully someone like @Mr.Head will correct me if I'm wrong...
The stuff you are using has both phosphours and potassium in them but they also have a fairly high reading of Nitrogen which the plant requires less of during this time but also becomes limiting ie. It cancels out some of the P and K as its uptaken by the plant roots.

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Offended me? When?

eastcoastmo said:

I'm so sorry Silky T, I assume way too much, I appoligise I offended you
By hit, I mean from about week 4 of flowering, buds want to swell and for them to do so, they need available potassium and phosphorus. I'm not the best person to advise how to do it organically as I'm only new to it myself but from what I've read the microbes make the potassium in mollasses and the phosphorus from kelp meal more available to plant roots so feeding once a week with a compost tea made with them (and maybe some worm castings) will help with the swell. Hopefully someone like @Mr.Head will correct me if I'm wrong...
The stuff you are using has both phosphours and potassium in them but they also have a fairly high reading of Nitrogen which the plant requires less of during this time but also becomes limiting ie. It cancels out some of the P and K as its uptaken by the plant roots.

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Thanks or your help on this P and K problem. So, I'm actually doing more harm than good by using those products. I'm actually cancelling out the P and K with the N that's in the solution. I read on some other site that I needed the kelp that's also in those products. I wonder what I need to do-- sounds like more research, huh?

Sorry mate, I thought I offended you by calling you a guy!

You're not so much doing harm with them, moreso need to add more P and K. Try upping the peruvian guano by half and see how you go as it doesnt have any N in it. The N is still a needed nutrient in flowering, just not in as large quantity as in veg. No worries too mate, happy to help

eastcoastmo said:

Sorry mate, I thought I offended you by calling you a guy!

You're not so much doing harm with them, moreso need to add more P and K. Try upping the peruvian guano by half and see how you go as it doesnt have any N in it. The N is still a needed nutrient in flowering, just not in as large quantity as in veg. No worries too mate, happy to help

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You've GOT to be from Australia "mate". You guys call gals "mate" too? I like it! I also like the accent you guys have! Would you say, "I like the accent you "mates" have?" I did something today before I read your post, but based on your previous post and that was making my nute mixture thicker. I've been so afraid of burning them that I was making it waaaay too diluted, and THEN added ph'd water afterwards just in case, but it was causing my plants to grow really slowly. When I made my nute mixture with a higher dose of stuff and didn't follow with water, I actually saw a difference in my plants. Check it out in my journal, I just posted some new pics.
Chao Mate!

Silky T said:

You've GOT to be from Australia "mate". You guys call gals "mate" too? I like it! I also like the accent you guys have! Would you say, "I like the accent you "mates" have?" I did something today before I read your post, but based on your previous post and that was making my nute mixture thicker. I've been so afraid of burning them that I was making it waaaay too diluted, and THEN added ph'd water afterwards just in case, but it was causing my plants to grow really slowly. When I made my nute mixture with a higher dose of stuff and didn't follow with water, I actually saw a difference in my plants. Check it out in my journal, I just posted some new pics.
Chao Mate!

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Ha ha lol yes you are correct, I am an Aussie and I do have a habit of calling everyone mate us mates do have a funny accent too, we have some very bizarre slang words too
With organic nutes, if you have good microbials in your soil, they breakdown the nutes into something the roots can take up. If they are organic nutes, then you shouldn't burn the plants by giving them a little more. I'll take this over to your thread so we stop spamming the other guys here

eastcoastmo said:

Ha ha lol yes you are correct, I am an Aussie and I do have a habit of calling everyone mate us mates do have a funny accent too, we have some very bizarre slang words too
With organic nutes, if you have good microbials in your soil, they breakdown the nutes into something the roots can take up. If they are organic nutes, then you shouldn't burn the plants by giving them a little more. I'll take this over to your thread so we stop spamming the other guys here

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Good idea. thanks for reminding me!

Sour Diesel at 56 days into flower. Pretty close to harvest, I saw the first amber trichomes today.

Nice!! Some dankness right there

And the Strawberry Blue I harvested today. Not bad for a CFL grow!

Dr. Jon said:

And the Strawberry Blue I harvested today. Not bad for a CFL grow!
View attachment 3451480 View attachment 3451482

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Now that's what I'm talking about!

Dr. Jon said:

And the Strawberry Blue I harvested today. Not bad for a CFL grow!
View attachment 3451480 View attachment 3451482

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DAMN Those buds look thick as fuck. What kind of lights you using? Just CFL's? how many watts?

I used a 250 watt dual spectrum CFL with a SunSystem hood. My first grow, so I was just going cheap and dirty, but it turned out ok. Dam stuff is sticky gooey. Being my first grow, I have no idea what yield will be when it dries, but I'm thinking maybe an oz to 1.5? If the 3 sour diesels can average that, too, I'll be very pleased. Was hoping for 4 ozs total from the 4 plants, and I might be in that 4-6 range, when all is said and done.

Top work @Dr. Jon that is some very dank buds man

Hey everyone,

A little off topic but this is a must read. The post is from Alchimia grow shop.

Growing marijuana with energy saving lamps
We started this crop for this post in order to show you if growing marijuana with energy saving bulbs is possible. In fact, we were aware of the possibilities of this type of lighting used in the flowering phase from the experience of our customers and friends, who had told us about using CFL lamps for the entire cycle of the plants. Our goal was, then, to prove it and experience first hand this type of growing.


K13 Haze plants under energy saving lamps

Materials used to grow marijuana with energy saving lamps:

• 1 x Dark Room grow tent with the following dimensions: 60 x 60 x 140 cm.
• 1 x energy saving lamp – 200 W – flowering – 2700º Kelvin.
• 1 x RVK extraction fan 100 E2A1.
• 2 x analogue timers.
• 1 x basic smooth reflector .
• 16 x 0.25 l round pots.
• 16 x 2.5 l square pots.
• 1 x bag of All Mix soil.
• 1 x bottle of Bio Flores flowering fertiliser and one bottle of Bio Boost flower stimulator by Canna.
• 16 x unselected cuttings from K13 Haze marijuana plants.

Marijuana grown with a 200 W energy saving bulb



Growing marijuana step by step
Once the cuttings rooted in the jiffy pellets, we transplanted them into 0.25 litre pots that were placed in the grow tent , where the pants were expected to flower. The aim was to grow a lot of plants that should remain very small in order to maximize the 45/50,000 lumens of the bulb, at a distance of 10 cm from the plants. This drops to 15,000 when the distance is over 30 cm.


K13 Haze right before being transplanted

We switched the photoperiod to flower, using small pots with the aim to get plants that were as short as possible. After 15 days into flowering, all plants were between 20 and 30 cm in height and had started developing flower buds, so we made sure that they wouldn’t grow taller even if they were to be transplanted. This would tell us when to transplant the plants into 2.5 litre pots. Right at that moment, our plants showed symptoms of a nutrient deficiency, which was a clear sign to transplant them.

A few days after the transplant, all plants showed a clear recovery and leaves became dark green. After the transplant, the plants were fertilised with Bio Flores and Bio Boost once a week, while the everyday irrigation was performed using tap water at ph=6.


The plants continue to grow normally

A few weeks later, the buds were getting bigger in the same way as they would have done with a high pressure sodium light bulb, avoiding the issues that these types of bulbs have on climate management.


Seventh week of flowering

The plants were flowering normally except in the last ten days, when a failure in the ventilation system timmer (it stayed off for 10 days) led to a small attackk of powdery mildew, which was appropriately treated with an organic anti-mildew solution called Oidioprot .


K13 Haze at the end of its flowering stage


Energy-saving crop right before being harvested

Nine weeks after the start of the flowering period it was harvest time. The overall yield was 110 grams of high quality buds. Some of these flowers had even greater organoleptic properties (taste and aroma) than plants grown with sodium lamps, mainly due to the lower stress experienced by the plants grown with CFL if compared to sodium lamps. Temperatures with energy saving lights are really very low, and they also have an impact on relative humidity, which is quite constant.


Bud grown under CFL lamp


Buds ready for trimming

Conclusions of marijuana grown with energy-saving bulbs

• It is totally feasible to grow flowering plants with energy saving bulbs.
• Climate managing with these lights is much easier.
• Due to the absence of a strong hot source in the growing space, the smell is less intense and the organoleptic properties of the final product improve.
• Because of lower temperatures, and since there is almost no evaporation, the irrigation needs of plants are drastically reduced.
• Because the really usable area when growing with these lights is the nearest 30/40 cm from the bulb, we must use pruning and cropping techniques that allow us to fully exploit this area, achieving best yields. It is therefore necessary to either grow very small plants or grow them using the SCROG technique.
• The buds grown using this system do not lose strength, density or weight. They are pretty similar to those grown under HPS bulbs. Actually, as mentioned before, they could be even better regarding aroma and taste.
• Using these bulbs without keeping in mind their special features will certainly end up in failure and give us a wrong idea of the possibilities of this lamps.

Close-up view of one of the best buds of this crop


Peace CFL' ers,

Sherman420