Do I need to cull some plants?

Hi,

This is my first grow, I know I have too many to take all the way to harvest but these are regular seeds so half of them are going to be males anyway. I was hoping I would get to see sex before my tent got too crowded but it looks like it could already be happening.

The tent is 50 x 90 x 160cm, at the moment I am running an air cooled 400w MH light but will swap in a 600w HPS for flowering. Ideally out of the 8 I have in the tent at the moment I will grow 3-4 to harvest in this tent and take one as a mother but I haven't built a mother cab yet.

Should I keep the 8 in the tent or do I need to start ripping some of them out? Thanks

keep them all let them flower first then remove the males
you can spot males 3 days or so after the flip
you can always trim them into the space keeping the best branches from each plant
or remove the slower weaker ones that have less of a growth spurt
but i would wait and see how they respond to the flip

peace

have you considered doing a scrog?

This has the potential to be a great grow, so many noobs don't have a green thumb, consider yourself lucky

Should I keep the 8 in the tent or do I need to start ripping some of them out? Thanks ...as per Skunk above, flip and eject the males then the weaklings

skunkd0c said:

keep them all let them flower first then remove the males
you can spot males 3 days or so after the flip
you can always trim them into the space keeping the best branches from each plant
or remove the slower weaker ones that have less of a growth spurt
but i would wait and see how they respond to the flip

peace

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try this. Can I trim the big fan leaves that come out from below, they seem to be growing into the neighboring plants the most.

Silky Shagsalot said:

have you considered doing a scrog?

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I have thought about it but space is tight and I like to take them out of the tent when I water. It may be easier to water in the tent when there are less plants so I might do it later on.

vostok said:

This has the potential to be a great grow, so many noobs don't have a green thumb, consider yourself lucky

Should I keep the 8 in the tent or do I need to start ripping some of them out? Thanks ...as per Skunk above, flip and eject the males then the weaklings

Click to expand...

Thanks, I murdered some seeds in my first germ attempts but hopefully Im there now.


How much longer should I veg for? These all germinated 3-4 weeks ago.

it doesn't look that crowded to me don't remove any leaves at this stage unless they unhealthy
your setup looks nice , only thing i would say is the light does not really need to be as close as it is/looks
the plants at that size cant really process all that light, if its cool for them at that distance thats fine but if its a little bit warm
move the light up, they will benefit more from the cooler air than the intense light at this stage
when they small they don't need much light to keep tight inter node spacing

you could flower them now or when you do they will only grow a tiny bit more after the 12/12 before you will spot male preflower type flowers (3) days,
so no reason to remove any of them

if you veg them much longer before the flip they are going to suffer a little in the shape they grow in because of lack of space for side branching not much you can do about this
other than trim off the weaker side growth concentrate on the main colas

once you have got rid of the males you may have 4 female plants or whatever you have left
i would remove the lower thinner branches of these females and the thinner inside growth
leaving the main thicker branches so the space is totally filled but with only the better branches of each plant
i would wait until the space is totally filled before i removed any growth
with seed plants you just have no idea which plants will shoot up and which won't
you can have a rough idea that the sativa phenos will stretch a fair bit and the indica will normally stay shorter/smaller

peace

I'll give them till Friday then switch, that way I guess I shouldn't need to give them a trim.

They don't seem to mind the light that close, the glass is cool enough to touch.

Here's a better picture of the gap between the light and canopy.



It may get a bit hot at that distance with the 600w globe so I'll leave a bigger gap then.

A cheap tent came up on ebay so I bought it...

I have a few spare 130W CFL's so should be able to setup a 2nd tent for only the price of the tent itself.

I will put the biggest plants under 12/12 to begin flowering in the existing tent then put the remaining plants under one (or two if I can fit them) 130W CFL's to veg some more in the new tent.

Will moving plants from a 400W MH light to a 130W CFL (or two) stress them out?

Thanks

Don't cut fan leaves to save space. If it's getting too crowded, it's new branches/shoots you need to cut. The fan leaves power the plant. They are sources The new growth sinks power and is what will cause overgrowth. The only time you should consider cutting leaves is if they're attached to branches you're cutting.

singa4 said:

Thanks, I'll try this. Can I trim the big fan leaves that come out from below, they seem to be growing into the neighboring plants the most.



I have thought about it but space is tight and I like to take them out of the tent when I water. It may be easier to water in the tent when there are less plants so I might do it later on.



Thanks, I murdered some seeds in my first germ attempts but hopefully Im there now.


How much longer should I veg for? These all germinated 3-4 weeks ago.

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Tomorrow I switch to 12/12. Here is how the tent is looking now:



A few more pics over here.. http://rollitup.org/t/breeders-boutique.591037/page-30#post-10433714

The bigger ones are growing extremely fast, I supercropped one because it was growing into the light but when I came home 8hrs later it had corrected itself and was touching the light again. It didn't get burnt since the globe is on the left hand side and I moved the bigger ones all the way to the right.

I am a bit torn as to whether I switch all of them to 12/12 or just half of them then put the remaining under a 130W CFL to veg some more.

How many should I be trying to grow to harvest in a 50 x 90 x 160cm tent?

Good move putting the taller ones on the side. The shorter ones should be in the middle so they don't stretch into the lights.

Hopefully they will show sex soon.

This is why female seeds are always worth it imo. Way easier to canopy plan.

singa4 said:

Tomorrow I switch to 12/12. Here is how the tent is looking now:

View attachment 3135922

A few more pics over here.. http://rollitup.org/t/breeders-boutique.591037/page-30#post-10433714

The bigger ones are growing extremely fast, I supercropped one because it was growing into the light but when I came home 8hrs later it had corrected itself and was touching the light again. It didn't get burnt since the globe is on the left hand side and I moved the bigger ones all the way to the right.

I am a bit torn as to whether I switch all of them to 12/12 or just half of them then put the remaining under a 130W CFL to veg some more.

How many should I be trying to grow to harvest in a 50 x 90 x 160cm tent?

Click to expand...

skunkd0c said:

after the 12/12 before you will spot male preflower type flowers (3) days,
so no reason to remove any of them

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I think I've ended up with 4 females and 1 male. I put pictures here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/have-i-determined-sex-correctly.826466/

4 may still be too many for the tent but I will try and see how it goes.

4-1 ratio, awesome! You mentioned you have another tent coming, I wonder whether you could flower 1 plant in the other tent, using the CFLs *and* the metal halide since you are using 600w hps in this tent?

FlashBabylon said:

4-1 ratio, awesome! You mentioned you have another tent coming, I wonder whether you could flower 1 plant in the other tent, using the CFLs *and* the metal halide since you are using 600w hps in this tent?

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The idea was to use the other tent as a veg tent, I put 5 onto flower in the main tent then put 5 under a CFL. The 2nd 5 will go in the new tent.

I wouldn't want to run the 600w and 400w at the same time, electricity is expensive here.

Has soon has you can get a clone of each one in future then clone to sex its easy to do.
I give them 7 days from fresh cut clones into rock wool then after that 12/12 off till roots come through by then you should have a week or so to find out sex.