First Grow: Are My Girls Looking, Okay?

These are my AK48 girls...vegged for 8 weeks with 6500k (26w) CFLs and 3 small T5s for side fill. The ladies are now under 2700k (42w) CFLs with the T5s, and they're on day 30 of flowering here. One is a (topped) double cola plant, and the other is the single cola clone of her top. They're 34inches tall now and are getting FF Big Bloom and Schultz nutes on an alternating schedule. The top 8-10 inches of the main colas are filling in pretty good and no longer showing stems, and there are some nice buds working their way along the lower branches. This is my very first grow, so I'm pretty happy with the results so far...considering I don't have the most sophisticated setup going. Does it look okay (yeah, had some light burns, etc.) for a new grower? What kind of harvest do you think they're looking to bring me in a few more weeks? Think I can get a couple ozs from them?

Did you just flush them? They look like they are over watered. Nothing big. They look pretty healthy. They are just dropping. My fan leafs will stretch for the lights. I have fan leafs that stick straight up. And the leafs themself are nice and straight. Especially with my 600 watt HPS.
Yours are drooping and look unhappy. What are your temps and humidity?

You want to use CFL's and make them girls happy then get http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh8/R-100676712/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 , and also a http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh8/R-100354517/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 These puppies put out some light for a CFL. I got 3 ounces of nice buds from these two plants.

Have 8 CFLs on them that can be adjusted in pairs to cover them better, rather than just from above...plus the T5s vertically to fill in side light. They had just been watered, but the photos are not the best, and from kind of an upward angle that makes them look off. They're not really droopy for the most part, just have some damage from heat/light burn early on. New growth is in good shape and buds are popping up everywhere and filling in fast. They're just over 4 weeks into flower, so these are only about half way to harvest now - I expect them to go at least another 3-4 weeks. The temps range from 63F at lights out, up to a high of 75-77F with humidity from 23-30%.

Anyone else grow AK48 from Nirvana lately? How long did they flower for you? Vegged them for 8 weeks and they're supposed to go 7-9 weeks for flowering. Does the longer veg have any effect on how long it will take them to finish for me? Any guesses on how much my girls (now 34inches tall) will yield?

manditroy said:

Anyone else grow AK48 from Nirvana lately? How long did they flower for you? Vegged them for 8 weeks and they're supposed to go 7-9 weeks for flowering. Does the longer veg have any effect on how long it will take them to finish for me? Any guesses on how much my girls (now 34inches tall) will yield?

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Nope, veg time don't matter on flower time, I haven't grown 48, but I have heard it's a fairly fast finisher.

So what exactly is 'a fairly fast finisher'...the 7 weeks, or more than that? This is my very first grow, so I have nothing to compare.

Anyone have any input on the AK48s? Somebody have experience with the strain that can let me know what to look forward to...?

I am just flowering AK-48's for the first time. They call them AK-48 because under the right condition they can finish in 48 days. You sure you do not have some light leaking in at lights out of something? There must be something up if they look like that at 8 weeks of Flowering.

Its not 8 weeks of flowering yet--I vegged them for 8 weeks. They are just at the end of the 5th week of flowering today! There is definitely no light leaking as they're in a closed closet except when being tended to daily (only during lights on).

BTW...those photos are not the whole plant - just closeups of the top 8-10 inches of flowering colas. The whole plants are 34inches tall and while not extremely bushy, they do have plenty of other branches with bud sites now flowering.

Do I need to flush before harvest if I've been using organics (Fox Farm Big Bloom)?

Anyone...? Everyone too stoned to type tonight?

You need to start flushing now because it will help increase the size of those big ass colas You might have 3-4 weeks more on those AK-48s so using the "make it rain" technique will definitely make a difference. When your babies need watering, use 2 times the pot size to water each plant, when the plants need watering again, feed them no flushing when feeding them. Then start the process over again. A week before harvesting the AK-48s just flush them, no feeding.

manditroy said:

Do I need to flush before harvest if I've been using organics (Fox Farm Big Bloom)?

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Thanks for the reply Chief! So...since they're in a 2.5gal pot, I need to water with 5 GALLONS? That sounds like an awful lot...I'm only giving about a half gallon twice a week (water with Big Bloom, skip two days, water again with Schultz nutes). Should I be using FF Big Bloom and the Schultz together now, or stop one or the other? They're in MG soil too, so is this going to risk nute burn if there is too much of the time release stuff still left in the soil? I assume I should be tossing the runoff right away, or do I give it an hour to draw up anything it wants before I dump the excess? This is my first grow and I don't want to fuck it up after getting this close to a harvest!

CFLs?! Nice job! I can't believe I still don't know this but what does "bump" mean?

BUMP is just a bogus post to 'bump' you back to the top of the list. Many will not read a few pages into the listings, so if your thread drops back a page or two, it kind of gets lost and won't get many looks or replies. The bump gives you new life until newer threads move you down to the basement again. lol

just keep doing what your doing untill the last week and flush them.

manditroy said:

Thanks for the reply Chief! So...since they're in a 2.5gal pot, I need to water with 5 GALLONS? That sounds like an awful lot...I'm only giving about a half gallon twice a week (water with Big Bloom, skip two days, water again with Schultz nutes). Should I be using FF Big Bloom and the Schultz together now, or stop one or the other? They're in MG soil too, so is this going to risk nute burn if there is too much of the time release stuff still left in the soil? I assume I should be tossing the runoff right away, or do I give it an hour to draw up anything it wants before I dump the excess? This is my first grow and I don't want to fuck it up after getting this close to a harvest!

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Don't let it soak any run off back up in the soil. I am talking about MG soil only, I don't know about the other kinds. It says on the bag not to, so I assume it's because of the nutes in the soil. Once I found this and applied it, things got much better. I use the run off water to water all my house plants and they love it.

I have flushed and not flushed at end of harvest and imo (with MG soil) flushing was the way to go. Made a huge dif in the smoke and the ash.

SinSimian said:

Nice looking plants!

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Thanks SinSimian - Not too bad for my first try...and with only CFLs, I'll count any harvest as a victory!

countrygirl said:

I have flushed and not flushed at end of harvest and imo (with MG soil) flushing was the way to go. Made a huge dif in the smoke and the ash.

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Thanks for the tip, us girls need to help each other out!

countrygirl said:

Don't let it soak any run off back up in the soil. I am talking about MG soil only, I don't know about the other kinds. It says on the bag not to, so I assume it's because of the nutes in the soil. Once I found this and applied it, things got much better. I use the run off water to water all my house plants and they love it.

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Glad to learn from your experience. I've made enough mistakes already in my first grow, so I'll take all the tips I can to get a good harvest. Got plenty of house plants too, so I'll make use of that run off on them! Hardest thing is going to be lifting those 2.5 gallon pots with their 34" plants without hurting anything, so I can empty the drain pans. I will figure something out...