Growing Brainstorm! First time Grower!

I'm currently growing a strand called brainstorm, I purchased the seeds from Marijuana Seeds (cannabis Seeds) High Quality Low Prices. The plant is going to be 2 months old on June 25th and is only about 8 inches tall. Shouldn't it be taller by now? Included are some pictures, does the plant look like its close to the point of flowering? I've heard that I can flower at 12 inches but that I should wait until atleast 24"? When is the best time??

I dont know the growth rate of your strain but it is a little small for 2 months. I am usually 2-3 feet by 2 months. Prolly not enough light. WM


Moved to newbie section...

According to the website, this strand that I purchased is a small/medium size plant.

Well it looks like it should be fine. Its nice and green.

I have four fluorescent 40 watt bulbs being used to help grow my plants. I want to up the wattage but am not sure what I should change the bulb wattage too. I know that I should be using other lights besides fluorescent but I'm on a tight budget when it comes to this project. Any suggestions for new wattages per bulb??

if you're on a budget, you can always supplement with CFL's. you will want to change your light spectrum for flowering to a more red light, or a lower lite temperature.

how far from the plants have you had those lights?

they were within 6 inches of the lights and than I noticed the tips were yellowing so I moved it up a little bit. The temperature in my grow room is 82 degrees, I have a small fan in the room but it doesn't seem to bring the temperature down, I'm going to purchase a bigger fan today. My light cycle is 24/7. I apologize for my stupidity ahead of time but please tell me what CFL is abbreviated for. Also, if I change the light bulbs to CFL, will I have to change it again when I start to flower??

I only use 40watt fluros (tubes) and don't think these type go any higher than 40W.
I keep my plant tips as close as possible to the tubes, even touching in places occasionally. Lots of folks will tell you it can't be done (growing w/shoplights) but it can. Compact Fluorescent Lamp . . . Basically a fluro with a built in ballast that screws into regular bulb socket. I think they're 5-10 bux? Much more variety in CFL's. I'd use them, but I'm a cheap ass.

This plant (pic) is 50 days into bud, 1 foot tall, about 32" canopy. Harvest tonight. Some kind of citrus, per aroma, taste.
You can sure see where I cut a couple "test" nugs off!

Your plants look like that with only 40w fluorescent lamps?? I heard that the 40w lamps couldn't be used for flowering because they don't give off enough red rays or something like that....do you use your 40w fluorescents with veg and flowering stage??

Yes - total grow. Usually just cool white 40's . . . I did add 3 of those 40w gro-lux halfway thru this grow, but their still just cheap tubes, 6$? My light racks are three, 2 tube sockets each, shop-light fixtures, which I screwed together . . . so there's 6 bulbs per rack. Hell, that's 36 bux right there. LOL! of course, I get a few grows before I have to replace some bulbs, @2.98, I believe.
The grow w/o the gro-lux were fine too. Maybe a tad smaller buds, but not truly necessary, ie:minor difference
Of course, folks could spend a little more and get much bigger harvests, but this is plenty for me and mine.
Here's a couple pics of another I harvested last night.

Thanks for the pics Mr.Fishy. One of my 3 plants is about a foot tall now. A week from monday is when i'm going to change the light cycle to 12/12. I'm going out of town on Thursday and so I don't want to mess anything up if the plants are in the light too long or vice versa because my lights are on 24/7 and I plan on moving the plant to another closet for 12 hours of darkness and than back into the light. The pictures that you most recently put up, is that harvest complete or is it just starting or mid way through?? It doesn't look like very much if its finished. Let me know

This batch I grew from the RIU forums, which is not the way I've grown in the past. It looks like I'll get about an ounce a plant (cured), except for the bushy mother, which may finish at about 3. She'd be the one plant I left alone and grew my way. Seeing as how I'm not in the wholesale/retail biz, I really don't wanna store any one grows stash more than a year (gets stale) so what I'm reaping is plenty sufficient . . . and I've X number of plants.
I assume you're referring to the second set of pics I posted . . . that'd be a week before I hacked it down.

I just changed my light cycle today to 12/12. Hopefully I'll start to see the fruits of my labor in the next coming weeks. Pictures to come soon.

Frickin' yummy lookin' plants, Fishy. Nice j-o-b.

Can you tell me if my plant is male or female?? I only know that males grow what look like balls but in these pictures it looks like the stem is swollen? Is that considered a ball or is this female characteristics?

nyyankeessuck327 said:

Can you tell me if my plant is male or female?? I only know that males grow what look like balls but in these pictures it looks like the stem is swollen? Is that considered a ball or is this female characteristics?

Click to expand...

can't tell. but yes, those stems are swollen. that is a good thing. i look for this trait when i breed. it shows strong support for side branching.

Female i can see swollen calyxes but its blurry, was hard to tell.

Just wanted to update this post. I am two 1/2 weeks into the flowering stage and I have 3 plants growing. Here are recent pictures taken tonight, 7/12/2008.

it looks great and as for its height its prolly a normally short strain like lowryder or somthing to that effect

According to the website, the brainstorm strand is a small to medium size plant. From the soil up, its 18" tall, i'm sure that its taller because I've added soil several times. Here are some more pictures. I'm still trying to determine the plants sex. I hope that these aren't that blurry