1st Grow 425w of CFL!!! (Actual Wattage)

BayAreaBrotha

Well-Known Member
6/4

The two main plants are now 22 days old. As I said before they are starting to fill in with side growth very rapidly even though they are short as is. The Shorter plant is unreal, it is so short that the majority of its leaves are either touching the soil or near it giving it a "droopy effect" even though I suspect it to be 100% healthy. Even the youngin is developing side shoots and that kinda suprised me.

I suspect this may be a result of my nute reg. I am using 1/2 tbsp Earth Juice Grow, 1 tbsp Blackstrap Molasses and 1 mL Super Thrive per gallon water.

I really wish these plants would get a little taller though. If they were maybe 4" taller I could better make use of all of my CFLs. I havent seen anything written about it but does anyone know a way to coax your plant to get a lil height to it? It would be very beneficial for the plant and my grow space.

Anyways to the pics!



This is the plant that has the "droopy effect"



This one seems to have taken the lead for now. The taller of the two.


Kinda hard to see in the pic but everything between my finger the the lowest set of leaves is new side growth



The Young One

 
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primeralives

Well-Known Member
just to let you know, you are wasting electricity big time, get rid of the cfls, spend 50 bucks and get a 150 hps to flower, trust me it is well worth it
 

BayAreaBrotha

Well-Known Member
All in a 2x3 cramped together set up. I have alot more room but I am getting the most I can outa each bulb.

I have...


1 125w


And 2 105w and 4 23w
 

primeralives

Well-Known Member
you don't need a hps unless your growing a lot. How many plants you got there?
you dont know what you are talking about, why would you want to use over 400w when you could get better buds form a 150w hps, hps is much more efficient and easier to work with...
 

Joker52

Well-Known Member
i use cfl's 2 100W for veg and 1 120W for flower. Every few days i give them a grow flourecent light 2.
 

coolman1a

Well-Known Member
Dam, sign me up i cant wait till they start budding, you should think about LST man give u a lot of bud sites:-)
 

On3Tim3OnLy

Well-Known Member
Yh your lights would be great man i dount you even need the small 23w blubs as they are only around 1300 lumens which for real wont be helping your plant much the big ones are .
i got the same ones
1 x 125w (12000)lumens
2 x 85w (5500)lumens
 

homegrownboy

Well-Known Member
To answer his question...if you want your plants to get "taller"

1. move the lights further away
2. have a longer dark period for 2-3 days
 

BayAreaBrotha

Well-Known Member
Those who ask shall receive! Over Night both plants grew noticeably taller. I hope this is going to be a new trend for awhile!
 

tryintogrow

Well-Known Member
man tight and bushy produces the best buds dont stretch them out. they may look bigger but your yield will be better the "smaller" they are. Wider is better than taller anyday.
 

Gqmetalhead

Active Member
nice looking plants, never seen any that short! but that is a good thing, you will get alot of colas tightly packed, they guy a couple above me is right, you should think about LST'ing those, with using cfls the light doesnt penatrate like mh or hps to so you want to maximize the use of your lights. Im using a 2' flourecent fixtur with 2 54watt T5HO PL bulbs wich crank out 10,000 lumens, these bulbs also have a little more intesity and usable light that regular cfl's. i highly recomend them, you can get yourself one here High Tech Garden Supply

here is a recent pic of my baby 3 weeks into flower with this light, i cut the top of when she got to about 8 inches, let her veg for another week or so then flowered her. i LST'd her and she's looking real good.
 

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Gqmetalhead

Active Member
well, thats up to you to decide if you try bending the slowly and it seems like they are going to break, then its probably to late, what i did was once the colar started to show thru the original fan leaves i started tying the top 2 down a little, then as the rest of them would catch up i would slowly tie those down, untill i got all the tops as even as possible, this method works good under a flouro fixture becasue each cola gets maximum light, if your using some regular cfls you can move them around the sides of the plant, i would take thos smaller ones you have and place them within an inch away from the bottom cola tops when they appear so the get as good of light as the top.

if you break a branch dont worry, mj is resilaint and as long as you dont break it real bad it will heal itself and youll probably end up getting a little more bud of that branch, alot of people do it on purpose, its called supercroping.

hope this helps!
 

BayAreaBrotha

Well-Known Member
The shorter of the two plants was put in the very same 8" pot you see in pics after germ. Should I start being concerned about its roots? I havent seen any negative effects yet but I have read that putting plants in larger pots too early can cause problems down the road. There is no chance that I would ever attempts to transplant it at this point so if I do need to take care of it, I will just double pot it.

Any suggestions?
 

Gqmetalhead

Active Member
The shorter of the two plants was put in the very same 8" pot you see in pics after germ. Should I start being concerned about its roots? I havent seen any negative effects yet but I have read that putting plants in larger pots too early can cause problems down the road. There is no chance that I would ever attempts to transplant it at this point so if I do need to take care of it, I will just double pot it.

Any suggestions?
Some people will tell you you need bigger pots then that, but if you dont grow them more than two to two and a half feet tall, those should be fine, what you want to do is make sure your plants dont become rootbound, wich means that all the root growth is stuck at the bottom of the pot, I learned a watering techniqe a while back that will prevent this, wait till your soil becoms dry, and by dry i mean when you stick your finger down 2 to 4 inches you feel very little or no moister, then water your plant until you see seepage coming out the bottom, then stop, after a short while the plant will soak up all of the seepage, wait about 45 minutes to an hour, then do that same thing over again, this will make it so that all of the soil stays nice and moist , allowing the roots to grow all throught the soil, most people just water a little at a time becaseu they are afraid of over watering, doing that makes all the moister be at the bottom, and thats why plants get rootbound and need to be transplanted.

trust me this is not over watering your plants, i use this method and it work great i have roots coming out of the top of my soil because of this (of course the tip that poke out dry up and die, but its all good), but you absolutely must wait until the soil is dry before watering again, a real safe way to do this is to wait untill your plant starts to wilt a little bit and then water. Hope this Helps!
 
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BayAreaBrotha

Well-Known Member
Thats actually how I water already. I just water until I see a little water come through drain holes. I dont usually go back and add more water later though. Is it that beneficial?
 

Gqmetalhead

Active Member
Thats actually how I water already. I just water until I see a little water come through drain holes. I dont usually go back and add more water later though. Is it that beneficial?
yes, it allows the soil to become more saturated, wich means it will hold the water longer, which means that there will be more time for the roots to grow and develop upwards and sideways before the soil becomes to dry, the roots will tend to grow towards the areas with more moisture, i.e the bottom of the pot. so you want the soil at the top to be as saturated as that on the bottom. I got this method from See More Buds Book, How to grow 8 oz for under $100 bucks.
 
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