First time grow

thwack · Apr 30, 2009

I'm new to growing, and need a little advice. I tried searching the forum first so as not to annoy everyone with a common question, but couldn't find it.

I'm growing with CFL's for now, just until plants are strong enough and it's warm enough for outdoor growth.

My plants have already sprouted, and I noticed that they are pretty tall compared to pictures of others on the forum. I have one plant thats about 2.5'' tall with 2 sets of leaves and one plant that is 3'' with only the original sprouting leaves. This seems tall to me, and i noticed in one post that someone mentioned "stretching".

Basic question is: are my plants forming poorly? what is stretching? is it bad?

sorry about poor pic quality. need to get better camera.

stopcallingmedude · Apr 30, 2009

thwack said:
I'm new to growing, and need a little advice. I tried searching the forum first so as not to annoy everyone with a common question, but couldn't find it.

I'm growing with CFL's for now, just until plants are strong enough and it's warm enough for outdoor growth.

My plants have already sprouted, and I noticed that they are pretty tall compared to pictures of others on the forum. I have one plant thats about 2.5'' tall with 2 sets of leaves and one plant that is 3'' with only the original sprouting leaves. This seems tall to me, and i noticed in one post that someone mentioned "stretching".

Basic question is: are my plants forming poorly? what is stretching? is it bad?

sorry about poor pic quality. need to get better camera.

well the first question is, how far away is your light? you can get cfl's pretty damn close because they don't produce heat the way hps or mh do. they do look a little stretched to me.

stretching is when a plant is trying to grow towards a light source. basically it is a survival technique that the plant employs to get the necessary light for photosynthesis. it's bad. you want your plant to be as compact as possible so that it can grow a thick stem to support itself when it gets to the flowering stage.

solution: move your lights closer and get an osscilating fan on there to help the stems grow strong. hope that helps. :peace:

thwack · Apr 30, 2009

CFL's about 18'' away.

stopcallingmedude · Apr 30, 2009

you can get them a lot closer than that. i have a 400 hps and it is 18 inches away, and hps are big heat producers. the FAQ says that you can get them as close as one inch. (https://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=faq&cmd=article&id=587) if you see any leaf curling, move it back a bit. :peace:

thwack · Apr 30, 2009

alright, thanks a lot for ur help.

First time grow

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