Help with deciding on how many seeds to germ... Sativas in 120x120 tent 600w

I got my seeds from Sea of Seeds today! 10 Reg Durban Poison Sativa's.

I have a 120x120x200cm tent with a 600w dual spectrum HPS bulb on a dimmable Lumatek ballast.

I would like to maximise my output but know that a sativa can be a tall bugger of a plant.

I am going to start the plants under 3 - 2' 18w Cool White Fluoros then put them under the HPS to veg for a little while longer, I was thinking around 2-4 weeks veg period.

During this time in veg, I will take cuttings of each plant and label accordingly. Then put them under the fluoros again with 12/12 light to encourage flowering to weed out the males. I do plan on keeping the males under the fluoro light to get some pollen to keep for a later date.

But my question is, would you germ the whole 10 seeds even thought 75% may become females? Is that too much for my tent if I am to veg for that amount of time?

Is that too long to veg for a sativa due to their tallness?

I have the seeds sitting here and am going to be twiddling my thumbs till I get a reply lol

I have rockwool and PH down at the ready due to my water's PH being at 8 from the tap.

Do I need to stabilize the PH of the rockwool cubes or are they usually ok to start with if I have PH balanced the water before it hits the rockwool?

germ them all, in case if only half are female

Not sure how accurate it is, but I have seen people swear by using this to help determine the sex of a plant from seed. Seems suspect though.

haha I've used that pic, but not in a serious sense.

dont pop all of them, run a few seeds and clone the one(s) you like. You will find yourself in a very tough spot if you pop all of them, 90% are female and you have to toss some out or give it away only to ask for clones later.

Hi, I am on my 1st grow and it is Sativa dominant. It has grown taller but also much slower to the stages than the averages I read about. People told me re height if I was worried once it started getting tall to pinch supercrop or LST. Keep that in mind, that these plants prefer longer growing stages and may not show sex as quickly as others.

looking fwd to your grow, hope you will keep track on the board.

Hmm a few contradicting opinions there..

I have been reading alot of SpeesCees write ups and he claims that the seed itself does not determine the sex of the plant, the determining factor seems to be more the environment you provide your seedling.

He does 12/12 from seed all the time and uses 1 red fluoro to 1 blue fluoro ratio for germing. Using this method he says to plant 3 seeds for every 2 females you want.

I kind of take his word to be gospel but he may just be another 'do it my way, it works' kind of guy. In time I will experiment withg this claims.

Getting more seeds if I need in the future is not a problem so I would be willing to germ them all. My main concern is that I overcroud the tent with too much plants?

I would like it evenly spaced with maximum light getting to each plant, but still without wasting space by not having enough.

And is anyone else having problems with subscribed threads? I get some emails about new posts but never got any email about replies on this thread??

I'd say germinate around half and clone them just as said above..... if keeping a perpetual cycle is what you're after keep the number of clones you think you can fit into your space in constant veg, if they get too big take cuttings and repeat the process, in theory you could get this started with a single seed but as you'd want to fill your space for the first grow you'd be best taking a cutting off the best phenotype you have, shorter with less stretch is what most go for.

Last reg seeds I did 3 out of 10 where female. You can just put them on 1212 after a couple weeks to sex them then reveg them. I wouldnt go with a lot of plants with that tent size. Maybe go with 4 if you end up with 1 or 2 females just grow them out and fill your space up.

Well I have decided to germinate all of them (minus the freebies if you happen to look at my journal) to see how many female's come out of it. I will veg them for a good few weeks and take clones and flower them to weed out the nasties.

I have started a grow journal to keep track of everything.

The link is in my sig if anyone wants to follow

sativas are big plants if your seeds feminised go easy on them fem seeds are 100% female and your tent can't handle more than 4 flowering sativas in 12.5L pot first they will let you in with them as soon as you switch to flower they will kick you out after one week

Thanks Cabage.

I did think about 4 should be my limit, but no the seeds are not feminized, I got regulars to try to stop them going herm on me as I don't want lower quality bud full of seeds.

I have put all 10 of them into rockwool cubes to see how many sprout and then how many produce females. I will veg them till I can get cuttings and then flower the cuttings of each plant to determine sex of them then discard the males.

If I happen to get more than enough females I will pick the best 4 of them and either give the others to a friend who has a setup that is not being used or just destroy them. I don't want overcrowding in the tent, I have a journal started for them so I will take advice from there.

I had planned to take them all on if they were females but you have made me think wisely about not over doing it.

Thanks.