stretching on purpose?

I've recently starteda couple lowryder2XAK47's, both are 19 days of age. One of which, is coming along sooo slowly. It has barely broke soil(IT'S BARELY 1/4" OUT OF THE SOIL!) and sprouted the first fan leaves. I notice when watering what looked to be a ROOT on top of the dirt, upon further inspection, it was! Now, beig that it is still barely 1/4" tall and already has leaves, I feel a simple transplant would be useless and was CONSIDERING STRETCHING on purpose, to get some height to it so i could actually cover that root. Any ideas guys? I gotta do somethin, cuz i know that lil root aint likin 400 watts of hps, plus 6cfl's. Any input?

HOLY CRAP!!!! Too much light for such a little plant. For now just try to cover the top of tehe soil with more soil so that the root isnt' exposed, take it out of the bunch along with 1 cfl, and put it under it for another week or so...since it's still "young" to the enviroment. Put the CFL abou 2" from the top of the plant...if you do wanna stretch it more..make it about 4-5".

So far, Ive just covered up the root like u said. so ur sayin I got wayyyy too much light on the little guy, lol? I know it a lot of light, but the plant in question only has 2 of the cfl's on it, the other has 4. I was hopin the root would figure out that 'hey, i'm supposed to grow DOWN in the dirt, not UP, oh, ok...' I was thinkin the root hit a piece of bark or somethin in the beginning and tried growin around it and hit the surface.

richjames said:

So far, Ive just covered up the root like u said. so ur sayin I got wayyyy too much light on the little guy, lol? I know it a lot of light, but the plant in question only has 2 of the cfl's on it, the other has 4. I was hopin the root would figure out that 'hey, i'm supposed to grow DOWN in the dirt, not UP, oh, ok...' I was thinkin the root hit a piece of bark or somethin in the beginning and tried growin around it and hit the surface.

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It's the 400W bulb that's too bright...but if you think about it in nature seeds grow in bright sunlight...sooo..........?!?!?!?!?!?

I just follow a general rule of thumb of not so much intense light at the beginning of it's growth...for about a week or 2, most growers will use flouro tubes for 2 weeks then go to the HID's.

On previous grows that's ecactly what i did- cfl's to get em goin for about 20 days or so then kick on the hps, but not cuz of the amount of light, but more to help the bushyness in the beginning ya know. Thanks for the input hgb.

Your welcome. Thanks for saying thanks.

No prob there. Dont wanna be one of those GIMME GIMME GIMME GUYS. I try to give back myself when i can.

now thats team work.

It nice to bounce some idears around with other fellow growers ya know? I like to see what works for others, and how they handle differnt things. And it's nice when u get some good input too. Like hgb was sayin too much light.... run just one cfl on the plant i want to stretch.... which got me to thinkin. So, I had to leave the hps on for the other plant, and i don't have another room i can take the other one to with less light, SO I lowered the plant another foot away from the hps, and turned off all but one cfl's over that particular plant. Now we'll wait and see. Plan is, let it stretch just enough to cover up exposed root with 1-2 inches of new soil. Wish me luck guys

Nothing beats good ol' trial and error though...20 years of growing, and i'm still learning...lol!!!

With the HPS though it's still bright light...it's a 400W?...that's roughly 20,000 lummens reaching your plants...maybe 15,000, your not going to get alot of stretching with that. Try just taking it out of the room and placing it in a window with not alot of light...plants will stretch to seek out what little light they can find.

I thought 400's put out more like 50,000 lumens.... idk, maybe i'm thinkin about the 600's. But anyway, I don't think I dare put it in a window, winter's here in fuckin full force, and it's like 10 degrees at night, and 30 in the day, and my weak ass windows don't keep the cold out too well. I guess it is just the one plant though, it wouldn't be difficult to find SOMEwhere to put it for a week or so.... I wouldn't even need to run a timer or nothin since lights are on 24/7.... and i'd only have one cfl to move with it..... hell I could put it in my bedroom.

55,000...i was giving as estimate of what's wctually reaching your plants...don't forget about the light pyramid rule, for every foot of distance your light deminishis...the exact amount I can't remember, but usually at about 1.5ft your getting about 20,000 lummens, amybe 30,000 tops.

You could just put in a darker corner of your grow room...or maybe just shade it a bit...it's cold where I live too so I understand...-45 celcius at night here.

... oh ya, speaking of 'learning' experience, here's a good one i recently picked up-
DONT DROP UR WATERING CUP ON UR YOUNGUNS-lol
I was watering the other day, and looked at one of the other sprouts(not the one I was actually watering) for just half a second, and my cup I use slips out of my hand, landing square on my biggest sprout Luckily, the cup was epty by the time it fell, but it still took the little seedling DOWN. Stood her back up right, and packed the dirt up a bit aroud her and she's bounced back like she liked being beatin up, doin better than ever it seems.

Ya sometimes they need a slap or 2...lol.

LOL... don't know if i'd try it again, but hey, it worked. -45 CELCIUS!? damn that's fuckin cold as shit, I can't wait for summertime already! Thanks again for the idears.

Again...no problem at all...love to help. If you have more questions just post here in your thread and i'll always come to look and answer all that I can.

-45 is cold...but i'm used to it...sorta, the mountains are alot nicer and less bone chilling then the praires. I miss home so much...which is back in BC.