Too much Stretch, HELP!

My babies are in their 4th week of flowering and t took them 3 weeks just to grow pistols/hairs. the inter-nodal length is getting way too long. I have them under a 600w, HPS with supplementary 200w Blue horticultural CFL. I thought that would help stop stretching.

Any ideas?! I have bushmaster, but I used that too early I think. Should I do another dose... it worked the first time but only created WAY too many side branches I had to cut off.

Oh and I'm growing in coco with some added perlite in 5-gallon pots.

I'm just worried I won't have enough space left when they start forming colas/

Any help you guys could give me would be great! Thanks!

Keep it cooler at night, that should keep the nodes closer.

cooler at night? I read the larger the temp difference the more the stretch... huh... could have been dead wrong though. Anyone's take?

Small pores on the leaves (stomata) allow water vapour and gasses to leave the leaf and keep the plant cool (transpiration). If your plants are within their temperature ‘comfort zone’ and are transpiring healthily, they’ll keep themselves a few degrees cooler than the ambient air temperature. As a defence mechanism to conserve water, your plants’ stomata will start to close at around 85 °F.

With the stomata shut, your plants will not be able to transpire to keep themselves cool. If the temperature remains too high, the water trapped in your plants’ leaves can overheat, causing internal cell and enzyme damage. The result is poor growth and unhealthy plants.

If the temperature in your grow room is too high, your plants will respond in a few ways. They’ll appear stretched as the inter-node distance increases with a high temperature. This results in very airy flowers or poor fruit quality. During high temperatures, your plants will have difficultly laying down dense material because their sugar energy is being used so fast that they cut back on the energy used to make flowers and fruit. High heat is often associated with summer and low humidity in grow rooms. As a result, the roots of plants take more water than nutrient salts to compensate for the loss of water from the leaf due to high transpiration. This increases the nutrient strength in your reservoir or media leading to nutrient lockout, which can cause over-fertilization.

I'm reading 81F during the day and my place it set to 70 at night. I thought that would bee too large a temp differential so I used a heater to keep it at 77+- at night. Is this ok? Should I remove the heater at night and just let the temp drop?

My light is air cooled and there is no way to add more ventilation than I already have. (167cfm centrifugal through a carbon filter, 4x4x6.5' room).

Thanks

Yeah let it drop, or just turn the heater down at night. If it gets colder than 67-68 though watch out. You don't wanna go above a 15*F difference in night and day, at least that's what I've heard.

I've REALLY noticed a difference after I took the heater out of my little room, and let the ambient temps rise and fall with the actual temps outdoors. I keep the lights on at night, though, so you might have a different situation. The nodes on one of my plants went from around 3 inches apart to almost half an inch apart after I took the heater out. Big difference in just a few degrees.

EDIT: Just for shits and giggles, my temps are 82-83 during the "day" and about 71-72 at "night".

good to know! thanks man!

northerntights said:

good to know! thanks man!

Click to expand...

Hope I helped a little!