Crazy Chemist, crazy grow

No worries friend, I take the whole stem off, right off the stalk. I did not see any stress symptoms and I whacked at it pretty hard a few times.

Hmm, so I hacked em pretty well also, I usually do clip but I let it slip some this time. Put up pics in an hour, they look good. May switch to bloom nutes today...pics by 11 central.

So, I hope you have all finally gotten tired of waiting for an update, so here goes. Today/tomorrow marks 4 weeks total veg, started 24/0 1 wk, 20 1 wk, 18/6 2 wks. Little trims throughout, messing with little things, did some LST. I mixed bloom nutes yesterday and poured them in...full strength of course. I had them sitting pretty high on the TDS scale through the last 2 wks of veg. Lowest pH reached during that two weeks was a night I noticed about 1 gal of water low, pH was about 5.25, plants were very stable, didn't phase 'em.

Now, onto pics explaining all this...For comparison, a pic I posted at 1 wk 4days veg, 20/4...

Compared to the pic below...at 2 wks

2 wks 2 days...you can really see that the roots hit deep water here...

3wks...fast growth

Great nodal distance here, partiall y due to heat stress on this baby at first...all better now, but I like the results!

Under 3 sq. Ft...gotta say fack twigs man...


More coming...

So...the real trimming had to come. I'm not huge on lollipopping but this space is confined as hell. When I have lolli'd, I keep shade leaves as much as I can. Here, I kept and angled a lot of the leaves so they do not interfere with one another's bud site developement. I will be getting some twist-ties soon to train specifically where they can go for the "flower boom".

I cut off the water and trimmed the heck out of them, so they were looking a bit droopy. Mmm, feel the breeze now!

They rebound overnight. I know so many people talk about the horrors of trimming. IN my opinion, unless you over do it, you will notice it is way better for the plant (well, your purpose for it). It rebounds quickly and only without ever checking your grow room they won't die or get infected. Plants get beat up in real life too, and they live through all kinds of stuff. Look how good mine are below. And thats at slightly higher temps and elevated humidity (not too high, just on the high end of the spectrum).

Here's some of the LST, plain cooking twine will work just fine. Often this isn't even fully permanent as you may have to move things as expansion occurs. Another reason twist ties are good.



So I also mixed bloom in last night, set the pH right at about 5.75, although my damn pH probe is saying it needs a new tip. Take that garbage to lab. So with bloom nutes in last night, I decided to keep them on 18/6 today. I may or may not switch them tonight or tomorrow night (when they are off I can adjust them). Next, I have a post asking a question about my lights.

Again, if you are just reading this post, check out my last two posts, they are all recently updated pics just like the ones here.

Here is my question. Everyone has seen that tight little spot I'm using, if not see my 2nd page of the journal to find my pics post. Here is my problem. The area is small, and I have two lights above them, you can see in the pics. One is 6500K, one is 2800K. These lights obviously look very different, and they cause different growth in plants. For instance, they tend to stretch less in blue light versus red (high vs low K-scale).

They babies are in flower, though they haven't shown any signs yet (only 24 hrs or so). I plan to use both spectrums of light to flower, but I have noticed slight differences in growth behavior which may be related to light dispersion. Look at the pics below, the center plants have always been fast growing with way closer nodes and bud sites. This must be due to the overlap of the light projection. Look at the difference in light color btwn the left and right sides, below.


The plants and the boxes show the light is not spreading evenly. Here is my question...I have been switching them back and forth and I REALLY don't want to continue. It's a really great way to break a damn expensive CFL bulb. Now, my space is 1.5*2ft (3 sqr ft) and I have 8400 lumens split evenly between the two spectrum lights. The walls are obviously painted and or coated in white paper to help reflection. This area would be way too hot with mylar, but I do have some scraps laying around and may try to increase the reflectivity some. FINALLY to any experienced people who KNOW what I just said up there...what is my best option?

1. keep moving the damn lights. And hate it. For-ev-er. For-ev-er. (well 6-9 wks)

2. screw it, improve reflectivity and hope for the best

3. OR maybe JUST MAYBE if any experienced people think about this with me...there might be a 3rd option...move the lights up and angle them.

With 8400 lumens in 3 sq ft, thats 2800 lumens per sq. ft. More than enough for this little grow. NOW, I know the plants will grow fast in flower, so here is my prediciment. Obviously I want little to no stretching, I want 6 tight main colas, 1 per plants. TIGHT being the key phrase (following DANK as hell). Now, these CFL bulc are huge and put out a LOT of light from the sides of the tube. They stick more than half out of the reflector.

IF I were to raise these lights so that I could angle them closer to the corners, the light becomes much more evenly toned throughout the area, rather than the temperature inversion (or light intensity boundry, whatever you wanna call it) I have right now. SO my first question is, adequate lighting here and white walls, is it at all advisable to move these up? I am hoping for more of an even dispersion of light, NOT to make them stretch. They sit 6-9 inches tall, I don't want them to grow more than 20 or so, and I do not want stretched buds.

2nd question: does anyone have experience with this? Would the decrease in light instensity (due to the distance here, but keep in mind this space is very closed) mess with my yield? I know how light penetration and intensity work with distance, that is not my questions, newbs. What I am wondering is at this "level" of light, would I notice a significant diffence given only this situation if I kept my big CFLs about 4-6 inches above them (more if possible) and angle them to (1) avoid wasting that side light from the bulb on reflecting to white paper and (2) to disperse the red light more so that it can help with the flowering.

I hope I can get some expert help on this. keep in mind, I want even light distribution and no stretching on budding cycle...what are my options?

hey bro... saw your pm.. thought i'd chime in..


so the answer to your question, at least given all options, is to leave as is... here are my reasons why..

1) nothing good will come from raising the lights and trying to angle them... if there is something you never want to do its to raise the lights more than you have too... especially if you want to keep plant height down and make the most of the entire plant...

2) changing them back and forth is fine if you want... but like you said its a big pain in the ass and can possibly end your grow with a busted bulb.. that, for obvious reasons, would suck...

the growth changes you see, although can be attributed some to the light spectrums, also have other factors influencing their growth... genetics can/will play a big role in growth rates too... so you could have a combination of factors playing that part...

keeping them under 20 inches will be easy to do if you continue with the lst work you are doing.. looks nice...

i never recommend removing foliage.. but to each their own... i'd be happy to give me reasoning... but if your happy then thats all that matters ya know...

basically bro i would do like this... if you can take anything and use them as reflectors for the cfls, even if its just in the corners, so that all the light is pushed back into the canopy, then i would do that.. otherwise just flower and let it go... you will have a good comparison, also, as to what the flowering differences of the cfls are...

oh.. and of course... you could also just grab another red spectrum bulb...

ss420: Thanks for the kind reply. I am aware of the danger of moving the lights, but not sure if anyone had any experience. I am very sick of switching the lights around though. I think I will take your advice and say that a comparison of the flowering power of 2800K vs 6500K light. I guess I COULD just buy another red spectrum, maybe I will get on that today, because I would like to make the most of it, if possible. Yeah, I have seen plenty of factors of growth rate, I have one baby thats 8 inches tall with 3/4 inch stalk, now that's nute flow! At any rate the genetic portion of this is easily seen. I do have 2 indicas in there, I believe, and As of now, it appears 2 are showing some sory of sex, though it is way too early to tell. I can just barely see any formation at all btwn the node, but both appear to have a small growth ( I would even stretch and say they are female flowers).

If you would like to give your reasoning for not removing foliage, that's fine. I always like to hear experiennced theories, but like I said, I am not often in the bussiness of lillipopping. I typically trim lightly and try to get a few small colas and one main. In this grow, there is no question I had to do some heavy trimming, they are just too close together in this setup.

We'll see about these lights...not sure what I want to do yet. keep both temps or buy another 2800K....

your girls (hopefully) do look good and healthy.. that is for sure...

i started typing out my theories on pruning and the such.. and it started getting to be a lot longer than i thought it would be in my head... and 1 thing would lead to another.. and before i could even type out a couple sentences it got to be a full article in my head.. so i quit.. basically i only remove foliage under these circumstances..
1) the leaf is 50% or more damaged
2) i am lollipopping

now the thing is i dont like lollipopping much either... i super crop the shit out of my plants during veg to keep them short, strong, and get the bottom branches canopy height... and then i FIM them... but what happens is when i take clones from them, which i take from the bottom, i essentially lollipop them anyways.. well it thins out the bottoms at least... but it all depends on the room provided... you made the right call...

i think if its an option you should go with another red lamp... thats just me tho...

Yeah, that is what it the pruning "article" did to me, so I figured I would just do what I know has worked before, and they seem to be liking it. Last night they got 9hrs night, on flower now, with bloom nutes. They need to be LST'd again, keep the canopy open. I could easily remove the 6800K and buy another 2400K bulb and just use only that warmer light. However, I don't have enough room for all 3 lights. Altough...I may try ; P

But on to another topic. I would be curious to see the effects of super croping, if you have any examples. Why do you prefer that method, cause we all know everyone has thier reasons.

Take 'er easy...

The plants DO look good, they will be nice and happy in a few weeks.
I like you you tied the plant to itself at the base of the stalk, I was unable because of the amount of branching.
Looks great.

Maxwell: I think they are looking great, couldn't be happier. I'll give 'em 6 wks and see where we stand. As far a tying them off, if you look close at my pic, you can see they aren't tied. I actually tie a loop in one end of the string and put the string around the base, going back through the loop. This makes a tight hold, but also allows plenty of room for growth or expansion of the stalk. I have seen the base get "strangled" by a small string. It didn't effect the plant much, but it started to grow around the string, like a tree. Also, when I tie to the shade leaves, I wrap it around the branch and then tie a pitch knot using just the one end. This essentially makes it like a slipknot, or noose, and allows you to slide one end back and forth, adjusting the level of the branch to accomodate for later growth.

Can't wait 6 wks from now...