early flowering...

Hi everyone, this is my second small grow, first grow was under insufficient flourescent lighting. Tryin again with a 250 watt mercury vapor bulb in a 400 watt MH ballast.
I started out with 13 plants, they have all been under 20 hours of light and 4 hours of complete darkness. At this point, I have already noticed male flowers and removed all the males. I am left with 6 beautiful females, one is very small, and one appears to be in full flower mode. I am also training the tops. I was contemplating adding pictures for security reasons, but they are not being grown here or anywhere associated with this ip.
I also have a 400 watt HPS bulb in a 400 watt HPS ballast for flowering.
All of the seeds are mutts, meaning i dunno wtf they are, obviously they are all different, some may be the same strain.
I'm wondering why I was able to see male flowers when my light cycle is so long, and why the one female seems to be in full bloom? Here are some pics.

Here is a female appearing to be flowering early...under 20 hour light...


here is a pic of its tip


here is a small female (same age as all the others)


here is a plant with the tip bent


here is a pic of all 6, keep in mind they are all the same age


Now, my soil PH is 5.7, i have have given nutes 4 times, 20-7-7, and i let wilting begin before I water again. I used a soil from wal mart, but i cant remember the specs on it. But it is high quality soil. When can i start flowering light cycles? All of these plants are a little over 10 weeks old.

you can start flowering at any time of the plants life.
i try not to let me girls go over 4 weeks, otherwise they will outgrow their space.

there's a lot of strains that pre flower.
even the female have little nut sack looking things on them, but they have 2 little white thin hairs poking out of the nut sack.
so perhaps thats what you were looking at?


welcome to rollitup

Man I don't want to get down on ya. But those are some sad looking plants for 10 weeks old. you might be waiting to long to water. try the finger test stick your index finger into the second nuckle when you feel no moisture water. you can go to flower any time you want. just go to 12/12 lighting.

stumps said:

Man I don't want to get down on ya. But those are some sad looking plants for 10 weeks old. you might be waiting to long to water. try the finger test stick your index finger into the second nuckle when you feel no moisture water. you can go to flower any time you want. just go to 12/12 lighting.

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I thought that most of the growth happens during the flowering stage? I think the slow growth is because the seeds were not bought from a seed distributor. They were just a few seeds given to me from random stashes . I will flower these, and prepare the room for some serious growing with some seeds online. Also, i was wondering how secure this website is for posting on? Seems like thousands of people post freely here. I think i will also buy a proper 400 watt MH bulb for my 400 MH ballast.

Shouldnt your pH be at about 6.5 in soil? Maybe check but i think its low. Hydro uses lower pH. I use CFLs but i think using a 400w ballast with a 250w bulb may may make the bulb explode and cause a fire. You may want to check that too. The plants do look pretty sad. I also thought mercury vapour bulbs were a thing of the past. Again i have little experience so my comments may be misdirected. I would just use the 400w HPS during veg and flower. Many do with good results and if what i said before is correct it would be safer. Good luck.

Anyone know any good seed sites?

ThisIsMyCareFace said:

Anyone know any good seed sites?

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Not sure if you know this but there is a search section of this forum. Go to it. Search seeds and maybe the country you are from and info will appear before your eyes. Try not to burn anything down in the mean time.

rocksteady6 said:

Not sure if you know this but there is a search section of this forum. Go to it. Search seeds and maybe the country you are from and info will appear before your eyes. Try not to burn anything down in the mean time.

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ROFL nah, I`m gonna flower them now with 12 hours light and the the 400 watt HPS, and for my next grow i`ll buy the proper 400 watt MH bulb.

Your girls are badly stretched - in the future, you may want to get a CFL or two, or even a fluorescent tube light, to start your girls on for the first two weeks - helps reduce that. Keep the light closer. Probably would have been better off doing the entire grow under the 400w HPS. Bagseed or not, they shouldn't be that small. The flowering one is probably an autoflower strain - meaning it will flower on it's own regardless of the light cycle. For the rest - you veg long enough, and you get preflowers - they show sex. If you don't already - it's also good to have a fan blowing gently in their direction all the time - not only does the air movement help prevent mold and mildew, but it helps the stems thicken and grow stronger. Good luck!

DoeEyed said:

Your girls are badly stretched - in the future, you may want to get a CFL or two, or even a fluorescent tube light, to start your girls on for the first two weeks - helps reduce that. Keep the light closer. Probably would have been better off doing the entire grow under the 400w HPS. Bagseed or not, they shouldn't be that small. The flowering one is probably an autoflower strain - meaning it will flower on it's own regardless of the light cycle. For the rest - you veg long enough, and you get preflowers - they show sex. If you don't already - it's also good to have a fan blowing gently in their direction all the time - not only does the air movement help prevent mold and mildew, but it helps the stems thicken and grow stronger. Good luck!

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I`m really not sure why they`re so small...maybe the 250 watt mercury vapor is insufficent? I did overwater them a bit in the beginning which stunted their growth.

I can't say about the light - I think you're the first person I've seen use one like it, since I joined the forum. You could be right. If you overwatered frequently, yep, that would have contributed - but I think it's a combination of things. Don't sweat it - they're still alive. Lots of folks don't make it through their first attempt with live plants. I did - but not without making many, many mistakes - got a whole 12 grams off my very first plant. lol

DoeEyed said:

I can't say about the light - I think you're the first person I've seen use one like it, since I joined the forum. You could be right. If you overwatered frequently, yep, that would have contributed - but I think it's a combination of things. Don't sweat it - they're still alive. Lots of folks don't make it through their first attempt with live plants. I did - but not without making many, many mistakes - got a whole 12 grams off my very first plant. lol

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12 grams lol, better than none though. This is actually my second grow, and I only overwatered them once, and they were also in too small of a pot for the first 2 weeks, I did not realize how fast they grow. This next grow will be better with purchased seeds and the proper 400 watt MH.

If you keep trying every grow will get better. Mine did. Well except for this last one. I'll be lucky to see a oz when it's done.

stumps said:

If you keep trying every grow will get better. Mine did. Well except for this last one. I'll be lucky to see a oz when it's done.

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why lol what happened?

Got a bad case of bugs All most killed them before I noticed. It was my last grow with these seeds. started 20 only 10 germed out of that only 4 where girls. by far the worst with these seeds. It was a half hearted grow at best. two are still in the stage 2 pots. I'm not very good with small pot's but thought I would see if I could grow them out. it's about 3 foot in a Qt size pot. I wasn't going to take any more pic's of these but I will. they are a mess. I might even still have some before the mites hit.

Hey guys...those bag seeds were over 5 years old...could that have contributed to the small size? My brother picked em out of his weed when he was down in New Brunswick. If i cut the tops and grew those would they get big? Or are they all destined to tinyness lol

no one has the answer?? lol

I would think if they grow they grow. Age might play a part. but more for the germ then the grow
.

Nope - not the age. It's the conditions they've been in, that's stunted growth. No worries - you'll get better at it!

Well guys, I flowered these 5 girls, and only got 28 grams out of all of it. WTF I may have harvested too soon on some of them but I had no choice security issues.