Femenized vs Non
- Thread starter BuddhaC
- Start date
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
My first grow, was seven bag seeds. Every single one was female. 7 for 7. Take the chance and cull the males. If you get seeds from a good source, you should win. The feminized seeds are not sold for cost effectivity but for ease of use and the no-brainer of not having to sort out males.
It's only one grow but 7 out of 7 is pretty fucking good. They were all different varieties too so it's not like they all came from the same bag or anything. And there was no assurance of good genetics even in play here as it was bag seed.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
Is Nirvana in the netherlands? I'd say about a week minimum from NL to US... Might be a little longer depending on how things go on either side of the nationality jump...
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
Do it to it! It's good to learn the ropes on non-investments if possible!
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
I try not to cut off any fan leaves because they're a precious commodity... the ones that can't get light will die off anyway on their own accord, and can then be removed. If you have stress issues of any kind along the way you may lose fan leaves inadvertantly... and if that happens you may be wishing you had not been so prune happy earlier on.
Many people prune lower bud sites and new developing foliage (while still tiny) at the bottom during flower to prevent popcorn buds from forming underneath and to prevent the plant from wasting energy growing leaves that won't get light anyway. This is a reasonable action, but it's pretty debatable as to whether or not it actually increases the yield in the upper buds... so my approach has been to just let the popcorn grow. I don't mind airy buds, I still smoke 'em. But if not desired, they make excellent hash, so I don't know why anyone would bother personally.
Also, fractional harvesting can help a lot... that's cutting all the well developed bud off in one harvest, then moving the light closer to the now-exposed popcorn bud for another couple weeks so it can full up a bit. I did this last time and ended up pulling an extra 3 oz... seemed worth it to me.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
No, I pulled 3 oz. dry after the extra time. Some of it hardened up nice, and some of it stayed airy... but it was all good smoke.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not talking about from one plant. This was a 7-plant grow, with limited space (3x4 roughly, using containers that were about 2 gal each) with 430 watts of T5's and all LST'd. But the total I pulled the first time when I harvested what looked like about 90% of the mass and the result was 7 oz dried... and then another 3 oz. 2-3 weeks later.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not talking about from one plant. This was a 7-plant grow, with limited space (3x4 roughly, using containers that were about 2 gal each) with 430 watts of T5's and all LST'd. But the total I pulled the first time when I harvested what looked like about 90% of the mass and the result was 7 oz dried... and then another 3 oz. 2-3 weeks later.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
About 6 weeks I think... a little longer than most bother with, but the LSTing takes some time. The plants never exceeded 1.5' heightwise from the top of the soil though. LSTing is awesome.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
I don't know man... it was my first grow, I let them veg too long probably, heh. They were fairly small plants though, so an oz each wasn't too bad a yield. Two weeks of veg is pretty short... it'll give you decent development without LSTing but if you train it down properly it will take a bit longer to get some height again. If you are just going to tie down the side branches it wouldn't need as long... but you won't get as many bud sites that way and the canopy won't be even. I work with T5's so even canopies are critical. (Fluoro intensity drops off quickly so it's best to have all bud sites even so they can be as close as possible)
I think for my first grow I'm guna go low-tech. Pop on a crap load of 2700K soft white CFLs on all angles so that I can get light evenly distributed (in lieu of purchasing a 400 watt HPS). The problem I'm really having is space constraint, so I can't get the even canopy from the LST'ing it's probably better to just use the cheaper method so that no man is left behind.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
Well, CFLs are really convenient in the sense that you can position them as needed... I would grow straight buds, MAYBE top or FIM once, (or maybe not with 2 weeks veg time) and get the CFLs hanging in between and around as much as possible in addition to coming from above. Should work good. Keep in mind that the side of the CFL is where most of the light comes from. The "tip" is a relatively dead zone so you want to either center-hang them between and around plants or horizontally from above.
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
Not sure what you mean... are you referring to topping (ie, cutting the "head" off the plant and letting it form multiple colas in it's place) or are you referring to my comments on CFL positioning?
AltarNation
Well-Known Member
Well what i was talking about was the angle of the bulb... the sides of the CFL are a lot brighter than the "tip" is... the tip is a weak point. As for positioning a CFL above, it's an effective method as long as you have it sideways with a decent reflector behind it. Combine that with vertical hung CFLs lower down in between the plants and you should have some good saturation. Infact, if done right, you might not even get much popcorn bud at all thanks to the vertical hung CFLs.