My First Grow, Complete noob Any Advice welcome. Thanks

eddkushnoob said:

ye ok mate i'll look in to the smell gel dont want it messing up my smoke. maybe i'll just stick to a 250w hps then. guy at my grown shop recommended critical kush to me for its 750gr/m2 yields he seemed to think i would get a oz (27grams) per plant on my cfl. so maybe 2 oz a plant with 250 hps ? what do you think ?

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I got just shy of two ounces - wet - dry was only a half oz but I chopped early and had lots of bumps in the road. 1oz-dried-per plant seems reasonable, especially with what I see you have right now. possibly more if you LST and SCROG.

SnotNazi said:

I got just shy of two ounces - wet - dry was only a half oz but I chopped early and had lots of bumps in the road. 1oz-dried-per plant seems reasonable, especially with what I see you have right now. possibly more if you LST and SCROG.

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ok what strain were you growing ? and thats with 4 cfl ye ? ye some one els recommend SCROG to me i will have to look in to that. from looking at my plants how long do you think i should wait until i start to flower ? maybe a bit more height ?

eddkushnoob said:

ok what strain were you growing ? and thats with 4 cfl ye ? ye some one els recommend SCROG to me i will have to look in to that. from looking at my plants how long do you think i should wait until i start to flower ? maybe a bit more height ?

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Dark Angel from Crop King Seeds. I started flowering mine a lot sooner then where your plants are now. It's up to you, if you want to just get to the final product to see how you like the bud then start your flower now. If you want to SCROG then you will need another month of prep vegging to top and LST. Don't worry about the height, they'll grow taller during the process and get bushier belive it or not. Look at how thin and tall mine were and what I got from them. The first pic is day one of 12/12 and the second is just before harvest.

ahhhh man that looooks amazing haha bet she stunk how was the smoke ? are you in usa or uk ? also i didnt know that they still grow up and out on 12/12. what i'll do is wait for about a week maybe two, just because iv run out of moneys at the mo get paid next week so i can get a 250 hps and ballast, plant food for flowering etc any thing food wise you recommend ?

Oh ya the whole house stunk like a skunks butt lmao. Neither, I'm in Canada. That was done with just CFL's and nothing else so don't break the bank thinking you'll get better results, bigger yields - for sure but as you can see they frost up nice under plain old CFL's. I just did Dutch Pro formula at 1/2 strength every watering. I was having aeration issues so I only watered every 8-10 days. This round I've only been using an all in one organic feed called "Worm Juice". It's made from worm castings and seems to be doing the job nicely. The smoke was amazing even though I harvested two weeks too soon. Like I said I had a lot of bumps my first grow and cut it short due to the smell - didn't have the funds for odor control. Here's where I'm at now, they're drooping because I watered them then put 2" of water in the drip tray to keep them happy while I was away on vacation. I had some issues with nute burn again in the beginning so I switched to the organic and that seems to have fixed them for now. You'll notice both girls have two main tops - this is the beginning stages of SCROG. They were topped 10 days ago.

eddkushnoob said:

400w double yield you say lol 400w it is then looking at my set up do you think it would be hard to keep it under 80f. ?

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Hard to say, for 250/400 watts is not hard at all to cool. If you have an air cooled hood for the 400w bulb you will be fine as long as you have separate intake and exhaust for the light reflector and the grow room.

An average experienced grower can pull a gram a watt with HPS bulbs. Once you get to the 600 watt it becomes around 1.25 grams a watt. I can only get around 150 grams wet with 300watts of cfl's vs 300 grams wet with 400hps. Thats not even at 1g/watt rating.

I, personally, dont like topping. Not that its bad but the plant has to divert its energy to healing itself and sets ya back a week or two, you can get multiple tops by pinning the plant horizontally. each node will become its own top. a good method to use in conjuction with SCROG.

do you have the option of putting them outside for fruiting? an inconspicuous spot in the woods will cost little and out perform any light on the market. it takes longer as you have to work on the sun's schedule but the yields are by far superior. you also wont have need of a carbon filter or cooling systems. costs include a shovel, whatever fertilizer, if any, you want to use, and possibly netting or fencing if any bush grazing animals live in your area

HaveYouSeenApril said:

I, personally, dont like topping. Not that its bad but the plant has to divert its energy to healing itself and sets ya back a week or two, you can get multiple tops by pinning the plant horizontally. each node will become its own top. a good method to use in conjuction with SCROG.

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Just imagine topping then pulling you four "main" stems down once they have a few nodes. All those nodes become tops and you end up with 12 tops in one go instead of 3 or 4. Those 2 weeks you lose quickly catch up to surpass where you would be in the number of weeks of veg. if you replicated the results by simply LST ever few nodes. It takes two weeks for those nodes to become tops, doesn't it? I'm not trying to be a dick I'm fairly new to these advance techniques. I tried bending my plant over last grow and my top poked up and the plant grew sideways for a few days then propped itself back up lol. I ended up burying that part on the next transplant. It slowed things down so much I didn't try again. This time topping worked like a charm, now I have to try the LST again when they're ready.

to get twelve tops you would have to top it more than once. unless you topped and then used scrog and pinned them horizontally. like i said, its not a bad idea, i just prefer straight growth. the great thing about indoors is you have absolute control of veg and fruit so you can make your plants as big or small as you want.

EDIT: I just realized you were talking about topping then using scrog. my apologies

No worries, but like I asked, how long do you usually have to wait once you LST you plant to have the nodes create new tops? 1 week 2 weeks?

ISK said:

many people claim flat white paint is the best for reflecting light.... it's easy/quick to apply and is cheap

can't advise on the light distance as I'm not familiar with large CFL bulbs, but I keep my 600 w HPS about 10 to 14 inches away

they say put your hand on top of the plants and if if feels comfortable then it's likely okay for the plant, if uncomfortable for you, then too hot for the gals

BTW: did you see my edit about your electrical cord...remember electrical safety has to be your #1 priority, everything else is mice nuts

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that close with a 600w ? took glass out of hood...mine maybe 2f...a lot of light....lol

right guys hear they are today (looking lovely)

Watched a few vids on lst and sea of green. Going to leave that this time around but will do on my next grow for sure. Im going to get a 400w hps for flowering, hopefully have it for this time next week.
Topping - The guy at my grow shop recommended this spray =

He said i would not have to top using this stuff, what do you think ?
So whats next ? pruning/defoliation ? Funny thing is im a tree surgeon tell me to prune a oak tree in ya man but when it comes to these sticky little ladys i dont have a clue lol Should i be cutting off the lower branches that arn't getting much light or just pick the leaves that arn't getting much light. Big thanks for all involved. Also no i cant put them out side.

SNOTNAZI: the process starts pretty much immediately. these plants use gravity to determine which way to grow (light too of course). from the time you LST all new growth will be going towards making the branches tops. So I guess if the question is how long will it take to get a noticeable difference depends on how fast your plant grows

EDD: Ive never used that product myself so i cant really tell you how well it will work. From the description I found its pretty much an all in one fertilizer. the sugar in it isnt necessary until flowering. Id say there has to be a PKN value chart on it. those are the main nutrients the plants need. the rest of the ingredients are additives that will help a bit in the plant growth but arent absolutely necessary. be careful when using sprays not to over do it. Its pretty easy to get nitrogen burns if youre not careful. read all the instructions and then figure out how much your plant will need. whatever you come up with use half that for the first cpl weeks so you dont shock the plant. dont spray directly on the plant either. spray onto your medium around the base of the plants. the leaves dont absorb nutrients, just the roots, and droplets on the foliage can act as a magnifying glass and burn holes in the foliage under strong lights.

as for pruning, id wait until you get into veg and then only prune where you need more light to come through. if you have a dead leaf, fine, cut it off. other than that the more leaves the more photosynthesis and the more fruit. if you can get your hands on a light meter you can test to see which parts of the plant arent getting enough light and then prune around these areas or just supplement more light. again, anytime you cut on the plant its going to have to take time to repair. Luckily youre working with a weed so you dont really have any set guidelines on pruning as long as you dont hack it all to hell and still have some nice leaves it wont kill the plant. some people will cut off all the leaves at the budding sites around the same time they flush (a week or 2 before harvest) to make it easier to trim later on in the drying process

ISK said:

many people claim flat white paint is the best for reflecting light.... it's easy/quick to apply and is cheap

can't advise on the light distance as I'm not familiar with large CFL bulbs, but I keep my 600 w HPS about 10 to 14 inches away

they say put your hand on top of the plants and if if feels comfortable then it's likely okay for the plant, if uncomfortable for you, then too hot for the gals

BTW: did you see my edit about your electrical cord...remember electrical safety has to be your #1 priority, everything else is mice nuts

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hi isk you said to use flat white paint is that the same as white matt emulsion ?

eddkushnoob said:

hi isk you said to use flat white paint is that the same as white matt emulsion ?

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I never heard of that (might be a British term) but googled it and says for ceilings.... normally you paint the ceiling with flat white, so I'm thinking that would work just fine but I'm no painter.

They say flat white is the best, but I think any white has got to be better than what you have now, so if you have the paint in hand....go for the gusto!

white matt emulsion means white flat acrylic(water-based) paint so yes paint away - although if you can find an oil base paint you would be better off as water won't wash oil based paint off the walls.

Flat white! House paint ia fine, the paint you use for the walls. As long as its white. The brighter white the better. What you do not want is clear coat or a paint with a shine. Also, my plant would not get no where near the light if i didnt LST/Top. You want small colas not fat colas. The cfl's will not be able to penetrate into the flowers and down below if your plant has one fat cola at the top, the cfl's will also have a harder time growing one fat cola vs 2 medium ones (topped)