Too much blue spectrum?

Diazed001

New Member
Hello everybody, this is my first grow and to start off I am only doing one plant every three weeks. (Just so I don't accidentally kill them all on my first try) I am growing recreationally for personal use. So far I have converted a "portable closet" into a grow tent. Very inexpensive setup so far. I am running 3 75watt walmart blue spectrum grow lights and one 150 watt LED light. Keep in mind I am only growing one plant at a time. I am constantly at 74 degrees with three mini dehumidifiers. I am using fox farm products for fertilizer my ph is seven 99% of the time. I am growing in regular planting soil.
The only problem I have had so far is that my plant is about 4 inches tall however it is so skinny that it falls over often. What can I do about this?
 

ThorGanjason

Well-Known Member
That means your plant is "stretching". It does this a lot of times when the lights are not quite close enough. Get your lights a little closer, and in the meantime use a toothpick to support the stock (or maybe a popsicle stick would be better for the size of your plant). Just stick it in the dirt at the base of the stalk, careful not to damage the roots.

Also, is that led actually 150 watts, or is it a 150 watt equivalent? (Like the swirly cfl bulbs, they say "37 watts, equivalent to 120).

Also, the plant needs the highest humidity when it is the youngest. As it gets older, it needs less and less moisture in the air, and as it gets bigger it will put off more moisture. Save the humidifiers until its a little bigger.

Just remember, blue spectrum is better for vegging (when the plant is just growing bigger) and red spectrum is better for flower (when the plant starts to bud). Blue spectrum bulbs-5000k-6400k, red spectrum bulbs are usually around 2700k in the light spectrum.

If its your first grow, I highly suggest checking out the newbie section. It made me the super cool, super badass grower that I am today 8)

Edit: no such thing as too much blue spectrum when you are still vegging. When you start to flower tho, you will at least want half and half blue/red spectrum (6400 and 2700k, respectively)
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
You do want ~ 30% red (warm whites/3000K) during veg for root development

FYI most soils are too hot for vegging seedlings.

Better to mix perlite + vermiculite and add diluted nutes (<200ppm)
 

Rusty Trikes

Well-Known Member
Start with a mix that is unfertilized. You don't have a 150w LED or 3 75w CFL's, you have their EQUIVALENT. Unless you paid over $100 for that LED it is probably useless for growing pot. The CFL's need to be within 3 inches of the leaves to give them any photosynthetic light and within an inch to be REALLY effective. I always keep a 4100k 65w in the mix for root development but I don't know that its truly necessary, just going by what Ive read. Pro-Mix is the best cheap unfertilized mix that Ive found, but if your just doing a few plants, the FoxFarm mixes are the way to go as the nutes in it are organic and ok for seedlings. Even the perlite I bought at the hardware store had a .5-.5-.5 NPK; totally burnt a batch of clones without realizing wtf happened until I re-read the bag. prop that mama up with a plastic straw, as a toothpick or popsicle stick will rot very quickly. Good Luck!
 

AimAim

Well-Known Member
Read this: https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/429767-replant-those-long-stretchy-stems-9.html

I've had seedlings stretch bad enough I replanted them completely and buried 2-3 inches of stem. Really easy to do if you are in peat pots. Not so easy to do without damaging the roots if you have to take them from one container into another. I just did this to a stretchy seedling and it is way outgrowing it's sibling of the same strain.

Another thing you can do is raise the sides of your container, possibly. Here's how as an example: If you are in a solo cup find another cup up a larger size, like a styrofoam cup or another plastic cup of a LARGER size. Cut most of the bottom out of the larger cup and slip the small cup with the seedling in it. You might just have a 2-3" tall circle left of the upper part of the cup (with the lip). Snug them together, the larger cup top essentially just raises the lip of the cup. Use a little duct tape to join them together, then top off your modified (now taller) cup with your rooting medium burying the stretchy stem.

Not sure if I explained that well. Essentially you are just making your original container taller. Takes about a minute to do. Works great. However you get the stem underground it will form roots along the buried stem resulting in a nice root mass.
 
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