My sexy Afghan first grow with CFLs

Well, since no one seems to really respond to any of my questions (other the GG84), I have just started figuring out things on my own. Maybe I post too much, maybe I have lame posts, but whatever, it's working well as a sounding board for me.

I thought about the watering and realized the plants were probably thirsty. The cups were light and they hadn't had a real good drink in almost 5 days. So after giving them a good soaking, they have appearing much better and stronger today. I guess that problem is solved. I think this situation also helped me realize the weight difference of a well watered pot and a dry pot. Should prove useful.

Something else weird happened ... after I drowned 3 of the seeds (or so I thought) in the big pots, I re-germinated and left for the weekend, the new ones sprouted, etc etc. Anyways, this morning I looked in and one of the "drowned" seeds had popped up! It's probably been almost 10 days in the soil. It looks ok so far, it's shooting straight up and still has the shell on. I gave it some water yesterday (realizing it was alive) and it seems to be going well. When the seed casing comes off I will know more.

Alright, I am really going to post pics tonight. Last night I took them and uploaded them then passed out and since they have grown so much more since last night, it's time for some new ones.

Oh, and does anyone know what the veg to flower ratio should be? I mean like height wise. i.e. - if I have a 12" plant and I put it into flowering, is it going to be 36" ? 24" ? I understand there are different factors for each grow, but a general guideline ratio would help me figure out what the hell to do about my lack of head room.

Cool, peace.

:smokin:

I just noticed this thread for the first time. I like the pictures of the cardstock and foil. I use cardboard too. I'm going to catch more of your grow log later. I'm watching the ball game and got a fine buzz going too. To answer your question on vertical growth from veg to flowering. Well knowing something about how afghani type plants grow for me I top them in veg and usually run 6- 8 weeks and the height is about 20-24". After eight weeks or so of flowering the are about 36" tall. This is under a 400 watt HPS plus 300+ watts of flourescent tubes lighting a one square meter of area. Your results may be different.

Shovelhandle

hey shovelhandle, thanks for the info. I was thinking about topping mine also, so that will be useful. I am using CFLs which may make a difference, but we will see. Sox or TB fan?

These are the pics I promised. I installed a second fan on top of the box tonight but it makes a terrible vibrating type noise, and I can't figure out why. It seems like the frequency is reacting to the other fan, maybe I should move it to the opposite corner? Either way, I took it out because it was really fucking annoying. Hopefully I can get it up and running again. It is cooling off here these days so hopefully keeping my room cool will help keep the box cool.

Keep it real.

:smokin:

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/o...746-ladies.jpg
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/o...tle-retard.jpg
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/o...-big-girls.jpg

Ok, so I just re-potted the two beauties and I learned a few things.

1) Make sure the soil is at least a little damp. It had been 2 days since the last watering and the first cup I cut off sort of fell apart in my hand. Unfortunately a bit of the root stayed in the bottom of the cup. I imagine this is going to stress that plant (it was biggest anyways) but hopefully it will re-cooperate quickly and continue growing well. The second one went MUCH better. Came out in one piece and went in real easy.

2) It is difficult to really judge what "watered" and "dry" are. Actually, to figure out those two, is not hard, but that in between phase is difficult. I thought at least 3 days for the seedlings, but after attempting to transplant the first one, I realized it was quite dry and in fact the leaves were already starting to droop. It's true that the plant will really tell you what it wants, you just have to know how to speak its language.

3) Finally, that main root (tap root?) grows really quickly. In 5 days in the cup it was already coiled around the bottom looking for a new place to go.


I suppose for the next couple of days I will be seeing a limited upward growth and assume more underground action. Especially for the one that lost a bit of root, I imagine she will be a little shocked.

Oh ya, I got my new lights today for flowering. Four (4) 55W 2700K CFLs and 2 splitters to go with it. I checked them out and that "warm" color is so much different then the "cool" veg color. Either way, I'm excited.

Hopefully the transplant went well and both plants will grow into strong ladies. Wish me luck!


Peace

:smokin:

BoSox fan.
Sounds like a good plan, Secreto

Hello secret garden i see that you are very very close to where i am in growth,

I set a spot up in a unused bathroom in the shower, its about 4 feet wide 3 feet in depth and 7-8 feet tall.

I have 8 plants powered by 3 fluros grow lights. I just ordered a 400watt hps with the 430watt agro bulb(has 30% more blue spectrum to help with veg) i cant wait for it.

But anyway one of my plants that came up has 3 of each leaves, anyone know exactly why this happened?

I will post pics when i find my camera tomarrow.

:rastasmoke:

Shovel - Hell ya, go BoSox. That game drove me crazy the other night. I am definitely looking forward to tonight.

Stoned - Sounds like you have a pretty nice set up. I always thought a spare shower would be great, but I obv don't have one. Any other info on the grow room? How about Mylar walls? Ventilation? What kind of strains do you have going? The three leaves sounds like a mutant to me! But hey, what do I know?

So the ladies seem to be enjoying their new pots, both have new growth this morning, what I would call their 3rd set of leaves. Since the weather has really cooled down here I have been able to run both lights without causing a heat problem and that means 105W (6720 lumens) per plant! I think they are really enjoying that.

Oh and I am getting some brewers yeast next week so I can set up my little CO2 device and get that pumping. I have read various estimates, but in the end it can increase growth quite a bit. Anything to keep those babies growing!

I'll post pics at some point. I am realizing everyone probably doesn't need to see the little individual growth I see everyday. Sorry, I just get all excited!

PEACE

:smokin:

For my walls i put up tin foil on the walls(non shinny). Ya the shower is awesome dont have 2 worry about spilling water. For the ventalation all i do now is open the door once in a while, but i have a exhaust fan in the celing i could use(ill probly need that when i get the hps going with the extra heat).

hey secret, sorry for my posting drought. left my laptop at my friends place and forgot the wife has one too. whoops. so, i guess that during my absence, you had some questions but figured it out yourself. nice work. one thing though. if you repot on time, you're supposed to let the soil dry a little. but hey, you had success and thats what matters. keep us posted and best of luck.

hey GG84, good to see you are still alive and kickin'. I figured you were still out there lurking, so no worries. And it turns out that all these questions I have, I tend to figure out as part of the learning process.

Things are going very well here. It's amazing to see the new growth everytime I check. Weekends are the hardest for me because I am so eager to see changes but when I am sitting here all day all I want to do is watch them. I find it's best to just let them do what they need to do.

So I have a couple questions, pertaining to pinching mostly:

Can someone explain the process of pinching verses FIMing? Or even a link to a noob thread would be great. I have attempted to research these on here and there is a lot of good information, but I am finding it difficult to find the EXACT process. At the moment I am debating using the pinching since I have limited vertical space and I am not a huge fan of over-stressing the ladies. I am pretty confident I am going to use LST to get a max of bud sites, something like a SCROG or SOG. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Alright, I'll snap some pics today and post them. Oh and I need someone to check out this freak I have ... I thought I drowned it, it came up like 10 days later and now it has this strange brown spot on the top and it looks like the leaves are trying to come out of the middle? It looks like it was almost "topped" at birth maybe? Take a look and tell me what you think.

Thanks, stay safe everyone.

:stoned: