8 small plants and 9 weeks to harvest?! Enough?

Hi all,

I started growing in my closet about 3 weeks ago and have 8 plants now that vary from about 4" - 9" tall. The tallest one is a sativa and the rest are all indica and have big leaves for their relatively young age. All came from bagseed. There are 3 plants that are 8-9".

I was laid off from my job yesterday and I am planning to move out on June 30th, in which case I will need to be done with this project. I will have all the time in the world M-F over the next two months to tend to these plants (traveling on the weekends.)

The plants are (obviously) still in vegetative state right now. I have read that flowering takes 8-12 weeks. Given this information, if I wanted to go ahead with flowering I would need to *force these young plants into 12/12 light on Monday in order to have 8 full weeks for flowering.*

I realize this is not optimal, but I already have invested the money in CFL lighting and Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil, vermiculite, perlite, and pots. Not to mention the time spent over the last month growing these babies.

So my questions are this:
1. Is there a strong possibility that by forcing these young plants into flowering at this stage that I will have ZERO yield in 9 weeks?
2. If my plants do bud, but are not fully matured will harvesting this bud early make it useless or will it still be smokeable? (Remember I recognize this is nowhere near optimal)
3.Is there anything I can do in flowering to speed up the process?

Your answer to these questions and/or any additional advice is much appreciated! Thank you!

By no means am I am expert! but from my understanding and reading here on this great forum, I will attempt to answer and will not feel bad if I am corrected :thumbsup:

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1. Is there a strong possibility that by forcing these young plants into flowering at this stage that I will have ZERO yield in 9 weeks?

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No.. You should still yield some how much will depend, but they should still flower.

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2. If my plants do bud, but are not fully matured will harvesting this bud early make it useless or will it still be smokeable? (Remember I recognize this is nowhere near optimal)

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Harvesting early will affect the quality. The quality being affected will depend on how early. Maybe these strains mature quicker?

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3.Is there anything I can do in flowering to speed up the process?

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Maybe use a stronger light? Not sure on you space, but if you went with a 1000w HPS you should get bigger results, but not sure if it will speed it along.

Hope that helps some and I hope my intelligent ones speak up :rastasmoke:

it really depends on what you're a willing to sacrifice. If it is the yield then you could send them into flowering maybe in another week. If it is the maturation of the bud.. you could wait a little while to flower. You most likely will have to sacrifice somethig because of the time. The plants will strecth in the first stages of flowering so they will get a little bigger.

As far as I know flowering is just something that takes as long as it takes that strain to reach maturation. It's not a matter of speeding the growth up.. because they could grow faster.. but still not mature until that same amount of time. You can play around with veg. time alot more than you can flowering time.

If I were you I'd wait about another week to give them 8 weeks of flowering.. and if you don't have HPS lighting you might want to invest in it. That and some bloom boosters.

So it sounds like both of you are telling me there's a good chance of the plants making at least some usable buds in the next 9 weeks.

Sounds great to me. I think I'm going to transplant them into bigger pots today since I'm taking off for about 4 days and I figured the extra water in the soil should keep them.

Is there any particular soil you recommend before sending them into flowering? I have Fox Farms Ocean Forest, Vermiculite, Miracle Gro Perlite, and Miracle Gro Organic Potting Mix.

Currently all plants are in 3/4 FFOF 1/4 Vermiculite (with the exception of the "Big 3" mentioned above which were originally transplanted from cups of 3/4 MG Organic PM and 1/4 MG Perlite of which some remains.)

Also forgot to mention: I'm currently using only 3 CFL's (2 x 1600 Lumens above the plants, 1 x 4200 Lumen sitting amongst them.) I have 2 more 1600 Lumen bulbs purchased and will be investing in some more bowl-shaped clamp fixtures for the additional two lights above the plants.

I hear lots of people talking about the 2700 Lumen CFL's. Is there something more optimal about this type of bulb? I'm not going to invest in a HPS light. This is a "ghetto grow" CFL project. I'm in an apartment building and generating a lot of heat is the last thing I want to do.

Next week for flowering I will be purchasing a timer and a new fan (currently using a desk fan.) Space is limited so I was thinking of getting a typical flat box fan. Also looking into getting something for measuring pH.

I do not plan to grow again in the near or distant future, so please don't make suggestions for equipment costing more than $100. I need to be able to pick this stuff up at my local hydro shop or Home Depot for cheap. I realize there's a way of doing it right and a way of doing it wrong. I need to do what I can to get something in 9 weeks-- and if that's not possible I prefer to stop now.

So to summarize, I need to take my little plants into harvest in 9 weeks. I have $100 to spend. I don't plan on growing again. What should I do?


--PS How safe is it to post pics? Is there a safe method? I have 100's of pics already only 3 weeks in.

I'd start flowering now if I were you. It's going to take longer to flower with those cfl's compared to an HID.

Only thing you can do now is pack that closet with lights! 2700K is the color, in this case more red which is better for flowering. The 6500K are blue, better for veg. CFL growers usually mix the two, but more 2700K when flowering.

Should be ok to post pics... just as long as there aren't any identifying marks, like your face etc...

Good luck :jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by jedubz

Also forgot to mention: I'm currently using only 3 CFL's (2 x 1600 Lumens above the plants, 1 x 4200 Lumen sitting amongst them.) I have 2 more 1600 Lumen bulbs purchased and will be investing in some more bowl-shaped clamp fixtures for the additional two lights above the plants.

I hear lots of people talking about the 2700 Lumen CFL's. Is there something more optimal about this type of bulb? I'm not going to invest in a HPS light. This is a "ghetto grow" CFL project. I'm in an apartment building and generating a lot of heat is the last thing I want to do.

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My biggest suggestion is to invest in more CFLs. I am curious, about your 4200 lumen CFL... do you have a link to the bulb info?

Also, about the 2700 lumen thing, i suspect like bigtopsfinn already said, you probably have the lumen count mixed up with the colour temperature (which is measured in Kelvins which is why there is always "K" at the end). you can read about it here if you are interested - Color temperature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but.... you could also be referring to 43watt (150watt equivalent bulbs) which do emit around that number of lumens... i believe my 43watt's are 2600 lumens. Lumens btw, are basically a mesaurement of the amount of actual light that comes out of a bulb, the wattage of a bulb really doesn't mean a thing at all... but generally, all 23watt bulbs emit around the same number of lumens (i've seen 1600 and 1700 lumen output on them)... the wattage is just the amount of power the bulb consumes, while the lumens is the amount of light output it gives.... so you want bulbs that give you the highest lumen output for the lowest wattage input, this is basically a measure of the bulbs effeciency... bulbs only emit 2 things... light, and heat. heat is undesirable (most of the time) as it is essentially wasted electricity, especially if you are growing during warm season and then have to crank your AC up higher which will consume even more energy to compansant for the heat output of the bulbs.

There are 2 common colour temps for CFL lights, 2700K which is commonly referred to as "soft white", and 6500K which is referred to as "cool white". There are some others on the market as well that tend to exist somewhere between those 2 numbers, and you can;t really trust that just because it says "cool white" that it is 6500K... i have 2 bulbs that said "cool white" on them, and when i took a closure look at the packaging once I was home discovered they were 5100K... which is ok, and I use them anyways as I kinda assume a little bit of a mix can;t be a bad thing.

Anyhow... the 6500K CFLs emit a light spectrum that plants make the most of during the vegging stage, while 2700K CFLs are better for the flowering stage - just like the plants like nutes that are higher in nitrogen during the vegging stage and more phosphorus during the flowering stage, they also prefer different light spectrums... its kind of a min/maxing technique

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So to summarize, I need to take my little plants into harvest in 9 weeks. I have $100 to spend. I don't plan on growing again. What should I do?


--PS How safe is it to post pics? Is there a safe method? I have 100's of pics already only 3 weeks in.

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for $100, i'd really say you want to max your lights, perhaps you might want to get some nutes that are rich in phosphorous and potasium (still want some nitrogen too, but its not as important for the flowering stage)... since you are not planning to do this again anytime soon... don;t invest in anything super fancy and specialized... that is the GREAT thing about CFLs imo, when you are done using them for a grow, you can use them around your house as regularly lighting without people wondering why you have all these specialized bulbs around the house.

as for pics - yes, it is safe to post them here, you can either upload them to the forums themselves, or you can post them to some place like imageshack and then link them here... personally, i think uploading them to the forum is way better.


ugh... sorry for the kinda long winded post, but it just seemed like some info that might be helpful for you.

Thanks so much for the advice guys! And don't worry if it's long Syde00, I read every word carefully!

So here are some pics to give you guys an idea of whether or not this is worth it. I have 3 plants in "large" containers, 3 plants in "medium" pots that I figure could be upgraded.

I switched the lights off for 12 hours last night-- so like it or not there's no turning back now.

Here are some pics and pics of the lights I'm dealing with. I realized my "big" light is a 300w equiv 2700k 4200 lumen bulb, and I'm guessing I should pick more of these up from the hardware store but I want to find out if my other lights are also 2700k. They don't say soft white or warm white anywhere on the box nor does it mention the color spectrum... Maybe someone familiar with the brand can clue me in?

Yea I would definitely go ahead and start flowering. Based on the size of your plants now youlll get a pretty decent yield. See if you can get some bloom boosters also.. if you don't already have nutrients. They aren't too expensive either. I read that you have FF Ocean Forest Soil. Did you raise them in their from seedlings? That soil already has nutrients in it.. I'm just not sure how long it's supposed to last.

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Originally Posted by jedubz

Thanks so much for the advice guys! And don't worry if it's long Syde00, I read every word carefully!

So here are some pics to give you guys an idea of whether or not this is worth it. I have 3 plants in "large" containers, 3 plants in "medium" pots that I figure could be upgraded.

I switched the lights off for 12 hours last night-- so like it or not there's no turning back now.

Here are some pics and pics of the lights I'm dealing with. I realized my "big" light is a 300w equiv 2700k 4200 lumen bulb, and I'm guessing I should pick more of these up from the hardware store but I want to find out if my other lights are also 2700k. They don't say soft white or warm white anywhere on the box nor does it mention the color spectrum... Maybe someone familiar with the brand can clue me in?

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You don't have near enought lights, and figure 8 weeks in veg (or when the nodes start alternating, then put into flower. Expect a minimum of 8 weeks in flower and the plants will more that double in size while in flower.

What you have is way too young to even consider putting in flower, they're not even close to ready.

crap... I just saw the original post date on this.... NM

Good news everyone-- at least one of the plants is a female! I can see hairs already. Unfortunately over the weekend while I was gone she grew up into the light and burned her top so I had to do some trimming :( Pics coming soon...

I am about to purchase new lights but I really want to know if anyone knows if the 100 watt equivalent lights I showed a pic of (Feit Electric Conserv-Energy CFLs, 23w, 1600 lumen output) are 2700k! The box does not say the color spectrum and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this bulb!

Just wanted to update you all with a couple pics

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Originally Posted by jedubz

I am about to purchase new lights but I really want to know if anyone knows if the 100 watt equivalent lights I showed a pic of (Feit Electric Conserv-Energy CFLs, 23w, 1600 lumen output) are 2700k! The box does not say the color spectrum and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this bulb!

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Those bulbs are the 2700k type -just what you need for your flowering. Feit electric doesn't have any 6500k mini spirals. There is a model number on the ballast. You could look it up i.e. ESL23TM*** etc