Not my first grow but first grow log!

[Pedro de Pacas]

Okay, pics of the changes I did yesterday: fan (the one blowing on the plants not the exhaust) on the floor rather than wall-mounted, HPS light raised a few more inches.

I also threw in a few pics of the colas from the top!:hippy:

[bigsmoke07]

your setup is sick. i love it. im workin with a box that 4 feet long 2 feet high and about a foot and a half deep. then i got to pc fans for intake and one 80mm pc fan for exaust then im runnin 6 23 watt cfls. help plz any suggestions?

[LuciferN]

Here's how they look after their haircuts, and a closeup of the pollinated bud...are them seeds I'm seeing?

Yes this is the place where the seeds will grow.
Great job with the grow, the plants look really good, the buds are awesome and you are just at day 26! You should have a great harvest.

[Pedro de Pacas]

Yes this is the place where the seeds will grow.
Great job with the grow, the plants look really good, the buds are awesome and you are just at day 26! You should have a great harvest.

Thanks! Again me learning and changing things as I'm going along, keeping what works and dropping what doesn't. I can't wait to add that pure red SMT Led bulb to the mix and see if it does have an impact! :hippy:

Like I've been told once: the devil's in the details, and with a bit of digging; it's possible to have a decent personal grow on a limited budget.

your setup is sick. i love it. im workin with a box that 4 feet long 2 feet high and about a foot and a half deep. then i got to pc fans for intake and one 80mm pc fan for exaust then im runnin 6 23 watt cfls. help plz any suggestions?

Okay...in my meager experience here are my suggestions:

• Lookup the LST - Topping and Fimming posts on this site - my first grow had limited height; I controlled the canopy height low by gradually bending the branches and keeping them low with pieces of string (my version of LST)
• Carefully monitor the cabinet temperatures, extremes in the too cold or too hot aren't good for the plants
• Be careful not to overwater or overfeed - I lost a raspberry bush (actual raspberries ) to root rot because of over watering (a soil moisture meter helps); and nute burn can harm the plants too if you overfeed.
• Try the "hand test" to be sure the lights aren't too close to the plants
• Lookup the article on fans (I posted the link earlier in this log) to calculate proper air exchange in your cab...

Hope this helps! :hippy:

[bigsmoke07]

yea it helps tremendously i just picked up some nutes from my local plant place. its called green light all purpose 20-20-20 plant food which the guy said works well for any plant. so basically with the LST method you are basically controlling the height. and is using all cfls gonna give me an alright yeild? sorry for asking so many questions. but yea my box seems to stay really cool and the lights are about 3-4 inches away from the plant. they are looking really good. i have em in the big QT cups its like a 54oz cup. which is pretty big. and my plants are about 2 weeks in when should i start flowering.
and thnx for your help man.

[Pedro de Pacas]

yea it helps tremendously i just picked up some nutes from my local plant place. its called green light all purpose 20-20-20 plant food which the guy said works well for any plant. so basically with the LST method you are basically controlling the height. and is using all cfls gonna give me an alright yeild? sorry for asking so many questions. but yea my box seems to stay really cool and the lights are about 3-4 inches away from the plant. they are looking really good. i have em in the big QT cups its like a 54oz cup. which is pretty big. and my plants are about 2 weeks in when should i start flowering.
and thnx for your help man.

Yield depends on many factors: light intensity, watering/feeding schedule, air circulation (we wouldn't last very long in close quarters without proper ventilation right? ) cabinet temperatures, plant genetics... :hippy:

I got bud on my first grow (2 KC Brains Mango under 2 warm white 45 watter CFL's), the "high" was decent; but was the yield and bud size comparable to what I would have gotten with a 150 watt HPS? Probably not.

I tried growing on my balcony even...23 floors up, no chance of the neighbours seeing leaf shape...lost 2 Mango's there: too much wind, not enough sun (nothern exposure) so as you can see I made plenty of mistakes.

There was a Low Ryder grow between the balcony grow and the first Home Depot wardrobe grow...never reuse soil that spent the summer outdoors...spider mites! :jawdropper: Ever seen cobweb covered bud? :wtf:

Later, I got passable yield using a 125 watt high powered CFL (the first Wardrobe grow - leftover Mango seeds and KC 36 seeds), hoping that the one CFL could handle vegging and flowering...big mistake! While it is very powerful, the lumen output was far from sufficient, and ventilation in the wardrobe at that point was mediocre at best.

Did I get bud? Absolutely. Did it look as good or as big as my current grow? Nowhere even close!

All of this to say that you will get bud. If you're careful you might even get better looking, more potent buds than I did, it's a learning process you see. :hippy:

A few more tips though: Cool white works better for vegging (which you probably already know) and warm white (soft white) works better for flowering. Before you initiate 12/12 you might want to make sure you have warm white CFL's in there and that your babies are LST'd (or LST as you go along, be gentle while bending!)as they can litterally double in height once blooming has started!

As far as when to initiate 12/12, well...

Some growers believe in vegging 24/0 (or 18/6) until the plants are 12" tall before initiating flowering, others like to wait uintil the plants show signs of sex; others prefer to go 12/12 from seed and still get wonderful results, so when to start flowering is strictly up to you.

For my next grow, what I might do is sprout the seeds using my usual method (soak the seeds 8 -12 hours in warm, sterile water in a warm, dark place), plant the seedlings in styrofoam cups under 24/0 cool white CFL; once the seedlings are a few inches tall, transplant in bigger pots and go 12/12 right away; when growing stealth, time is always an issue, which makes initiating 12/12 as early as possible attarctive indeed IMO...

[bigsmoke07]

yea i found a great deal for a 250watt hps kit which is gonna run me bout 160 which aint bad. but like you said i will get bud but just not as good as it could be. but yea im runnin 6 26watt cfls and its puttin out like close to 9grand of lumens a peicelol. but until i get my hps my trutsy ol cfls will have to do.
but on the flowering my biggest plant is close to 4inches could i start flowering like next week if i wanted and still get a good size plant and a decent yeild? so you said the yeild quantity is decent.
when would be the best time to tell the sex of the plants.

[painretreat]

Pedro: I saw a picture of 'cobweb' buds! Looked like coyote shit to me! Who could touch it! ICK!

I continue to enjoy your grow and engenuity! Nice log! Keep it up!:thumbsup: pr

[Pedro de Pacas]

but on the flowering my biggest plant is close to 4inches could i start flowering like next week if i wanted and still get a good size plant and a decent yeild? so you said the yeild quantity is decent.
when would be the best time to tell the sex of the plants.

Quoth bickeybammer:

its never to early to flip the lights... i have 4 purple erkles that are 12/12 from seed and all 4 came out female..... i have a purple voodoo and g13/hashplant and 12/12 from seed that came out females.... but the only plants (besides my clones) that i didnt 12/12 from seed came out to be 1 female and 13 males ... BAH .... o well

If you veg the "traditional way" sexing can take 6-8 weeks. Inducing flowering forces them to show sex earlier.

Pedro: I saw a picture of 'cobweb' buds! Looked like coyote shit to me! Who could touch it! ICK!

I continue to enjoy your grow and engenuity! Nice log! Keep it up! pr

Thanks painretreat, it's been a long learning experience! :hippy:

[bigsmoke07]

so you think that 250watt hps would do good