Wilting at Week 6 of flowering

[NeverEnough]

420NLGuy i know you said your using 26 watt cfl. How many do you have for the 2 plants?

you really should have at least 6000 lumens for one plant

[headshake]

420NLguy, the plants didn't look bad before actually. you still need more light though. a lot more light! they are very spindly and thin. this is a prime indication that they aren't getting enough light. what happens is the plants cells grow faster when looking for the light. phototropism is when the plants grow towards the light. the cells in the shade grow faster causing the plant to bend towards the light source. this is basically what your plants are doing, but constantly all over.

any buds they made that were worthwhile would cause the tops to be too heavy and they would fall over.

no one is knocking your for trying to gain experience. it's just that there is a minimum recipie for success so to speak. if people weren't telling you how to improve your grow or offer advice then they would be doing you a disservice. not to mention there would be no need for the forums. sure sometimes (our) tact isn't perfect, but if you let that get under your skin then you should just go ahead and uplugg that ethernet cable in the back of your computer now!!! think about it, we get the same flipping questions hundreds of times a week. people don't introduce themselves, don't get aquainted with the rules, learn where to post or whatnot. they just want to rape the forums for answers and then burn off. kinda like veruca salt, you know from the willy wonka/charlie and the chocolate factory movies? "i want it and i want it now!" shit get's old. then you give advice and people want to debate you or talk trash to you from behind a keyboard. so, be like a duck be calm above the surface, but paddling like hell underneath and let the water roll off your back!

peace!


-shake

[Rusty Trichome]

Why are you growing in mud? Cannabis doesn't grow in swamps for a reason........-C

To ForgetClassC: What do you expect to get from being so sarcastic? Respect? Thanks?

Actually, ForgetClassC was giving you another big clue to your problems. That crap you use is a top dressing, not a potting soil. Do you at least have perlite and lime (or some other ph buffer) in the mix, or are you just suffocating the roots and not worried about ph?

If your location limits your access to potting soil, I'd recommend you google the remedy (necessary ammendments to make it a potted-plant friendly medium) online, or see if you can access the individual components of potting soil, and mix your own.

Top dressings, most composts, worm castings...are all unacceptable as stand-alone mediums. They all hold water and make a muddy mess that suffocates roots, causes root rot, blocks nutrient uptake, and stunts all growth. (at the very least)

[420NLGuy]

NeverEnough: During veg, I used one 24W CFL per plant. Each bulb is rated as 1560 lumens at 6500K. To get 3000 lumens/sq. ft, I calculated the distance to be about 2.5". Every forum I found had recommended to use about 30,000 lumens/sq. meter (which is 3000 lumens/sq. ft).

I used one 26W CFL per plant in flowering. Each bulb is rated at 1650 lumens at 5000K. So that also calculates to about 2.5" distance to get 3000 lumens/sq. ft. When the plants got tall enough, I used 2 bulbs/plant, giving them 6000 lumens/sq. ft.

But you say it should be 6000 lumens all the way? That is much more than others have recommended. Can you point me to a source on this?

headshake: The reason they look like they are bending towards the light source is because I used LST.

Rusty Trichome: Yes, I am very limited in what I can get. I am in Panama. I can't find Perlite, limestone, Fox Farms, or anything like that. The stores carry only MG stuff (soil, nutes). But I'll do some research to try to find amendments to make better potted soil.

But I really suspect that my problem was not repotting to a larger pot soon enough. The 1st plant I repotted 2 weeks ago came back to life. The other one died because I repotted it way too late (1 week ago).

[headshake]

if you want proof that you need more light just read through some other CFL grow logs and compare plants, results etc.

here is some pictures of the ladies i have in flowering at the moment. can't remember how long i vegged em for exaclty. three weeks to a month i think. i also LST'd them. (and topped.) they were vegged under 6 x 23W, 1700 lumen, 6500K CFLs.

they'll be flowerd under 16 x 23W, 1700 lumen, 2700K CFLs. if you are still around i will share the results.

i'm not quite sure how you calculate a 1500 lumen bulb at 2" away doubles the lumens. i'm also not sure which forums you've been browsing where people tell you to use this method or that one CFL for veg and two for flower are sufficient. stick around here long enough and you might just learn something.


-shake

[420NLGuy]

<> ... they were vegged under 6 x 23W, 1700 lumen, 6500K CFLs. they'll be flowerd under 16 x 23W, 1700 lumen, 2700K CFLs. if you are still around i will share the results. >>

What distance do you use from bulbs to plants?

<<i'm not quite sure how you calculate a 1500 lumen bulb at 2" away doubles the lumens. i'm also not sure which forums you've been browsing where people tell you to use this method or that one CFL for veg and two for flower are sufficient. stick around here long enough and you might just learn something.>>

The light intensity is a function of the square of the distance, just like gravity. So if you cut the distance by 2, you increase the intensity by 4 (2 squared).

Because this forum's text attributes don't provide for subscript and superscript characters, I can't show the formula that expresses lumens/sq. ft. with distance using just text. So I have to show it as a graphic:

[attachment=o226671]

So if you want 2800 lumens/sq. ft from a 1560 lumen bulb, it needs to be 2.6" from plant.

Note that 30,000 lumens/sq. meter converts to 2800 lumens/sq. ft. Also note that the lumen rating on all bulbs assumes a distance of 12" from object.

[bractdoctor]

Not meaning to sound snippy my brother! I want everyone to succeed in every grow as I tell my students daily.... read all that you can.

You cannot get more lumens from a bulb than it is rated. That is a mistake. Most peeps I know who are using cflo's to run have switched to the largest they could find, and then, they use 4 of them for two plants. For a NL to stretch like that, being a mostly indica dominant plant it is telling you that there is no where near enough lumens there for it to flourish. Have you thought about buying one or two of the outdoor flood lights in HPS or MH? They come in 70 and 100 watts, and if you build a simple cabinet, you can successfully have enough lumens to run a successful, small show. One cabinet built by one of my students is 32" square x 46" tall, and has a 100 watt MH up top, and two of the 70 watt hps 's opposite another. This keeps the lumens above reccomended, and keeps the internodes tight. Again, sorry if I sounded "snippy", I am an old organic mechanic who has been doing this and teaching for many years now. I sometimes come across as an old coot!



Good luck! BDrx

[bractdoctor]

Hey, try a couple of other websites for more help. UDG or unleashdagreen, and ICMag. Good luck!

[ForgetClassC]

NeverEnough: During veg, I used one 24W CFL per plant. Each bulb is rated as 1560 lumens at 6500K. To get 3000 lumens/sq. ft, I calculated the distance to be about 2.5". Every forum I found had recommended to use about 30,000 lumens/sq. meter (which is 3000 lumens/sq. ft).

I used one 26W CFL per plant in flowering. Each bulb is rated at 1650 lumens at 5000K. So that also calculates to about 2.5" distance to get 3000 lumens/sq. ft. When the plants got tall enough, I used 2 bulbs/plant, giving them 6000 lumens/sq. ft.

The bold parts are where I have no idea where you get any of the calculations or distance equations. Light dissipates the farther you are from the source, whats this multiplication of foot candles 100% per inch?

Give me a source, and I'll still probably say that it's wrong, but I'm just ponderous of where you got those numbers......


-C

[420NLGuy]

... You cannot get more lumens from a bulb than it is rated. That is a mistake.
BDrx

I'm sorry we will have to disagree on that one. The lumen rating for all bulbs are measured by measuring the light intensity at a distance of 12". You can Google that. I did.

Light also obeys the same inverse-square law that gravity and sound wave intensity follows. If you move a bulb closer to an object, it gets more light (measured by lumens per sq. ft.).

Note the difference between "lumens" [the bulb's output at 12"] and "lumens per sq. ft." [the amount of light hitting an object at x distance away]. It's the Illuminance (amount of light per unit area) that counts, which is related to the lumen rating of a bulb and distance it is from an object.

If you move a bulb closer, the light gets more intense. Try this:
Foot-candle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To quote one piece from that link: "A source that is farther away casts less illumination than one that is close, so one lux is less illuminance than one footcandle. Since illuminance follows the inverse-square law ... <snip>"

Although you are correct in saying you cannot get more lumens from a bulb than it is rated for, I did not say you could. I said you can get more lumens/sq. ft. by moving the bulb closer.

Illuminance is what we used to call "brightness." It is a measure of lumens/sq. meter (also related to "lux" and "foot-candles" and "candellas").

Here is a link that explains illuminance: Luminance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PS: I have checked out many many sites already. Want an example? Go here:
lumens per sq ft./please halp!!! - Grasscity.com Forums