Noob's First Grow - Advice Needed

[bigsby]

Yo Dog,

You might want to check out this tutorial / FAQ on soil mediums?

bigsby Reviewed by bigsby on 04-29-2010. Noob's First Grow - Advice Needed Hey all, I've been around the forums for about a month now with research and such, but I finally registered because I figured I may as well share my plan and request advice to get it exact. Like I said, most of this plan is based solely upon research. I'm currently experimenting with some reg seeds to get the feel of it, but that's using a small aeroponics system. Now before I start, this is a system that will probably require some money to build, but from what I can put together, Rating: 5

[TreetopFarmer]

Oh okay, those dimensions sound a whole lot better.

And wow, dogfood's got quite the nice setup...and THAT'S what they call scrogging...got it. I might actually look into that for the shorter tent. Although, I'm only condensing a 3.5' average heightened plant, so pruning it should chop it down to 2.5' shouldn't be anything (especially if I can take a 7' monster down to a 4' mid-size through pruning). I dunno, I may end up not wanting to mess with that screen...though I would like to try it at some point which is making me want to go find an old cabinet pretty badly.

By the way, a big thanks for the link to the soil growing FAQ (essentially). It's actually a very good reference for those nit-picky questions I like to ask :P.

Average height of a NL strain is about 3'-3.5' with a yield of 2.5oz.-3oz. (found these numbers based upon 4 different grow logs and on 3 different websites...seems fairly accurate since all 4 grows fell within that range, but obviously it depends on how well you grow). Which means you are correct in saying that I'll probably have to go to 4' to get anything as big as 3oz. off of each plant, but hey...I got the room to do it so why not? I don't think I'll have to go as tall as 5' but whatever happens happens; if they end up growing that tall I'll probably prune them a little bit to get it back down around 4.5'.

Okay, so tell me if my thinking is faulty. In the first tent, I'm going for one t5 8-bulb fixture with 6500K lights + two 90w LED GrowUFOs to support 6-8 plants (depends on what I can fit in there). In the second tent, I'm going for a 600w HPS + two 90w LED GrowUFOs to support 10 plants.

Also, speaking of floro, are people using 3000K for the flowering or what?...if so that's a hell of a lot more lighting that I need..

[bigsby]

I'm not sure of this but my understanding it that pruning in general is not desirable as it removes bud sites. This is especially true once you move into flower.

You want to get some feedback on those LEDs. Once you've identified the ones you intend to buy post the specs up here with a link so that someone more knowledgeable than I can comment.

[khyberkitsune]

Just remember that you need blue for bulk production. The typical UFOs with the poor ratio of blue light versus red (usually 10% blue vs 90% red) will woefully underperform. Find panels with at least 20% blue for both veg and flowering rooms.

[TreetopFarmer]

I'm not sure of this but my understanding it that pruning in general is not desirable as it removes bud sites. This is especially true once you move into flower.

You want to get some feedback on those LEDs. Once you've identified the ones you intend to buy post the specs up here with a link so that someone more knowledgeable than I can comment.

Well pruning causes density. Now I'm not 100% on this, but this is what I've understood about pruning (again, if it's wrong, someone let me know and post the correct information):

What you're essentially doing is forcing the plant to grow nodes that will turn into two branches of leaves (which as you know, is where the budsites base at) plus the mainstem that will continue to sprout. Thus, you do this every few inches and slowly decrease the inch amount as it grows taller so it condenses slowly to the top (basically you're forcing the bud sites to be smaller, but closer together = more of them). So what you do is let the lower half of the plant fully expand, and prune for the top half of the plant to condense it to fit into a tighter area (which a 3'-3.5' squeezed to a 2.5' shouldn't be too bad, so I would have to grow the plants about 1'10"-2' and then prune for the rest of the veg cycle which will hopefully land me at about 2.5').

Also you can trim leaves leaving only a little bit of the leaf left on the branch (yeah...figure that statement out), and two more branches will branch out from the base of that leave's branch (I know this works because I've done it on the three small plants I have going now and that's exactly what happened). Basically what you're doing with this is (likewise trimming the mainstem) forcing nutrients to the site so that it forces growth.

And as far as LEDs go, thank the gods of weed for khyberkitsune.

Just remember that you need blue for bulk production. The typical UFOs with the poor ratio of blue light versus red (usually 10% blue vs 90% red) will woefully underperform. Find panels with at least 20% blue for both veg and flowering rooms.

I was actually thinking about that...so if I'm going for at least 20% blue, should I go with the 7red:2blue ratio one? Because I do believe they sell them in that ratio. And will two of those UFO's (90w) be able to cover 10 plants or will I need larger ones? I think I saw someone who said that they grew 5 with a UFO beautifully, so I just went off of that.

[bigsby]

Oh yeah, you are right about that. Fimming, topping, and LSTing are techniques that promote smaller, denser growing plants. It forces the plant to focus energy in the remainder of the plant. I believe they are all forms of super-cropping. (What do you do? Who me? I'm a super cropper! They call me super cropper man.)

I'm not sure that you fim or top more than once although I guess it could be done multiple times during veg. I really don't know the answer to that. You would not want to be doing any seriously trim work during flower except to remove fan leaves, lower and / or dying leaves, and lower stems that do not get enough light to produce.

[khyberkitsune]

In reality, you do not want just a dual-band light for vegetative growth unless you're dealing with very basic plants. Cannabis is more complex so at least tri-band is necessary for decent results. Two for ten plants would be fine. I had a tomato, five peppers, two cannabis mothers, and a strawberry under a single 90w UFO - the tomato and peppers got so large so fast they started crowding out everything else and had to be moved out of the closet and outdoors (needed the hydro bucket for other experiments.)

[TreetopFarmer]

You would not want to be doing any seriously trim work during flower except to remove fan leaves, lower and / or dying leaves, and lower stems that do not get enough light to produce.

Oh yeah, I was saying everything under the assumption that I would be doing all pruning/fimming only during the veg stage...no mistake there.

In reality, you do not want just a dual-band light for vegetative growth unless you're dealing with very basic plants. Cannabis is more complex so at least tri-band is necessary for decent results. Two for ten plants would be fine. I had a tomato, five peppers, two cannabis mothers, and a strawberry under a single 90w UFO - the tomato and peppers got so large so fast they started crowding out everything else and had to be moved out of the closet and outdoors (needed the hydro bucket for other experiments.)

Whoa wait, so do you think 1 would support 10 plants? Or maybe only 1 + a smaller 28w? 10 plants will be the max going into that area, and the other area holds 8 max. What would be the cheapest route to properly light each area? 1x90w=3x28w=6x14w. Thanks a lot gentlemen.

[khyberkitsune]

Oh yeah, I was saying everything under the assumption that I would be doing all pruning/fimming only during the veg stage...no mistake there.

If someone can confirm my prior post about the ratio of the LED lighting, then all I have to worry about is pulling the money together...and watch over the small ones I have now I guess.

Stra8outtaweed has panels similar to mine spectrum/ratio-wise and most nobody else has such a balance that either one of us can see.

[TreetopFarmer]

Sorry khyber, I edited that and reposted something more specific once I saw your post above mine. Take a look at it and tell me what you think.

Also, if you've found a good spectrum/ratio...what specs do you use?