Noob's First Grow - Advice Needed

[TreetopFarmer]

i just read about 1 paragraph of this and I saw that you were planning on growing lowryder, and lowryder in 3 gallon pots. Hold the grow!!!!! First off throw those lowryders away, there pieces of shit. I just got finished on one of my lowryder seeds a friend gave me and I was so disappointed!!! With 1 plant under 400 watt hps in 1 gallon pot with co2!!! I only got .6 grams and the bud was the size of a bic lighter. I know others will scoff and say i did something wrong, since ive never grown an auto flower, but i do very very well on my real grows. I used Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur with them 2. Good Luck...and get different seeds

Thanks for the advise and the best wishes, but I'm going to at least try one batch for myself, because I saw another documented account both on this site and another site of a guy that did 6 LR t1's and he got 90g out of each plant he grew and they grew to a full height (and he only used a 400w MH/HPS switchable). Also, did you germ straight from the 1gal pot? If so that may be part of the reason why your plant grew small is because you didn't repot up from a very small container. Another reason is possibly the full time HPS could've prevented a lot of the veg growth, hence the small plant you got (which is actually good to know that you did the full HPS system and got that result because that's what I was planning on doing. This other guy switched between them and got huge results, so this might change my plan down to a 400w switchable with more supplemental lighting...or I might even switch it to a full HID system).

Not saying that you screwed up and that you can't grow good stuff, but like you said, you've never grown autoflower before and you only used one spectrum the entire time you were growing. Although I've only done research and have not yet tried this yet (thus why I can't say anything), it seems like if I give it the right light during the right stages along with nuts, it should grow beautifully.

Another thing is that even on their site, they say that the LR's are VERY light and nut dependent, which could mean that not switching between an MH and an HPS could make the entire difference on how large the plant grows (assuming nuts are correct).

If anyone has had ANY experience with LR type 1's or LR's in general, please post your advise. I plan on working with this strain for years to come, so basically after a few grows I'll have a very thorough guide put together on how to properly treat autoflowers in general and specifically the LR type 1's, which I will of course share with the site.

By the way: Stra8,

How many and what kind of LED lights would I be looking at getting if I'm trying to grow 8 plants in that second tent? If you can URL me to a site that has them and just tell me where to look through and what I'm looking for I'll be able to figure it out, and that would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks again.

[bigsby]

I hear you with the muffler - get it? ha ha... I have it there as an option that I'll add only if needed.

You should consider the clone box. Dead simple. You keep a few mothers on tap in your veg room and you're good to go or you take cuttings from your flowering plant early in flower and just keep a continuous grow going.

Also, is there any reason for the panda film tent? Why not just drop the $$ on a few real tents and be done with it?

[TreetopFarmer]

I hear you with the muffler - get it? ha ha... I have it there as an option that I'll add only if needed.

You should consider the clone box. Dead simple. You keep a few mothers on tap in your veg room and you're good to go or you take cuttings from your flowering plant early in flower and just keep a continuous grow going.

Also, is there any reason for the panda film tent? Why not just drop the $$ on a few real tents and be done with it?

Oh man, that was a horrible joke, but yeah I saw that.

I would do a clone box except for I'm doing LR type 1's, which are autoflowering, which can't really be cloned (unless someone has some factual info stating otherwise...if that's the case, when am I able to do it?). BUT, I can keep a male and a female in a separate area and keep pumping out seeds (potentially see if I can feminize them). But yes, if cloning with autoflowering is possible, PLEASE TELL/DIRECT ME TO HOW TO DO IT!!

The reason for the panda tent is that I'm not exactly growing in areas where a tent would fit...I won't go into detail with it, but trust me, it was just as easy to drop a tent down and use what was already there as it would be to buy a tent...I just saved some money and put a little more DIY into it (plus even if I wanted a huge 6' tent, the ones I looked at were like $500+ as compared to what it cost me to put my tents up...a whopping $40 total).


Now, as far as lighting goes, I looked into it some more (it's like I haven't been doing anything else the whole day...oh wait...) and it seems as if LED's aren't quite up to par in the flowering stage as compared to the HID's (specifically HPS for me). Though, they are apparently STUPENDOUS during veg growth. I'm thinking about getting some LED's in both tents for veg growth and supplemental lighting (during flowering), and I'll keep the main lighting plans I had (t5's in one, HPS in the other) in each tent minus the old lights I was going to use as supplemental light (which actually keeps my equipment cost about the same, but HEAVILY decreases the cost since you're using maybe 400w total as far as lights go for about a month).

I also looked more into LR type 1's. I was wrong about the 95g/plant output for that one guy's grow (touchè, anbesol...touchè), it was 95g for the whole harvest and he had 6 plants = almost 16g per plant. Thus, I might stick with the LR's in Tent 1 (for space reasons) and go with something else in Tent 2 (since I have 6.5' in that tent...may as well use it on some good 3'-4' tall plants). Unless someone else knows of another strain that stays relatively compact (or that I could prune to be about 2.5' tall...remember, I only have a 3' tall area in that tent) yet the yields are fairly well. I would actually prefer other options for the kind of yields I'm looking for (if they're even possible :P).

I'd like to look into something like white widow, a large sativa that I could prune down, or something of either sorts. I would LOVE suggestions on what I should try, but remember my tent sizes: 2.5'(w)x6.5'(L)x7'(h) and 3.5'(w)x4.5'(L)x3'(h), and I want the life cycles on each plant to be no longer than 3 months (germ-harvest, not including drying/curing). Also, I'm aiming for about a 70g-75g output per plant to supply me and my two buddies. What strains have you guys had experience with that grew to these expectations and could potentially fit in the areas I have?

With some modifications and some more money, I could potentially fit 8 plants in the first tent and 10 plants in the second tent. But to start out, it will probably be 4 and 6 until I can get the money.

OH YEAH!...I just remembered a question that I had a while back and could never find a straight answer to. So after the veg cycle, I know the plants will grow a little more during flowering, but the question is about how much more should I expect them to grow (again, just give me a general idea if I'm aiming to maximize my area, so final plant heights will be around 2-2.5' in the first tent and 4.5-5' in the second one)? Obviously, this is an important question for me since one of my tents is very short.

[bigsby]

I'm pretty sure you can find a tent to meet your needs for less than $500 but I'm not proponent of spending money that doesn't need spending.

Expect plants to stretch by at least 1/3 but it is strain dependent - Stavias stretch more than Indicas. But you know that. And of course you know that there are methods for growing tall strains in small spaces. Have you considered doing a scrog? It increases your time to yield by a few weeks but allows for taller varieties in smaller spaces and yields will be larger overall.

I believer you are right about not being able to clone auto-flowering plants. There are lots of other short, stubby strains you might consider. I'm looking for a good website that provides full details on different strain growing characteristics - like you see at some seed distributor sites but more complete. If anyone has one please post it here. I wonder if wikipedia could do that... let's look... seems not. Anyone?

Our setups will be very similar. I have a bit more space to work with. I'm looking to buy a tent that is 2'w x 4'x 6' tall. I'll divide it in two with a set of shelves. Up top I'll do my cloning and vegging and down below I'll keep some mothers. I don't need to do a continuous grow so I'll keep the mom's on tap. I thought about building the tent myself but I can afford the tent and I need the time for other activities. I'm planning to do 4 - 6 plants in a scrog setup. I'm going to use straight up florescent tubes for the tent. Nothing fancy.

[bigsby]

OK I found a couple sites that may be useful to you. I know I will make use of them:

Looks to be the better of the two:
KGB - Marijuana Strain Library

And this one:
Cannabis Strain Grow Reports - Review and Rate Marijuana Strains - MJ Guide

Also see their grow tutorial plucked from overgrow.com before it went down:
Cannabis Growing Tutorial - How to Grow Marijuana - MJ Guide

[TreetopFarmer]

Well the other thing is that I kinda already bought and hung the plastic, so why change it now, lol.

Thank you for the sites btw, very very helpful and much more descriptive. I'd like to do white widow (4' avg. height is sexy, and 3.25oz per plant on avg. is even sexier), but I'm just hoping my filters can handle the odor those will put out. Now the trick is to find a seed vendor out of Canada that sells them feminized.

I have heard of this thing called a "scrog", but I have not researched much of it. Honestly, if I'm planning on doing WW, I think I can get a 4' avg. plant pruned down to 2.5' (I hope) putting out slightly less yields. I'm gonna go for it and see what happens. That or Northern Lights #5...AGH!...I can't decide!

Good to hear on the similarities, so you're basically doing two 2'x2'x6' closets with clones going at the top and growing 2-3 plants per closet? I like that, nice and condensed...and because it's a tent that's going to be so easy to monitor. What are you thinking about growing? I have no clue what a scrog is, but I'm about to research it and find out so I actually have an idea of what you're doing...either way, best of luck with it. I'm glad I'm not the only one screwin around with floros.

[khyberkitsune]

I've grown lowryders and had no problems dropping an ounce per plant.

What the guy above got was bad genetics, plain and simple.

[TreetopFarmer]

I've grown lowryders and had no problems dropping an ounce per plant.

What the guy above got was bad genetics, plain and simple.

I can believe that. Either way, 1oz/plant isn't going to cut it for my needs, so I'm thinking about upping it to either NL and/or NL x Skunk.

[khyberkitsune]

I can believe that. Either way, 1oz/plant isn't going to cut it for my needs, so I'm thinking about upping it to either NL and/or NL x Skunk.

Skunk strains are bomb. I have Hindu Skunk and it's a good yielder and has excellent medical qualities.

[bigsby]

I have one good size area to work with - 6'W x 8'.5"L x 6'.5"H. In that space I'll put a tent 2' x 4' x 6' or something around those dimensions for veg and mothers.

SCROG - Screen of Green. It is a form of training. You place a screen over the plant then train the plant to grow under the screen. This forces the branches apart exposing underside bud sites and leaves to light. Light reaches more of the plant so all of your bud sites produce better yields. This guy has a very nice implementation. Note that his implementation is curved upward due to space issues. Traditionally the screen sits flat above the plant anywhere from 8 - 12 inches over the seedling. The higher up the screen, the longer you must veg it as the plant needs to reach the screen before you start flower, or rather, you aim for the plant to cover 60% - 70% of the screen before flower. Again, strain dependent. A stavia will require more room to stretch so you would not want to fill as much screen before flower.

3oz / plant seems a little on the high side unless you plant to grow them to 4 or 5 feet. I could be wrong and of course, strain has a lot to do with this calculation.