Ambitious first time gorilla grow.

Unfortunately i sold some drugs to a x friend who was working for the cops when i was 18. I did 2 then got out for 2 then went back again for another year. Needless to say i have had plenty of time to plan my first grow and i tell you i am very excited the time is finally here. Now I am out of trouble, off of all probationary status and i have my own place in the country!!!! A real good batch came around a few months back, probably some type of nuggs that got pollinated, but i saved like 40 seeds. I planted them in some soil from an old barn floor in styrophome cups in my closet and i made a make shift reflector with alium foil, cardboard and duct tape.I also lined the bottom half of the closet with foil also so with the light and make shift reflector lowered down it makes for a lil shinny room. Now I have 36 pretty lil babyies under 1 4' floresent ( two bulb) and 3 cfl's. Question #1 is that enough light and if so for how long (the babies range from 3/4''-2''at present)? I need to keep them in the closet till May. Question #2 is can i top the plants then clone the tops then induce flowering so i can weed out the males early? and can i do all that by may or does anyone know a time range it would take? I would like to not have to plant the males and waste time and energy on my gorilla grow. I have 4' by 2' plots (2 bedroom) on the side of a 35degree or so hill, its pretty steep. The hill runs parallel to a river that is about 100 yards away and their about 10-30' staggered up and down the hill from the flood plains. I call it Brier Hill no pun intended. I travel commando style through the rabbit highways up the hill from the flood plains though the brier bush so i dont leave any entrance ways to be spotted. Trust me you would have to really be prepared and have packed a big lunch to get to my plots. And thats after you applied waterboarding techniques to get the location out of of me. The brier/bush is about 7' tall so i cleared the low shit and tilled the dirt with a hoe for now. When every thing in the brier/bush fills in and greens and i plant my crop i will trim out above and around to get more light. The gradient of the hill is great for light cuz the 7foot of brier/bush in front of you is only a foot or so high because its down hill. So im gonna have great light, perfect cover, waters close but gonna be a bitch, enclosing plots with chicken wire to keep the bunny's off my goody's, The soil is great in the brier/bush but im going soon to get soil additives and im gonna dig out the plots mix ver/per and line the holes with plastic perforated then add a layer of stone then back with the soil mix. I have also placed logs down hill parallel with the hill at each plot to hopefully stop any erosion of the plot and hold back some water as it runs down hill so the soil can soak it up. I will get pics soon and i will keep posting throughout my grow. I enjoy sharing my experience as much as i enjoy reading all of you alls. Any ?'s just ask and any tips would be greatly appreciated, i am well read in the art of growing but this still is my virgin gorilla grow. Also can some one help me with my previous questions and this 3rd and last question. Is there any way to determine or sway the male/female ratio of my plants. Thanks oh and im a delusional pot head who drops LSD with rabbits in the bier/bush so dont believe a word i say.

Q1. it's enough till they're about 8 inches tall, which they should be in a few weeks. i suspect that you won't make it to May with what you have chief. although, if those cfls are high enough wattage...

Q2. why? you have 40, if half are female 20 is a fine crop for your first grow. don't get too bogged down and never get greedy... i'd suggest that you pack in some really, really Good soil and amendments to your plots and do some work there instead of cloning when you have plenty of seed. native soil can always be improved and your plants WILL thank you for it.

Q3. i've found some things that seem to give more fems but i won't call it scientific yet. it just works. i get about 9/10 female with my method. germ in 4" pots w/ pH around 6.9. 24/7 light. warm soil (68-72), cool air (less than 65 at all times). push to almost over water in 2nd week. you'll be able to identify the males by week 3 because once they recover from over water they get tall fast, leaving the fems behind.




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dude right now im doing the same thing as you. i havent started my outdoor crop yet but im gonna take one plant grow to about 6" induce flowering to sex then revert it back to veg. if this works out good i can sex them and only put out females. check out my grow journal. ps...give me rep points if you likes

Heres a few shots of my lil ones. About to move things to the attic so ill have some more room and less chance of outsider discovery. I created some more plots along brier hill. Got a few questions if someone wouldnt mind sharing there wisdom with me. Q # 1 i would like to know best and worst scenarios of how the plants will react to 12/12 lighting to induce flowering to pick out males then back to 24/7, i still have around 40 days before they are going outdoors and i would only do it if i can have them back to full health by transplant day. Q # 2 how long before i should move them out of foam cups and into smaller pots. Q # 3 is what do you think of planting in large plastic pots (10-20gal) with the bottoms cut out and placing them half way in the ground. half of the bucket that is. or should i bury them all the way? remember im on a steep hill side. Thanks for any help and will have some pis of brier hill and the plots soon.

Aluminum foil = hot spots. You don't want to burn your kids. Get that light as close as you can so they stop stretching. Do you have a small, oscillating fan? Get it on them so they start getting sturdy stalks. If you're going to be holding onto those until may, so 5 weeks minimum, you're going to need more lighting. May want to invest in a MH or an assload of CFLs. Good luck.

Yeah, i'd stay away from the foil

maybe mylar is a better option?

In Jorge Cevantes Outdoor growing book he talks about inducing flowering long enough to sex plants before resuming veg. growth but he also says it might cause the plants to flower earlier later in the fall. Flowering early might not be so bad but it might fuck with the over all quality too. He doesn't say.

Dont bother sexing them dude. Make it easy on yourself and just grow strong healthy plants. When they get big enough to handle being outside just plant all of them. let them all do their thing, and once they reveal their sex get the males outta there! if you plant a good number, then youll most likely get plenty of females. Use good soil and get them food and water regularly. Id recommend buying good potting soil at a local store and buying plant food. Put the work into taking care of them and keeping healthy and you should get a high yield of buds. Good Luck

Try some in raised soil culture rings-these bottomless rings (fnur fnur)stand on the (well) prepared soil and are filled with the soil mix of your choice-very helpful if things are rocky, and they hold moisture well

Yup your gonna need more light to make to spring, and get a fan [preferably oscillating] on them ASAP to strengthen up those stems. Wait to long and they will fall over.
Good Luck

force flowering and reverting back to veg is a iffy situation one they will herm on u for no reason at all 2 that takes so long to do for normal veg groth to happen again i suggest geting ur best plants cloning and force flowering a clone from each plant and see what sex is if its femal keep the plant male kill it and it father it came from id give em about 3 weeks in there then trans plant but other than that good luck man and dont plant in buckets out side cant stress that enough plants grow a hell of alot faster out doors so u dont want root bound and half to change a 10 gallon poted plant find a nice green grassy hill that normaly a good indactor thats it good sopil for pot plant just test the ph of it to see if it needs to be brought down hope it helped

Thanks for all the help from everyone. Im in the middle of making a new setup up to accommodate the growing young ones. Was wondering the accuracy of checking for preflowers to determine sex? Gonna increase number of cfl's and transplant into 2 gal bucket till final transplant on brier hill. The hill side im planting on is 7' brier/bush thicket so i figure soil is pretty good cuz it seems the briers and bushes are all growing to full capacity. I will be going to prep new plots before the weekend and will have pictures of the plots.

If your really interested in advice I'll try giving some first hand knowledge.
First let me congratulate you on your choice of briars. They are the only place I grew and generally the safest from THIEVES. During the winter you should find the thickest hard to access places for your spots and never carve a path in. In the summer and fall you can imagine just how hard these spots will be to find. Next forget the plastic, if the briars are alive all season your plants don't need to be watered. You can buy water retaining polymer crystals if you want to be extra overprotective. Just use them sparingly!!THEY SWELL UP WITH WATER 20-30Xs their original size. Rocks should be placed on the downhill side of your plots to prevent your precious soil from washing away. I would shape my plots like big smiles on the hillside. This makes them appear as shadows on the hill from the air and not big clusters. 2inch chicken wire works great but polymer deer fence is much lighter to carry in (available local or online under "deer fence" on google) The fence should be buried 6 inches deep along the bottom cuz the critters go UNDER the fence, also tie the fence back away from your circles so the critters don't climb over (woodchucks do)..The briars grow into the fence and hide it completely. Use 5 foot high fence so at least 4 foot is above ground (deer fence comes 10- 12 feet high, just cut in half) don't cut back prickers too far, you want them to be close. Multiple types of manures like cow, poultry, bat, horse should be used but make sure horse manure is years old cuz it has live seeds in fresher stuff. Then I used dried blood (keeps the deer away too), greensand, bone meal ( this too), kelp, dolomite lime and worm casting and even bags of commercial POTTING SOIL to have nutrients that broke down at different rates so I NEVER needed to fertilize all season or go back to the spots after planting. Not getting caught is the object , right??? Always dig down til you see the soil change color, which is where the topsoil ends, mix in all your goodies, bury your fence deep, tie it back and use heavy rot resistant cord to build a net over your plot with 1 1/2 foot squares in it as high as your fence. Every where the cords intersect you tie them to form a net type thing. It doesn't need to be pretty or even but you will use this to prevent any plant from falling over or branches from breaking off when you have giant buds on them. You also use the net to camo your plot with pricker branches while the dirt is showing and the plants are young. Stick them straight down into the dirt like they are growing and have the net keep them from falling over. The plants will grow the cut prickers wil die and you will have hidden plots.
When you have 40 seeds you should only plant 20, so you have backup if shit happens to the first batch. Cloning is great if you have the time and then as you said you can differentiate the males. Otherwise you can start plants at 12 hours of light which forces them the quickest to show male or female then jack up the hours to 24 for a week with some high nitrogen fertilizer (peters 30-10-10 works good) Then bring the hours down a little at a time to match the outdoors. I used this technique for 20 yrs with no problems, but people will squawk when they read this. Those cloning machines worked great for me and I could put 4-5 cuttings in each little circle instead of just one . This was the fastest most productive method of cloning I ever used when you get the water temp right. Hundreds of clones in 10 days guaranteed!!! Do NOT use tops, use lower softer branches, but you can pick the top early on to force lots of lower branches. I always used green 16oz beer cups with holes drilled in the bottom for clone flower pots, you can duct tape 4 together to prevent the cups from tipping over and they are a lot cheaper than real flower pots
A WORD TO THE WISE.....DO NOT LEAVE ANYTHING IN THE WOODS WHEN YOU LEAVE....NOTHING!!!!!! I've discovered more people growing by finding their little tidbits stashed or forgotten in the woods. Anything manmade will get people looking and you burnt or busted
Hope this helps, it is just my opinion, but you should try it.
GOOD LUCK and keep me posted as to your success

Another thing, when you clone there is no need to have giant containers. The 16oz cups work great for your hillside planting and they aren't heavy or bulky to transport. Use yor big containers for mother plants and don't break your back moving big plants in buckets. The little clones grow as big as older big plants by years end. There is no advantage to carrying big containers around and little clones are easy to hide in boxes in you car or truck. You can easily fit 40-50 plants in one box in beer cups tied together in 4 packs that don't fall over and break big stemmed plants while driving or walking on rough terrain. Just my opinion guys (and 20 yrs experience) Small is easy to hide and move, and 4 boxes is 160- 200 plants not 4 plants. You could always use small 12x12 boxes that hold 16 plants each. My first priority was not being noticed and it worked for 20 years til heart disease and Lyme disease made me retire
I wish someone would anonomously mail me one or two super seeds so I could try some modern day seeds as its been 10 yrs since I grew. I don't trust having them sent from seedbanks.......I can Dream, can't I?? My personal Email address is here on this site, maybe someone can share??? Just don't tell me what you want my address for if you request it.
ANYTHING THAT I SAY IS JUST PART OF MY DELUSIONAL WAY OF THINKING AS I NEVER INTEND TO BREAK THE LAW AND IVE NEVER TOLD A LIE IN MY LIFE....NUF SAID

Made a couple more plots today. 12 all together now. Took some pics along the way. Look in my gallery.