Figure this'll work ?

I'm just getting started so I've got some newb questions. I've looked around the site and gotten many of the answers I've put together a plan and need some experienced opinion now.

I'm going to build a grow room in my (unfinished) basement.
I'll have 6'X6' of floor space, suspended from about 6" to a foot above the sloping grade (no slab), but I'll have only about 5' of height. Is this going to be a major hangup ? I could build it in another part of the basement with a 7' ceiling, but I'll lose the stealth of this other spot. Given the 5' height restriction are there strains that would be better suited ?

My house has a rarely-used oil furnace and the room will be right next to the brick chimney. I figure I'll run a bathroom fan through charcoal and out of the chimney. Although I live in an area where it's not a huge issue, the brick ought to dissipate the heat output as well, no?

I'm going to start of simple, just using pots and soil. I'm thinking that after the seeds have germinated I'll stick them right into the big pot so there's no shock from transplanting. The lights will be timed and I have a pond pump I'd like to use to automate the watering as well. I'll have a table in the center of the room with a tray that the pump will fill with water and a small drain hole so it drain slowly but completely. I would think it's better for the roots to suck up water through the bottom than watering from above, or does it make no difference ? Would this method work with a small seed in a big pot, that is, would the soil draw enough moisture to keep the newly germinated seed moist ? Or should I start them in peat pellets instead ?

For lighting, I figure I'll start off with full spectrum CFLs, installed like a paint booth on both the walls and the ceiling. I need to keep the power consumption down for the time being.

Is it better to seal the room with vapour barrier to isolate it, or should it be able to 'breathe' to keep mold and mildew down ? I'm leaning toward sealing it and keeping the airflow up.

On the topic of CO2, what about using dry ice ? A cooler with the drain open ought to allow it to 'melt' slowly and might help keep the room temp down as well.

Hehe...you'll have to excuse me for all the noob questions...I've been through the '101 questions' and 'how to grow' threads and these are the ones I still have.

Thanks for the input be it answers or links to threads I may have missed.

welcome to the forums =)

you can train any plant to stay under 5' with a little LST, but indica dominant strains tend to stay shorter and bushier than sativa strains. 6x6x5 is plenty of space, depending on how many plants you are trying to grow that is. Mj plants stretch alot during flower, they can double or even triple in size, so you can induce 12/12 when they are about 2' tall and they will be about 4-5' at harvest time. As for water, yes bottom feeding is better than top feeding but you want to water the top soil for the first week so the small seedlings can develop strong roots.

Sounds like you have just about everything else covered, good luck =)

for co2 dry ice may work, i am not sure. this is what you can do also. take a gallon jug and poke a pencil size hole in the lid. put 5 cups of sugar in the jug a few tablespoons of yeast. fill the jug half full with water and let the mixture dissolve, shake often. in a couple days you should have co2. you will have to change this mixture regularly but it is easy and cheap. there is a growfaq on this method that may explain it better. good luck

Thanks for the input.

Hey Majek, what's LST ?

jact55, the yeast idea sounds like a good one. I never thought of using yeast but it makes sense.

With the dry ice I was thinking of a cooler to make it last longer and the drain being a small enough hole to release it slowly, but I'm not sure how much (or how little) would be required in my case and if there would be any benefit to doing it at this stage in my (limited) experience.

lst is low stress training. just tying them down basically. when i do this i top (cut off the top) my plant, then train the branches outward to expose the most of the plant to the light that i can. it also helps with height issues if you have them.

Thx dood, that makes sense...like how you can train trees to grow outward as a bush or up as a tree...

I figured I'd keep my questions to this thread rather than start a new one.
The roots that are coming through the peat pellet are 'furry'. I assume this is normal and those are tiny 'hairs' that increase the surface area ?
My concern is mold, though I sterilized everything with a 30:1 bleach solution before I started.
Also, at what point does the plant's sex become apparent ? This is the only one of 5 seeds that germinated, so I'm hoping it'll be a mom that I can clone.



Here's the "light tube" I made up using a couple "daylight" CFLs. It fits perfectly over the pot I'm going to use but leaves only about 18" of space between the pot and the lights, so I won't be able to use it for long. The lights are on 24/7 right now and I lift the whole thing thing off a couple times a day to let the heat out.

ExileOnMainStreet said:

I figured I'd keep my questions to this thread rather than start a new one.
The roots that are coming through the peat pellet are 'furry'. I assume this is normal and those are tiny 'hairs' that increase the surface area ?
My concern is mold, though I sterilized everything with a 30:1 bleach solution before I started.
Also, at what point does the plant's sex become apparent ? This is the only one of 5 seeds that germinated, so I'm hoping it'll be a mom that I can clone.

Here's the "light tube" I made up using a couple "daylight" CFLs. It fits perfectly over the pot I'm going to use but leaves only about 18" of space between the pot and the lights, so I won't be able to use it for long. The lights are on 24/7 right now and I lift the whole thing thing off a couple times a day to let the heat out.

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transplant that seedling into soil as soon as possible.
and as for showing signs of sex.
How can I tell if my seedling is male or female without flowering it?



The most common method is to force flower a labeled clone to determine the sex, rather than the incorrect method of forcing the seedling and then reverting it to vegetative growth again.
If you are a seedling grower who does not clone, or a grower who has no seperate vegetative and flowering grow spaces, the easiest method is simply to wait for the preflowers (primordia), and sexual maturity to appear while the seedling is still in vegetative growth. In other words, if you wait until they are 6 to 8 weeks old, most plants will show you their gender without any forcing.
Seedling growers who don't clone are really missing out on the full potency potential of their finished crop whenever they force their seedlings before they've become sexually mature.

LUDA.

Sexing the Plants
The female plant is more desirable than the male for marijuana cultivation. The female flowering clusters (bus) are usually the most potent parts of the harvest. Also, given room to develop, a female generally will yield twice as much marijuana as her male counterpart. More of her weight consists of top-quality buds.
Because the female yields marijuana in greater quantity and sooner you can devote your attention to nurturing the females. Where space is limited, such as in indoor gardens and small outdoor plots most growers prefer to remove the males as soon as possible, and leave all available space for the females. To harvest sinsemilla (seedless female buds), you must remove the male plants before they mature and release pollen.
Differences in the appearance of male and female Cannabis become more apparent toward maturation. During the seedling stage, gender is virtually impossible to distinguish, although in some varieties the male seedling may appear slightly taller and may develop more quickly.
We know of no way to discover gender with any certainty until each plant actually forms either pollen-bearing male flowers or seed-bearing female flowers. However, certain general characteristics may help. Using guidelines like the following, growers who are familiar with a particular variety can often predict gender fairly accurately by the middle stage of the plant's life.
Early Vegetative Growth
After the initial seedling stage, female plants generally develop more complex branching than the male. The male is usually slightly taller and less branched. (Under artificial light, the differences in height and branching are less apparent throughout growth.)
Some plants develop a marked swelling at the nodes, which is more common and pronounced on female plants.
Middle Vegetative Growth
In the second to fourth months of growth, plants commonly form a few isolated flowers long before the actual flowering stage begins. These premature flowers are most often found between the eighth and twelfth nodes on the main stem. Often they appear near each stipule (leaf spur) on several successive nodes, at a distance two to six nodes below the growing tip. These individual flowers may not develop fully and are often hard to distinguish as male or female flowers. The fuzzy white stigmas of the female flower may not appear, and the male flowers seldom opens but remains a tightly closed knob. However, the male flower differs from the female; it is raised on a tiny stalk, and the knob is symmetrical. The female flower appear stalkless and more leaflike.
The presence of premature female flowers does not assure that the plant is a female, but premature male flowers almost always indicate a male plant. Unfortunately, it is much less common for male plants to develop premature male flowers than for female flowers to appear on either plant. For example, in one garden of 25 mixed-variety plants, by age 14 weeks, 15 plants showed well-formed, premature female flowers with raised stigmas. Eight of these plants matured into females and seven became males. Only two plants showed premature male flowers and both of these developed into males. The eight remaining plants did not develop premature flowers or otherwise distinguishable organs until the actual flowering stage at the age of 21 weeks. From these eight, there were four females, three males, and one plant bearing both male and female flowers (hermaphrodite). It does seem, however, that plants bearing well-formed female flowers, on several successive node, usually turn out to be females.
Preflowering
In the week or two prior to flowering and throughout flowering, many common marijuana varieties follow two general growth patterns which depend on gender. With these varieties, you can tell gender by the spacing between the leaves (internodes). For the female, the emphasis is on compact growth. Each new leaf grows closer to the last, until the top of the plant is obscured by tightly knit leaves. The male elongates just prior to showing flowers. New growth is spaced well apart and raises the male to a taller stature. This may by the first time the male shows its classic tall, loosely arranged profile.

LUDACRIS.

luda answerd these qustions best but id like to add next time you start in those pellets you might want to take the nettin off right befor the roots try to go through them cuz the extra energy it takes tryin to push through the nets slows the growth down for a few days!!!iv done it both ways to see if it would make a difference and it did...

goten said:

luda answerd these qustions best but id like to add next time you start in those pellets you might want to take the nettin off right befor the roots try to go through them cuz the extra energy it takes tryin to push through the nets slows the growth down for a few days!!!iv done it both ways to see if it would make a difference and it did...

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the netting on the jiffys will be eaten up by roots penetrating the netting and i always leave it on as its design of the jiffy pellets to have the roots penetrate the netting as seen in the picture.
i have always checked root growth in the pots after chopping my plants and there is no signs of jiffy netting it dissolves over time and does not hamper growth in any way.

LUDACRIS.

LUDACRIS said:

the netting on the jiffys will be eaten up by roots penetrating the netting and i always leave it on as its design of the jiffy pellets to have the roots penetrate the netting as seen in the picture.
i have always checked root growth in the pots after chopping my plants and there is no signs of jiffy netting it dissolves over time and does not hamper growth in any way.

LUDACRIS.

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oh come on.. out of all the different strains out their you dont think some might have a stronger/weaker root system startin out then others??if you always had sucess in it and your growth never slowed down from the roots going through the nets then well done.. cuz on the real iv had some that it did slow it down a little..but we all have our different experieneces with differnt products... but its all good...

i dont think its a question about stronger/weaker roots, i think the netting is just biodegradable , but i do agree with the basic logic that if theres something surrounding the roots, its going to take longer for the roots to brake through the surrounding material

goten said:

oh come on.. out of all the different strains out their you dont think some might have a stronger/weaker root system startin out then others??if you always had sucess in it and your growth never slowed down from the roots going through the nets then well done.. cuz on the real iv had some that it did slow it down a little..but we all have our different experieneces with differnt products... but its all good...

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oh come on.. fuck all.
removing a jiffy thats already got roots growing out from the netting is completely unnecessary unless you want to fuck the roots up as the roots WILL be ripped or damaged for sure.
i have done it before and the plant died as the roots were glued to the jiffy netting and removing the netting ripped the rootball to fuck.
and as for different strains thats got nothing whatsoever to do with the seedlings/plants having a stronger or weaker root growth .
i have grown more than 6 different strains and root growth doesn't vary according to strains.
building a strong root base is all down to growing methods and skill and not seeds and strains .
(i thought you would know better "goten" ).
LUDA.

Sweet, thanks for the info.

Luda said:

How can I tell if my seedling is male or female without flowering it?

Click to expand...

Luda, where's that from ? I haven't seen it on the site. It's good to have a timeline - exactly what I was looking for.
I was actually going to re-pot it the day before I posted that pic, but then I got high...
Seriously though, I just got back from the garden center so now it's in the 'big' pot and back under the lights.

goten, pulling off the netting never occurred to me, so thanks. Certainly can't hurt as long as the roots don't get ripped up with it.
As it is, I tore the netting so the bits that the roots are in are free-floating pieces. I guess I'm sort of with Dr Grey on this one, i.e. it can't hurt as long as there's no damage to the roots.
When I was a kid, I worked at a garden center for a summer and unloaded literally tens of thousands of 5' cedars from shipping containers. One of the worst things you can do is drop them when you put them down because you trash the roots. The first container I unloaded was a 'warranty' container because the last guys had manhandled 'em and the damage didn't show up until after the customers bought 'em, planted 'em and then they went brown...that's also why I figured my 'fuzzy' roots were probably normal. No one picked up on it, so that's a good thing!
What actual products do you guys suggest to build strong roots ?

I re-potted the one in the pic and put it back in the light tube. I realized from further reading that I had it way too far from the lights as its height was mostly stem supporting about 9 leaves, so it's only a couple inches below the lights now. Sure looks funny to have a tiny seedling in such a big pot though !

I noticed as well that one of the pellets had a root but no foliage and another seed seems to have split, so maybe I'll get more than just the one...as long as I get at least one mum I can clone, I figure I can build from there. I'll use these freebie seeds to learn with and buy some for the next go-round.

Again, any and all advice is appreciated...it's not something I can just ask the local garden center about. The fact that's true is just silly, but that's another thread altogether ;^)


I'll post a pic in a bit...

LUDACRIS said:

oh come on.. fuck all.
removing a jiffy thats already got roots growing out from the netting is completely unnecessary unless you want to fuck the roots up as the roots WILL be ripped or damaged for sure.
i have done it before and the plant died as the roots were glued to the jiffy netting and removing the netting ripped the rootball to fuck.
and as for different strains thats got nothing whatsoever to do with the seedlings/plants having a stronger or weaker root growth .
i have grown more than 6 different strains and root growth doesn't vary according to strains.
building a strong root base is all down to growing methods and skill and not seeds and strains .
(i thought you would know better "goten" ).
LUDA.

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im talkin about takein the nettin off befor the roots start to go through the nettin..i know if you try to remove it after it already starts to go through it that you will sevearly damage your roots and posibly kill your plants..i do know better...stay luda...

ExileOnMainStreet said:

Sweet, thanks for the info.

Luda, where's that from ? I haven't seen it on the site. It's good to have a timeline - exactly what I was looking for.
I was actually going to re-pot it the day before I posted that pic, but then I got high...
Seriously though, I just got back from the garden center so now it's in the 'big' pot and back under the lights.

goten, pulling off the netting never occurred to me, so thanks. Certainly can't hurt as long as the roots don't get ripped up with it.
As it is, I tore the netting so the bits that the roots are in are free-floating pieces.

I re-potted the one in the pic and put it back in the light tube. I realized from further reading that I had it way too far from the lights as its height was mostly stem supporting about 9 leaves, so it's only a couple inches below the lights now. Sure looks funny to have a tiny seedling in such a big pot though !

I noticed as well that one of the pellets had a root but no foliage and another seed seems to have split, so maybe I'll get more than just the one...as long as I get at least one mum I can clone, I figure I can build from there. I'll use these freebie seeds to learn with and buy some for the next go-round.

Again, any and all advice is appreciated...it's not something I can just ask the local garden center about. The fact that's true is just silly, but that's another thread altogether ;^)

EDIT: Hehe...goten's first post was the newest since I started writing (yeah I'm slow, but I'm doing other stuff too) Gimme a minute to catch up.

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the info is from my archives and i have lots of info and experience to back it up so just ask if you need a help out.
as someone already mentioned the netting is biodegradable and will be eaten up and gone after 2-3 weeks.
ripping the roots is just fucking stupid.
removing the netting as soon as the seed sprouts is fine but not required AND DOES NOT PROMOTE BETTER GROWTH. but with roots growing through the netting taking it off is seedling murder .

LUDACRIS.

This is what I meant by how funny it looks in a big pot:


On the other pellet where I saw a root, it looked like a taproot. It was a single root coming out the very bottom of the pellet. Is it likely this was from contamination, i.e. not an mj seed at all but something that got into the pellet during manufacture ? Have you guys ever found this in your pellets ?

goten said:

im talkin about takein the nettin off befor the roots start to go through the nettin..i know if you try to remove it after it already starts to go through it that you will sevearly damage your roots and posibly kill your plants..i do know better...stay luda...

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its all good goten my friend .

LUDA.