First Grow: 7 Plants, CFL's

I already regret not having more lights, but this weekend I'm making a DIY hood to intensify the light and penetrate deeper into the lower branches, too much light is being wasted.

I went ahead and trimmed two fan leaves from each plant. I cut the leaves that were connected to the Y of the first topping, giving much more light to the lower branches. I noticed one plant is extremely dark and is slowly growing the new tops and side branches.

I raised the lights today, they are about 10" from the plants.

Tomorrow is their 30th day from seed. My last grow sadly gave me 5 males of 5 plants, and I frankly just don't want to waste another month to be disappointed again. I've been reading that you can flower them for however long it takes to show the sex and then put them back in veg. Should I start with a 36 hr dark period or just go straight to 12/12. I bought a magnifying glass to help with identifying the sex later in life.

Don't bother with the 36 hour nonsense, just switch them to 12/12 and they will figure out the rest. I have never pulled a plant from flower back to veg but I have read it can be done quite easily, I would think once sexed a week of 24 on and they will start to see things your way again.

regards,

A good friend of mine brought over a very nice piece of equipment, a florescent lighting hood. Not sure what the bulb type is, going to bring the current ones with me when I go to home depot to buy new ones, if needed. Anyone have any person insight on which tubes work best? Previous 3 tubes, for size reference: http://www.soslightbulbs.com/f40bl-40wattblacklightfluorescent.aspx?gclid=CNrjj-OnlqoCFcLc4AodrSHnvw

On day 2 of flowering and no signs of sex yet, inspecting thoroughly with my magnifying glass everyday haha. The plants are absolutely gorgeous. I'm in desperate need of a digital camera so I can show some nice pictures. I started them on molasses again and it seems like theyve come back from the dead - I can't wait until I install this new hood, it's fucking awesome

So i set up the new hood which now has: 3x 40W 6500K 3050 Lumens florescent tube And I now have the cfl's hanging off the sides to get the lower branches. It's a sweet setup. I will post pics soon.

today, a week after flowering, there are still no signs of sex.. oh well a few more days. I went out and bought more cfls, 2700K 100W equivilents to help with the flowering stage. There also seems to be a return of the nut lock out.. It happened right after a dose of molasses, too much? I've been using 1 tbsp per gal

MY PLANTS ARE DROOPING!

They arent hard and crismpy, they are limp and lifeless which means over watering, right? but I havent watered them in over 24 hours and they werent like this this morning when i checked on them

Hey TFlan I'm following this cfl grow closely I'm looking to start using them myself. My local home depot has theses large 68 watt cfl's with an equivalent output of 300 watts, 2700k, and a lumen output of 4200 so I'm gonna go with 3 of those in a 3x3x4 u should really look into the for bloom IMO... I'm no expert grower (yet) but in my 4 grows of over 100 plants (total) I've come across 2 of your main issues 1 being the purple stem if you noticed it faded out to red and went away once u transplanted and the new nodes came in looking good, that's because ur plants were root bound meaning they had out grew the cups. Try transplanting a little sooner next go round. Also the drooping leaves I'm not (so) sure about this 1 but I'm willing to bet just as some1 else said that your over watering. If ur not good at looking and gadging u should go by the weight of ur pots. Let them completely dry and u should be able to lift the easily with 1 hand and if that's not the case then you probably don't need to water. I've learned that cannabis are very resourceful if it's a drop of water in the soil the roots will find it. Funny story I have a 4ft plant outside in a 1 gallon bag that I left to die just because I had to much other stuff going on only to go look at it and see that it was healthy as ever because the roots had grown out the holes in the bag and thru the ground. So don't worry about under watering I would worry more about over watering and like I said I'm still pretty new at this myself so research my info and let me know what you find out...

Thank you! +rep saved my plants.

I did the emergency add soil to the bottom, loosened up the root system and within hours they were perky again and I'm happy to announce a female is in the mix I found a couple very long very white very awesome pistols on one of the better plants tied for first. I will post pics soon.

No other signs of males or females on any others, a little over a week and half into flowering.

I also removed the molasses from the past two watering cycles, going to go back to molasses on the next watering, just wanted to get them healthy again before shooting them up - basically lol

Glad to hear they are doing good I'll be looking fwd to those pics and following closely...

Thanks my1stgrow

So i've decided, due to time restraints, to keep the lady, soon, hopefully, ladies, in flowering. I'm also replacing whatever males I do get with new seeds, just started germinating two new seeds. So the next two months will definitely be interesting.

Ill have the one female, maybe more, in flowering after 30 days of veg, looking great by the way, realllly need a dig cam; as well as a couple plants flowering from seed just so I can maximize yeild/time+space. They are just bag seeds so nothing lost, only gained (a couple ounces?)

Today is the 11th day into flowering (honestly thought it was closer to over 2 weeks... guess not) so I got another 49ish days until the first harvest

Ok cool man any signs of buds yet?

No signs of buds yet, today is the 13th day of flowering.

Another female has joined the group however sadly a male has too so I killed him and I killed a very skimp, stunted plant that I didn't want anymore.

5 five plants left, 2 females, 3 unknown.

Still trying to ask friends for borrowing a digital camera

Here is my worksheet for the crop cycles
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?gpzi3nsuwvvguyy

I think it's pretty useful for keep track of different things

just wanted to say im still here and you look like ur doin good. dont forget 6500k are best for veg 2700k for flower. cant wait for new pics

These FOUR (now ) ladies are looking spectacular. Buds are forming and growing, the tops are very hairy and i can already see a shit load of little trichs. the early morning smell from opening the closet is gorgeous.

i do need to repot and get new lights asap. im currently using 10 2700K CFLS and 3 6500K florescents. Im going to replace the florescents to 2700k

Where's the pics man???

My only concern at the moment is the reaching the biggest of them is doing, it's leaves are literally, as shown in the pics above, reaching for the light as if they were drowning from shade, but it's extremely intense under that hood

(Day 19 of Flowering)

Edit::
The last one and the fifth one are a few days old compared to the others

TFlan said:

My only concern at the moment is the reaching the biggest of them is doing, it's leaves are literally, as shown in the pics above, reaching for the light as if they were drowning from shade, but it's extremely intense under that hood

(Day 19 of Flowering)

Click to expand...

If they are not stretching then reaching is a good thing, you will see those leaves start to get filled in with bigger buds in about 10 or so days. As long as it is not to hot they will be fine, and they are looking good.

regards,

thanks man, they are getting bigger everyday! today marks their 3rd week into flowering, pretty pumped i only have a month and some change until my first harvest

I think, rather know, that i put them into flowering too early. 3 of the 5 were matured, but the biggest two, odd?, weren't matured. By matured i mean that the nodes are staggered, which ive recently read to be a classic sign of maturity