It would not let me put all this in the message box. I'm too long winded LOL. I've taught myself how to type so it rolls right off the finger tips now. Anyway i've never been afraid of sharing so.....
Hey Da Chef, are you a chef? I love to cook, its a very under rated skill. I understand your point about the tree orchard. It is still an excellent lesson on the cause and effect relationship between soil, fertilizer, and lime. Many people have problems with PH due to excessive use of fertilizer, even in potted plants. It does not take years for these problems to occur. If anything the confined space of a pot speeds up this process. Its really just knowledge I was passing along. The application of this knowledge is completely up to you.
As for my 1st grow. Thank you for the compliment. It was one of the most gratifying accomplishments of my life. As for the yeild....well obviously there are MANY factors. A short veg period, lack of light to lower buds (the main colas were nice n big but the branch buds were just too far away from the CFL's, and were all tiny by comparison), a somewhat early harvest AND stunted growth due to the premature loss of too many fan leaves. I now know that this was a result of acidity built up in my soil. After harvest i got a PH meter and ran some 7.0 water through one of my pots and the runoff was in the low 5's. The acidity itself was a result of 1) there was a lot of peat moss in my soil mix, and 2) use of miracle grow (ammonia based) fertilizer, with nothing to buffer the PH. Thats why the soil chemistry article really hit home for me.
As far as I'm concerned there is no "typical" yeild. Way to many factors involved. Some strains really do yeild A LOT more than others even in identical environments.
i have three growing right now. Vegged for 50 days under only 1 CFl each. LST style so one CFL covered them pretty good. VERY effecient. I highly recommend LST to anyone growing indoors. I'm in week 5 of 12/12 now under a 400W HPS in a 2x4x5 growtent ( I moved, and have no closet space) Each plant has 10 -15 colas and i expect to yeild...well alot more that 1.25 OZ each.
Maybe 3 Z's each, maybe more? IDK Two of em are going to yeld way more than the 3rd (diff strains), But the 3rd I have grown before and i know its absolutely KILLER stuff. The best I ever had!
My closet was HOT. I really couldn't put anything (reflective or otherwise) above my bulbs. I had to let the heat rise and escape. Reflection is important on any indoor grow, but not at the expense of temperature IMO.
More light comes off the side of a CFL (surface area) so keep that in mind. A CFL hangin straight down with a plant under it is not the most effecient way to go. Look up at a CFL, you see a circle. Look at it from the side you see a square or rectangle. More surface area. Mine were angled showing the plant the SIDE of the bulbs. And the ones that were hangin straight down were below the canopy shining on the SIDES of the plants. I see a lot of CFL growers making this mistake. So my advise is- above the canopy put em horizontal, and below the canopy vertical is the way to go.
I traced a 42 W cfl to demonstrate. Obviously an ANGLE would provide for the MOST suface area.
Peace.
