Questions on First Grow

I ordered some femd Northern Lights seeds from Nirvana, got 5, and germed 2 of them 3 weeks ago from today. They germed in about 36 hours and were moved to soil. They both look healthy (green leaves, angled up, no browning). However, one of the plants (same strain, and age) is almost twice as big as the other. I know this can be due to phenotypes and what not, but it worries me regardless. Both have three sets of leaves but one is much taller and wider. Here are some questions I have.
1. Why is one plant much smaller than the other?
2. They had one set of 3 fingered leaves, and the rest seem to be five fingered, is this normal?
3. I have about 3 feet of space height wise for flowering, when should i put them on 12/12 light?
4. How long til i should expect alternating nodes? and what do nodes indicate?
5. And finally, I have my two plants begging under 6 6500k CFL's, is this enough light? Can i use some 2700k CFL's for flowering?

BEARDOWN said:

I ordered some femd Northern Lights seeds from Nirvana, got 5, and germed 2 of them 3 weeks ago from today. They germed in about 36 hours and were moved to soil. They both look healthy (green leaves, angled up, no browning). However, one of the plants (same strain, and age) is almost twice as big as the other. I know this can be due to phenotypes and what not, but it worries me regardless. Both have three sets of leaves but one is much taller and wider. Here are some questions I have.
1. Why is one plant much smaller than the other?
2. They had one set of 3 fingered leaves, and the rest seem to be five fingered, is this normal?
3. I have about 3 feet of space height wise for flowering, when should i put them on 12/12 light?
4. How long til i should expect alternating nodes? and what do nodes indicate?
5. And finally, I have two plants under 6 6500k CFL's, is this enough light?

Click to expand...

First let me say that I am also on my first grow, and this is just what I've realized from experience and research. I have five plants (Bagseed) and four of the five have all caught up to each other, where-as one remains the runt. Do not be concerned yet that some of them are growing faster than the others, they will start to catch up to one another. Once they get past the seedling stage and you move them into their first real pot you will be able to bury a good portion of the stretched stems and essentially level out the plants. Some say that the males grow faster, and just as many people disagree with them, so don't stress about the sexes until veg. The leaves grow in from three, to five, and finally to seven over the course of the first few weeks, and then begin to push out. You'll see the alternating nodes as the plant reaches its first few sets of leaves, and then first signs of branches. As for lighting, as long as you can keep the temperature down More Light is always Better Light, but I myself only have 6 26w CFLs and one 26W Rainforest CFL. I've seen some pretty crazy grows in under 3 feet but its all about which techniques you choose (FIM, LST, scROG, et cetera) and how much attention you pay to them. I've basically been letting my plants tell me what they need, and using these forums for the rest. Check mine out and let me know what ya think, hope I answered some questions. https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/635880-first-grow-need-some-advice.html

BEARDOWN said:

I ordered some femd Northern Lights seeds from Nirvana, got 5, and germed 2 of them 3 weeks ago from today. They germed in about 36 hours and were moved to soil. They both look healthy (green leaves, angled up, no browning). However, one of the plants (same strain, and age) is almost twice as big as the other. I know this can be due to phenotypes and what not, but it worries me regardless. Both have three sets of leaves but one is much taller and wider. Here are some questions I have.
1. Why is one plant much smaller than the other?
2. They had one set of 3 fingered leaves, and the rest seem to be five fingered, is this normal?
3. I have about 3 feet of space height wise for flowering, when should i put them on 12/12 light?
4. How long til i should expect alternating nodes? and what do nodes indicate?
5. And finally, I have two plants under 6 6500k CFL's, is this enough light?

Click to expand...

1: Phenotype
2: Phenotype, normal
3: 6-8"
4: No idea only time will tell
5: No

Adrik Anonymous- Thanks for the input! I won't worry about the height of the small one, and it looks like you have a nice little grow going! hopefully you have some females with good genetics! I think i may add some more light, but right now my temps in my stealth grow box (18 gal. plastic storage bin) are from 72-90F. I know 90 is warm and may stunt growth, but i live in a hot place, the plants don't have any heat burn at all, so ill try to add some light.

mr2shim- Thank you for answering my questions, Ill add more light if i can while maintaining good temps. I think i should be able to once i get a better exhaust intake/outtake system installed. Looks like ill just have to be patient and remember to flower when they are about 8"! I tend to worry about things that don't matter much, especially since this is my first grow.

You could probably get away with letting it grow up to a foot. If you don't have a lot of vertical LST and SCROG are the best alternatives. But this is your first grow and you shouldn't over complicate things if you don't have the confidence yet.

The bigger one is about 4 inches now and I've buried the stem during transplant about an inch, so about 5" total? and the smaller one is about 2.5" right now, on the same set of leaves, but has also been buried an inch or so, so 3.5" total? I may shoot for around 10" height before i flower

Mine are 14" already and I still have not moved them to flower. I've been trying to get some early signs of sexes because I'd like to clone the females before flowering. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to wait long enough, and I will wind up losing my cuttings. But it's okay, I have a whole bag full of seeds to try lol. I actually had to put a heater in my closet because of all the snow fall. Otherwise they would've been sitting at about 55F and that's no good for anyone. That storage bin is probably half of your heat issue to begin with. I started mine in a decent sized growing tent, with the door partially open and a fan inside pointing out. They stayed in there from seedlings til about a week ago, and I gradually opened the door more for them. I would say that humidity is going to be another issue with the storage totes, as you want very little humidity to promote Trichs. So far, Ive found that wiring three small computer fans together pointed at the wall behind the plants is a cool enough breeze across the plants, and a fan pointed out into the room vents the smell and heat well in a small closet. My intentions are to build a carbon filter as I move into Flower.

Adrik- The storage bin is my veg area, with my setup i think i could fit about four vegging plants in there at a time, my flowering room is going to be much different, however i don't exactly know how it will be since i haven't had the need to set it up yet. any suggestions? has to be inside my house because temps outside are already in the 90s

Grow tent..

Hey man not much input from my end since I'm running hydro and t5s. What I can say is. Keep lights low. Research research research. And don't be afraid to experiment a little. I havea 4 foot high grow chamber. My plants are probably 3 foot tall tho I have them in a screen. My opinion if you don't mind being in the garden. Scrog those girls.

mr2shim- I have considered a grow tent, are they affordable? Im a poor man, also, do they make small ones that could fit in the corner of a small walk in closet? Are they lightproof?

karma4life-Ive considered ScrOG, but i don't know much about it, thats where research comes in huh? Since i have a veg room and a flower room, would this make screening them hard? or do you only screen in flowering cycle?

I got my tent for ~90. It's 1.6'x3'x5'

To answer questions. You can buy some PVC and make a frame. Buy some panda film or some white plastic 6 mm at Lowes and make a tent. That's what I did. I built mine around my light..... so the plants have more. Mine is 2×4.5×4 foot. As for 2 diff rooms I don't see it being a problem at all. You may have to tie down some branches before moving em to the next room. Scrog is basically just making your plants grow horizontal vs vertical.

Mr2shim- that's not too bad, ill look into those because they seem so handy. I could try to make one also, but anything I design seems to be sloppy, so I may be inclined to just buy one. They are lightproof I'd assume, and with a DIY carbon filter, would it be smell proof or less ordorous?

Karma4life- for scrog do you just put a screen above the plants at a certain height? And some of the plant grows through (usually colas, I think?) but most stays under the screen and grows outward. Does this have any advantages besides saving space?

Also, I plan on cloning. Probably using rock wool and clonex. However I don't know when I can clone and where I can cut?

Well I'm not a master at scrog since I'm only on my first one. But ideally you wait til the plant has at least 4 nodes. I waited til 6 and then you top it. Thus making two main kolas. I topped mine once but since I waited so long the other shoots were developed enough to make it more like 8 main tops. Once they are about 8 inches you put a screen in. The screen goes in around 8-10 inches above top of pot. Whatever you can get your hands under. The plant grows up into the screen and you pull it under. You kinda want to make the branches like a T then as each branch grows parallel to the ground the internodes will grow towards light...tuck and train and then instead of one big kola and popcorn buds you get a bunch of even sized kolas.

If I'm wrong on anything I say correct me please

I see what you mean, so you weave the stems in the screen once it reaches them, and the nodes with bud grow straight up towards the light while the other leafy matter stays below?

You cut most of the crap under the screen

The difference in size is probably pheno r how far r ur lights from ur plants it could be stretch u can use 2700k cfls to flower I would recommend a hps but hey as for ur space with 3 ft I would flower at 1 1/2ft and a to allow for.sum stretch but I would top at least twice to had to my yeild