Roots Growing Above Soil

I have a couple of questions. is it a bad thing for the roots to be coming up above the soil? is it bad to water them near the end of the day before the timer shuts the lights off and when is the best time of day to water the plants? and the last question that i have is how long can you delay putting them into the flowering cycle. I have mine on an 18/6 right now and i know that they are ready for flowering but i need to wait a week to be able to afford the proper nutrients. my plants have just started growing sets of 11 and are still vegging. sorry about the dumb questions. just my first time trying and i will put some pictures up tomorrow when the lights are back on. maybe someone can spot another thing that i can improve on with my set up. below are pics from nov. 26 and will get some more that will be taken tomorrow.

pokehater89 said:

I have a couple of questions. is it a bad thing for the roots to be coming up above the soil? is it bad to water them near the end of the day before the timer shuts the lights off and when is the best time of day to water the plants? and the last question that i have is how long can you delay putting them into the flowering cycle. I have mine on an 18/6 right now and i know that they are ready for flowering but i need to wait a week to be able to afford the proper nutrients. my plants have just started growing sets of 11 and are still vegging. sorry about the dumb questions. just my first time trying and i will put some pictures up tomorrow when the lights are back on. maybe someone can spot another thing that i can improve on with my set up. below are pics from nov. 26 and will get some more that will be taken tomorrow.

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its bad for light to touch hit the root. cover the pots with mylar(or whatever you used to cover the walls of the room) to fix this.
i think it's better to water earlier in the day,opinions will vary.
you can veg aslong as you want, if you want to top them, do it now!(i think you should for a even canopy/better light distrobution)
if you do top id say wait 1-2 weeks before switching so it can heal.
what lightes are you using?(i know cfl,but specificly which ones)
alot of people have their way of doing something and it may be great for them and bad for others
your best bet is too obsorb all the info you can and use what you feel is for you. its for you to smoke anyways!
peace and goodluck

i just noticed your using tinfoil, wouldnt recoment it to cover the pot's,i think it get too hot.
any material that wont let light through will help! or just put a little more dirt, and you wont have to worry for another day or 2.
btw, the closer cfl's the better(yours look like their kinda far,but obviously working as is)
and the more the better if you can get a couple extra red spectrum bulbs for flowering it'll be worth it
2 more Q. do you have more height in your grow?bagseed or a known strain?nothing wrong with bagseeds-never know what your going to get.

upgrade your lighting asap, those plants look suprisingly/remarkbley good for the small amount of light and the distance of those said lights to the plants, You will need much more light for flowering though, i wouldnt use anything less than 3 2700k 42w cfls and 2 6500k 42w cfl bulb surrounding each plant if you want to get a decent sized yeild from each. get some soil and add it up to the top of the pot to re-bury the roots.

Not sure why you feel the need to feed the bloom nutes as soon as the enter 12/12. The nutes you give them now is going to be fine when you change the lights, its not going to kill a plant because you dont have bloom nutes yet. If they are ready then put them under 12/12 now, I dont know how you got them not to stretch but you do not have to wait around for nutes as its the light change that will trigger the flowering stage, yes they need a bit diff NPK but that is not what is going to trigger the stage. If you close to buying the nutes anyway then go ahead and put them under 12/12 now, they look like you could go another 4 weeks before flower at that height. I agree you need to get the lights closer so the flowers swell as much as they can. Good luck to you in your grow!!

I am using two 42w cfls so far but i dont know what spectrum they are. i also have a 23w cfl in the middle. i plan on making a light fixture with light sockets and drying ducting. i do not really know a very good design so i was just going to wing it. if anyone has any suggestions on a cheap diy yourself fixture that would be great. i dont have much space to grow these in but the outcome that i want is 3 females and 1 male so i can crop two and have seeds from the other two. it is bagseed but it came right from the grower and he was growing kush so it is a very good strain. the dimensions of my area are 3'x3'x1.5'. I was using tinfoil a couple weeks ago but removed it due to heat issues and the fact that the leaves didnt seem to know which way to grow. as soon as i removed it the leaves spruced way up at they looked a thousand times better. does anybody have any suggestions of what to use to cover the pots so that i do not have to keep removing the material to water? thx for all the help guys.

I know that you do not need to have the nutrients and that it is all about the light cycle that triggers them into growing. i was also waiting for payday so i could get a new light set up and add more lights and get the nutrients and pretty much get everything prepared so i dont have to worry about anything. and the plants are 8 inches tall and the larger one is at 13 inches i want to keep them short because i have limited space. thx

i see your using those self watering pots man ditch the bottom of the pot where it holds water not good for the plants can cause the roots to rot have had it happen to someone, other than that nice grow man looking good

ryankm said:

i see your using those self watering pots man ditch the bottom of the pot where it holds water not good for the plants can cause the roots to rot have had it happen to someone, other than that nice grow man looking good

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thanks man. i totally just though of a good idea to remedy that.

pokehater89 said:

I am using two 42w cfls so far but i dont know what spectrum they are. i also have a 23w cfl in the middle. i plan on making a light fixture with light sockets and drying ducting. i do not really know a very good design so i was just going to wing it. if anyone has any suggestions on a cheap diy yourself fixture that would be great. i dont have much space to grow these in but the outcome that i want is 3 females and 1 male so i can crop two and have seeds from the other two. it is bagseed but it came right from the grower and he was growing kush so it is a very good strain. the dimensions of my area are 3'x3'x1.5'. I was using tinfoil a couple weeks ago but removed it due to heat issues and the fact that the leaves didnt seem to know which way to grow. as soon as i removed it the leaves spruced way up at they looked a thousand times better. does anybody have any suggestions of what to use to cover the pots so that i do not have to keep removing the material to water? thx for all the help guys.

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just get some Y splitters and hang the lights down like they are now, only closer. The spectrum you have is 2700k on the 42W and 6500k on the small bulb.

You should have used more blue spectrum(6500k) during vegging. For flowering, if you add one or 2 more 42W CFLs like you haveit`ll be all good

woah, wait, you have a dude in there? Get him the f out man. Either kill him or take him and the girl you want to seed from into another room. He`ll just polenize all your girls

It's not bad to have the roots coming out of the soil. The roots will self prune. It is better to water in the AM cycle. That is when they need / use it most and it allows the soil to dry a bit so the roots aren't wet and cold all night and can breath better. You can delay putting them into the flowering cycle for as long as you want. But you will have a harder time keeping them smaller. Older plants tend to yield more so it may pay off to hold off a bit if that is what you want to do. They look great too.

i think you should top them and veg for another 3 or 4 weeks before flipping lightes to 12/12.
everyone seems to be giving good advise so ill drop an opionion on it.

can a male start to pollinize before flowering? i always thought that you find out if it is a male or female about one week into flowering.

I gave you guys alot of photos so that it shows everything that i could try to show you. If you notice anything or have any remedies or even if you just want to give some advice I would very much appreiciate it. Is anyone able to tell if anything is male or female? thx.

yeah you should top them, im still getting used to this new skin, lol, it feels weird still. i dunno if its cuz of the skin or what but i cant see any of the pics in the last post, i just see a big red x. no a male cannot pollinate before flowering but dude, kill any males. just take like 2 cutting from each plant, label which plant each clone came from carefully, flower the original plants, kill any plants and th clones that came from them as soon as you know for sure they are males. then turn the clone/s from the best female into a mother and take clones from it when you want to start new plants. cloning might seem a tad scary at first but trust me man, it couldnt be easier imo! i mean you can just take a cutting and put it into water and it will start rooting even! lol, if you are like me and dont like keeping a mother plant do what i do-ok, ill begin from the very start, take your seeds and veg em till your ready to flower, cut 4 clones from each plant(2-3 when you get the hang of it, 4 is just to be safe) and leave them in the veg area to root and veg. kill any male plants and any clones from male plants, when the first girls you started with are ready to harvest do so, take your clones from the veg area(take 4 cutting off each of them a few weeks before you do) and put them into the flowering area while leaving the clones from them to root and veg, then just repeat the cycle over and over again.lol

It is a sad day for my garden today......i see little white bugs and the plants health are starting to go downhill. I think that they are spider mites but they are crawling on the soil and undersides of the leaves. how do i fight this? I think it just started because they were doing so good until today. The house I am living in used to be a massive downstairs grow and i know this because there are patched holes in the ceiling from where they hung lights and there are 2 patches in the walls that were obviously used for ventilation. this was about 4 years ago when this grow was in operation though.

I should also mention that I am going to install a new light set up and it should give them about 6-8 more inches to grow.

here are three pictures taken today. I am most concerned about the tall on as this is where i spoted the little white bug on the soil. i do not see any webbing but who knows.....maybe they could have just started?

its awesome how them plants look pretty damn nice besides some minor nute problems on the 1 and half the posts are telling him to change shit and do it different lol. as for the bugs just look them up to make sure you have the right ones then use a solution for em.

he asked, were trying to help. with the lights he was using at first needed to be lowerd and more of(what you get???)
as for the bugs im not sure what they are, look it up on the net!