high altitude on the equator...

[jimboyia]

Hi all - a first grow and a complicated challenge...

I'm at around 1900m (that's 6300ft) on the equator. I seeded out some beautiful Dutch Passion # 1 (apparently 75% indica) and thing were going alright. At about 4 internode length I gave the plants a 1% sol of 19:19:19 and about 4 days later they started flowering WAY TOO SMALL...I'm concerned that I might have stressed them into flowering...

Since then I've pinched off the flowering heads, flushed with rainwater, upped the N and I put the plants under 60kW lights after 6pm in order to try and revert to the veg phase to get good size before inducing flowering again.

Any advice??

Jimboyia

 

[Sam the Caveman]

Hi Jim, welcome to IC.

First, are the seedlings outside in the natural light schedule?

If they are, I think the natural light schedule around the equator is nearly 12/12 all year. So indica plants will start blooming too early for them to get to be big plants. They will need additional lighting to keep them vegging.

Second, a 1% solution of 19-19-19 would be 10,000 ppm. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If that is the case, that would be much too strong. I think seedlings need about 250ppm to be happy, or less.

Third, you put the plants under 60kw lights. Maybe 60w lights, I've never heard of a 60kw light.

I think sativa's would do well at your latitude, they will stretch to be a good sized plant when bloomed from the beginning.

 

[jimboyia]

Hi Sam -thanks and yep, 100% correct - I keep them exposed to direct natural sun-light for as long as there is any i.e. 12 hours / day and then put them under a 60w light (kW ffs, what was I thinking? Oh, I was obviously thinking about my tractor...) for a couple of hours before I switch that off.

As for the fertilising, I guess we can safely assume that the 1% was WAY too much and may well have caused the stress reaction / flowering in the first place.

As an aside, I took some seeds from the jhat that passes for turbo in these parts and seeded them out - I guess it must be sativa because it hasn't flowered yet and is growing quite nicely. Not as fast as the Dutch Passion but nicely enough.

Will the 60w for a couple of hours on top of the direct equatorial sunlight, at altitude, be enough to ensure veg cycle?

 

[jm420]

you'll need to keep it at 18 hrs lite try to get a small mh if possible or add a couple more 60watters

 

[Sam the Caveman]

If you were totally indoors, I would also say to get more intense lighting, but since most of the daytime light is sunlight, a less intense light will work just fine for extending veg time.