What's new
  • ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

Seeking advice for indoor grow

Thanks for the feedback Switcher. Although I am vegging under cfls I have kept them close to the plants as the light height is adjustable and the plants have not undergone much stretch so far and are almost at 6 inches with about 6 leaf sets. Also, can you give me any idea on how the plant structure during flower period will compare under my 270W LED vs the hps in the post? It outputs upwards of 25,000 lumens and has a few other colors on the far ends of the spectrum as well.
 

Switcher56

Comfortably numb!
Switcher, do you know how my experience will differ given that I am using a 270W LED for flower?
Yes. It is like comparing apple and oranges.

Thanks for the feedback Switcher. Although I am vegging under cfls I have kept them close to the plants as the light height is adjustable and the plants have not undergone much stretch so far and are almost at 6 inches with about 6 leaf sets. Also, can you give me any idea on how the plant structure during flower period will compare under my 270W LED vs the hps in the post? It outputs upwards of 25,000 lumens and has a few other colors on the far ends of the spectrum as well.
There is a lot of variables here e.g pictures are worth 1K words. If ya got them, please post.

Now back on topic. I simply tried to demonstrate that you can harvest a decent plant Aca (100% sat. 30-78". 100-200 stretch) in your grow space. If you meet or exceed comments herein.

e.g how long have you been in veg? How long do you plan on veging? When is the flip etc? What % of stretch is the strain common for etc...

Ex: If you veg to 12 inches, and the strain is shown has >200, that means you will be at 36" in no time. But I believe the 200 is out of the norm but, 150 is not 30".

Last but not least, how do you plan to manage your canopy, based on everything discussed here?
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
you can do a lot in a small space... i think you might find the 270W led too strong for that space, a big gap might help but you've not too much height to spare...


you could veg and sex 9 plants in that space and flower 4 i would say, you might flower 9 if you dwarfed them by keeping the pots small and topdressing/feeding to keep them going.


each variety is different with taking clones, some you have to top to get enough sidebrance, others will send them out easily without encouragement.


same with stretch, some will want to get very tall.. ive literally folded stems back on themselves in a 'z' to reduce the height before.. there is often a way.


you might find some of my past grows useful. Links on my sig.


GL


VG
 
Thanks for the advice Verdant! I must admit to being a bit of a fan of yours and I have certainly taken inspiration from your grow journals.

I can wire switches into my light and turn off some of the LED emitters. I am thinking of restraining the plants to 1 gallon pots to dwarf them as you mention.

I snapped some photos as well
 
Disclaimer: I am not a photographer

Disclaimer: I am not a photographer

picture.php

picture.php
picture.php
picture.php
picture.php
 
Verdant, if you don't mind me asking, would you have any recommendation for how many watts I should use to find the right balance between plant size and yield in my space?
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
HI again, plants look good !, i would try and use your lights.. but be on the lookout for bleaching or stress from too much light. TBH they can handle a lot more in flower so you may be ok. if you can turn some off then do that if you think you need to.

In veg, i find LEDs can be a bit too strong and the plants get stressed more quickly as they run out of root space and can't suck up the minerals fast enough to keep up with the photosynthesis.
i think, for pheno hunting and getting some smoke asap... you are on the right lines with a sog. The mismatch of wide leaf and narrow leaf (sativa) you are attempting will be a challange.. but also you will learn something. you should try and make sure you have cuttings of each one though. reveg can work at a pinch but i wouldn;t rely on it as your only way. you can take cuttings a couple weeks into flowering from the bottom of the plant if necessary... but try to get them sooner.

After that you could use a modular scrog system like mine with 2 or 4 plants to maximise yield and restrict height.



one thing to keep in mind is that cuttings are a lot better behaved in small spaces than pants grown from seed... seed plants have a vigor that is harder to train and handle... so the cuts from your preferred phenos will be easier.


sometimes i will grow a plant from seed, top it, take cuttings and then bin the original plant! takes longer but makes them easier to handle.


make sure your ventilation is good. try and get air going in at the bottom and out at the top , plenty of airflow helps in constricted spaces.


CFL are fine for veg, if you have a few cool white ones the plants will stretch less in veg.
 
Thank you Verdant. You answered many of my queries.

The info I received so far on this forum shall serve as the fine slurry used to sharpen the blade I take into battle! I will fight well to ever inflate the karmic dividends endowed to my benefactors. Thank you once again all.

Just to give some info on the photos, the larger slender leaf plant in the back is from a bagseed with a very interesting history which I may share later. I have tied down parts of the plant to create it's current form, but I think this plant is most likely a male. I am giving it a bit more time to display sex. If it is a male I may put it in front of a window and see if I can collect some pollen to store.
 

VerdantGreen

Genetics Facilitator
Boutique Breeder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Good luck. You can cut a branch and put it in a vase of water to collect pollen (once a few male flowers have formed) which is easier. keep it well away from the grow !


don't worry of the plants don't look great when kept in small pots etc, notice how i don't post so many pics of test grows and pheno hunts... because they are not so photogenic !


VG
 
Yeah if I try to flower a male I will do it at my gf's apartment. It will fit in well with her other houseplants by the window!

I will keep updating yall as I go. I'm excited to see and share how the flowers develop!

For any who may have been curious I am growing in a mix of top soil, fruit and veggie compost and peat moss. I have a good bit of experience growing other plants besides cannabis outside and have had a lot of success with this potting mix.
 
purple stems

purple stems

Every one of my plants has had some purple on the stems to varying degrees, which I am somewhat surprised by. Is it just coincidental that all the strains I happen to have have purple stems or is there something about my setup that is causing the stems to turn purple? I'm curious if anyone can shed some light on this. I will try to get some pics up later that show the purple stems.
 
Developments

Developments

Some updates on the development of the grow. 10 plants were placed into the flower chamber on the 25th of September, about 10 days ago. Four have identified as male . I placed the boys back into the veg chamber so I could deliberate on what to do with them. I took 4 cuttings from 2 plants (2 from each). They went inside a steamer box so I could mist the sides and top.
 
Although I am tempted to keep male plants for breeding purposes, it would be very hard in practice given my space limitations so with a heavy heart I took the knife to them to clear out my veg space and create more room for cloning. I did keep several clones I had made previously of one special male of mythological origin. I now have 6 plants in my flower chamber, 5 of which have identified as females, one of which is yet unknown. I took 4 more cuttings from two more plants, so I should have clones from 4 of my known females if the cuttings root properly. (The first round of cuttings all rooted successfully) It seems all is going well so far, in no small part thanks to everyone's input. I will try to continue giving updates as the grow goes along.

Peace folks!
 

aliceklar

Well-known member
Nice grow :) They look happy!

I agree a SOG type approach is a sensible solution if you are pheno hunting in a small space. I have a flowering space that is only a bit larger (effective height 2m with a footprint of 90x110cm and 2 x 100w quantam board LEDs) and am on my second grow now. First grow I tried as many different varieties as possible to evaluate them, with pots ranging from 4.5 litres down to 2 litres. Second grow I have plants from seed in 1 litre pots, to restrict size and cram in as many as I can.






It all depends on what you are going for. If you want healthy plants with decent yield, you need longer vegging times and big pots (most seem to consider 5liters/ 1 gallon an absolute minimum if growing in soil, and prefer much, much more). But if you want variety, and are not concerned with yield, then small pots are the way to go - and reduced vegging time can also help. Watering and feeding will be more critical in such a setup, as will decent airflow - there is not much margin for error, but if you do it right you will get a bunch of "buds on sticks", and can evaluate more plants each cycle. The quality of bud in such a grow is fine - but you will pay for it in quantity. Again, it depends on what you are looking for. If you are growing for fun, and your own personal use, small yields are not a problem.

Watching with interest - good luck!


Peace - AK
 
Thanks for weighing in Aliceklar. I think I am on the right track for this first grow cycle as I should have some good variety to sample and I will be able to select which plants I want to put in larger pots for future, higher-yielding grows.
 
Diagnosing feeding issues

Diagnosing feeding issues

I have been seeing a few nutrient based problems in several of my plants. The leaves of the affected plants are curled downward and the tips are browning. Some of the lower leaves have gotten yellow. I was hypothesizing that this could be the result of overfeeding in the case of the curled leaves and brown tips, although the plants look a bit pale as well which could mean a nitrogen deficiency (this may be hard for yall to see because the lights they are under make them look very pale in the photos). I used alaska fish fertilizer during the veg and early flower stage, and I also top dressed the soil with kelp, seabird guano and langbeinite shortly after starting flowering. I am not having problems with all my girls, just a couple of them. They have all been fed in virtually the same exact way. Anyone have any guesses as to what these symptoms are caused by or how to remedy them? Thanks.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3260.jpg
    IMG_3260.jpg
    58.4 KB · Views: 37
  • IMG_3259.jpg
    IMG_3259.jpg
    48.9 KB · Views: 31
  • IMG_3277.jpg
    IMG_3277.jpg
    52.5 KB · Views: 30
  • IMG_3264.jpg
    IMG_3264.jpg
    89.4 KB · Views: 34
  • IMG_3261.jpg
    IMG_3261.jpg
    54.5 KB · Views: 35
  • IMG_3282.jpg
    IMG_3282.jpg
    68.6 KB · Views: 33
  • IMG_3287.jpg
    IMG_3287.jpg
    76.1 KB · Views: 34

Latest posts

Latest posts

Top