Time to flip? Too many plants?

[LJ farming]

Before a friend (Mota Miagui) that is mentoring me Left on a month long vacation he told me I should be flipping to 12 and 12 around tomorrow. I’m just wondering what someone else’s opinion is since he is not here nor available to communicate. Anyways It seems to me I might have too many plants for a 4x8 tent but this is my first true indoor grow. I have already had a small issue with light burn and I would like to avoid as many future problems as possible. So like the title says does it look like I should flip tomorrow and is the tent too crowded. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
LJ

 

[exploziv]

How much space you got above that screen, till they hit the light? What size ( I suppose) hps?

 

[HempKat]

Yeah, if you're already worried about having enough room then they're ready to flip. You may want to lower that string they're under to help limit how tall they can get. The first 2-3 weeks of 12/12 is called the stretch phase and the plants can add quiet a bit of height in this phase so you'll want that netting, screen down low to keep training the plants under as they try to grow taller over the next 2-3 weeks.

 

[gizmo666]

That's gonna be a busy room
But follow hempkats advise as that's what I would do

​​​​​​Good luck

 

[f-e]

I presume you will be dropping one of them nets down to the top right away? Enabling some lateral growth to form your screen, before it all comes up together?

I wouldn't wait any longer, but wouldn't kick anything out either. That would be a waste of good roots. You could thin the plants out though. Perhaps pick how many branches you want. One per square perhaps?

Trust your mentor. It's someone to blame lol

 

[LJ farming]

Thank you all for your advice. I have 2 nets on each tray. They are up right now so that I could remove each plant and examine them every couple days. So I will do 1 more examination of all plants today for pests and problems and then as Hempcat said lower screen number 1 down to plant height and switch to 12/12 when the lights come on this evening. I am running two 1000 watt HPS. I have thought since I built the tray holders/tables that the amount of headroom I have is way too little but all I have ever grown for the last five years is 4-6 foot big ladies outside and this indoor is brand new to me. I do still have about 42 inches overall from the top of the plants to the bottom of the lights. I was told by said mentor that I will be very busy for the two weeks after I flip training the canopy and getting everything correct. He said after that I can put it on auto pilot and drink pints until they finish up. LOL. No seriously he just said plan on working triple time for the next couple weeks and then it should get much easier if there are no major problems. Have a great Sunday all and thanks again for your comments.

 

[exploziv]

With 2000w hps in there yeah you'll be busy for a while and then you'll end up with a very big and dense canopy, that your growspace may or may not contain. Make sure you start the training and maybe even do some tieing of the tops down low so you have places to go when they get bigger and bigger and you have to train the next level over. Don't underestimate the stretch. Big powerful plants stretch a lot. And don't forget to update and show us how its going. I must admit I haven't seen a 2000W hps grow in here lately, since most big growers gone the led way.
Good luck!

 

[HempKat]

Thank you all for your advice. I have 2 nets on each tray. They are up right now so that I could remove each plant and examine them every couple days. So I will do 1 more examination of all plants today for pests and problems and then as Hempcat said lower screen number 1 down to plant height and switch to 12/12 when the lights come on this evening. I am running two 1000 watt HPS. I have thought since I built the tray holders/tables that the amount of headroom I have is way too little but all I have ever grown for the last five years is 4-6 foot big ladies outside and this indoor is brand new to me. I do still have about 42 inches overall from the top of the plants to the bottom of the lights. I was told by said mentor that I will be very busy for the two weeks after I flip training the canopy and getting everything correct. He said after that I can put it on auto pilot and drink pints until they finish up. LOL. No seriously he just said plan on working triple time for the next couple weeks and then it should get much easier if there are no major problems. Have a great Sunday all and thanks again for your comments.

Yeah go with your mentor's advice because it sounds like he's telling you pretty much the same things. Plus as f-e said if anything goes wrong you can blame him . Seriously though, once you get past the stretch phase things will calm down and assuming there are no other issues, you should just be able to kick back some and only worry about feeding them and maybe adjusting the lights slightly depending on how big the buds get. From what I saw in the pics the plants looked well cared for so I'm thinking you got this. I do get though how doing things differently then you're used to can be a little nerve racking. By the time you finish though hopefully you'll look back on it all and realize you were worrying for nothing.

 

[LJ farming]

It took this big old man a few hours to basically tear the tent apart and rearrange damn near everything but I got something done even if it’s wrong. I have a dehumidifier coming tomorrow so I needed to rearrange to fit that expensive piece of equipment anyways. Hopefully I only have to do that a few more times. The tent maker should change their design or quit making tents. I made my tray carts out of some old pvc well pipe and put casters on them but unfortunately the doors of the tent are too small for them to roll out as intended. Hopefully before winter is over I will finish my actual room so the POS tent can just be a veg room as intended. Anyways here is a couple pics of this old mans first attempt at flipping to 12/12. It looks like it will end up larf soup to me but we will just have to wait and see. Thanks again Hempcat. Please feel free to Point out the numerous mistakes I’m sure I made. Sorry about the terrible pics. If anyone knows a better way to take pics of plants under HPS lights please feel free to share.

 

[LJ farming]

Also I have already been told I didn’t do myself any favors by putting 5 different strains in the tent but live and learn I guess. It was a last minute decision to do a full grow in the tent so in went the plants I intended to be moms until I figured out which if any of my outdoor strains do well indoors and I also picked up 4 clones from an old friend. So in the tent there is:
2 Wedding Crasher ladies
2 Dream Queen ladies
2 GG4 ladies
1 Sunday Driver ( IMO the best named strain ever)
4 Gelato #4s ladies

 

[LJ farming]

Is it normal or I guess ok to only water/feed every 5 days or so? I am getting very little if any runoff and that makes me nervous. I am going to cut the ladies water in half for now. (From 1/2 gallon to a quart) The 5 gallon smart pots I’m using just don’t dry up as much as I would like.

 

[HempKat]

Is it normal or I guess ok to only water/feed every 5 days or so? I am getting very little if any runoff and that makes me nervous. I am going to cut the ladies water in half for now. (From 1/2 gallon to a quart) The 5 gallon smart pots I’m using just don’t dry up as much as I would like.

5 Gallons is pretty deep so it could potentially take a fair amount of time to dry out but at this point the root system should be developed enough to not take that long. I've grown in 5 gallon pots and the longest they took before needing water was 3 days. Then again they weren't "smart pots" I've never used "smart pots" nor do I know how they're supposed to work or what makes them smart, so I have no way to factor that into your situation. Putting that aside there are many other factors that come into play such as rh and temperature but with 2 1000W HIDs temps should if anything be on the high side causing things to dry out faster not slower.

In the end the important thing is how the plants look and from what I see your plants look very healthy, as for numerous mistakes made, I'm not seeing numerous mistakes. In fact it seems to me the only real mistake you've made so far was doubting yourself and your mentor. The plants speak well for you and your handling of them and from what you've said your mentor told you that has matched what people here told you.

As for the variety of strains there is nothing wrong with variety in a SCRoG (Screen of Green) style grow so long as the strains have roughly the same growth characteristics and finish times. I've not grown any of the strains you listed but I have seen pictures of most of them grown by others and from what I could tell I'm guessing they're all in roughly the same category. The only way it will be a major problem is if one or more strains take a lot longer to finish then others because one the screen fills out it will become tricky to remove some and leave other to go longer without disrupting things. Mind you though I only said trickier I didn't say impossible. The reason the one person suggested the variety might be bad is because since they all become intertwined under the screen uniform growth would be more ideal and for that reason the person who suggested the variety might be a mistake if probably more used to seeing only one strain at a time in a given SCRoG Style grow.

It looks like you've done good so far and I'm confident you'll manage these next 2-3 things when you're being kept buy but after that things will settle down and you'll be able to relax a bit.I'm thinking you've got this.