6-7 weeks old, any suggestions?

[triton137]

Hello, I'm pretty new here and to growing, but I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions on the next phase of the growing period, or tips to grow my plants bigger or whatever. Any criticism helps.

Here's the details:
-7 plants 6-7 weeks old in a grow closet
-2ft wide x 4ft deep and 4ft high closet (imagine a bottom cabinet in your kitchen)
-2 47watt cfl
18/6 lighting hours

they're currently planted in a simply orange jug cut in half- all organic soil. Great root growth, nice long and white. The plants are probably around 16-20 inches tall. Showing great growth in recent weeks. As of now, looks like I have 7 sativa plants-sexes N/A of course and 1 indica sex N/a. All plants have several branches with great leaf growth. Nice big and a green-dark green color.

Recently purchased a 600watt MH and HPS lambs with ballast and reflector.

Was thinking of keeping the plants in the closet for approx. another week since room is getting tight with plant growth.

Any suggestions about anything I should or should be doing to better the plants and help eventually create nice big healthy plants with big yields.

-----I would post a picture of them but I'm not too sure how to do that in this thread-------

 

[canabinerd]

Yes, more room. Sativa's will roughly triple in height during flowering and Indica's will at least double. That leaves you short on vertical grow room. So you better start training them short or get more vertical grow space.

 

[Rodrigo]

Definitely more space, vertical room is very important because plant will explode in size within days, mine tripled in size in less than 10 days when put in flower room. You will also need to get bigger pots, you didn't mention the size of the OJ jugs you were using but a 3gl pot is enough for a short plant, roots need a lot of room to grow, if they lack this space the plant growth will not be so good and you risk rootbound, this happens when the roots have no more room to grow and they entangle to the point of locking out nute intake and growth will be severly affected, to the point of slowing things down to a crawl and decreasing yield significantly.

Also keep in mind that both HPS and MH create a lot of heat, so you need to keep the canopy at about 18in from the light source and a proper ventilation system. I don't think 4ft vertical is nearly enough for a decent crop, try to figure how to give more vertical room, this will make a biiig difference.

As a side note, HPS is way more effective and efficient than MH so I see no point in using both, try to get another HPS bulb, however, given the space you have you don't really need that much light (although as I understand it, there's no such thing as too much light). MH create more heat than HPS and produce way less lumen output, so you might end up over heating the place and not contributing that much to the light intake.

And to increase yield do a little research about trimming and pruning, learn about ScrOG and SOG, use the right nutes and take good care of your ladies.


Happy growing!

 

[triton137]

Yeah I'm going to use the MH to finish its veg process unless you advise transplanting them into bigger pots, tie them down or SOG grow them and introduce them to the flowering process.

Suggestions?

 

[Rodrigo]

There's no point in finishing the veg process with MH, you actually don't need a complicated light system for the veg room, fluorescents and CFLs are more than enough, a lot of people use MH throughout the veg process, I think that's overkill but that's just my opinion, each grower uses the technique that best works for him
Some people change the light the last week or so of the flowering period to provide the plant with another spectrum to add to the final growth stage. However I haven't read anything about the actual benefit of changing the light from HPS to MH for the last few days of flower, I've actually just seen random comments here and there and nothing concrete on the matter, so I think it might be one of those things that people say without real knowledge. I do know that some growers (with vast spaces) use both HPS and MH at the same time to provide a wider spectrum, this makes sense but it is done throughout the entire flower process and not just at the end.

I'd suggest just keeping your current light source for the veg period until the plant is at least 12 inches high and then flower. Change it to the biggest pot that works for your setup to maximize root growth while still allowing vertical room for the plant itself to grow. Keep in mind that if you let the plant get to close to the light it will burn and stress the entire plant. Use just the HPS and if you have the space add some CFLs closer to the bottom so you get light from below to the buds growing underneath the canopy.

Good luck and happy growing!

 

[triton137]

Perfect thank you so much my man.

Another quick question, any suggestions on training or supercropping? I'm trying to get the biggest crop possible before school is out in Middle of May.

Thanks

 

[Rodrigo]

Training of the plants takes a little of experience, I prefer topping them myself, I'd suggest going with that as it is the easiest of the techniques. I'd also recommend you to put the HPS on top and use your CFLs as side lights (the MH will be better but it creates too much heat, unless you have a well ventilated space and can easily regulate the temperature I wouldn't use it under the plants), you'll see that using these (the CFLs) underneath the canopy will make buds grow everywhere on the plant, thus increasing overall yield. At least this seems to be working for me, I'm 7 days away from harvesting and I'm really happy with the results.
I think given your space constrains this will work better for you and it'll allow you to get a big yield before school starts.

 

[Rodrigo]

Forgot this. a simple introduction to basic training.
Supercropping - a tutorial