Auto Flower when to switch to HPS

[Santurro99]

Hi I was wondering If I could get any more advise on when to switch to hps for my autos.

Soil-Fox Farm Ocean Forrest
Light-400w mh/hps from htg. Not air cooled!
Nutes-Fox Farm Tiger bloom and big bloom. Will add cha ching last 2 weeks.
2 gallon buckets
Grow tent-3x2x5
Temp 72-76 with tent flaps open a bit

All are in 22nd day. The ak47 looks the best and is the fastest growing so far. One white dwarf stopped growing right after i transplanted into the 2 gallon buckets but has just started to grow over the last couple of days. I just fed nutes for the first time the other day at 1/2 strength. They seemed to take it fine.

Besides the runt, the other two have been showing their pistils the last 3 days. They are aprox 4.5 inches tall. (Seems short to me)

Seeing how I thought i was gonna lose the runt, I planted 2 more. They are 7 days old.

My question is when should I switch to HPS? Keeping the same time schedule of course.

How will that effect the two that are 2 weeks behind?

Should I bother to tie them down? Not sure how big they will get.

Here is what they look like so far. The close ups are the lowryder ak-47. The other two are white dwarf. The straw is just so i know which one is the ak!

 

[Filthy Biker]

Well you have enough wattage for sure, but I'm left wondering what gives if they are indeed already 22 days old. Mine, grown in a small closet, were beyond that at 14 days. I also used 400 MH for 2 1/2 weeks (the strain's regular veg time) then switched over to HPS with broad spectrum to allow a little veg still. AgroMax 55,000 lumen HPS is one mean mother! I think it's worth the extra few bucks. I also grow in Ocean Forrest and use the Fox Farm nutes with every other watering. I'm using larger pots too, about 3 1/2 gal to avoid becoming root bound. I'm skipping the Cha Ching, and by the looks of things it wont be needed. I'm at day 48 since I tossed the seeds in paper towels to germinate, see for yourself. I was a little surprised to see such verticle growth with two of my four Easy Ryder girls, they are both at about 31", while the shorter two are around 21". I'm wondering how far away are you keeping your lamp. I was adjusting mine to stay within 18-22" from the plants tops at all time, no more, no less. I keep a fan running on them 24 hours a day to keep air flow sufficient and to keep the temps between 75°-85° at the tops. I was keeping lights on originally for 20/4, switched to 18/6 about two weeks ago thinking it would help promote more flowering. BTW, mine began flowering at week 3. So far as the nutes are concerned, are you using Grow Big too?. The soil itself contains worm castings and bat guano, but will weaken in time. I have been feeding mine since the first watering. I started misting mine with seltzer water for CO2 utilization at day 42 to speed up bud growth too. Some people argue against that but it seems that my plants are really digging it!! I am now an advocate of it's use. I do not want to a spend in the neighborhood of 400$ for a system to get CO2 to them. The colas I have at this stage are already immense, the fattest one is in the back on one of the shorter plants beyond the photos range, but it is already much bigger around than my wrist and is very dense. Do not prune! Easy Ryder branches on it's own. To answer your question about switching lights due to some plants being further ahead, you really should consider a broad spectrum bulb that will take care of veg and flowering stages, such as the AgroMax I mentioned earlier. I hope this helps a little. I'm about ten days from harvest now, which will make it a total of eight weeks from seed! I'm pretty proud of them, as you can imagine. Also don't forget to hang out with them and talk to them alot. They respond well to the extra TLC. It almost breaks my heart to see them come down, we've become rather close.

 

[Filthy Biker]

Also, btw, what you're seeing here are the colas and foliage from just two of my four Easy Ryders in the front of the closet. It's now quite a pain having to pull them out to water the ones in the back!!!