Plant stretching
- Thread starter maxo-tt
- Start date
MrRudeSnowman
Well-Known Member
it's perfectly normal. just make sure there is enough light in few weeks when serious veg growth kicks in. if you just rise your cfl bulb, not going to be enough.
AKgramma
Well-Known Member
My seedlings also stretched, in spite of keeping the CFL's within a couple of inches of the top leaf. Now they are 8 days past their first topping (33 days old). Should I carefully dig them up and plant them deeper in the pot? I plan to start the second trim for mainlining in a couple days or so. So I want the stems to be as firm as possible.
Maxo-tt - yeah they often do that at first, then thicken up as they start to produce leaves. You have a movement fan in there? That will keep it sturdy. You can also bury it deeper on the next transplant if it seems too tall still.
Akgramma- you have it in a large pot- ie you don't plan any more transplants? Otherwise I'd just wait till the next transplant to bury it a bit deeper. If not - personally I wouldn't go digging it up and placing it down deeper -that would be a lot of root disturbance for what you would get out of it. Have you considered supercropping? That can make for a nice thick stem quite quickly.
Akgramma- you have it in a large pot- ie you don't plan any more transplants? Otherwise I'd just wait till the next transplant to bury it a bit deeper. If not - personally I wouldn't go digging it up and placing it down deeper -that would be a lot of root disturbance for what you would get out of it. Have you considered supercropping? That can make for a nice thick stem quite quickly.
AKgramma
Well-Known Member
Weaselcracker: Yes, I have them in 3 gallon pots (transplanted 3 weeks ago from peat pellets) and did not intend another transplant, as this strain (Purple kush x Mazar) seems to be doing well after its first topping. But I am concerned that 4 of my 8 plants have a lot of space between what's left of the cotyledons and the soil.
I do have a fan blowing across my veg, as many posts on this site recommended it, but not all of them are responding.... or maybe the future males are responding better than the females, which seem to be more compact. At 33 Days from seed, I'm watching the swollen knobs at the nodes to see what preflowers appear, plus keeping an eye on the branches for the next topping and subsequent defoliation below the first split. So I'm just guessing at which are going to be the males, from just the rapid growth and thickening of the stems.
I chose mainlining over supercropping because supercropping seemed a bit scary. I'm not ready for that yet. LOL! Mainlining is more familiar to me, as I have done that to train a flowering bush to trellis.
So, I suppose, reading about 20 posts on transplanting, that it's pretty much up to the grower, but it WILL slow up growth while the plant(s) recover. I'm going to stress them enough with mainlining. I don't need to push them over the edge with what is basically a cosmetic transplant. ;-)
I do have a fan blowing across my veg, as many posts on this site recommended it, but not all of them are responding.... or maybe the future males are responding better than the females, which seem to be more compact. At 33 Days from seed, I'm watching the swollen knobs at the nodes to see what preflowers appear, plus keeping an eye on the branches for the next topping and subsequent defoliation below the first split. So I'm just guessing at which are going to be the males, from just the rapid growth and thickening of the stems.
I chose mainlining over supercropping because supercropping seemed a bit scary. I'm not ready for that yet. LOL! Mainlining is more familiar to me, as I have done that to train a flowering bush to trellis.
So, I suppose, reading about 20 posts on transplanting, that it's pretty much up to the grower, but it WILL slow up growth while the plant(s) recover. I'm going to stress them enough with mainlining. I don't need to push them over the edge with what is basically a cosmetic transplant. ;-)
Supercropping is pretty cool, once you get used to the concept. It does slow them down, but sometimes that's the reason for doing it, and it slows them partly as a result of the plant putting a lot of energy into thickening it's stem after you do the supercrop. Mainlining seems to slow them a lot too.
Do you have a journal or somewhere to post pics so we can see what they look like, or maybe the other fellow doesn't mind if you just dump them in here? The movement fans won't really make them stockier I think, but it does make them stronger which pays off pretty quickly
Actually I am a big fan of transplanting and I honestly don't see that it slows them down much, or at all. When I transplant one that is ready for a bigger pot all I see is rapid increase in growth. So I have absolutely nothing against transplanting. But the idea of actually digging the plant out of its pot is a little bit different. I could see that slowing down the plant a bit because you are going to chop lots of roots , as opposed to just dumping the entire pot full of soil out in one lump and transferring it into a bigger pot.
However.... I have a method where sometimes I throw a bunch of seeds together in one pot and let them grow wild. This is just something I do sometimes in my perpetual grow because I have thousands of seeds and sometimes I just want to have some extra reserve plants growing in case I have extra space. So I do this to select the strongest and best. I kill anything that is weak or male. Once they've sexed I separate the females into individual pots. The roots are all tangled together. Really they don't slow down much and they take off after a couple days. So you're right- it isn't really a big problem. It just seemed like maybe there wouldn't be much gain for what you were getting out of it. I am assuming that you already have roots of that plant that go right to the bottom of the pot- so you can dig it up chopping a bunch of roots and maybe possibly lower it an inch or two. But there are other ways to make it strong and generally it happens in time on its own. Just my 1 cent worth of babble...
Pics?
Do you have a journal or somewhere to post pics so we can see what they look like, or maybe the other fellow doesn't mind if you just dump them in here? The movement fans won't really make them stockier I think, but it does make them stronger which pays off pretty quickly
Actually I am a big fan of transplanting and I honestly don't see that it slows them down much, or at all. When I transplant one that is ready for a bigger pot all I see is rapid increase in growth. So I have absolutely nothing against transplanting. But the idea of actually digging the plant out of its pot is a little bit different. I could see that slowing down the plant a bit because you are going to chop lots of roots , as opposed to just dumping the entire pot full of soil out in one lump and transferring it into a bigger pot.
However.... I have a method where sometimes I throw a bunch of seeds together in one pot and let them grow wild. This is just something I do sometimes in my perpetual grow because I have thousands of seeds and sometimes I just want to have some extra reserve plants growing in case I have extra space. So I do this to select the strongest and best. I kill anything that is weak or male. Once they've sexed I separate the females into individual pots. The roots are all tangled together. Really they don't slow down much and they take off after a couple days. So you're right- it isn't really a big problem. It just seemed like maybe there wouldn't be much gain for what you were getting out of it. I am assuming that you already have roots of that plant that go right to the bottom of the pot- so you can dig it up chopping a bunch of roots and maybe possibly lower it an inch or two. But there are other ways to make it strong and generally it happens in time on its own. Just my 1 cent worth of babble...
Pics?
AKgramma
Well-Known Member
After reading the directions on how to upload pics, I got confused. I WOULD like to post pics, however. I did some shots of both my version of the DYI odor bucket and 5 of my best plants in the grow tent. Will re-read the instructions and see if I can do it.
Oh, and BTW, the plants aren't anywhere near being rootbound.
Edited with photos of my mini-grow.
Oh, and BTW, the plants aren't anywhere near being rootbound.
Edited with photos of my mini-grow.
Greeley
New Member
Plants use Phototropism to decide where to move, be it left right up down or any other direction they need to reach the sun. Blue light affects phototropism more than any other, green and yellow being minimal, and red doing nothing. Depending on your bulbs spectrum , it doesn't matter how close your lights are.
AKgramma
Well-Known Member
The best I can do right now is using cfl's. So I regulate temperature and light by how many cfl's I have on and keep the lights close. Tweaking the color spectrum is going to have to wait until I see what I end up with at the end.
Weaselcracker was correct, that the seedlings that seemed stretched out, don't seem so bad now that the stem is thickening and the plant is filling out. Something akin to a teenager eventually growing into his over-sized 12-year-old feet.
Still experimenting with the flower closet, BEFORE I put any to flower. Not very tecchie, I know, but it's only my first grow. Took some clones today while pruning for mainlining, in case I really screw up this grow. As fast as these babies are filling out (36 days from seed), I'll have to do an early flower just to make room in the Veg tent!
Weaselcracker was correct, that the seedlings that seemed stretched out, don't seem so bad now that the stem is thickening and the plant is filling out. Something akin to a teenager eventually growing into his over-sized 12-year-old feet.
Still experimenting with the flower closet, BEFORE I put any to flower. Not very tecchie, I know, but it's only my first grow. Took some clones today while pruning for mainlining, in case I really screw up this grow. As fast as these babies are filling out (36 days from seed), I'll have to do an early flower just to make room in the Veg tent!
MrRudeSnowman
Well-Known Member
my personal advice for you is to do some training on these. with minimal cfl setup there could be very little branching and you need to avoid that. there is plenty info online about training. research.
AKgramma
Well-Known Member
Absolutely, I am doing some training! Been reading all the methods and have chosen mainlining, which is closest to what I have done with vining roses to prepare them to trellis. 
I just didn't want to go off-topic by explaining what I was doing, as training most likely is covered in another thread. I am keeping a log, which I may share later on, if the grow is successful.
I just didn't want to go off-topic by explaining what I was doing, as training most likely is covered in another thread. I am keeping a log, which I may share later on, if the grow is successful.MrRudeSnowman
Well-Known Member
kudos!
