Will a 36W LED produce any worthwhile bud at all? First grow attempt

A

ambivalent

New Member
I sort of fell into this, my first grow attempt, without planning to at all. I borrowed a friend's 36W light, germinated a couple of seeds, and started reading up. I knew next to nothing about growing cannabis, or about growing anything else for that matter.

...That was five or six weeks ago. I now have two very modest, but healthy-looking, Afghan plants. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself growing anything at all, and it was great to see the plants growing nicely. They're a little over a foot tall, both the same height, but one is slightly fuller-looking. Today I'm excited to see that both of my plants seem to have female pre-flowers. (It's difficult to be sure, but I've been looking damn hard!)

So... If I flower my plants with 36W, and they are indeed female, will I get any bud? Even a couple of eighths would be nice. Or would I do better to keep them in veg until I get more powerful lights?

(I have some other seeds - feminized White Widow, I think - and I intend to get some stronger lights to grow them with.)

Thanks for reading.
 
Re: Will a 36W LED produce any worthwhile bud at all? First grow attempt.

It might do something but won't be a lot my guess....though one way to find out ;) :rofl: if seeds are hard (or expensive) to come by then you might be better off waiting. But w/o knowing size of your space hard to say how long you should/can leave them in Veg as size of pot and space it growing in determines that quite a bit. Better light will give you better results, but I have no experience trying with that low of watts so maybe someone that has will wander in and chime in their experience.
 
Re: Will a 36W LED produce any worthwhile bud at all? First grow attempt.

Ha ha, they started off sitting on a pile of books and old shoes, in cut-down plastic bottles! Now I've cleared it out, it's actually a pretty good space - a decent size cupboard, 3 or 4 sq ft floor by 5 ft high, painted white inside. Very basic now, but I can see the potential of the space after learning a little. I could grow a couple of big plants in there with a good setup.

I transferred the plants from plastic bottles to containers about 5 and 10 liters. Annoyingly, the bigger plant is in the smaller container.

About seeds... I germinated two out of the five I had. The first two developed perfectly, but when I came to germinate the other three, weeks later, they all failed. Is this because I left them out in daylight for too long? I'll be sure to keep them in a dark place from now on.
 
Re: Will a 36W LED produce any worthwhile bud at all? First grow attempt.

Yes. They should be kept dark and cold. The fridge is a good place to store seeds
 
Re: Will a 36W LED produce any worthwhile bud at all? First grow attempt.

That's good advice about the seeds, thanks. I will keep them in the fridge.

I'm in two minds. I'm impatient to go 12/12, just to see what happens, but if I hold off for a week I can get another light in there. How might it go if I start flowering with 36W then add 150W later? (I'm thinking to add a 150W LED first.) Would the plants be okay with this?

Part of me just wants to try with 36W, in the name of science, but a bigger part of me would really like a bud of my own to smoke at Christmas...

(Where I live, a 150W LED costs less than 7g of weed, so it should pay for itself several times over in one grow. Seeds aren't too expensive or difficult to get, but I have limited space, so I'd like to make the most of it.)

I believe I have the growing bug!
 
There were no pre flowers. Just tiny new leaves, I think. I've cut the very tops off now, to encourage outwards growth. The tops were nice and weedy when I rubbed them between my fingers, but otherwise the plants don't smell very strong yet. Anyway, I guess I'll know how to identify pre flowers when I'm sure I've seen them with my own eyes.

I've boxed the plants into a space about 1' x 2', in the cupboard, with two mirrors. The lamp is hanging about 1' above them. They're still looking healthy, but the space is crowded. There isn't really enough light to cover two plants now. It could still cover one plant quite nicely. Struggling for light, the rate of growth seems to have slowed. (The plants are about 15" tall.)

I would like to go for the best yield I can, so I'll keep them in veg at least until I get another light over the weekend. Then I'll open it up and give them a bit of space.

I've got a white widow seed in kitchen paper today, and I was surprised to find that one of the Afghan seeds I'd already given up on had finally sprouted a taproot. I don't know if it's viable - it took about a fortnight to sprout - but I planted it.

I'll get a photo whenever my friend comes by with a decent camera. My phone camera is terrible, and almost useless with that crazy purple light.
 
They're under a 450W led now (actual draw ~200), looking pretty good for a first attempt. Both are about two foot tall. Pre flowers are definitely visible on one plant. (I know what they look like now!)

I think they vegged well under 36W, but I didn't want to risk it for flowering.
 
I met my mate the other day. Told him I might get a couple of ounces off it and he looked skeptical. Then he came and saw the plant, and said, "Oh yeah, that might do a couple of ounces." Ho ho ho, exciting times :)
 
I topped it once, and I've been doing a very basic kind of LST, tying the highest branches to lower ones. There are quite a lot of flowers right under the light now.

I'm still using the original 36W light, on the two babies I have, just for some extra hours of vegging light.
 
Well, a couple of ounces was optimistic... The plant actually ended up looking pretty fucked. Lots of things were wrong.

I spent four days away, and it got badly dehydrated. It looked like a big green spiderweb on a stick, and I feared it was dead. It came back, but that must have been shock. It was also too hot in my cupboard - up to 10°C too hot near the light. It grew a lot faster than I expected in flowering, and quickly outgrew the bowl it was in. I think the roots were pretty desperate in there. Also, I just fed it generic "plant food" out of an unmarked plastic bottle. I have no idea what was in it. Probably all the classic mistakes for a first grow.

Even so, I've got weed to smoke and it's great. The buds are small, unripe, and cucumbery, and the bit I've fast-dried doesn't taste wonderful, but it hits the spot.

I cut that plant down yesterday, to make way for the white widow plant just starting to flower. (I've got a fan now, a much larger pot, and a drip feeder. I still need to get proper nutes. I will do some time this week.)

It was an early harvest - about 15% brown pistils - and it won't amount to half an ounce. I took a few branches for a little smoke and left the rest of the plant hanging to cure. It had lost many of its fan leaves, and the buds seemed to be not growing, and they never smelled like weed. The whole plant smells like weed but the buds just smell like cucumber. Did I cut it too early? I thought it was better to move on to the next plant.

I moved a male Afghan into my cold kitchen. I hope to slow it down and use it to get some more seeds at some point.

Oh, the younger plants flowered despite being under the main light for 12 hours, then under the 36W light most evenings. I thought the 36W would keep them in veg, but it didn't.
 
From the bit I've already dried, I'd say I'll probably harvest no more than a quarter actually. They really are weird little buds. But still... I grew weed!

I'm keeping all the leaves and stuff to make hash one day.
 

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