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[MEGA]Growing advice, tips, tricks and experience: Mark 3

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^ That is how I have it set up. The fresh air ducts are on the bottom of both tents. The outtake ducts are at the top. Both of my tents have -ve pressure because they are both being sucked in.
 
When does ventilation become necessary (ie how many plants)? Seeing all these industrial a/c units, air filters, water pumps etc is somewhat intimidating/discouraging for a newbie. I got into growing to save money...
 
Ventilation is ALWAYS necessary. Remember, you are acting as mother nature to these plants. If you don't have proper ventilation, your plants won't breathe properly and eventually die. If you were enclosed in a room and kept breathing the same air over and over and over... you'd pass out and croak too.

AC Units are used to keep the temp down. Depends on what lights you are using, how hot/cold it is outside, how many fans you have, etc... You want your rooms between 75-81 (Allow 10 degree drop for night time) and 53% Humidity MAX.

It also depends on how many plants you are growing and what size the space is. Give more details to help us answer your questions more appropriately. What lights are you using? How many plants? What size is your room? What is your yearly weather like? (always hot? seasonal?)...How much you are looking to spend?
 
Hey - I'm starting to see roots come out of the bottom of the drain holes... not many... but they are there. Should they be switched to 12/12 or does there need to be more? I will take pics when they wake up.
 
Transcendence said:
When does ventilation become necessary (ie how many plants)? Seeing all these industrial a/c units, air filters, water pumps etc is somewhat intimidating/discouraging for a newbie. I got into growing to save money...
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Unless you're living somewhere hot in the summer nearer to the equator, like some places in the US you'll only need an extraction fan and a carbon filter with a passive intake (but preferrably an active intake).

Using a parabolic reflector is the best way to lower temps. For places like north america where I come from or the UK where I live you won't need a/c at all.

Alternatively you could use an air cooled hood in a hot country before you resort to a/c, but the parabolic reflector seems to make this setup unecessary in the first place.

If I got free electricity I would probably use air conditioning but only when exceeding 50W/sq ft light and with carbon dioxide enrichment. That sort of grow would cost you over £1000-£2000 though. I might be stating the obvious, but if you want to save money why don't you do a guerrilla grow? That way you could literally have pot for pennies!

SpanoonapS said:
Hey - I'm starting to see roots come out of the bottom of the drain holes... not many... but they are there. Should they be switched to 12/12 or does there need to be more? I will take pics when they wake up.
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Now's definitely fine. I wasn't expecting that to happen so soon.

You'll find they will start to strectch after switching to 12/12 and the plants could double or triple in height during the first three weeks of 12/12.
 
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double or triple? Holy shit... my tent is only 56x56x78... what do I do if they get too big? I want them to get wider but not taller!!!
 
^ use training techniques, such as supercropping (one of my favourites) or low stress training (LST). The latter involves tying the plants down to holes drilled in the top rim of the plant pots.

I think training them so that you can have the lamp as low as possible is something you should be doing throughout the whole grow from the star in the vegetative stage since this improves yield substantially. Growing them freestyle won't allow you to obtain the ellusive 1g/w yield or more, so I would plant to use training and pruning more in future grows if you can (and from an erlier stage).
 
Should we wait a few days after moving them in the flowering room before we begin supercropping? Or should we keep them in veg and do it now?

ALSO - How often do I supercrop it?
 
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No, supercrop right now. Supercropping can be done in early and mid flowering as well as in the vegetative stage. Do a Google search for 'supercropping' and 'cannabis' and you should find a guide, but it basically involves pinching the stem and rolling it between your thumb and index finger back and forth and then gently but firmly bending the stem so that you hear or feel a slight 'snap' at that point. It should stay bent over and not spring back into place gradually. As the stem heals it will form a stronger and thicker stem around the area where the stem was bent. The plant will obviously have a much lower profile, allowing you to get the lamp closer so that the light can reach lower down on the plant and and the stem will be stronger around the bend. The plant, instead of growing up with one main stem rising towards the light will send up lots of lateral shoots along the stem towards the light, giving you a lot more colas instead of one main big one.

If you're not comfortable doing this (when you start doing it it's very easy to fuck up your plant, ruining it completely), just use LST training and practice the supercropping on male plants or female plants you don't mind losing so much if you mess up. To use LST technique, you basically tie the plant down to the pot so that it sends up lateral side shoots towards the light since they start to think each of them is one main stem, meaning you get multiple colas and again, more bud.

Whatever you do, in future I would always recommend topping your plants or fimming them (similar, except you get up to 4-6 new main stems that form as many colas instead of just 2). This will make your plant more bushy and less leggy and increases your yield. To do this you will need a sharp pair of trimming scissors or a sharp scalpel for example.

Six and a half feet of headroom is quite a lot though, so I think you would be fine anyway if you raise your light if you don't want to bother training them. Your lights should be on something like EZ-rollers which allow you to effortlessly and quickly raise or lower the lamp without any adjustment.
 
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We are going to move them into a 12/12 tonight and then supercrop tomorrow. Do we supercrop just once through the plants life?

On a side note - We are very grateful for your help... to show you thanks - we took more pics of our girls. They wanted to say hi to you (you are basically their Uncle!) We fed them nice, healthy water and the overfed symptoms seemed to miraculously VANISH. Thanks again! Enjoy!

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^ You can supercrop a stem more than once, once it's grown up towards the light and the height needs to be controlled further. However I urge you to read up on the method further a little bit before you take the plunge, and remember not to expect it to work perfectly your first time. You'll soon get the hang of it and then at that point it becomes quite satisfying to do, I have to admit!

I would not supercrop beyond about midway through the flowering period when the buds are really starting to set.

Your plants are looking great! Well done :) They look like they're mature enough to flip to 12/12 - you're lucky you could get clones, as growing from seed is a pain in the ass since it takes such a long time for them to reach sexual maturity. I'm planning on using clones exclusively in future myself actually. My next project will be to graft multiple strains onto two plants (in case one dies or something - I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket and all that). That'll be better than having large plant numbers since I do get paranoid about getting caught with my pants down.
 
I'm watching tutorials... I think I got it. We have 1 plant that is bushy on the bottom but tall and lanky at the top. Could I supercrop the main stem?
 
^ Yes, that's fine. Why not clone your clones before you start flowering and go past the point of no return when taking cuttings is increasingly difficult to do? It will preserve your genetics and prevent you having to buy more clones or seeds next grow.
 
You could take a couple of clones of the best-looking girl, then grow that under 18h of blue light (CFL would probably be fine) as clone mothers.
 
I guess I could... I dont know how to clone though. I will have to read up on it.

I just moved the girls to 12/12. They are 30 mins from being in 12 hours of dark for the first time. They ALWAYS droop dramatically before the lights turn off. Like, they prepare for sleep. It isn't a dehydrated droop, its a "I've had enough light I'm going to fuckin sleep" droop. Always freaks me out when I see them like that though lol.
 
Hello :) As SpanoonapS mentioned, we have moved our girls to 12/12. We did this last night.... is it too late to take some clippings for clones? They're just 2 hours into their first 12 hour dark period.... at midnight, when the lights turn on again... we have some tending to do. I know that you should only take clones from vegetating plants, but is one day into a 12/12 cycle already too late to take some clones?
Also, I'm reading all different things about misting the leaves. Some say it's good, others say it's bad. We weren't able to make a fair assumption since we slightly over fertilized and started seeing some burnt curled leaf tips (stopped fertilizing immediately, and also stopped misting)

Lastly, I want to thank everyone here for being so helpful and wonderful. I hope that once I gain enough experience, I will be able to give others advice, as you all have done for us. Thank you :)
 
Also - question about topping.

Can we top at anytime? Just put the plants to 12/12 - is it ok to do it now? There is 1 plant in particular that is bushy at the bottom but has a long stem with not much on it. Instead of super cropping I was gonna top it. How far down from the top can I cut the stem?
 
SpanoonapS said:
It also depends on how many plants you are growing and what size the space is. Give more details to help us answer your questions more appropriately. What lights are you using? How many plants? What size is your room? What is your yearly weather like? (always hot? seasonal?)...How much you are looking to spend?
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I have 7 plants (each around 18-20 inches) growing very close together in a 2x4 ft closet area. Heat isn't a problem as I'm using cfl exclusively, I have 10 100w equivalent 6500k "daylight" bulbs. Not a lot of light but the plants are very close together and the closet is lined with foil so they're doing well and growing fast. I live in a seasonal continental environment where the summer temps average 75-90F during the day, and again the CFLs put out very little heat so I think I'm alright there.

I water every 3 days about a quart each (I think I'll start to increase) and I'm going to start feeding them now that I'm switching to 12/12 flower cycle. I bought some Miracle Grow tomato plant fertilizer:

18% nitrogen
18% phosphate
21% potash
0.5% magnesium
trace amounts of iron, copper, manganese, zinc

I know it's not ideal but it was the only fertilizer I saw with magnesium so I thought it would be better than bloom booster.

The two or three plants near the back are developing yellowing problems but the ones near the front (closer to the door) look beautiful. I'm worried that the stress will cause them to turn male...

I'm also debating whether to keep one plant as a clone mother. Guess it depends how many turn female.

I was going to do a guerrilla grow at first but I thought it would be too much work to hump water out to them every few days if I planted deep enough in the woods to conceal them.

And am I right in assuming the amount of chlorine in tap water shouldn't be a concern?
 
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Not the most large buds Ive had, but, for flowering on an off season, It'll hold me over till I get my next batch going...(I hope)



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Plant outside I was hoping wouldn't flower, still did under 16 hours of light, hoping it just starts to reveg.



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5 Northern Lights (ones hidden) and 2 Master Kush plants. (Ive seen my plants in better condition, just gotta start taking care of them again, kinda got careless)

Hopefully things go well :D
Getting kind of sick of going to the club, and buying clones infested with spider mites, they dont do shit about it, they just sell the plant with spider mites all over it, wasted a whole bottle of some organic spray in my grow room tonight as I noticed a few areas were getting spotty, thought sun bleaching, checked the bottoms and it was spider mites....

Took a closer look under a 100X magnifier and it has a white head and a black butt, don't know if anyone knows that specific mite, most of them seemed to have died in there, Ill just have to keep spraying every few days to make sure

But, over all, I guess things aren't looking too bad, I've had times where my plants were in much better condition than they are now, lets just hope they start to improve with a flush and some fertilizer
 
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