LALALand's 1st Grow - CFLs & AutoPots In My Closet

***UPDATE***

Flowering WEEK 3 has begun!

Veg growth appears to be slowing down slightly, which makes sense because pistils are emerging all over, and the smell is getting danker each day... evidence of more energy being put into budsites.
Plus I've been supercropping a lot, which I'm sure caused some stress-related slowdown. Fine with me–the screens are now PACKED and there's basically nowhere left to tuck new growth. Budsites are all at/near screen level (maximum 3" above), so we should have a nice bed of nugs developing soon.

Patience, patience, I tell myself... :Namaste:

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Doozy said:
Looking great mate, well done so far and thanks for the update! :)

Any chance of a pic from under the screen if possible? Cheers!
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Thanks Doozy... here are under-canopy shots from yesterday, just for you my friend! :high-five:

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- I am mostly avoiding leaf-trimming at this point, choosing to keep the plants as intact as possible. Most leaves below the screen seem to receive some light. The few that don't... well, they get sorta consumed and discarded by the plant–sometimes I find a few shriveled up old ones in there, detached on their own, so I make sure to remove 'em before they rot.

And here's an overhead shot of my lil' jungle, just for kicks...
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:circle-of-love:

Also, Plant First Aid tip here... my experience now confirms that if you are supercropping a stem and accidentally over-bend, snapping the stem open & almost severing it... duct tape makes a superb stiff band-aid, wrapped right around the injury. Within a week the plant will have healed, and she will likely start bustin' out of her bandages, scarred but still strong as all heck. Sort of like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, when she's escaping the hospital. Slow and steady... but still kickin' ass. Just thought I'd mention because I saw someone on a forum be like "Duct tape to repair a stem? That's horrible advice!!" Yea right random dude :goodjob: Yay supercropping! It has helped me get a bushy yet even canopy, I must say...
 
Doozy said:
Have you adjusted your nutes at all or are they still the same?
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Still just using the officially recommended strength... 5ml CalMag & 30ml(total) CannaAB per gal.

For the last week of feeding (ripening) I'll omit the CalMag and reduce nutes to 2/3 strength, adding 1tsp/gal of PK 13/14 for that extra boost.

Because this is a 9-10 week strain (and I want heavy-body cloudy trichromes), I am planning to make this nutrient change at the start of Week 9, followed by a week-long flush.

Any input on the schedule I just described, folks?
 
UPDATE:
Flowering - Week 4, Day 1

Just beautiful... Those hairy pre-flowers are all starting to turn into real buds:
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EDIT: After taking this round of photos, I did another round of tucking on the far side of the screen (which I have let grow more freely until now, simply because it's a pain in the @$$ to reach back in there), then realized I was moving budsites too far away from the light. So... I added another bulb, just an extra 26w, hanging down directly above the recently-trained patch... after all, I might as well turn up the juice at this stage, right?
 
I'd just like to say right now, in retrospect, that if I were to grow this particular strain again in similar conditions... I would probably flip to 12/12 one week sooner. Flowers are emerging later and stretch has lasted longer than I expected, leaving me with what will probably prove to be an overabundance of budsites (but who knows... maybe this is a good thing and the yield will be bomb!)

Regardless, I definitely underestimated the 40% sativa genetics' ability to cause mad branching throughout the process.
 
LALALand said:
I'd just like to say right now, in retrospect, that if I were to grow this particular strain again in similar conditions... I would probably flip to 12/12 one week sooner. Flowers are emerging later and stretch has lasted longer than I expected, leaving me with what will probably prove to be an overabundance of budsites (but who knows... maybe this is a good thing and the yield will be bomb!)

Regardless, I definitely underestimated the 40% sativa genetics' ability to cause mad branching throughout the process.
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Sounds like a good problem to have! ;)

One thing i meant to ask was.....i noticed that you have your plants placed towards the edge of the pot (or certainly looks that way from the picture) is this to help with the LST? I ask because my pots will be the Autopot XL and they have about 35cm2 to work with at the top of the pot.....maybe i should plant in the corner/edge and LST around the edges then to the middle....or start in the middle and LST towards/around the edge? Is this normal with LST?

You're input is much appreciated as always, and looking forward to your next update. Good luck! :)
 
Doozy said:
Sounds like a good problem to have! ;)

One thing i meant to ask was.....i noticed that you have your plants placed towards the edge of the pot (or certainly looks that way from the picture) is this to help with the LST? I ask because my pots will be the Autopot XL and they have about 35cm2 to work with at the top of the pot.....maybe i should plant in the corner/edge and LST around the edges then to the middle....or start in the middle and LST towards/around the edge? Is this normal with LST?

You're input is much appreciated as always, and looking forward to your next update. Good luck! :)
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Thanks Dooz' (and Calyx Hunter!). You are correct; one of my first grow teachers (a real person, not internets) suggested planting near the edge of the pot for LST purposes; makes perfect sense to me, considering the way the bent-over plant will weigh on the root structure.

Having seen how my plants branched out, I would advise growing outward rather than inward from the edges; the latter would probably cause mad overcrowding when branches start to overlap.

Also, of course I can't find the link now... but I read a great LST/scrog article that explained how when growing from seed, one can easily plant in the center of the pot, top the growing seedling and watch it sprout 4 new arms... then symmetrically train those arms outward. The pictured results spoke for themselves on that one... but with clones that method wasn't gonna work for me. Plus I don't wanna top a growing plant. Just... I don't.
 
That's an awesome LST link with very simple to follow diagrams. Thanks for sharing it.

In my current grow (link in my signature) I have 4 clones and their top branches had vigorous growth which needed to be controlled IMO. By doing selective topping and LST I'm able to keep things even and low. I've learned the value of this after growing plants by just letting them grow how they want. I ended up with tall plants that had one nice cola on top and the entire lower portion of the plants having very sparse week buds.

I would think that the proper time to add the trellis for SCROG would be after the flip after the stretch starts to slow down. Having experience with SCROG would you agree with this?
 
Calyx Hunter said:
I would think that the proper time to add the trellis for SCROG would be after the flip after the stretch starts to slow down. Having experience with SCROG would you agree with this?
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I appreciate your response, CH. Based on my limited experience, I would tend to agree... I probably flipped a bit late. Considering that CFL light strength seems to diminish greatly beyond 4" or so, one would probably get optimum bud quality (relatively speaking, with a similar setup) all-around by minimizing above-screen branching... doing so would create more of a "lawn of buds," as opposed to a forest—which is what I seem to have on my hands. Hehehe. Of course I am new to all of this and I don't know exactly how the strain I'm growing is going to develop... so for all I know, the buds might all fill out and end up looking like this anyway:
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That would make me a happy camper.

Whatever the case may be... the sheer QUANTITY of buds I'm looking at right now is phenomenal. At this point I'm curious to see how much swelling occurs at various light distances. For the sake of experimentation and maximizing yield, I don't plan to cut off anything. Just tucking/bending to make sure no big budsites are covered by leaves.

One thing is for sure, if I'd been growing vertically I would have run out of space already.

Update (with more photos) coming soon... things are progressing marvelously... :)
 
Yes! That plant in the link is about how I hope mine turn out. For me quality is most important and quantity comes second. After a few weeks of flowering I will be defoliating like crazy but I don't want to add any more stress than needed right now. Check out my journal in progress. I think I've decided to not do a SCROG. I move my pots around alot during watering and LSTing and feel that SCROG would lock me in.
I can see how with the CFL a SCROG would work well as there is not alot of deep light penetration. It looks like your "lawn" will produce enough quality nuggage to be happy about. I think I'll try for a forest with my HPS.
I'm looking forward to the next round of pics LaLa
 
UPDATE

Flowering Week 4 - RECAP

Been making some improvements to my grow closet this week... I was annoyed about having to remove some reflectors due to ill-fitting bulbs, so I fixed the situation once and for all... and then some... after all, I want MAXIMUM lumens for my babies!

• Replaced the ill-fitting 40w bulbs with 42w bulbs that DO fit into the reflector ballasts.
o +4w (plus who knows how much energy redirected back towards plants, instead of at the ceiling)
• Replaced 26w desk lamp bulb with 40w bulb.
o +14w
• Added one more 40w desk lamp to cover a thin-looking section of buds...
o +40w
• NEW (FINAL) TOTAL: 368w of CFL power. YEAH!
PS: I finally discovered my favorite light height-adjustment solution… so obvious, I can't believe I've been messing with duct tape all this time…
• Looped zip-ties!!! So raising the lights will now be a stress-free affair. *whew*

Anyway, on to the obligatory weedporn.

DAY 4:
Buds exploding everywhere. Bushy bushy bushy...
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DAY 6:
Bushius Maximus.
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DAY 7:
I had to face the truth... many of my budsites were stuck in the shade. This was no good. So after some more reading and thinking (thanks for inspiring, Calyx Hunter), I decided to do some major training, thus increasing light received by all budsites.
• Leaf trimming/bending, and a bit more supercropping
• Also un-trained a few colas that were stuck too close to the screen and getting left behind by their taller neighbors.
• Result: Twice as many visible budsites, and the canopy is evened out.

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Frostiness is definitely developing...
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With six weeks of 12/12 to go, I'm feeling more optimistic than ever about this harvest.
 
Nice update on the lamps. Hey LaLa is the pic of Day 4 actually 4 days into flowering? So its 4 days from switching to 12/12? That seems like an amazing amount of pistils for only 4 days. I keep getting surprised by what people are producing with CFL's on here.

Nice work
 
Calyx Hunter said:
Nice update on the lamps. Hey LaLa is the pic of Day 4 actually 4 days into flowering? So its 4 days from switching to 12/12? That seems like an amazing amount of pistils for only 4 days...

Nice work
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Haha sorry for the confusion... that last post was a recap of WEEK 4, so... that's Day 4 of Week 4 of 12/12.

Thanks for your encouragement, everyone!
 
LALALand said:
Haha sorry for the confusion... that last post was a recap of WEEK 4, so... that's Day 4 of Week 4 of 12/12.

Thanks for your encouragement, everyone!
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Oh I see thanks for the clarification LaLa. Your buds are looking good so early on. I even see trichomes developing on the sweet leafs. I see lots of crystals in your future.
 
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