Monkey's 2nd Attempt - CFL - Soil - Thunderpaws

[cbdstealth]

What type of soil is that and where did you get it?
What type of lights are you using and how far away are they?

There really shouldn't be any nute deficiencies this early in the grow, not with soil at least. I would have to agree with OttawaGreen they may be reacting to too moist soil. I personally would not fertilize this early and suspect the yellowing is caused by something else.

 

[worldgrow]

Hi monkey just saw your journal and thought I'd check it out ill sub in ....

I agree with Cbd what soil is that ?? lots off bark in there which some one on here told me is not good i think it turns soil acidic if i remember correct ... If i read correct your from S.A like me ? I am on my first grow myself which is not going bad growing with allot of the same stuff you are .I am on day 29 of flower you can check my journal in my signature

As far as advice ... What i did with the below par soil is removed all chuncky bark and added some earthworm castings and Bonemeal and about 30 to 50 % perlite to make it nice and airy and give it good drainage ....And i dont your young girls dont need any nutes now soil should keep them a few weeks .... How old are they now ? and what nutes are you planning on using ?

Oh and lastly you know we both need better lights than cfl right hahahaha

. From Africa

 

[cbdstealth]

Hi Monkey, I read for thread from the beginning and saw a few questions you asked that I'm going to answer so forgive me spamming the next few posts to get the quoted text.

Btw, about my earlier lights question, I see you are using CFLs. You want those to be no more than 6 inches (15cm) from your plants. If they are a foot away they not enough light will be reaching the seedlings and they will grow very slow.

Don't get the lights too close though because you don't want to burn the plants. As a general rule of thumb if you can hold your hand where the plant is and it doesn't feel too hot from the light then that is about the closest you can go with a CFL.

 

[cbdstealth]

How true is the fact that hermies give female seeds.. From what i read, hermies give hermie seeds..

The definite answer is maybe.

It is all about genetics. One thing is for certain hermies (and/or females) cannot give you male plants if they are only fertilized by pollen from a hermie (being a hermie they can fertilize themselves). There are two options:

1) The plant was a "true hermaphrodite" that is it had the genetics of being a hermaphrodite. In this case it will produce female seeds but with a "high percentage" of hermaphrodite females.
2) The plant was a female that had stress that caused hermaphroditism. In this case it will produce female seeds but with a "low percentage" of hermaphrodite females.

There is never a certainty with hermaphrodites there are only different levels of probability of getting another. What is certain is that seeds produced from hermaphrodite pollen cannot be male. Only male plant pollen carries the male gene to pass on.

Technically any female plant has the capability to produce male flowers given the appropriate stress (lookup gibberellic acid). "True hermaphrodites" will produce male flowers without any stress at all.

 

[cbdstealth]

Hey guys
Anyone ever tried incandescent grow lights

They 60w soft white globes.. My mate got me two fpr free.. Was thinking about using them in my cloning/flowering side of the caninet till i get my full spectrum 28w led full spectrum grow lights.. Was thinking 9 of them giving me a 252 full spectrum led grow lights.. But till such time are these incandescent grow lights worth it or should i just use cfl's for now

Do not use those bulbs. Incandescents are not well suited for growing anything. In terms of efficiency that bulb converts about 90%+ of the electricity to heat (<10% as light).

For flowering you can use the same CFLs as veg stage, just switch your ratios of cool white : warm white. All I use during veg and flower is 2700k (warm white) and 6500k (cool white) CFLs. During veg I run more cool white (cool 3:1 warm) and during flower I do the opposite (cool 1:3 warm). Full spectrum CFLs are good but are not essential.

 

[ChronicMonkey]

Hi monkey just saw your journal and thought I'd check it out ill sub in ....

I agree with Cbd what soil is that ?? lots off bark in there which some one on here told me is not good i think it turns soil acidic if i remember correct ... If i read correct your from S.A like me ? I am on my first grow myself which is not going bad growing with allot of the same stuff you are .I am on day 29 of flower you can check my journal in my signature

As far as advice ... What i did with the below par soil is removed all chuncky bark and added some earthworm castings and Bonemeal and about 30 to 50 % perlite to make it nice and airy and give it good drainage ....And i dont your young girls dont need any nutes now soil should keep them a few weeks .... How old are they now ? and what nutes are you planning on using ?

Oh and lastly you know we both need better lights than cfl right hahahaha

. From Africa

Hey bud, im using normal potting soul mix with vermiculite and perlite.. Some of the potting soul seemed to have a bit more bark then the rest put i did try to pic most of that out, but also leaning to over watering.

On the cfl part, bud i have seem some awesome proper grows with cfl, if done right..

 

[ChronicMonkey]

@cbdstealth. Don't worry about the incandescent grow bulbs after some much needed research i found out them to bad so i will definitely not go that route..

Thanks on the hermie question and answer you provided..

Dony stress, as my cfl's are kept roughly 15cm. 4x 85w 6400k cfls.. Position nicely to give good coverage. They have reflectors to point light downwards and reflecting on the side also.. Plus i also have 3 pc fans blowing are directly between lights and plants...

Thanks for the input so far, a lot helped...

 

[OttawaGreen]

I agree the cfls will do ok.
You should be fine. Just keep sharing pics and everyone will try to help as you go and learn.

 

[worldgrow]

Hey bud, im using normal potting soul mix with vermiculite and perlite.. Some of the potting soul seemed to have a bit more bark then the rest put i did try to pic most of that out, but also leaning to over watering.

On the cfl part, bud i have seem some awesome proper grows with cfl, if done right..

Hey Monkey no worries i agree cfl can grow but i am a bit worried about buds not bulking up as they should with cfl ... but as i said this is my first grow and will have to see for myself ... my cfls are positioned in between bud sites for max light exposure but i also have 2 58 w T8 tubes in there with the 6 cfls

Just saw you added vermacilite and just for future reference i also did in my initial pots before up potting and found it holds to much moisture and my plants took to long to dry out with the low heat of the cfls and got over watered very quickly ....So for my future grows i wiĺl leave that out .Is the 85 on your cfls true watts or equivalent?

These are my two unknow strain sativas

. From Africa

 

[ChronicMonkey]

@ worldgrow, its true watt.. They big boys

 

[worldgrow]

@ worldgrow, its true watt.. They big boys

Great stuff should work out great

Did you get them in south africa or online ? I have been looking for those in all the shops i can.... but could not find any thanks

 

[ChronicMonkey]

I got then from a local pakistani shop. If you pay for shipping i can hook you up

 

[ChronicMonkey]

But they dont have warm white. But the guy got me warm white led strip. So thinking of a combo of that and low wattage cfl for my bloom cabinet

 

[worldgrow]

I got then from a local pakistani shop. If you pay for shipping i can hook you up

Firstly thank you for the kind offer ... Now that is the great 420 spirit. Reps for that !! I will keep that in mind and pm you if it comes to that ... When you say a local store do you mean in south africa ? I am in gauteng's side of the world and ill check a couple of those type of stores arround me

But they dont have warm white. But the guy got me warm white led strip. So thinking of a combo of that and low wattage cfl for my bloom cabinet

That would work i have a bunch of the lower watt ones in my grow and looks like its working so far ..But i could see the difference in trich production the moment i changed the cool white cfls with warm white .... So as soon as you go flower get some extra red spectrum on there to get them nice and frosty

. From Africa

 

[ChronicMonkey]

Firstly thank you for the kind offer ... Now that is the great 420 spirit. Reps for that !! I will keep that in mind and pm you if it comes to that ... When you say a local store do you mean in south africa ? I am in gauteng's side of the world and ill check a couple of those type of stores arround me



That would work i have a bunch of the lower watt ones in my grow and looks like its working so far ..But i could see the difference in trich production the moment i changed the cool white cfls with warm white .... So as soon as you go flower get some extra red spectrum on there to get them nice and frosty

. From Africa

Thanks bud... Well i stay in the east rand and there is a shop here thats helping me out with my lighting and wiring stiff

Also when i go the bloom route i will be tryinu for a mix of led strips and cfl, all warm white 2700k and maybe adding 6-9 led full spectrum bulbs..

Later on i will post pics of the lights im aiming to use.

 

[cbdstealth]

Hey Monkey no worries i agree cfl can grow but i am a bit worried about buds not bulking up as they should with cfl ... but as i said this is my first grow and will have to see for myself ... my cfls are positioned in between bud sites for max light exposure but i also have 2 58 w T8 tubes in there with the 6 cfls

Just saw you added vermacilite and just for future reference i also did in my initial pots before up potting and found it holds to much moisture and my plants took to long to dry out with the low heat of the cfls and got over watered very quickly ....So for my future grows i wiĺl leave that out .Is the 85 on your cfls true watts or equivalent?

These are my two unknow strain sativas

. From Africa

Hi Worldgrow, I'm not sure about the "bulking up" portion being so much less with CFLs. Granted I have not done HPS so I am speaking with half knowledge. However, I have noticed that my CFLs take quite a bit longer to reach maturity so it seems to depend on how well the strain handles being in a long flower cycle.

It looks like you have a strain (or phenotype at least) that is leaning strong Sativa. I notice with my Sativa strains (and this appears to be normal) we just don't get the high level of bud density (like Indica) and the plant seems to have a hard time flowering long enough for the bud density to build before the trichomes start turning. On the other hand I had an Indica that went overripe under CFL (swollen calyx, leaf die-off, etc.) and I was still at <5% amber trichomes.

In the case I mention, the Sativa was a 6-8 week strain and I chopped it at 10 weeks, the Indica was a 7 week strain and I chopped it at 11 weeks.

 

[OttawaGreen]

I think all of that is affected by lying breeders too. They like to claim a strain finishes sooner than it actually does... at least they are not as big a liar as most LED manufacturers are ;-)

 

[cbdstealth]

But they dont have warm white. But the guy got me warm white led strip. So thinking of a combo of that and low wattage cfl for my bloom cabinet

I would not go any lower than a 23W CFL for growing (100W equivalent) they just can't output enough light to be useful.

I have used both warm white CFLs and warm white LEDs for flowering and both work but I always use them together. It seems the LEDs help a bit more with bulking up but I think it may be it just speeds up the flowering process. The problem with LEDs is the narrow spectral band based on how LEDs emit light, the CFL band is more full. LEDs also tend to have more spikes in the yellow spectrum.

However the yellow spike is not necessarily a bad thing; everyone concentrates on the blue and red spectrums which I believe relates to a NASA experiment showing you can grow plants using only those two wavelength ranges. If you look at an HPS spectral curve you will see it has quite a high output in the yellow/green spectrum. Plants actually use quite a bit of yellow light even though it is so close to green and this is probably because the sun also has a high amount of yellow light output.

My point is that even though everyone seems to concentrate on the red and blues the plants seem to love the yellow light output by the warm white LEDs just as much.

 

[cbdstealth]

I think all of that is affected by lying breeders too. They like to claim a strain finishes sooner than it actually does... at least they are not as big a liar as most LED manufacturers are ;-)

I will grant you that. It's pretty much a given that a "7 week flower" would sell more than a "10 week flower" but I have also read quite a few grows where they swear they hit the breeders timelines but only under HPS.

 

[worldgrow]

Thanks bud... Well i stay in the east rand and there is a paki shop here thats helping me out with my lighting and wiring stiff

Also when i go the bloom route i will be tryinu for a mix of led strips and cfl, all warm white 2700k and maybe adding 6-9 led full spectrum bulbs..

Later on i will post pics of the lights im aiming to use.

Hey buddy thanks for the info ill check out the new lights once you post them .Im gonna drop you a pm about that paki store if you dont mind , i would love to pop in and pick up some of those cfl's. I also found a place in sa to buy DIY cob kits but prices are a bit steep for my taste

Hi Worldgrow, I'm not sure about the "bulking up" portion being so much less with CFLs. Granted I have not done HPS so I am speaking with half knowledge. However, I have noticed that my CFLs take quite a bit longer to reach maturity so it seems to depend on how well the strain handles being in a long flower cycle.

It looks like you have a strain (or phenotype at least) that is leaning strong Sativa. I notice with my Sativa strains (and this appears to be normal) we just don't get the high level of bud density (like Indica) and the plant seems to have a hard time flowering long enough for the bud density to build before the trichomes start turning. On the other hand I had an Indica that went overripe under CFL (swollen calyx, leaf die-off, etc.) and I was still at <5% amber trichomes.

In the case I mention, the Sativa was a 6-8 week strain and I chopped it at 10 weeks, the Indica was a 7 week strain and I chopped it at 11 weeks.

cbdstealth

Thanks for the info bud this is setting my mind more at ease ... i also read about the sativa strains having some less dense buds and this strain looks almost pure sativa and from what i have read pure ones could run up to 12 to 14 weeks in flower .... Its such a shame i dont know the strain . ...But this will make for a good first try and help me get my grow space ready for my brain wreck and white rhino young ones vegging

Thanks for all the info guys

. From Africa