Should I stretch my plant or let it be?
- Thread starter Luke305
- Start date
Six9
Well-Known Member
Re: should I stretch my plant or let it be??????
Looks fine to me. A short plant (space between nodes) is better than a tall skinny plant that stretched due to inadequate lighting. It's working on rooting, first couple weeks can be slow..
Looks fine to me. A short plant (space between nodes) is better than a tall skinny plant that stretched due to inadequate lighting. It's working on rooting, first couple weeks can be slow..
- Thread starter
- #3
Re: should I stretch my plant or let it be??????
Sorry to other but what do you mean space between nodes. Is there such thing as the plant having the leaves too close to each other? How can I space out my leaves a little if I do have to open up.?
Sorry to other but what do you mean space between nodes. Is there such thing as the plant having the leaves too close to each other? How can I space out my leaves a little if I do have to open up.?
Six9
Well-Known Member
Re: should I stretch my plant or let it be??????
Space between nodes essentially is the distance between each leaf set. The first set of true leaves are the jaggy ones that appeared not the round ones. The next set of leaves that appears is the next "node" and so on. You have one main stem so each leaf set is a node, when it starts branching off each branch will have leaf sets with nodes.
On stretching, it's bad when a seedling stretches, a long skinny main stem with long spacing between nodes, the result of inadequate lighting. It's stretching chasing the light. It looks like you applied decent lighting as soon as the seedling broke ground. As as a result you have nice tight "node spacing." It's a good thing, it's stable and has plenty of leafing to capture energy! What kind of soil and lighting are you using?
Sativa and indica look pretty much the same as seedlings, here's my 80% sativa Acapulco Gold:
I topped very early just above the 3rd node.
Your first grow? Have you read up? There are best methods for every steps. PH is very important, proper "overwatering" is very important, nutrients and not too much are very important.
Space between nodes essentially is the distance between each leaf set. The first set of true leaves are the jaggy ones that appeared not the round ones. The next set of leaves that appears is the next "node" and so on. You have one main stem so each leaf set is a node, when it starts branching off each branch will have leaf sets with nodes.
On stretching, it's bad when a seedling stretches, a long skinny main stem with long spacing between nodes, the result of inadequate lighting. It's stretching chasing the light. It looks like you applied decent lighting as soon as the seedling broke ground. As as a result you have nice tight "node spacing." It's a good thing, it's stable and has plenty of leafing to capture energy! What kind of soil and lighting are you using?
Sativa and indica look pretty much the same as seedlings, here's my 80% sativa Acapulco Gold:
I topped very early just above the 3rd node.
Your first grow? Have you read up? There are best methods for every steps. PH is very important, proper "overwatering" is very important, nutrients and not too much are very important.
Six9
Well-Known Member
Re: should I stretch my plant or let it be??????
oh an on your question about spacing out or opening up, that's "training." There are many training methods. At this point you could simply top like I did. "LST" for scrog or other involves pulling and tying branches down away from center to encourage horizontal growth. Know ahead of time what you're trying to accomplish though, I was unprepared for the crazy bushing that topping produced..
oh an on your question about spacing out or opening up, that's "training." There are many training methods. At this point you could simply top like I did. "LST" for scrog or other involves pulling and tying branches down away from center to encourage horizontal growth. Know ahead of time what you're trying to accomplish though, I was unprepared for the crazy bushing that topping produced..
- Thread starter
- #6
Space between nodes essentially is the distance between each leaf set. The first set of true leaves are the jaggy ones that appeared not the round ones. The next set of leaves that appears is the next "node" and so on. You have one main stem so each leaf set is a node, when it starts branching off each branch will have leaf sets with nodes.
On stretching, it's bad when a seedling stretches, a long skinny main stem with long spacing between nodes, the result of inadequate lighting. It's stretching chasing the light. It looks like you applied decent lighting as soon as the seedling broke ground. As as a result you have nice tight "node spacing." It's a good thing, it's stable and has plenty of leafing to capture energy! What kind of soil and lighting are you using?
Sativa and indica look pretty much the same as seedlings, here's my 80% sativa Acapulco Gold:
I topped very early just above the 3rd node.
Your first grow? Have you read up? There are best methods for every steps. PH is very important, proper "overwatering" is very important, nutrients and not too much are very important.
Your plant looks very healthy and yes I am a first time grower and I used a bag seed. On soil and lighting I would say I'm under doing it and should fix it as soon as I can. I'm using vigoro organic soil(which people tend to say is kinda heavy and I should add perlite and vermiculite, whi ch I haven't as you can see). On lighting I'm also under doing it(had a low budget and ir all started as a joke to see if I can really pull it off) I'm using two 24 watt CFL's 6500k and I know the rule of thumb. Is atleast 100 watts per plant so I am going to buy a couple of the same bulbs and add it to the grow box. People tell me my plants look healthy and good but I feel like there might be some future issues coming in that didn't come already. Here are some pictures of the plant from the side so you can check out the nodes and how tight the space is between it all. Heads up, the plant is no more than 3 inches tall but it's atleast 8 inches wide
jojo677
Well-Known Member
Hey Luke, your plant looks quite healthy to me! Since this is your first grow, I would recommend letting it grow for awhile longer before playing with it. It will tend to grow like a christmas tree if no training is done - the plant will grow tall and the lower branches/growth will grow outward as the plant gets older. Many indoor growers choose to train their plants to keep it more bushy, which just allows the light to be closer to more budsites. You have awhile before you have to make that decision though.
As Six said, close node spacing is a good thing, for when it comes to flowering. Each of those new growth sites are potential budsites, so the closer they are together, the more compact your buds can be.
Also, you may think about starting some light feeding soon. I don't think your soil has any food in it (hopefully not), and your plant looks large enough to take a little bit of food.
On the lighting, you should be fine with 2 bulbs for now. As she gets older/bigger, she'll want more light. The rule of thumb is about 50W / sqft, but I would probably do a bit more with CFLs. Plus the lighting isn't as important in veg as it is in flowering.
Keep up the good work!
As Six said, close node spacing is a good thing, for when it comes to flowering. Each of those new growth sites are potential budsites, so the closer they are together, the more compact your buds can be.
Also, you may think about starting some light feeding soon. I don't think your soil has any food in it (hopefully not), and your plant looks large enough to take a little bit of food.
On the lighting, you should be fine with 2 bulbs for now. As she gets older/bigger, she'll want more light. The rule of thumb is about 50W / sqft, but I would probably do a bit more with CFLs. Plus the lighting isn't as important in veg as it is in flowering.
Keep up the good work!
Six9
Well-Known Member
I checked that soil, yeah at least perlite. cfl's can get them started as you can see but yeah you'll need more light. There are LED options in the $99 and $199 range that could yield decent results. For example Galaxy Hydro has a 300w equivalent 3w diode on amazon for $115.
As far as problems that could surface, there are tons of them! That soil if not properly PH'd will certainly bring problems. I started this journey think I could buy premium seeds and cheap shit from Home Depot, then I found this site...
As far as problems that could surface, there are tons of them! That soil if not properly PH'd will certainly bring problems. I started this journey think I could buy premium seeds and cheap shit from Home Depot, then I found this site...
- Thread starter
- #9
Awesome, this really gave me less to worry about and more confidence growing my plant. The soil I'm using is organic and has low levels of NPK (0.10-0.06-0.10) so I'm guessing it will need nutes soon. As for the feeding, I'll start off how everyone does according to a majority of forums and threads I've read so I'll start with 1/4 of the recommended strength my plant food says and move up every other gallon of food I make. Thanks for all the help.
jojo677
Well-Known Member
No problem! Since your soil does have nutrients in it already, you may want to wait another few weeks (2-3( before you start feeding. Overfeeding can be a problem, so as they say, "less is more". You may even consider waiting until the lower leaves start yellowing a bit, telling you that the plant isn't getting enough nutrients.
- Thread starter
- #11
You're absolutely right! I'll follow your suggestions and let yoy know how everything is going. Shit..... I hate living in a city were there's not one person who knows about growing lol miami beach life
Six9
Well-Known Member
Sorry Luke if my words were not as encouraging. Plants do look great so far. The beauty of this is you can research each stage as you're working with the current stage. On nutes, I went with Fox Farm Trio and the granule solubles, but think I'd have done an easier two-part solution like Dyna Gro's Grow / Bloom or similar. For proper cannabis nutes, it's hard to beat the price of Grow/Bloom though. A quart of each goes a LONG way.
Good luck man post those questions there's some good people here
Good luck man post those questions there's some good people here
jojo677
Well-Known Member
Good point on the nutes Six, I would agree. I use General Hydroponics 3-part nutes, but if I was to do it again, I would have bought the 2-part Dyna-Gro for simplicity as a beginner. They will also last a lot longer than you'd think. My first bottles lasted about 8 months, growing several rounds of plants.
- Thread starter
- #14
It's all good bro, you gave me some real good info and it helped alot. I'm going to take your word and get rid of the Miracle grow or just give it t my mom cause she's growing her own plants (not weed lol) and it might help her. But for my plants I'll just go with fox farm trio(majority rules) since I've seen it on most threads and people give positive feedback. Like I said, thanks for all your help bro
- Thread starter
- #15
So which one would suit me better, Dyna-gro or fox farm trio?
Six9
Well-Known Member
Dyna-Gro is easier, cheaper and has been shown to work as effectively. Up to you though!
- Thread starter
- #17
Might as well use Dyna-gro if the only difference is money. Thanks for the advice
- Thread starter
- #18
Another thing, should I start to worry about any of this? I'm guessing I shouldn't cause maybe it's starting to show nutes deficiency.
It's only on one leaf and it's one of the bottom ones.
Then there's this pale spot on one side of this other leaf which is one of the higher ones.
It's only on one leaf and it's one of the bottom ones.
Then there's this pale spot on one side of this other leaf which is one of the higher ones.
Six9
Well-Known Member
It totally pays to watch your leaves so def keep that up. I misdiagnosed similar spots around the same age as a Mag deficiency. I add CalMag and things got worse. Turned out my PH was way too high, PH fluctuations can cause a variety of leafing problems, early spotting on lower leaves for example.
We talked about soil and nutes, next is water, what kind of water are you using and what's the PH. If you're using tap water it usually runs high, not sure about that mix it could be off too. If you haven't already, grab a General Hydroponics PH up / down kit that has all needed for PH testing and control for under $20. There are digital pens but I'm suggesting good budget items. I went into this wanting to spend as little as possible. Ugh...
We talked about soil and nutes, next is water, what kind of water are you using and what's the PH. If you're using tap water it usually runs high, not sure about that mix it could be off too. If you haven't already, grab a General Hydroponics PH up / down kit that has all needed for PH testing and control for under $20. There are digital pens but I'm suggesting good budget items. I went into this wanting to spend as little as possible. Ugh...
jojo677
Well-Known Member
My guess is that it's probably a pH issue as well. If you want to stay cheap, you can get the pH kit like Six said, otherwise you'd need to get a pH pen. It's good you're catching these issues early too!
