250 watt help, please

[whats the score]

Hey guys. I recently got my Colorado card. I was dissapointed to learn that this only gave me 6 plants to work with. I have 5 different kinds of genetics that I am desperate to try. I have a maximum of 250 watts to work with here, so I can't just go big-wattage tree style.


Basically, I'm wondering what you would do in this situation? Should I just deal with my disappointment of limited strains, do a perpetual cabinet of 3 strains (6 plants total)?


Should I do all five strains? How could I keep their genetics around after I harvest?

I would just go old school and say f it and grow 20+ plants, but I'm in an apartment, so growing is risky as hell as it is...

Thanks for any help here guys. I'm open to any off-the-wall suggestions you may have..

 

[FreezerBoy]

I'd start with 2. The fastest (so you'll have some smoke) and what you feel is the biggest producer so you can stock your pantry. But, that's just me.

 

[whats the score]

thank you freezerboy. Do you think I should go with a tent and then try to get clones off flowered plants or reveg, or should I go with some kind of perpetual cabinet?

This is important to me because I am starting with seed and obviously want to keep the genetics.

Thanks again.

 

[tiktok420]

EDIT: oops thought you said 10 plants. Is that 6 plants in flowering or total?

I run a 250 HPS and two plants is really the max for flowering, but there is a trick to get around this problem. If it were me I would do the following. Pick two varieties and plant 5 seeds each for a total of 10 plants (or pick 2 seeds out of each strain for a max or 10 plants, you have a 50/50 chance of each seed being a female). Veg all 10 until they reach 8-12 inches in height (min. of 20 days in veg and 4 nodes). Remember your plants will at least double in size if not triple during flowering. Flip to 12/12 and put 5 of your plants on the first 12 hours of the day and the other 5 plants on the last 12 hours of the day. This will require you to move plants into a light sealed cabinet for their required dark hours. Cull the males and keep only 4 of your best females (two from each strain). It will be a little more work but you can run 4 plants and get close to what a 400 HPS will give you in the same amount of time. I recommend doing LST and using stakes in your pots to create a more secure canopy since you will be doing a lot of moving around.

 

[philcollins]

i new a guy in colorado...grafted four strains to one rootstalk...so he had a mother..that was actually four different strains...

 

[FreezerBoy]

Do you think I should go with a tent and then try to get clones off flowered plants or reveg, or should I go with some kind of perpetual cabinet?

That's more a personality question than anything else.

Me? I'm damn lazy. I started outdoors. Drop seeds, ignore for 6 months, smoke kilos. 2-3 years later, repeat.

Then I got forced indoors. Trees don't fit in a freezer so I went perpetual SOG. Took me a year or so to really get it set up and the learning curve was fascinating. Once I pegged it, I got bored of the constant work of maintaining 4 gardens: Moms, clones, veg, flowering.

Switched to a single plant DWC ScrOG from seed. After a few grows I was buried in weed. I actually stopped growing about a year ago, just starting up again.

Are you interested in busywork? Perpetual is great for that. Looking to get the garden to do all the work while you goof off? Perpetual starts to suck.

 

[Biatchzxz]

Yeah there right though.

Truth is depending on your skil(dedication) , time an stuff like that all plays a big role into what you can and will be able to achieve witha 250w you could actually achieve a nice harvest man. I've seen it done and personally have done it. Ifi were you choose 1 or 2 strains you really like And grow 2 of each not to big and go from there. When growing a Ton of different strains at once believe me it's more work thanyou want sometimes. Each one needs specific needs and it's tough mixing 3 or 4 nutrient mixes to get em all dialed in.
Anyway keep it simple and believe me that's what pays off more than anytime. Sometimes too much love is a bad thing.