250W CMH, Seedsman Mama Thai, 11/13 from seed

[Texan]

Hey,

I hope everyone is doing good and would like to welcome everyone to my humble little grow. I am not a newbie grower but am no way near a pro either. Amateur at best.

Mainly, I grow organic guerrilla outdoors and have about 2-3 years of growing experience. I have grown indoors a couple times too but it was with a tiny little LED for kicks and giggles. Nothing serious.

As an outdoor grower, I realize the potential of the Sun is untouchable. I was initially going to get an HPS but after a little research, I opted to give a Ceramic Metal Halide a go. I figured, the closer I can replicate sunlight, the better off I will be.

Anyway, I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. Some of my decisions, other's may not agree with, but it is what I can manage with what I have to work with. I'll go ahead and try to describe my setup as best as I can.

Grow Room: 2x2x2 ft. cube. I sectioned off the top corner of my closet and made a cube with fiberglass insulation. It's cheap, easy to cut, reflective on one side and fire retardant. It is fully light proofed and structurally sound.

Lighting: Philips MasterColor 250 watt Ceramic Metal Halide, Philips Advance DIY Ballast Kit (ANSI CODE: S55), generic reflector...mounted somewhat awkwardly due to space constraints. Also got a HydroFarm Digital Timer.

Ventilation: Sunleaves Windtunnel 4" Centrifugal Fan (200 CFMs) exhausting into the attic, passive intake. Going to use ONA Gel for a small grow like this. Small PC fans for "wind", lol.

**My micro grow room also has central air. Pretty cool, eh? I figured I might have temp problems with a 250 watter in a tiny grow space like mine. So while I was in the attic, I just ran an extra duct hose from my Central Air unit and fed it to my grow room.

Medium: Organic soil I made myself. It's gold. I use it outdoors and plants thrive. I did sterilize the soil in the oven before bringing it indoors. Hopefully no bugs.

Pots/Containers: 2 gallon Self Watering pots (Wal-Mart). I used these pots for other houseplants so lets see how they do with Cannabis.

Strain: Seedsman Mama Thai 100% Landrace Sativa (supposedly). I bought a regular 10 pack from the Attitude about 2 years ago and decided to see if I could tame a wild Sativa indoors. The breeder advertises 11 weeks flower time indoors but I doubt that. I am expecting 16-24 weeks. I started 5 seeds 3 weeks ago and got 4 females a couple of weeks later.

Light Cycle: 11/13 from seed. Heard it is good to help finish stubborn Sativas indoors. What better candidate than the notoriously long flowering Thai Sativa.

 

[Texan]

I germinated 5 seeds via the "cup of water" method and got 4 females out of it 3 weeks later. They were in 8 ounce cups for the first couple of weeks.

I did mess up a little...

I was using a sketchy timer for the first couple of weeks and the light was coming on/off randomly. I didn't notice until a couple of weeks later. Plants were looking really sad and had lost some lower fan leaves. I was so upset to get off to such a rocky start.

Bought a new timer and transplanted from the cups to the 2 gallon pots. Hopefully I didn't stress them too much. They do look much better now.

Bare in mind, Thai genetics have a tendency to go hermaphroditic on you even if you do everything right...so I am somewhat expecting bananas regardless. It's ok though, I don't care, I'll still smoke it. Also, these will flower for 4-6 months....yikes...but totally worth it in my opinion.

**Also, you will notice that there are 2 girls in 1 pot. Yes, I know this is a big NO-NO. But i wasn't expecting 4 girls out of 5 and was only hoping for 3 girls. I didn't want to kill her so I said, "Meh, lets see what happens."

This thread is worthless without pics so here are some. Sorry for the low quality.

Mama Thai #1:

Mama Thai #2:

 

[Texan]

Mama Thai #3/4:

 

[Texan]

Grow Room: Sorry for the crazy pics, my camera doesn't have shutter speed control...

Exhaust is on the left as close as I could get it to the bulb, air conditioning is on the right with the fan over it blowing directly on the plants below.


Anyway, that's all I have for now. I hope some of you guys/gals follow me along. This is going to be a loooooooong grow, hehe.

-Texan out!

 

[SweetDee]

Sweet . I'll be peaking at this and hopefully snatching up the 250 chm my self soon.

 

[yesum]

Sounds good. There is no uvb coming out of the cmh but the spectrum is close to the sun

You might want to add a uvb bulb in there for flower. I use a Reptisun 10.0 cfl. Hang it vertical in between a circle of plants. Move it up and down now and then to get the side light on different areas of the plants. No further away than 3 inches. 10 inches of good light coming out of it so you have to spin the plants now and then to get all the sides done.

With a stretchy sativa you can pinch or supercrop the tops of the plants to prevent them from stretching so far. After that I also tie down the top and have it going sideways. I think with a 250 watt light you would like to keep these plants at no more than 2 foot tall if you can.

What is your soil mixture made of?

 

[Texan]

Sounds good. There is no uvb coming out of the cmh but the spectrum is close to the sun

You might want to add a uvb bulb in there for flower. I use a Reptisun 10.0 cfl. Hang it vertical in between a circle of plants. Move it up and down now and then to get the side light on different areas of the plants. No further away than 3 inches. 10 inches of good light coming out of it so you have to spin the plants now and then to get all the sides done.

With a stretchy sativa you can pinch or supercrop the tops of the plants to prevent them from stretching so far. After that I also tie down the top and have it going sideways. I think with a 250 watt light you would like to keep these plants at no more than 2 foot tall if you can.

What is your soil mixture made of?

Hmm, I though these bulbs do give out UVB or maybe that was IR...can't remember. Can't complain though, the plants seem to really like the light source. Nice green healthy leaves similar to what I see outdoors. Better than what I saw under LEDs for sure.

My soil is recycled organic soil I made a couple of years ago. I regularly add fruit/veg scraps to it to keep it full of goodness.

The mix:
-1 bag Roots Organic
-1 bag Fox Farm Ocean Forest
-1 bag Fox Farm Light Warrior
-1 bag Roots Earthworm Casting
-1 bag Humus/Steer Compost
-2 Coco Coir Bricks
-1 oz. Rhizosphere
-3.5 oz. Mycos Spores
-5 lbs Alfalfa Meal
-5 lbs Kelp Meal
-5 lbs Green Sand
-4 lbs total guano
1 lbs Mexican BG
1 lbs Jamacian BG
1 lbs Indonesian BG
1 lbs Peruvian SBG

Final Product:

 

[Texan]

Oh and I was thinking about doing a SCROG with these girls IF they get big enough. What do you guys think?

 

[Bubbleblower]

Amazing how all these bats shit so differently

Oh and I was thinking about doing a SCROG with these girls IF they get big enough. What do you guys think?

That you must be trolling

 

[rolandomota]

You need to veg at 18 on 6 off or 16 on 8 off even 15 on 9 off for at least a month to get a plant to get some size those went in to flowering too fast and stayed tiny. Its better to make seeds with these kinds of plants and grow some bigger plants from those seeds. 4 weeks of 18 6 minimum for sativas 6 for indicas with your light. I think a 8 week veg top at 4 weeks is good for those. Some pure sativa wont start flowering until weel 10 or twelve from seed in 12 12 light so i think mama thai has indica to speed up flowering times. Indica will flower at week four from seed in 12 12 light dark cycle so they will stay super tiny if you dont vegetate a month orr two

 

[early_bird]

This is getting tough with so little vertical space. Good idea to start 11/13 from seed
Doesn´t matter if you LST, SCROG, supercrop, whatever, as far it works for you

 

[#1cheesebuds]

looks like a great garden. also good to see another Texanin these forums.