First Time - Indoor - Led - White Widow x BigBud

So first of all I have to say how glad I was to find this forum. It seems like (most of) you guys are very knowledgeable and polite to us newbies and I am in need of a little advice.

My plants are about to be 4 weeks old, from seed. I went on Vacation and left my plants to be watered for a week by someone else, and they got a little N deficiency but I'm working with that. I'm using Earth Juice Organics right now with a 2/3 straight Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and 1/3 Perlite.

Here are a few pictures of my girls.




So as you can see they are quite dense little bushes and I'm starting to think that maybe I should have topped them a while ago. I'm going to leave one in my veg box (custom box I built and will post pics of later) and put two in my 3x3x6 grow tent under a 600w mh or hps (ive read some mixed reviews).

So my question is is it too late to top them? How far down should I top them? I'd like to scrog the one in the smaller box, just as an experiment. My instinct was just to go for it and see what happens but I'd feel bad if I lost my girls now, I've grown quite attached to them.

Anyway, if you need more info or different pics just let me know. Thanks in advance for any help any of you can give me.

Chuck

Hey Chuckle. I usually top em at the 3rd or 4th node which is usually about 10-14 days in. That gives the lateral branches time to stretch out and get the plant bushy over the next 2 weeks before it goes to flower at around 15 inches or so.

I think if I were you and was ready to flower I would transplant to the final container and put all 3 under the 600 sodium without topping.

Or you could top em now, transplant, and veg for 10-14 days to bush em out a bit and then flip em to 12/12 sodium (can't tell from your post if you have both bulbs or haven't bought one).

You won't lose one by toping now but would probably want to veg longer if you did to let it bush out some.

You might do more research and try the scrog on the next round. Im not a scroger though and I don't like LED for flower. But thats just me.

The main thing is you experiment on your own find what works for you and have fun growing. Keep us posted!

I think you may be right. I can always take a clone or two and put em in my led box for next go round as well. Thanks I do have both bulbs. I need to get a vented hood to keep the heat down in the tent however. Probably in a week or so.

Thats great having both bulbs. I veg under T5's but sometimes I will put 'em in the big room under a MH on 18/6 for 5-7 days after I transplant if I really want some big roots and tall trees. Then switch the bulbs.

Definitely a vented hood and buy a bigger exhaust fan than you think you need. You can't have to much air flow and you can always get a speed reducer for it.

Update

Update

Heres a full update of what I have going on in the little veg box.

From outside - wardrobe box 24x24x40 lined on the interior with white 11mil black out plastic. 6" vent fan with limiter for exhaust. Phresh Air Filter for odor control

300w Galaxy Hydro LED fixture. little thing kicks ass with very little heat output. I might throw a second one in since it would fit.

Exhaust pulls right above the exhaust ports for the light fixture. Stays 75 on the dot with the room cooled to 72.

My girlies in the bottom.

Full door to manipulate the plants. A few wooden braces for support.

My original design was to have the top lift off, like a bucket, but with the exhaust added i scrapped that design. Luckily the box only costs 10 bucks and a roll of tape is 15 so a new design once these girls move into the big tent will be cheap and quick.

I have 0 odor problems. A piece of pantyhose over the intake port makes me have no problems with fungal gnats anymore (was a problem at first).

I just topped the little girls because they already have 6 nodes and i dont want giants since its my first grow.

I wanted to ask about defoliating. I am going to put all of these girls in 5 gallon smart pots tomorrow. After the transplant should i take off some of the leaves? I see a lot of growers doing it, and am not daunted by taking off less productive parts of the plant (i dislike the larfy popcorn from the bottom a lot).

Also any thoughts about Earth Juice Organics? So far my plants explode with them and they claim no burn and no salt build up, so I figured it would be a simple option for my first grow. I have the flora series from GH and a bottle of Diamond Nector and CalMg.

But yeah, I thought my little box was cool. It was fun to build.

All the ugly duct tape is basically used as light flaps that I velcro down to seal the box for light. As far as I can tell I have 0 light leaks as well so I could probably flower a little plant in it. overall cost me 250 bucks with the fan. 370 with the filter. I'm happy with it

nice led-pannel man good luck!

Lookin good

How's it going? Pics?
You ever try White Widow x Big Bud before?