[bostrom155]

Originally Posted by green_grow

is it a good practice to put a screen on one's intake(s) ? i am thinking of something like cheesecloth; might help keep bugs out, right ?

Oh yea

[bostrom155]

Originally Posted by green_grow

also, how long can you keep seedlings under a floro until they need to be transferred to HID ? i know there are people out there using floros all the way, but for my first grow i want to go with hps. experimenting with floros can wait.

Whats your set up, what do you have for veg and flo lights. What kind of growing are you doing? Do you have two cabs. If you only have the one hps and some floro's and doing perpetual you have no choice, but to use flo for veg and hps for flo, the hps will stretch them a bit. If you only have one cab, just use the floro's to veg for a few weeks, then hps.
Veg cab, floro's on the left 150 x 2 HPS on the right. Clones and stuff on bottom with 3x20watt 2 foot tubes

[HempKat]

Originally Posted by green_grow

is it a good practice to put a screen on one's intake(s) ? i am thinking of something like cheesecloth; might help keep bugs out, right ?

also, how long can you keep seedlings under a floro until they need to be transferred to HID ? i know there are people out there using floros all the way, but for my first grow i want to go with hps. experimenting with floros can wait.

Yes, putting a filter on an intake can be good, just keep in mind the more restricted you make the air flow the lower you fan's CFM (cubic feet per minute of air exchanged) will become. So I'd find a good fine mesh or screen but just do one layer. I would think cheese cloth would do. Also on a related note, if you are running something like a cool tube where the air might come in from outside and get passed thru the cool tube anb out the room without being exposed to the grow area, you should still consider filtering those too. Dust, insects and what not otherwise gets in and will dirty your bulb and the cool tube on the inside. At the least this will lower the efficiency in light output of your cool tube and require periodic cleaning, at worst the build up on the bulb could cause the bulb to explode (It would have to be pretty dirty for that though).

Now you're next question. There is no particular time limit, it depends on what you are doing and what results you want. Given you are working with fluoros and HPS, I would veg with the fluoros only and flower with the HPS. So in that scenario the time limit is dependent on how well your plants veg. Also depends on the strain and it's characteristics. A recent trend in indoor growing applies to sativa's everyone knows they flower longer and grow more in flower then indica's. This allows for fairly decent indoor results by flowering plants while very young, like two weeks or less. Essentially enough growth goes on in the early stage of flower that the plant can still manage to grow to a pretty decent size which ends up being just about perfect for indoors. So in that example the fluoros would be two weeks. Now I like to use fluoros to veg seedlings and clones. I typically grow what would be considered indoor bush/tree style in soil. At finish my plants stand about 6 to 7 feet tall. I can do this because I have 8 feet of vertical space in my grow room. This allows me to veg pretty much as long as I want so I just veg until they pre-flower so I can sex them without having to do anything special. This translates to mainly 6 to 8 weeks of veg minimum. Now I also like to use a 3 stage transplant method. 1 gallon to start, 3 gallon half way thru veg, 5 gallon just before flower. The timing on that usually has me in veg 8 sometimes 10 weeks. So like I said it depends on a number of factors. Basically when it comes to lighting it's about intensity and cooler tempurature. The more intense the light the further the light can penetrate before it grows too weak to do the plant any good. This is why HIDs are the prefered indoor light for flower because plants are usually too tall for fluoros to penetrate very far. You can offset this though by using lights on the sides as well as above the plants. The other factor, color tempurature, has to do with the light's spectrum. MH and cool whites are blue spectrum lights and is the light of choice for veg. HPS and warm whites are red spectrum and are the prefered lights for flower. So working with fluoros and an HPS this is why I say you should veg with fluoros and flower with HPS. Put your intensity where it will do the most good. However you should still ensure your fluoros are cool whites. Now red spectrum can also be used throughout the whole grow, the plant just won't grow quite as well. Not a major difference though. Same is true for blue spectrum, you can go the whole way like that if you have to but it won't be all it could be. Also you need to consider other things like, do you have enough fluoros to get sufficient veg growth? Successful results in flower are directly proportional to how strong, how leafy, and how well developed the plant is going into flower. The rule of thumb is if there is sufficient pot space a plant will grow two to three times it's height in flower, so if I want my plants no more then 6 feet I should flower around 2 feet. If all I have to veg with is one shoplight for example, then I'll likely not have a good plant going into flower. In that case I would want to either get more fluoros or if that's not possible, use the HPS for veg as well. If you get dependent on that though then you become stuck with one grow at a time rather then being able to veg some while others are flowering, so you have a new batch ready to flower come harvest time for the other batch. This would be a form of perpetual gardening. Some people like to do one crop a year so for them having the ability to veg and flower simultaniously might not be as important.

In a way it sounds like what you are really asking is how long should you veg? The standard time frame is at least until it reaches maturity by showing either alternating nodes and/or pre-flowers. This is usually 5 to 6 weeks. Again though, what lights to use, when, where and how long depends on a number of variables, your grow space, style, medium, ventilation, strain, goals, etc.

[HempKat]

Originally Posted by ogrefugee

hura! wotafaq rules! thanks for coming back!

k+

Hey I would have about as easy a time as giving up growing, to give up helping others to grow if I can.

[HempKat]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

This is a great thread idea. Anyway, my question involves nutes and hydro. I am growing in a DWC set up and I don't know when I should start adding nutes to the water. Someone said when the calyx die, but what does that look like? Its been a little over a week now, they all have their first set of leaves and I can see teeny tiny little lives starting to grow.

On a couple of the plants the calyx are starting to almost fold back, kind of like wilting, kind of not. I'm not sure if that is the sign or not. The main thing that gives me pause is that there is no discoloration on them. I would love to provide a picture but I can't find my battery charger for my camera. Thanks!

Okay well first let me say, I'm a soil guy and know very little about hydro setups. This is why I hope so IC old farts show up and join the party. Definately looking for some of you water jockeys out there. I do have some understanding, and in your case it's really more about basic plant behavior.

First of all I think you got your terminology a bit wrong, I think you mean cotyledons, not calyxes.

The cotyledons (seed leaves) are slightly unequal in size, narrowed to the base and rounded or blunt to the tip.

The calyx is part of the female flower and is the pear shaped growth that the pistils emerge from. Basically you could say a calyx is the female flower's womb as this is where the seed grows when a flower becomes pollinated.

The cotyledons do contain enough nutrients to get plants started and this is likely why hydro growers wait for them to die off before feeding. Basically you feed when the plant needs it. In soil this might not be for 3 weeks to a month because usually the soils people use contain nutrients. This is not the case with hydro and so nutrients are introduced sooner. I would encourage you to seek out a hydro grower to get more specific info on what to look for and when to do things.

If you want a good basic description of cannabis anatomy and the basic cycle of a cannabis plant you can check out this link which is where I got the definition of cotyledons from.

https://www.mellowgold.com/grow/mjbot...nabotany1.html

Here's a link to a hydro store that has hydro feeding schedules available in .pdf form for several of the popular brands of hydro ferts.

https://www.gthydro.com/nutrientfeedi...andcharts.html

[HempKat]

Originally Posted by bostrom155

I was just wondering, I always have a pot full of roots upon harvest, i'm going to try 1 gal to 3 gal, and see how that works. My question is, if I have excess soil upon harvest is the only thing I'm wasting is soil. Or is bud prodution affected cause the pot didn't fill out?

Well not really, the pot not filling out just means that the plants didn't reach their full potential because they didn't have enough time. So if you transplant from a 1 gallon to a 3 gallon you won't lose out over having just stayed in the one gallon. In fact you should have a substantial gain because the most likely result in increasing pot size while it is actively growing is that your plant will get bigger so be careful that you have enough grow space to handle it all. :smile:

Originally Posted by green_grow

is it a good practice to put a screen on one's intake(s) ? i am thinking of something like cheesecloth; might help keep bugs out, right ?

also, how long can you keep seedlings under a floro until they need to be transferred to HID ? i know there are people out there using floros all the way, but for my first grow i want to go with hps. experimenting with floros can wait.

I prefer to use panty hose...finer mesh. As far as lights go...keep the fluoros till you change your light cycle. Then you'll need a HPS.

[bostrom155]

Thanks Hemp, just trying to figure out how to up yield a little, without a new strain, which is in a few months.

[green_grow]

thanks for all the answers and info, gang. i am still planning out my first grow so the only thing , so far, that has been decided is the size of my cabinet (it's 20" x 27" x 51").
i would have liked more height but that is the absolute maximum height of the space i am growing in. i am leaning towards vegging under some home depot floros, but i may just go with hps all the way. by the way, i am growing a sativa. i am told they are a lot more finicky but i like the sativa high.
it's great to have so many experienced growers to turn to advice; i thank you.

[Protostele]

Originally Posted by -VT-

I've heard that it's good to let the plants warm up during the night cycle...how much warmer than daylight hours? I run my radiant temps between 70F - 74F during lights on...I experimented with running heat during lights off to get the temp to 80F...anything to this warm night stuff? Oh...I'm a hydro DWC grower by the way...I keep root zone temps steady...just curious about night ambient temps...thx

Peace

In "Grow Like a Pro", edited by Dana Larson there is an article by DMT where he describes using temperature control, (among other controls) to keep internode length short by raising the night temperature equal or higher than your daytime temps.

He does caution that keeping the night temp high after 2 - 3 weeks into flowering, will cause chlorosis (yellowing).

Here are some guidelines I gleaned from the article.

Max temperature - 26C (79F)
Ideal range lights on - 24-25C (75-77F)
lights off - 22C (72F)

To control stretch raise night temp to day temp for first two weeks of flowering. After 2-3 weeks reduce night temp to 22C as this is where the plant is happiest.

Consider dropping night temp to 17-19C (62-66F) for final week or two to trigger production of anthocyanin. This intensifies the colour of the floral clusters and makes for a showier bud. This is especially true for the purple varieties.


Protostele