Plants don't want to strech ! why ???

[Weed-Luver]

don't give up..all coco is not created equal..i found some to be very salty..
truthfully after reading this thread i believe it could be low temps..give those roots a warm humid environment..water no more than once a day with seedlings at 1/4 strength, add some mychorrize and ur good to go..i use gh lucas formula, keep ph at 5.8-6.2 and ur good to go...impressive results will be had..
gl and peace W-L..

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

There a thread in here about male/female ratios. HPS light and higher P than N in the 3rd and 4th week (flower nutes) were shown to contribute to higher males numbers.

 

[Scrogerman]

Ive found plants stretch more with straight HPS(son/son t) as apposed to lamps that are full or spectrum adjusted. This simple lamp change would give some visible reduction in stretch if your used to using straight HPS, especially as your new lamp has more Blue. I prefer full spectrum lamps myself, used to use just HPS & i noticed quite a reduction in stretch(20-30% IIRC). The Combo of colder lights out to lights on temps of more than 10f-15f is gonna also contribute -20f+ being too much of a drop, equal lights on & light off temps also reduces stretch ime(worth a mention), plus a new medium. It all adds up.
I wouldnt give up on the coco just yet if i was you bro.
Hope you get it worked out!!!
Best o Luck"!

 

[Rasta311]

Oh boy, I'm so upset, been checking the plants this morning and it's nothing but more males ! Damn it ! I very rarely get more than 2 or 3 males per session. Only 2 HFH HP left to sex, one I'm 90% sure will be male, the other one MIGHT be female, and a tiny sweet tooth. So that's maximum 4 females for 11 plants !
At least I've tried coco... now I'm going back to soil ! Thanks for spending the time to answer my questions everyone !

Irie !

Cant blame it on the coco. Have you ever ran this strain 12/12 from seed before?

 

[headband 707]

i feed the plants at ph 5.7 to 5.9 in the first 5 weeks of 12/12 then from 5.9 to 6.1 till the end, always flush at the same ph i use for feeding, but will just leave it if it's 6.2 or 5.6 but not lower or higher for flushing ideally in the middle at 5.9

There is cheap coco right lol.. I did all those things and my plants actually died which never happens to me. I later found out that there is actually 3 grades and I'm pretty sure I had the worst lol.. I have never seen any of my shit go as fast as when I got that coco.. Thats just my personal situation ..peace out Headband707

 

[mriko]

eheh, greetings again people !

Turns out that I'm bound to go to the end of this grow with coco. As a new shining proof of my immensely superior intelligence I had unpotted my soil rootball and put them all in a large plastic bag, without getting the roots & twigs out (which I always do usually, hmm, probably the coco... lol !), and, guess what, It's all molded ! Yes, I'm a dumbass, big time !

Back to coco and unhappy plants. Certainly the most unhappy-looking plants I've ever grown and I think I know why... rasta311, I'll blame it mostly on the coco (and my above-mentionned superior intelligence as well, eg. believing what manufacturers write on labels, hence not rinsing the coco).

Sooooo, I decided to just give them some plain watering today, at 5.8PH, got a bit of run-off, which I decided to Ph-test, and so I procedeed, and... WAAAAAAAAAH ?
Run-Off PH was 8 ! Hmm, some mistake maybe ? put the tester back in water, and it shows the normal 7.6. back to run-off, 7.9-8. Uuuugh...
Now I think I understand what the problem is, guess I should have rinsed the coco before using it.

Ive found plants stretch more with straight HPS(son/son t) as apposed to lamps that are full or spectrum adjusted. This simple lamp change would give some visible reduction in stretch if your used to using straight HPS, especially as your new lamp has more Blue. I prefer full spectrum lamps myself, used to use just HPS & i noticed quite a reduction in stretch(20-30% IIRC). The Combo of colder lights out to lights on temps of more than 10f-15f is gonna also contribute -20f+ being too much of a drop, equal lights on & light off temps also reduces stretch ime(worth a mention), plus a new medium. It all adds up.

Yep, the reason why I had shifted to another hps was to get less stretching (also attracted by the 19.000lumens announced...), but certainly not to that point ! Now that I've figured out what the problem is, things should be fine !

Have you ever ran this strain 12/12 from seed before?

Some yes, other not. But I did many strains under 12/12 from seeds and I shouldn't get plants below 30cm or so at that stage.

There is cheap coco right lol.. I did all those things and my plants actually died which never happens to me. I later found out that there is actually 3 grades and I'm pretty sure I had the worst lol.. I have never seen any of my shit go as fast as when I got that coco..

I don't know where U-Grow stands. Sounded good on label. They say it comes from inland coco trees, so with no salts, but I'm wondering wether it's really true.

Lights go off in 15 minutes so it's to late, but tomorrow first thing I do is give them a big flush of plain ph-ed water !

To be continued !

Irie !

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

best wishes

 

[mriko]

Thanks Disco, do you have by any chance the link to that thread about male/female ratios ?

Irie !

 

[LittleAmsterdam]

This is why you don't start plants at 12/12 !

 

[mriko]

LA, starting plants at 12/12 deosn't prevent stretching, I have verified it several times.


By the way, I've done my flushing work with water PH-ed at 5.8-5.9, and brought down the run-off PH from 7.9-8 to 6.5. Is that enough or should I flush more ?

Irie !

 

[Weed-Luver]

mriko,
you can't blame it all on the coco..if you got mold you over-watered and kept the roots too cold..if going 12/12 you MUST NOT water more than once daily until the roots are very well established..over watering young plants is always the most common coco related mistake imvho...
gl and peace W-L..

 

[mriko]

mriko,
you can't blame it all on the coco..if you got mold you over-watered and kept the roots too cold..if going 12/12 you MUST NOT water more than once daily until the roots are very well established..over watering young plants is always the most common coco related mistake imvho...
gl and peace W-L..

Weed-Luver, mold is not in the coco. Former grow was in soil, and when I emptied the pots, I put all rootballs/soil in a large plastic bag, then simply forgot about it instead of picking the trunks and roots out as I usually do. But not this time, hence the mold.

Irie !

 

[Weed-Luver]

either way, don't give up...you will be pleased when you conquer coco..i used to be a soil man, still am periodically..think about it no mess and better yields..just try it ..'I'LL help ya out if ya need it..be my pleasure..peace W-L..

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Thanks Disco, do you have by any chance the link to that thread about male/female ratios ?

Irie !

Swamp- I think the following text is from Dutch Passion's site, it is similar to your notes however in more detail. I was attempting to follow these recommendations but things went wonky with the humidity and temps. I hope you'll post any result:

(from Dutch Passion) - From literature and from our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or a female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. Not only the origination of entirely male or female plants is partly affected by these environmental factors, the number of male and female flowers on a hermaphrodite plant is affected as well. The environmental factors that influence the sex of the plant (or the flower in the case of hermaphrodites), are among other things:

The quantity of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed.
Humidity and moistness of the seedbed.
Level of temperatures.
Colour of the light used.
Length of daylight.
Stress, any form of stress, makes that more male individuals will originate from seed. Even the taking of cuttings from female plants may produce male or hermaphrodite cuttings.
To optimise the result, changes in one or more of the above-mentioned environmental factors for a certain period during growth, may be applied. During this time these environmental factors will deviate from the standard growing system for maximum harvest and quality, as described in nursery literature. The desired change(s) in the environmental factor(s) are started from the moment that the seedling has three pairs of real leaves (not counting the seed-lobes). This is the moment that male and/or female predisposition in florescence is being formed. After approximately two weeks the standard growing system can be reconverted to.
Of the 5 above-mentioned environmental factors the first three are the most practical:

1. Level of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed: A heightening of the standard level of nitrogen makes for more female plants originating from the seeds. A lowering of the nitrogen level shows more male plants. A heightening of the level of potassium tends to show more male plants, while a lowering of the potassium level shows more female plants. A combination of a higher nitrogen level for the period of a week or two and a lowering of the potassium level is recommended.
2. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed: a higher humidity makes for an increase in the number of female plants from seed, a lowering for an increase in male plants. The same is valid for the moistness of the seedbed.
3. Level of temperatures: lower temperatures make for a larger number of female plants, higher temperatures for more male plants.
4. Colour of light: more blue light makes for female plants from seed, more red light makes for more male plants.
5. Hours of daylight: few hours of daylight (e.g. 14 hours) makes for more female individuals, a long day (e.g. 18 hours) makes for more male plants. *


Now let me just make a few adjustments here to this. You can do whatever you want to your plants in seedling stage and early vegetative stage of growth and it will not effect your final male to female ratios. The time when things should be near perfect is in or around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. This is the CRITICAL TIME for getting those female ratios up and up. I realized this clearly when noticing how some plants hermed because of problems that occurred around this period of the plants development. If the problems occurred before this time - no herms. So for this reason I surmised that this is when the crucial gender selection is made by the plant. Now I believe that the genders are set in the seed however the environment has a massive impact on how this is expressed in the final phenotypic expression of the plants gender. There are probably many genes that govern this, however lets get into how to up these female ratios.

At the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth make sure that your plants are free from stress. No pests attacks, no fungi attacks, no mold, no irregular photoperiod, not underwatered, not overwatered, not pruned or topped, a cannabis friendly soil mix, not recently transplanted, no small pots. If have these basic growing conditions under control then we can move onto the real forces of female production from standard seeds.

N:K and nutrients. What this simply boils down to is that you have the right nutrients present in the right ratios. A nutrient formulation that has roughly equal parts N, P and K is great but if the P levels go up or the N levels go down you are starting to look at a flowering type food for cannabis. If you do this then your odds of producing mostly females is greatly decreased. Make sure that you get those N, P and K levels to almost run from higher to lower amounts from N to P and K. I have noticed that equal portions of N to P an K can help with the female ratios but the higher N is certainly more helpful. So around the 3rd of 4th week of growth make sure that the ratios are good and that P or K has not gone above the N and P or else more males will occur. Obviously this means to avoid overfeeding your plants around this time too.

Never let your medium dry out completely around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. If you make sure to water occasionally, but not to overwater your plants, you will get those female ratios on the up and up. Overwatering or drying out of the medium will only produce more males. For consistent results in getting more females keeps those mediums moist.

Humidity. Now this is the tricky one. High humidity levels only promote fungi and mold development and lowering humidity levels is the way to cure most of this rot but by keeping those humidity levels up in or around the 70 rH factor will help to produce more females. If you have a low humidity grow room then you should get to hold of a humidifier. Now high humidity levels like 70rH cause the medium to dry out a lot quicker so you got to keep this under control too. Keep those mediums moist and those rH levesl at 70. This will help to improve those female to male ratios. Again, getting them on the up and up.

If you run the 24/0 photoperiod then do not allow those temps to go anywhere above 85 unless you have an equatorial strain. 75 is the best but going a little lower is not a problem for helping those female ratios. If you can get in at around 65 then those females are going to be popping up all over the place. The problem with this is that some growers like to use the 18/6 photoperiod and when the lights are off the temps drop from around 65 to 50 and even less. Try not to be below 55 because this has the adverse effect on the plants producing more males than females. Again between 65 and 75 is where you want to be during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth, the preference being 70.

Invest in a MH Light for vegetative growth. Dump the HPS bulb for flowering later. I have noticed that HPS lighting during vegetative growth simply sends those males to female ratios all over the place. With MH lamps the females are everywhere. Invest in some MH HID lights. It makes all the difference in getting those females to show more often. This is worth repeating! MH Bulbs produce more females under optimal conditions especially if they are present during the 3rd and 4th week of vegetative growth. Surprising enough you can start seedlings under HPS and it will not have an effect on those female ratios. Again the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth is what is important here.

No stress during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. That is all there is to it. If you got your garden growing in optimal conditions without plant stress then the impressive 90% to 95% females start to emerge from standard seed packs. I find that topping is best done at the second to third week of vegetative growth but that this is a little stressful and can lead to those female ratios dropping again. Avoid topping or pruning if you are looking to up the female count.

.

 

[Scrogerman]

...

 

[mriko]

some update here. Plants have started to stretch, at last, but not too great extent as they are at roughly one foot tall.
Both Peyote Purple look ok, but one of the HFH HP has some yellowing and distorted leaves.
Today's I've bought coco-specific nutes (Bionova) so I hope it will make things even better !

Irie !