Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[Kush_Master]

hey i hope you can help me
will an extended dark period of around 60 hours affect the plants negatively?

plants are in 8th week of flower and still have around 2 to go.

 

[Nickog]

I am questioning my own teacher, who has 10+ years experience.
I have an area the size of a smaller 2 car garage. (its a 50 year old home). I have 3-1000 watt fixtures. My teacher says I should keep the plant count to around 20. I am using dirt and totally organic.
In using strains like OG Kush and Headband and Purple Erkle, what should I yield? I am a caregiver and I need to produce the amount necessary for my patients. Can I grow more then 20 with 3000 watts? Would I yield more with less plants and giving them more space?
Thanks for any info!

 

[In~Plain~Site]

I am questioning my own teacher, who has 10+ years experience.
I have an area the size of a smaller 2 car garage. (its a 50 year old home). I have 3-1000 watt fixtures. My teacher says I should keep the plant count to around 20. I am using dirt and totally organic.
In using strains like OG Kush and Headband and Purple Erkle, what should I yield? I am a caregiver and I need to produce the amount necessary for my patients. Can I grow more then 20 with 3000 watts? Would I yield more with less plants and giving them more space?
Thanks for any info!

I'm by no means an old fart , but I can speak from experience when I say that you can get a minimum of 10 per lamp, depending on your veg time.

I would think you could expect to avg. (approx.) 1.5-ish per

 

[HempKat]

hey i hope you can help me
will an extended dark period of around 60 hours affect the plants negatively?

plants are in 8th week of flower and still have around 2 to go.

If it's a trick you're doing just prior to harvest in the hopes it will make things better then no, it shouldn't have any negative effects. It won't make your harvest any better but because you'll be harvesting soon there won't be enough time for it to cause a problem.

Now if you're in the middle of growing with no plans to stop soon (the next day or two) which sounds like the case, it could be a problem (imaging how all plant life would respond if suddenly the sun didn't shine for almost 3 days). Plants don't typically have that happen in the wild so there is nothing in their genetic makeup to respond to something like this. To put it another way the plant never evolved to cope with a 3 day long night. So such a situation is going to be stressful. It'll reach a point where it will need the energy of light to feed but the light isn't there so it can't. It may also cause the plant to pale some. Now odd things do happen in nature and to respond to that the plant has evolved to be resilient. As long as you get back to normal and stay there it'll probably amount to not much more then a stall in it's growth but at 8 weeks it's already done most of the growing it's going to do.

If you are going to have problems with your times of lights on and lights off it's far better for the problem to be with the lights on period. As long as your lights off period is 12 hours your lights on can run a bit short or run a bit long and it won't effect much. That's because what the plant keys off to trigger flowering and what can cause stress when interupted, is the length of the dark period. I hope that helps since I'm not entirely sure what made you ask the question?

 

[HempKat]

I am questioning my own teacher, who has 10+ years experience.
I have an area the size of a smaller 2 car garage. (its a 50 year old home). I have 3-1000 watt fixtures. My teacher says I should keep the plant count to around 20. I am using dirt and totally organic.
In using strains like OG Kush and Headband and Purple Erkle, what should I yield? I am a caregiver and I need to produce the amount necessary for my patients. Can I grow more then 20 with 3000 watts? Would I yield more with less plants and giving them more space?
Thanks for any info!

Well the rule of thumb I go by is one plant per every 100W of your light is the max to go with. You can do more but you'll just end up with the same total yield but less yield per plant. You can get more from less because at 10 plants per 1000W which is like a 4'x6' footprint in most cases things are still pretty crowded and the plants will be crowding each other in competition for the light. So to lower that to say 8 or 6 plants per 1000W would give them more breathing room.

Now as for what you should yield, well I haven't grown those strains so I really don't know. Some strains produce more and some produce less. It's been my experience that the most prized strains for potency tend to be low yielding strains and strains known for large yields tend to be less potent. A good average to go by in my opinion is 2 ounces per plant (dried, trimmed, cured bud). Hopefully you get more but you should usually get at least that per plant as long as everything is optimized (temps, humidity, air circulation, etc.). So if you calculate 2 ounces per plant and run you grow based on those projections you should always at least make your goal and probably more often then not find that you've exceeded your goal.

Even if I had grown those strains I couldn't give you anything more accurate then a guess on your yield, there's just too many variables.

 

[stoney917]

whats up would love to ask about all the older folks memories of northern lights compared to todays versions i was gifted a very old plant from a very old man lol and would love to here what everyone has to say
its supposedly been in his hands since 1987

 

[HempKat]

whats up would love to ask about all the older folks memories of northern lights compared to todays versions i was gifted a very old plant from a very old man lol and would love to here what everyone has to say
its supposedly been in his hands since 1987

Alas at least for me I have little experience with Northern Lights, pretty much none since I've only had it as part of a cross called Northern Berry which as I understand it is a cross of Northern Lights and Blueberry. It was definately a nice cross but I couldn't say how much of a role the Northern Lights played. I know it's very popular for producing a decent smoke and a decent yield, and the plants are hardy and vigorous even in Northern North America. They also aren't known to be nute sensitive or require a great deal of handling outside regular watering.

One thing to keep in mind though, when you run into an older grower who has kept any strain for years and years by making his own seed, is that plants adapt to thier environment one generation to the next. That is to say the mother encodes the seed genetically to do better in the environment it's growing in. In this way a strain can actually adapt to the grower or more accurately the environment the grower maintains. The end result usually being a very nice expression of the strain making it seem better then others. One problem with this though is if the seed is given to someone else, they may not get good results if the way they keep thier grow is radically different from the breeder.

I'm not saying that's the case here though, I'm just making a generalized statement. Many times I've heard stories about someone who got some killer stuff from some old hippy they met but when they tried to grow it out they couldn't get it to be anywhere near as good.

 

[Kush_Master]

If it's a trick you're doing just prior to harvest in the hopes it will make things better then no, it shouldn't have any negative effects. It won't make your harvest any better but because you'll be harvesting soon there won't be enough time for it to cause a problem.

Now if you're in the middle of growing with no plans to stop soon (the next day or two) which sounds like the case, it could be a problem (imaging how all plant life would respond if suddenly the sun didn't shine for almost 3 days). Plants don't typically have that happen in the wild so there is nothing in their genetic makeup to respond to something like this. To put it another way the plant never evolved to cope with a 3 day long night. So such a situation is going to be stressful. It'll reach a point where it will need the energy of light to feed but the light isn't there so it can't. It may also cause the plant to pale some. Now odd things do happen in nature and to respond to that the plant has evolved to be resilient. As long as you get back to normal and stay there it'll probably amount to not much more then a stall in it's growth but at 8 weeks it's already done most of the growing it's going to do.

If you are going to have problems with your times of lights on and lights off it's far better for the problem to be with the lights on period. As long as your lights off period is 12 hours your lights on can run a bit short or run a bit long and it won't effect much. That's because what the plant keys off to trigger flowering and what can cause stress when interupted, is the length of the dark period. I hope that helps since I'm not entirely sure what made you ask the question?

thx for the answer i asked because i left my place for 2 days and didnt feel comfortable about leaving the growbox running while im away at the other end of the country. just some fire paranoia i got from me mother.

i just came back home and put the lights back on. the plants missed 2x 12 hour cycles of light but theyre looking healthy so far. i read on some other thread where a dude claimed he turns the lights off for 3-4 days in mid-flower and swears on it increasing potency. at least it propably wont hurt the plants too much.

 

[HempKat]

thx for the answer i asked because i left my place for 2 days and didnt feel comfortable about leaving the growbox running while im away at the other end of the country. just some fire paranoia i got from me mother.

i just came back home and put the lights back on. the plants missed 2x 12 hour cycles of light but theyre looking healthy so far. i read on some other thread where a dude claimed he turns the lights off for 3-4 days in mid-flower and swears on it increasing potency. at least it propably wont hurt the plants too much.

There's all sorts of crazy things people do to try to improve potency and it's all silly. If you want the plant to do it's best then the very best thing you can do is give it as ideal an evironment as you can. Trying to make it as much like it's native environment as possible.

Just out of curiousity what was your fear about the light while you were gone? Was it a fire because HID's get so hot? If so an alternative to consider in the future is to run a shoplight (tube fluoros) in place of your regular lights. They likely wouldn't put out enough energy to keep your plants growing much but it would be enough light to keep thier cycles on track

 

[gsmoked]

my m8 said to hit them with flowering nutes im using light tomato feed n-p-k 2-2-6 is there anything better i can use its a soil grow as u can see or shall i just keep it as it is , not sure about what flowering nutes to buy

 

[Kush_Master]

There's all sorts of crazy things people do to try to improve potency and it's all silly. If you want the plant to do it's best then the very best thing you can do is give it as ideal an evironment as you can. Trying to make it as much like it's native environment as possible.

Just out of curiousity what was your fear about the light while you were gone? Was it a fire because HID's get so hot? If so an alternative to consider in the future is to run a shoplight (tube fluoros) in place of your regular lights. They likely wouldn't put out enough energy to keep your plants growing much but it would be enough light to keep thier cycles on track

yes it was a very hot weekend and i went to a festival.
i simply wouldnt have felt comfortable with the lights running and me hundreds of kilometers away from home. and yeah i had the same idea about replacing the HID with my 2x65w PL-L ones. but it turned out to be alot of work and i was too lazy

 

[hoosierdaddy]

gsmoked, if I may...
Your leaves look to have been fed well. At the stage they are at, I would imagine they would do fine without one more bit of feed. Looks like good internodal lengths and everything, I just have one suggestion...It looks a bit hot in there, as evident by the upcurl of the leaves. Or it may be that there is excessive wind blowing on them...which can sometimes be as detrimental as heat stress. If you can identify that there is too much fan, or the temps are elevated(most likely) then the best thing you could do for them now is to try and correct that situation. Sometimes just cutting another hole or two for intake air will work a treat.
*the leaves are the solar panels that take in light, moisture, and Co2 to turn into energy. If the receptors are not working properly, the plant can't take in as much as it wants, and it can't process what it does get as well.

I always recommend newer growers, or growers new to soils, to not obsess over nutrients. Too little can hurt yield and quality a bit, but too much can possibly hose a grow bad.
The stuff you are using is probably just fine, and will more than likely have added micronutrients that other hydro shop stuff won't have.
Many times nute vendors will have only basic stuff in one product and additional nutrients and adds in another...it's a money game. Cheaper stuff that has a larger and more competitive market, like for home gardens, will often times have a whole plethora of nutrients and adds in one product. These are often very strong stuff as well, and will often work wonders in an outdoor garden, but I suggest that you always use about half the strength that they would recommend for say tomatoes, and consider that your highest dosage.

 

[gsmoked]

hoosier daddy
Thanks for that i have to admit i have a bit of a heat problem , as it s my first grow i have brought everything on a budget as i went along , only thing i am missing is a carbon filter with the 300 w clf plus other added lights i did not think about the heat i leave the tent door oen when i can unzipped but really need one . So your saying dnt feed them any more nutes thats fine i was thinking of getting organic bio bizz for my next go as cheap on ebay , although i have been using half feed as you said i was advised this b4 , and im thinking maybe just leaving the tent zip open as i dnt want to be cutting holes in my tent lol what u think

 

[hoosierdaddy]

I realize now that you are in a tent, which should be providing you with adequate intake area already. If you don't have an exhaust fan, I would suggest getting one to help with the heat removal. If you are using one now, you may want to get a larger/more powerful unit.
If you can afford to leave the tent open for now, it will help things. Don't jeopardize your security for a bit more bud.
I can relate to the budget thing. Be patient and keep up the good work.

 

[gsmoked]

Thanks alot mate you have been the most helpul out of everyone this forum has helped me alot , i need to buy a carbon filter i guess u can buy the kits ill get one of ebay that is probably the final peice to my puzzle it has taken me a few months to get this far nearly there and again thanks for your word of wisdom , i do have some bio bloom on orer only a 500ml bottle might try a little bit of that or last feed

 

[stoney917]

those look nice bro

 

[HempKat]

my m8 said to hit them with flowering nutes im using light tomato feed n-p-k 2-2-6 is there anything better i can use its a soil grow as u can see or shall i just keep it as it is , not sure about what flowering nutes to buy

There are all sort of nutrients you could buy so it's hard to recommend one without knowing more about your needs, you circumstances and your preferences. Like do you care whether it's organic or chemical? How much can you spend? Do you have a problem buying products over the internet?

In general what you want to look at is the NPK and in flower you want the ratio to be higher for phospherous and potassium then for Nitrogen. Like your tomato feed, that's higher in Potassium then Nitrogen or Phosperous. Which isn't bad but mainly what plants need in flower is Phosperous. So a ratio of something like 1-3-2 would be good as that would be mostly Phospherous with some Potassium and very little Nitrogen. Of course in veg you need the opposite where you have mostly nitrogen and very little phospherous or Potassium. A good veg fert might have an NPK of 5-1-1.

 

[HempKat]

yes it was a very hot weekend and i went to a festival.
i simply wouldnt have felt comfortable with the lights running and me hundreds of kilometers away from home. and yeah i had the same idea about replacing the HID with my 2x65w PL-L ones. but it turned out to be alot of work and i was too lazy

I hear you on the work which can be problematic for most of us since we tend to work alone for security purposes. For future references though it doesn't have to be like placed squarely over the grow when/if you do something like this, just in the same area. Chances are when/if a person does this the plants will be too big to get much growth from some Fluoros. So you don't have to worry about putting the lights so the plants will grow, the purpose of the light in that situation is just to keep the plants on schedule.

 

[gsmoked]

thanks hemp kemp for that i have ordered some bio bizz bloom not sure weather to try it as my plants are doing well but they have at least 3 -4 weeks left maybe just a cpl of feeds and im i ok to go normal strength or half the strenth as auto bb sensitive to nutes or does tht only apply with what im using now ? but then u say dnt give it another feed im confused lol or stoned or both

 

[Kush_Master]

thx Hempkat thats very helpfull i will keep that in mind!