New Grower Is Light My Problem?

[madmable]

cfl are good but need quite a few to get good growth, have you a slightly bigger space a 250 hps would be perfect for up to 5, i use 250 400 and 600, on the 250 in a cupboard with 5 plants, diesel ryder or low 2 avg 20-40grammws per plant everytime, i think the heat from hps helps, its easy to cool, but hard with cfl to get up in the high 20s low 30s where they will thrive, hps and a fan for circulation always gives me a rough oz plant avg

 

[Muddy]

That's too high on both the water pH and the run off. Ideally you want to be at about 6.3 on both. Also, if they use chlorine in your water make sure you let it sit for a day before watering the plants. That will allow the chlorine to dissipate.

Can you get any sphagnum peat moss? If so, I'd mix some of it into your soil as well as the perlite, about 1/3 of each. That would make a pretty good mix.

Every time you water you should water the whole pot until about 10% of the water runs out the bottom of the pot. In the beginning when the plants are small, you won't be watering often, but later when they are bigger, their larger root system will use it up a lot faster. As nutrients are broken down and used they create salts as a bi product. Running that 10% extra water through them flushes out those salts and prevents them from building up in the soil and potentially causing problems.

I would stay with the 11 liter pots. A lot of us use 3 gallon ones, which is 11.4 liters. They are a good size for most dwarf auto strains. One or three plants is really up to you. If you start a grow log here where we can follow along, we'll be more than happy to offer you our assistance and help you to a successful harvest. Plus it triples your chances of success.

Next time, leave the blue light in longer, at least 35 days or so. Even though autos show sex at 3 weeks they don't go into full flower until around week 5-6. Check this thread, it will give you a more indepth idea of why this is a good idea. https://www.autoflower.org/f44/life-cycle-auto-flowering-cannabis-5113.html

I use the home tap water it's pH is usually around 7,7-7,9. I think the run-off was 6,6-6,8pH with this soil.
Isn't this a good way? I find it very relaxed since I dont have to adjust the pH in the water.

But yes, you are probably right about the soil beeing the major problem here, I was thinking of mixin 7 litre soil with 4 litre of perlite.

About watering, when am I supose to water the hole pot? I think I did that too early last time, therfore the tips turned yellow.

And I belive I made up my mind, Ill try one plant only this time, it's probably easier for a newbie to follow one plant instead of 3.

Was reading someone said Samsara seeds suggests 6litre pots, should I change to that or stick with my 11 litre pots? From what I understand, Bigger is usually better?


And I used the blue bulb for veg, about 20 days, then turned to red one for the remaining 43 days.

 

[Tenakey]

Madamable,
Yeah I know it would give better yields with Hps, but the heat and the sound would be a major issue at my current location. :/


Muddy,
Getting the water the same pH as the run off seems a bit hard, I will have to do alot of research on it.
I've seen the post on here about mixing a perfect soil, but I cant find the things to mix with in my stores. (Blood&Bone meal and such)

Been lookin all over the net for that Sphagnum peat moss to order, all I can find is Sphagnum Moss, is that it?
Here is what it looks like, a short video of on youtube, http://youtu.be/Jpb1T5UQqC8 (It gets 10 times bigger with water?)

Oh, about the watering, it seems perfect and easy managable watering the hole pot every time and letting 10% run off.
But my concern is, if I water the hole pot etc the first week, the roots wont pick up very much water, wont the rest of the water cause mould or rootrot or something?
And yes, I have the water without a lid for atleast 48 hours before using.

I'll stick with the 11 liter pot, and I will only have one plant this time, so I can watch it more careful and hopefully learn more.
Thanks for your suport Muddy, I'll make a journal when I get everything set up.

I will have the blue light for 35 days or so this time, and wait another week or 2 before harvest, cause these both times I've harvested more or less exact on the week 9.
And thanks for the link, great post!


Many thanks Muddy

 

[Muddy]

That link you gave is the right stuff but what they have there is a course grade. You want a fine grade. Sphagnum peat moss is pretty common all over the world. Do you have any plant nurseries or green houses in your area? They would be a more likely place to find it. You could also use coco fiber. Maybe they have it where you live?

I think the base soil mix you are using has enough nutrients in it that you don't need to worry about finding blood and bone meal.

I use a product called Pro Mix from Premier Horticulture. I just checked their web site and they have a distributor in Kingston. Pro Mix is a combination of sphagnum peat moss, perlite, lime, mycohorrizal fungi and starter nutrients. It is a very good product and works well for growing weed. If they are a good supply house they should also have the short fiber sphagnum peat.

Carib Agro Distributors Ltd
226 C Spanish Town Road
Kingston, Jamaica
11
Tel. (876) 901-0551

 

[Tenakey]

Im terribly sorry for you going thru the trouble finding a distrubutor on Jamaica, as I really live in europe. It's just a precausion

I cant find anywhere to get a hold of the pro mix you suggested, however, I found one place where I could buy Gold Label Special Mix soil, 50l for about 30euro, and 30euro for the transport.
Im buying a few other things, so I can make the most of that expensive delivery fee. However, I cant front that much money this month, so I'll will have to try with the soil I've got and the perlite ariving any day.
Maybe if there is something I can buy in most grocery stores you would suggest, I could pick that up and mix in the soil.

Is this Sphagnum peat moss crusial? The few webstores i could find selling that in my country was, as you call course grade.

 

[rhapsodyrcks]

Cannabis likes a range of ph but you should be monitoring it its fucking easy. Get a PH pen off ph up or down..takes what all but 30 seconds. When you add nutes it changes the PH radically and I doubt you have ph perfect nutes...advanced nutrients does but its a fortune.

As for you light probably so. I just chopped two plants one was in a 1 gallon airpot the other in a 2 gallon airpot. 8.5 ounces off one 6 ounces on the dot with the other. If I only got 50 grams off 3 plants I would be fucking pissed. Thats not even 2 ounces.

If your using a CFL and you can get a really nice place from those you have to have them 2-4 inches from the light. If its beyond 6 then you might as well not have the plant. The issue with CFLs is the light is localized so even though you have a 200 w CFL on top youll want to get side lighting because your plants on the side are out of reach of the spectrum it needs.

If its your soil I'd play with your mix or just buy some unnuted neutral soil. Its much better to control the nutes yourself. For all intents and purposes your soil is just a medium for the plant to grasp and grow into. You can grow a plant in just about any medium even plastic if you provide it water and nutes.

 

[Tenakey]

Hello rhapsodyrcks, thanks for your post.

About the CFL, to cover all 3 plants somewhat good enough, I had to have the light about 7-8 inches away from the tops.
And as you say, if its beyond 6 then you might as well not have the plant. This probably played a big part in the low yield then.
Next time, I will have one plant and bring the light down to 2-3 inches from the top.

You are not talking autoflower when you say 6-8 ounces off one plant right?

About the soil you are probably right, however as a beginner I would feel more comftorble havin premixed soil like Gold Label Special Mix.

I got myself some new soil today, so I took some water that I adjusted pH down to 6,5 (With some lemon)
The runoff landed on 6,1 pH. A few minutes later, there was some more water under the pot (the old water was removed), so I did another reading, and this time it landed on 6,4 pH.

Im not quite sure what to take from this reading, but the range between 6,1 - 6,4 is good, right?
I calibrated my pH meter right before I preformed the readings.

Here is the label on the soil I used today, maybe someone understands pretty quick if its any good or not.
I had to take some help from google translate to translate it into english, hope its understandable.


Declaration:

Raw materials:
Composition in volume: 95% Low-humified Sphagnum peat (H3-H6), 5% Perlite
Soil Size: Fine-Medium
Dry Matter Content: 1.5kg/package.
Density: 100kg/m3
pH-Level: 5,0 - 7,0
Additives per m3 Operating Volume: 6kg limestone; 2kg Completed Fertilizer NPK 15-5-12
Benchmarks in g/m3 Operating Volume:
N - 300 (NO3-N+NH4-N)
P - 105
K - 249
Ca - 1600
Mg - 25

Operating Volume: 10 litre

 

[rhapsodyrcks]

Hello rhapsodyrcks, thanks for your post.

You are not talking autoflower when you say 6-8 ounces off one plant right?

Yes my plant was autoflower was 8.5 ounces wet about 2.2 ounces dry all out of a 1 gallon airpot. Check out my signature to see. I have another auto that I have chopping this week should be more. Might chop it this weekend depending how lazy I am.

Prenuted soil is the worst. Good luck with that. Theres really no advanced or beginner regarding plants. They all require the same things. People say that all the time though and I always scratch my head. Theres no button that says beginner you can press.

If you had your CFLs 8 inches from you plants that probably is why your yield was low. Its like you dont have a light when you have it beyond about 4-5 inches.

 

[Muddy]

Sorry friend, but I would not recommend using that soil. Anything that already contains nutrients is not good for growing autos. The high N content might be okay for vegetative growth but will cause you some problems when you switch to flowering. Also, 5% perlite is not near enough. It should be around 40 - 50%.

Did you check out the company I recommended for the Pro Mix? That's what I would recommend if you can get it.

 

[Tenakey]

Ahh damn, I put the seed into the soil yesterday, should I take it out and put back into the paper towel? Ill get another soil with really low nutes, but that will take 2-4 days, will the seed make it? Or maybe I should just throw it away.. or maybe try fit her in the corner with low light and take whatever she gives, with a new one in better soil under the lamp. Damn this was a huge setback I couldn't get any from the soil company you suggested. Thanks for the posts guys