New grower: Need advice

[asspirate]

Hello everyone I am new here and would like to say Hello to everyone here on this site. I am going to begin growing ice next week . I am going to plant 5 seeds and I will be using a 250 watt Metal Halide light for veg. and then I might purchase a 250 watt HPS light for flowering. I know what to do for basically everything germinating,harvesting, etc but I am a little confused about flowering . So I have a few questions and it would be greatly appreciated if you help me out.

 

1)When is the earliest I will be able to put my plants into flowering if I have my light on 19/5 during veg.?

 

2)Is it worth buying a HPS lamp for the flowering period instead of still using the 250 watt metal halide?

 

3)If I leave my plant in veg. for longer (for example 6 weeks instead of 3 weeks) will there be a big difference between the yield?

 

4)Do plants begin at all to bud before you put your lights into 12/12 (flowering).

 

 

 

Thanks alot everyone!

Edited September 5, 2007 by asspirate

[Pam]

Hello back!

 

Ok, I'll give this a shot:

1 19/5? that's odd .... but you can flower as soon as they have 4 internodes, and show preflowers, in other words they are old enough, but it will severly reduce yield.

 

2 YES

 

3 Yes

 

4 No. But if you look very close at the "Y" areas once the plant has at least 4 of them you can see pre flowers on most strains.

 

K?

Gran

[asspirate]

thx alot for your help

[WantDaChronic]

1)When is the earliest I will be able to put my plants into flowering if I have my light on 19/5 during veg.?

you can technically start and finish the seeds under 12/12, its just that the yield wont be nearly as big as it would be if you gave the plants a decent vege.

 

2)Is it worth buying a HPS lamp for the flowering period instead of still using the 250 watt metal halide?

it will definately work in your favour buying a hps lamp for flowering, but i recommend getting atleast a 400w HPS...the yields are much bigger, the light coverage is much greater, etc. basically you'll get bigger and better buds with the more light you give the plants

 

3)If I leave my plant in veg. for longer (for example 6 weeks instead of 3 weeks) will there be a big difference between the yield?

the difference in yield would be amazing to say the least, but since you are growing from seed the difference in yield would be very extreme. a 3 week vege from seed will get you 3-4oz on a really high yielding strain, but with 6 weeks vege you could pull around a pound as long as everything else is optimal in the grow room

 

4)Do plants begin at all to bud before you put your lights into 12/12 (flowering).

from my experience marijuana grown from seed is reluctant to show the sex of the plant until you turn them to 12/12. every strain i have grown from a clone has always shown preflowers in vege, some like my merville blueberry look like they are full on flowering until the node stretches a little and you see leaf and stem instead of a bud there will be some exceptions to the rule like the strain lowryder which auto flowers, but generally speaking you should see what i have seen

[Pam]

Nice work WDC! I was too tired to go that in depth. But with seedlings, if you take a loupe and look very close you can sex them before the 12/12 change. The preflowers are about the size of a large grain of sand. Now I've been 99% in reading the pre flowers, but that doesn't mean I toss them without sending them into the flower cycle to be 100%. I tag the plants that I believe are male so that I can keep a close watch. As soon as I'm positive I can pull those out .

[asspirate]

thx alot of your help guys i really appreciate it and also I changed my order from metal halide to high pressure sodium so I will be using the HPS for veg and flowering like stoney in his grows. Also is miracle grow potting mix ok for my plants? All the stores around my area seem to only have that aside from a few others.

 

thank you!

Edited September 5, 2007 by asspirate

[Al B. Fuct]

Most commercial potting soils will do but avoid any that have fertilisers incorporated as well as timed-release ferts. Cannabis wants a different diet when vegging as opposed to flowering, so you will likely be changing your ferts in the same pot of soil when you go to flowering. It also happens that many new growers overfertilise, requiring the soil be leached with a large volume of water to remove excess ferts. If you have used pre-mixed soil+fert or timed-release ferts (i.e. Osmocote), you will not be able to effectively leach them out of the soil.

 

WDC's too right, a 400 will give much better yields than a 250 and for a rather negligible difference in power cost.

[loylty gets u nothing]

love thnat username mate

pmsl wat a hoot

all the best with the grow

bil

[asspirate]

ty