1st time grower's dillemas / topping, training

[bobix419]

Hi, here are my 3 plants and my first take on the subject

They're 6 weeks old. No.1 & no.2 are from seeds of unknown provenience and unknown sex (at least to me).

No.3 is Big Devil Auto XL strain, since few days looking like flowering.

At first I just wanted to let them grow freely, but they're quite slim and still getting taller – especially no.3 auto, it's ca. 60 cm tall now, growing fast and thin.

So I wonder what would be a good, easy way to make them grow more bulky at this stage?

I understand that to start flowering stage for no.1 & no.2 I still need to flip the lighting to 12/12. Wondering, when would be the best moment for that?

Plans for near future:
repotting, not sure when exactly
stronger main light, add another one between the plants

Medium: standard garden soil
N 100 / P 40 / K 155 mg/l
Ca 220 / Mg 220 / S 85 mg/l

Fertilizer: dried banana peels in soil / ground coffee 'tea' used 3x / standard liquid fertilizer from flower shop, for growth stage, used 2x

Temp. ca. 23*C from floor heating, quite humid, no fan, rather low air circulation

Would be great to hear your thoughts, thanks for watching!

[golfnrl]

Hi @bobix419 Welcome...I no longer grow in soil but...you have a lot of issues going on. Your plants are tall and thin because of a lack of light or lack of the right kind or spectrum of light. If you use standard garden soil it needs to at least be for tomatoes. Do you have other options? Others can offer some advice on the nutrients. But your plants might be rootbound given the size of the pots and they could be starving. You'll need to watch the plants closely to determine the sex. I know you know that if there's a male that pollenates a female there will be seeds in the females flowers...not good. Look at some of the info about sexing the plants at the link at the GWE link at the top of the page.

[bobix419]

Thank you @golfnrl!
I'm going to repot them today and add stronger light.
Unfortunatelly I can't get tomato soil where I live, but I'm going to mix garden soil I got with soil from the outside – the area was famous for agriculture and the soil is good.

[bobix419]

The white light bulb I'm using now is designed for plants btw

[Bluey]

1. Definitely female
2. Not a great pic to sex but likely female
3. In flower so Definitely female

[bobix419]

Thank you Bluey ! I'm posting some new pics, I'm really not sure about no. 2

[SoOrbudgal]

Good morning from Oregon bobix419 I'm going to be doing bag seed also for a few plants in my outdoor summer grow. Mine will veg indoors in 1gal containers till there strong enough to adjust to outdoors and have long day of sunlight which will happen starting late May or early June. I know my seeds will be indica heavy cause that's primarly what i grow for shorter grow season outdoors, this helps to know cause by Oct. it's cooler shorter days an abit rainy.

Anyway, I'm still undecided wheather i'm flipping to determine sex i may just let them ride out and pull them when i see males. I've dealt enough with revegging photo grows and don't want to slow them down it takes a good 6wks or more to bring them back into vegitation if you want them to grow like trees outdoors. But i treat EACH plant as if she was a she. I top it and train it by doing some LST even outdoors. I sure would consider topping yours at the 4th node this bushes them out a bit. Do consider at least 5gal if not bigger for repot. Do add perilite stones about 30% to you new soil mix. Make it real aireated. Lots of holes if using plastic containers. Don't use alot of barnyard manure only really old stuff. Remember theres bugs in that soil so taking chances bringing outdoor soil indoors.

[bobix419]

Hi SoOrbudgal thank you for commenting! Topping at the 4th node would mean to cut them almost in half, I'm a bit stressed with doing that tbh. Do you think it's possible to clone the topped parts?

[Bluey]

I haven't cloned cannabis before but a rule of cloning is not to do it in flower @bobix419.
SoOrbudgal I wouldn't flip until ready to flip. Sex will become apparent soon enough

[bobix419]

I'm leaning towards not topping the flowering one

[bobix419]

Some photos after updates – new pots, added light sources and reflective foil around.

[bobix419]

Thanks Bluey I'll look them up, I'm outside of US though. The space is ca. 2x2 ft, up to 3.5 ft tall.

[Bluey]

https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/sf1000d/ or https://www.spider-farmer.com/produc...ed-grow-light/ with the dimming function and they have warehouses and service centres in quite a few countries

[bobix419]

This is great thank you Bluey !

[bobix419]

I could get some fluorescent lamps for free, just standard 'daylight' type, but from what I understand they'd work only for growth phase.

Mollisol I'll propably top the 2 that don't flower yet after I'll fix the light problem, thanks!

[Mollisol]

As Bluey mentioned above. Spider Farmer SF1000 is a great light for the money. I've been very happy with them.

[bobix419]

Thanks Bluey Mollisol , it's still out of my reach for now. Shipping cost doubles the price and shipping time is very long for my location.
I'll save it for future then and for now resort to adding more led grow light chips, they seem to work quite alright after all.

[bobix419]

You just solder the power cable to it directly and it's super cheap