Need advice: Plants at different stages...options for planning around flowering

Looking for a little advice on how I should best manage the growing
situation I have in front of me.

I have a 18 square foot growing area (6' X3') into which I am putting
800W of Vero 29 COB LEDs that can be dimmed. Two separate lighting
rigs designed for 3X3 footprint grows but its a single space.

I originally planned to grow 6 plants in this space and popped seeds
about a week ago and those are now sprouted and under flouros until
they develop a bit more. I planned to veg for a month then flower
them all at once.

In the meantime I "stumbled into" three gorgeous clones that have been
vegging for a number of weeks. They are bushy as hell but only about
8" tall right now and will probably take another 2 weeks to get them
out of the light flowering mode they were in when acquired and a bit
bigger so they will produce.

This means in about 2 weeks I'll have three larger 12" plants ready to
flower but I'll also have 6 seedlings that will only be about 2 weeks
old and probably not yet mature (all feminized seeds.)

Here are my options:
1. Flower the larger clones as soon as they are ready and find
someplace to keep the seedlings under 24hr light for an additional 3-4
weeks until they are ready to flower, then add them to flowering room
later. Would need to deal with canopy issues having plants of vastly
different age/heights and potentially crowding trying to fit 6 plants
into the space. I'd also have a staggered harvest with the first
three finishing about a month before the rest. Downside would also be
I wouldnt be able to use my nice lights for vegging since they'd be
occupied with flowering....would probably use T5 lights.
2. Keep the seedlings in the same room as the larger clones and just
flip them to 12/12 whenever the larger clones are bushy enough.
Downside here is that the seedlings wont be at the size I normally
like to flower and i'd probably have 6 much smaller plants mixed with
3 much larger ones by the end of the grow. Upside is that I think
generally the plants without finish within a few weeks of each other
and be a bit easier to plan my next cycle as a result without having
un-used space in the grow room. Upside is i'd use my single grow
space and best lights for all plants for all steps.


Opinions?

Have the flower room set up for two 3x3 in regards to light. Just flower the big girls when ready and use only half the room. Hold those seedling till flower is done. Should be nice size for the room.(could flower seeds when ready and lower their light as needed)
Or take clones off big girl, LST, topping/s. Manage size. Then prop the shorter plants on something upside down saucer piece of wood milk crate etc. Flower together.

stoned-monkey said:

Have the flower room set up for two 3x3 in regards to light. Just flower the big girls when ready and use only half the room. Hold those seedling till flower is done. Should be nice size for the room.(could flower seeds when ready and lower their light as needed)
Or take clones off big girl, LST, topping/s. Manage size. Then prop the shorter plants on something upside down saucer piece of wood milk crate etc. Flower together.

Click to expand...

You make a really good point....since I have two lights and veg doesnt require a light-proof room I could technically just use half the "grow room" to flower the three larger plants until finished and in the meantime do an extended veg on the 6 seedlings with the second light and then when the first 3 plants finish use both lights to flower all six seedlings.

Depending on fluorescents you could veg under them and save the electricity.

I use a 3x3 tent with 10 t-5 2' fluorescent bulbs overhead for veg and fill 3.5'x7' under 2 600's just fine on the flower room. Get an average of 5.5 ounces per plant all about 10 days apart in growth perpetually.

Having a veg space and a flower space is way better for perpetual production. Or for the situation of this thread.

I have a 200W 4-bay T5HO rig I veg under but I have a 400W 3500K Cob LED rig I think would be far superior. I think I'm going to veg them all together for 2 weeks and then probably start the larger ones flowering while I put the others into veg for another 2 weeks.