When to start 18-6 mode?
- Thread starter doingfine
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nuglets
New Member
you want to let them root (develop a root system). what do you have them in now that you need to transplant them to cups? rockwool? if you want you can veg them under 24 hours of light. a lot of people do. it speeds up the veg process. if you are in rockwool wait till you see roots coming out of the bottom. make sure the soil you transplant them to does not have a ton of nutes in it and don't feed them nutes till they have 3-4 fully developed "true" leaves. you can feed them a seedling solution or just tap water that you let sit out for a day to evaporate the chlorine.
Cool. Thank you
How long should they stay in cups for till I put them into five gallon pots?
Also should I stay 24 hrs in cups or go to 18?
nuglets
New Member
i would stay 24hr throughout veg. it speeds it up. some guys think you should go 18/6 to let the plants rest but all the studies show that there are no ill effects from going 24/0 and your plants actually grow faster.
you shouldn't go from cups to 5 gallon pots. are you in rockwool cubes right now? wait till they root like i sad then go to a 1 gallon pot. then from that to a 3 gallon pot and then to a 5 gallon pot. putting a plant into a huge pot will stunt the growth. the roots will be consuming all of the plants energy as they spread out in the soil. plus when you water a small plant in a large pot you basically drown it.
M B P
Active Member
i'm one who thinks 18/6 is just fine. Everything I've read says that you can do 24/0... but it has very little difference from 18/6... and you pay for 6 more hours of light operation. Plants still grow when the light is off. Recently, I've been throwing my sprouted seeds right into a 5 gallon pot to start growing. Doing so allows the tap root to shoot down to the bottom of the pot. Then, roots can branch out and use the whole pot. The idea of incrimentally stepping up to larger size pots works very well when you are dealing with clones (because they never grow a tap root).
mxks1987
Well-Known Member
I've been doing 18/6 now and am 18 days into my grow these are my results. granted its dwc though not sure if that would make a difference.
the big one on the right is about 5.75-6" tall already. that was also with almost killing them the first week was not aware they didnt need nutri that young so that may have stunted them a little.
the big one on the right is about 5.75-6" tall already. that was also with almost killing them the first week was not aware they didnt need nutri that young so that may have stunted them a little.
nuglets
New Member
i think you'll find that most are against it.
Vindicated
Well-Known Member
Years ago I tried 24 hour lighting but I noticed that growth slowed down. I once read that at night, plants focus on leaf and stem development while during the day the plant focuses on root growth. I get better results at 18/6. I also noticed that I get better compacted buds and no stretched stems when I set the lighting 4" to 6" away from the container and start running the lights the day I sow the seeds. It might waste a little electricity turning on the lights when the plant hasn't popped, but then again, I don't have to worry about checking on the seedlings right away and they get light the moment they pop.
Look, no stretching...
Look, no stretching...
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Vindicated
Well-Known Member
As for container size, the bigger the better. A larger pot holds more water and nutrients for a longer period and you don't stress the plants by transplanting. For me though, it's more of a space issue. My indoor space is 2'x2' which means I can either fit one five gallon container, four one gallon containers, or a single 72-cell nursery flat. I choose to do the four one gallon containers. It provides a reasonable amount of space and I don't have to worry about watering 2-3 times a day, since I like to keep them indoors for two to three weeks before taking them outside to finish. When choosing your container size you want to weight all your options and make a decision based on how you grow and what your comfortable with.
nuglets
New Member
isn't the idea behind watering though to give marijuana plants a dry cycle? isn't that what promotes root growth. i made the mistake in the beginning of going from small pots to 5 gallon buckets and my plants always got stunted. plus, when you put a little plant in a big pot and then water it you can go 10-14-20 days without having to water it again. that's not a good thing as far as i know.
Vindicated
Well-Known Member
I would assume it depends on how well your potting mix is able to drain. When I've used large containers, it was with terra cotta clay pots using a peat moss and perlite mix. Gravity would force most of the water towards the bottom and the pot itself sucked in some of the water and created a sort of vacuum affect, forcing air from the top to the root zone. So I didn't see any stunting in my grow, but I believe you have a valid point.
nuglets
New Member
yea, i guess i didn't take into account your medium. if you were real heavy on the perlite or in coco then maybe it wouldn't be that big of a deal. with soil or soiless i think it's a problem though.