Slowing growth during veg

I might have done a goofy mistake again. I germinated far too many seeds, and now I have enough plants for several grows. Problem is if I let them grow normally, they outgrow my tents in a month. What I really need now is to limit their growth so that I can put them into flowering in three months at a height of two feet at most.

JustCurious79 said:

I might have done a goofy mistake again. I germinated far too many seeds, and now I have enough plants for several grows. Problem is if I let them grow normally, they outgrow my tents in a month. What I really need now is to limit their growth so that I can put them into flowering in three months at a height of two feet at most.

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The sooner you flip your plants to 12/12, the small (in general) your harvest ready plant will still be manageable in tents. I flip at the 5th or 6th node (15" or so). My girls still get close to the tent tops. Like to see pictures, how many plants, tent sizes, etc). Peace

I use a mixture of pruning/topping and LST to keep plants where I need them.

If you have a veg area you could veg them for 2 months and then clone them, get rid of the donor plants and keep the cuts until you need them in another 4-6 weeks etc.

Usually by pruning topping and LST my plants are around 10" tall going into flower and about 10" diameter which ends up between 18-24" tall after stretch. Perfect for my. 400w.


What equipment are you using/have access to?

This will help greatly in coming up with a plan of attack.


J

What strain? many Sativa's require only a 3 week grow time before switching to 12/12. also you can do what other mentioned, if it's the right time to use those methods, (topping, LST, FIM, ect) Planning does help, don't worry your next grow will be better Indica's will not takea 3 months flower (will loose all thc) Some Sativa strains can go 4 months flower!

Critical HOG. I usually veg them 4 weeks, and flower 8 weeks.
Right now I have two 3*3 tents, both with 600W CoolTube lights. One (the flowering tent) is with a Wilma 4 and one without. I have some very small ESL's and a bathroom I could use for growing if I need. There is also my old 400W HPS lights, but those I wish I wouldn't have to use anymore.

JustCurious79 said:

Critical HOG. I usually veg them 4 weeks, and flower 8 weeks.
Right now I have two 3*3 tents, both with 600W CoolTube lights. One (the flowering tent) is with a Wilma 4 and one without. I have some very small ESL's and a bathroom I could use for growing if I need. There is also my old 400W HPS lights, but those I wish I wouldn't have to use anymore.

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Firstly.
4 weeks veg and 8 weeks flowering?? Sounds very early harvesting IMO.

With a 4 week veg phase the plants wouldn't have realistically matured at this point and veg growth will rocket during stretch phase. After the stretch slows down is when I would start counting your flowering.

If you are pulling them after only 8 weeks of 12/12 (even if breeders recommend 8 weeks) then you could be doing yourself out of some considerable yield.

Secondly.
You know what areas you've got to be able to use for plants that you can't fit in your flowering area.

You could use a small cardboard box to keep plants but you'd need to clone and reclone etc to keep them manageable.

I've got a 2ftX2ftX1ft box with a 24w T5HO fIxture in the top, and a small PC fan rigged to a 12v router power supply for starting seeds or cloning in if I need it.


J

I would flip them to 12/12 as a test run and have fun with it.

ive had luck raising the PH up enough to lockout most all nutes. its def a last resort type thing tho. not much you can do to keep them that small for that long

Put them into 5 gallon pots that have a wide base. It will take seedlings a month or more for the roots to grow out and reach the pot sides. AFTER the roots grow out you will see growth aboveground. BigSteve.

I would personally keep them in as small of cups as possible.. If they're still getting out of hand, it's time to get another tent lol, or as J said you can just clone and toss..

"they outgrow my tents in a month. What I really need now is to limit their growth so that I can put them into flowering"

if they are 5-6 nodes I would top between 2-3 node, for 4 main and keep it shorter then one big main. It will take some trim off and you can flip, have a nice sog going. good luck.

I do this sometimes, I look at the big picture and see Im not going to be able to fit all these plants under my lights. So, this is what I started doing...I repot into a small pot after they get too big for the solo cup, then I leave them under my 200 w. It slows their momentum down and they will stay same size for awhile, till I decide to pick their momentum back up, I repot and throw them under a higher watt light and they take off again, sometimes I'll give them some N too depending on what they look like.