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HOME GROWERS / SHOPREVIEW spurt for a week or two, which pushed them to a height of around 60-80cm. Feed was been upped to 1.6 EC now as the plants were starting to react to the change in photoperiod (light regime e.g. 12/12 or 18/6) and we are already seeing white pistils starting to emerge from each flower, growth looks impressive and well formed considering it is only getting light form a 150W!
Some people will think I’m a bit mad to use only bloom nutrients throughout my plants’ life, but I have never found this has stunted or affected my growth/bloom at all. The ladies started their cycle on a mild solution of feed water at around 1.0 EC for a week and then I started upping it at the start of week 2 and it finished at 1.4 by the end of week three of veg. Usually around this time my plants are around the 12-18-inch mark and are showing off a nice sturdy main stem and plenty of branching with deep green leaves wanting more light.
Flowering The plants have had a great start and are all looking healthy and are uniform in growth, so now is the time to move them in to the all important flowering room. I love this room, it being where the magic happens. To see a load of cuttings come through and finish coated in resin and stinking to high heaven is just wondrous. Frankly, I could lose myself in there all day
looking at the glistening flowers plumping up all around me. As I’m using the Wilma 10 pot, moving the plants around is really quite easy as I can remove the drippers, pick the pot up and move it on to another 10-pot system inside the flowering room. Once the plants have adapted to the new environment the feeding schedule begins again. We start with a 1.4 EC under a 150W HPS lamp with an electronic ballast for supposed better use of energy. The lights are slightly smaller than a 250W but are extremely bright and give off very little heat close to the lamp. The light is placed about 16-inches above the plants for the first four days to give the plants a chance to adapt to the sudden jump in light intensity, and then moved down to 10-inches from the canopy by day 10. As with all HPS lighting, the plants picked up a bit of vigour and had a little growth
Over the next two weeks the EC level is upped to around 1.8 and things are looking good for the super skunks under the 150W's. The buds are starting to form defined nuggets and all the plant is looking as healthy as she possibly could. This is when we crack out the House and Garden Shooting Powder, which is worth its weight in gold. This little treasure gives the plants a mighty phosphorous boost for three weeks (starting at week 5 of flowering, up to week 8, before flushing for a week for good measure at the end), and it has a massive effect on the size, smell and taste of your harvest. Every time I use this it amazes me. You can literally see the buds fatten up every time you are in the room. I’ve had Buds that have doubled in size after using this stuff and they always stay tight and dense. By the start of Week 6 I am starting to feel a little bit anxious. I’m looking at my garden and instead of seeing the fat, luscious buds in front of me I’m used to seeing, I have smaller than usual buds that look a little bit airy and lacking something! I checked my temperatures, which stay around 22-24 C constantly, the nutrient solution and the humidity and they all are perfectly acceptable. Could it be the lights? I know that I’ve only got a 150W over these, but if the hype was correct I should have my normal fat glistening buds by now. Instead I have
CleverGreen, Telford A unique shopping experience best describes CleverGreen, Telford. The shop is one of a kind due to its location in the roof of a large premises and the fact that it’s the only Hydroponics Hypermarket in the UK. Mick, the owner, will serve all your horticultural requirements, no matter how big or small and can provide over 15 years of horticultural experience, as well as an established network of suppliers so any technical queries are going to be answered! CleverGreen was established in May 2007 and in that time have distributed all over the UK. The website: www.clevergreen.co.uk is increasing its traffic everyday as Mick is keen to establish his business both online and in retail. A complete range of nutrients is available on line and in store. Brands avail-
able include Canna, Ferro, BioBizz, Atami B’Cuzz, Vitalink & Advanced. CleverGreen can offer 32 different types of hydroponic shades; the shop also has 35 different Hydroponic Grow lamps in stock and particularly good saving can be made on their budget shades available in store. All sizes of Secret Jardin hydroponics tents available from stock and online and Clever Green are official distributors of the TrimPro trimming machines. Be sure to drop in! CleverGreen: Park Street, Telford, Shropshire TF1 3AE (t) 01952 257 200 Open: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00
four plants in the middle that are looking ok not brilliant, and six plants on the edges that just need more light than they are getting. This is a pain as it means that the plants are not using the nutrient as efficiently as they could be because the lack of light intensity means photosynthesis happens at a much slower rate! Unfortunately, come harvest time the buds hadn’t swelled much more and the overall dried yield was only a fraction of what I’ve achieved with the same set up (excluding the lights). But judging by the ever-present stench of the super skunk, she didn’t seem to care that she didn’t get as much light as she wanted, as she still stank to high heaven. Plus the taste was just as good, so all was not lost.
OVERALL These 150W lights are a good alternative to running a 250W but in no way compare to the mighty 600W. I would recommend using them for veg lights or as a flowering light for the first 3-4 weeks, then up the wattage to a minimum of 400W for the remaining time. Unfortunately they just don’t deliver the goods to flower a decent crop of tight buds from start to finish. Part 2 of this article which will cover 20 super skunks grown under a 300W LED bloom light, will be printed in two editions time. In the next issue I will be covering the mother/vegetation room. With tips and pics of propagation, vegetative stage and storage space within the grow room, along with some of the essentials that will be needed to make your grow go a little bit smoother.
Happy growing and smoking fellow stoners!
