I've created a monster! Help!

[Beenie]

I'm doing my second grow with a 5 year break in between. I started a sativa hybrid from a clone, growing outdoors. I tarried setting up my grow space in the garage, and so the plant hit the tent for flowering 10 days ago, with about 8 months of outdoor growth. The plant is monstrous, and very healthy.. I have a 4'x4' tent, and there's just a bit of room left to crowd in a big indica. I checked the distance and heat from the light when I put them in, but the sativa shot up another eight inches, and it's definitely starting to bud. The heat at the top of the canopy (about 3 feet in diameter, with maybe 20 budding sites) seems acceptible (very cool garage, and a big fan and filter), but four inches closer, it gets much warmer. The plant is 54" tall now, including the pot. and the top is around 17" from the bulb. I think I have three options:

1. move the light to one side of the tent ceiling, and angle it toward the middle to gain some distance. I'd need to rotate the plant every morning and halfway through the light phase, and hope the plant doesn't get much taller.

2. hang the light from the much higher garage ceiling on a pulley system, and do the light phase outside the tent, moving the plant into the tent at night for total darkness.

3. Do the lighting outside, and bring it in to the tent for darkness. Someone would have to look hard to see it from the street, but it's going to look very appealing soon. Think one-plant sea-of-green.

I'm thinking try #1 (fairly easy), and if rapid growth continues, go for #2. Any other opinions? What kind of growth can I expect during flowering? It looks like stalks have shot up to host buds. Do they get longer?

Also -

I've got my first clones in rockwool. It's been 10 days, and I don't see roots, but the cutting are very healthy, and they don't move in the rockwool with gentle pressure. Be patient? How long? Should I add any nutirent, if so when? What marks the time to transplant the rockwool in soil?

Thanks for any help you can give ...

Our grow complies with CA regulations. I have a caregiver license, and my wife has a user license. I'm trying to get self-sufficient.

Thanks.

[coconutisland]

Hey Beanie, I feel your pain:
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Myself, I just move the light up as I am growing out in the room anyway, not in a tent. The short one in front is almost done, but the big one in back has another month at least and is already at 6 feet... I also had them in hydro and had to take the table out and just set the pots on the floor with drip pans and treat them almost like a potted plant in soil, just have to use 'fertilizer' with almost every watering. So I would go that route and forget about heat issues and turning the plant... I do that year round with many of my plants, I force flowering in the summer by sticking them in the dark for 12 hours a day. My 'day' is from 7 to 7, night is 7 PM to 7 AM... I get off my a few minutes here and there, up to 30 maybe? Without any issues... If you need a day off, better to just leave them in the dark for a whole extra day and pick back up at the same times. Too long a light period will mess them up, too short can be manipulated...

For the clones in rockwool, as long as the foliage looks good and they are not 'spinning' if you brush up on them, they are getting set. I have found they take a few days longer for me in rockwool as opposed to soil... Just keep waiting, make sure there is a gap underneath the starter cube and that it is not sitting flat on a wet surface. The only thing any of my clones get, before they have roots, is just water... Too small to handle any nutrients yet...

Good luck and share some pictures!

This is my new Ebb-Flo system being tested, almost leak proof and only dry fit together! The bottles will get painted and a rubber lip, then filled with clay pebbles, drop in a plant and let it go. No dirt, no rockwool, just a starter plant and clay pebbles. Next stage is going to be fish in the reservoir! (I looked into shrimp or Lobster, too much trouble with the salt water
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[Beenie]

Thanks for the quick reply. I guess the tent only makes sense for darkness, and four smaller plants will be much faster to make next time. I guess I'm getting excited. You put in all the work, and things can go wrong at the end ... Good luck with your grow. I can tell you enjoy it too. i tried a picture, but it was too big to upload. I'll try again. The thing really is an amazing bush.

[Schmokin]

Hi Beenie. Could you gain any space by just tying the branches down a bit? Out of the tent will give you more space, it's just my poor old back would get fed up keep moving every day.
And as for the clones, what coconutisland said. In my experience some clones can set in just a few days whereas others have taken a couple of weeks. If they are still looking fresh and upright then carry on waiting.
Your plant sounds amazing. Would love to see it.

[Beenie]

This is getting exciting. The plants appear to have stopped gaining height, and the Sativa is maybe 5'6". I suspended the light from the garage ceiling, and yes, the big plant is a pain to move twice a day. You have to get your butt almost on the ground to grab the pot. I use the tent for darkness, since I have some clone action going well in the garage too. Anyway, I basically have a one-plant sea of green. There are seventeen bud stalks as impressive as the two on the main branches (I actually cut the plant back when it was about 18" tall and got dual stems). They're well over a foot long, with seven to nine flowers each. I've attached a picture that doesn't really capture the grandeur. The Indica has many fewer bud stalks, but the flowers are impressive. I'm starting to see a hint of trichomes. The plants should get stinky/nasty soon.

When I moved the plants to inside flowering, everything under the three or four foot solid canopy wilted a bit, and I started losing leaves. The leaves look fine. I think the plant has simply dedicated itself to reproduction, and is abandoning anything that won't help. I trimmed off about a foot of bottom growth, and things seem to have stabilized. It didn't help that the first two nights in the tent without the lights/fan appear to have "suffocated" the plant a bit. Now I run the air output from the light into the tent, and I have a 6" exhaust duct shielded from light. Less wilt. The plant drinks almost a gallon a day with some runoff.

As I said before, I grew the plant outside, moving it near a light at night to keep it from flowering all winter. I really like sunlight. I took a few slightly sad looking clones that had been under a 2' four-bulb fluorescent (multiple tube types for color), and gave them about six hours of sunlight for two days (and 12 hours under the lights). Instant health. If the big plant was still there, I think the bottom leaves could have contributed. I really don't want the monsters getting pollinated though. Is that ever a problem outside if you don't have any males?

My other big lesson was in cloning. I was getting poor results on ten cuttings after two weeks, though the greens looked healthy. I started checking pH of my water, adjusting to 5.5, and roots started shooting out in three days. I'm also using a root stimulator called KLN. It was one, the other, or both.

[journey]

any update on this grow?