First time grower...When are lights too close?

Hey friends, this is my first time growing this plant! I have plenty of experience growing other plants and vegetables that I have relied on.

This is my first plant…an autoflower critical purple. I am more than happy with how this plant turned out but one of the things I dont have any experience in is how far to put the lights. I have LED lights and the temp of my temp gets up to about 88f at the hottest but lately stays around 78-82, humidity stays around 30 at the spot I have the sensor at.

I had a nice looking plant although it started to slow down and stop altogether. It then went into flowering and at this point I realized i had not moved my lights since she was a few inches tall…I immediately raised them a foot and some change. I thought since she was already starting to flower for a week she would not get much bigger, but three days later she was noticeably taller.

What is the best way to determine the optimal distance from your plant?!
before

after moving lights


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Led lights can be tricky. Check to see if manufacturer of light has recommendations. Nothing wrong with challenging those a little, just increase intensity gradually and watch how your plants respond.

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Put your back of your hand over the top of your plant when the light hurts the back of your hand or is uncomfortable so is your plant move light up till your hand feels ok and so will your plant feel ok

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But you have our go to guy so your already in good hands ,

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Plants will double in size when flower starts :), and I know the leaves will cup when getting to hot…and the ole hand trick can work.

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Ya, that’s true. I just flipped mine yester day and I swear they grew 3’’ over night… lol

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Just an update a few weeks later. she seems to have pretty much stopped any more vertical growth and is focusing on the flowers now. She just started forming trichomes about five days ago so I am hoping that she keeps filling out for a bit and really bulking up the colas…

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Looks amazing they will build up even fatter I would recommend getting a jewelers loop or some kind of scope so you can check your try combs because on autos they can finish pretty quick but it looks outstanding @Stowndawg please keep us updated she looks great

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@Stowndawg hey, they sure look good know, nice growth in what, 3 weeks… Nice

Here she is a week later. She still is putting out a ton of white hairs every day…

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@Hogmaster I have a loupe but it is not really useful yet. the problem is she is growing trichomes so slowly I am wondering if there is something wrong. The Jack Herer I have growing behind her is putting out more than her and that one is a month behind. I raised the lights in case of overlighting problems and even just cut off one of the two LEDs I had growing to lower the temp. She has been around 81 for the past few weeks and 40% humidity. I know I have overkill on the lights anyways as one is supposed to be sufficient for a 4x4 tent like I have.

One more question is how long do(can) autoflowers flower for? This is almost week 12 for this plant and it still keeps putting out white pistols all along the cola with little signs of maturation. I want to think this is a good thing that she is still growing but I dont know if this normal for an autoflower. I run lights 20/4.

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@Stowndawg As far as your auto flowers go you would be better off dropping your light cycle to 12 on 12 off they seem to grow and like it a whole lot better as far as your tric production what kind of nutrients are you using because I use like a nature’s candy a trike production nute beast blooms stuff like that ?

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@Hogmaster I used big bloom, tiger bloom, grow big, cha ching…basically just the FF line of nutes but overall very sparingly. I am growing in FF ocean forest amended with more worm castings, Mykos, more pearlite, Azomite, and a healthy population of live red wiggler worms in each pot. This is the first plant I have grown and I have no experience to base off of right now for anything really. I have been fortunate that my experience with other plants has helped so much and given me an awesome plant on my first try. I have read that autoflowers dont need as much nutes as a photo and with what is already in the soil I have been treading lightly with feeding. With what I have going right now I just am staying course until she finishes.

I have a great looking Jack Herer that is starting to flower as well but I have neglected her in that I am letting my big plant get right under the lights and get the most intense coverage…I dont think I should change my lights to 12/12 as I have 4 plants at various stages of development and from what I have read if you wanted you can do 24/0 until harvest for autos. The most prevalent
reasoning is that autos dont need light changes to flower but its all on a genetic timer and the bigger you can grow it before the time is up the better. The Ruderalis genes that make these ladies autoflower come from plants that have been growing very high in the hemisphere with daylights that could last 20hrs or even more. 20/4 and 24/0 have been the most popular schedules I have found so far. I opted for 20/4 purely based on anecdotes from growers.

I wondering that I may have a lgiht/heat toxicity issue going on as the top of the colas are putting out so many white hairs and there are "side"bud growing off two of the colas near the top that I can see developing in a “fist shaped” cola indicative of light toxicity. I have cut my light down by 50% (there is still plenty for my grow area anyways) which is also dropping the temp down from 82ish to 73-4. Hopefully this will push these buds toward maturation?

I have smaller than expected trics on the calyxes but slowly increasing daily. but there is almost none on the sugar leaves and smaller fan leaves in the cola…I am growing a critical purple plant. I have no idea if this is normal development. It is also going into week 13 which i think is getting on the longer side of an auto grow.

Lend me your thoughts

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@Stowndawg First off how big is your space what kind of light are you using on your autos I actually recommend after the first week of 24 hours I’d like to drop them down to 12 on 12 off they will love it every living thing needs sleep that’s when they so most of there growing ! Depending on what nutrients your using I always feed full strength ( only the strong survive ) lol but They will let you know if you fed them too much the tips of the leaves will start to turn yellow and burn but I recommend for strength nudes all the time and I recommend giving your plants some time to sleep also

I also do 18-6 for 2 weeks sometimes 16-8 Usually in veg it’s all about just having fun and Just paying attention because the plant will tell you what it wants

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Another thing on the autos and any plan for that matter they have to have sleep out of the hundred plus autos I have a grown definitely have gotten the most off of My good grows with way less light sleep is key

is have a 4x4x7 tent. I have a BESTVA DC Series 2000W led lights with dual 5 watt chips. My other light is a VIPARSPECTRA UL Certified Reflector Series V600 600W. I have turned off the vivarspectra and just and running the bestva now. I know that is a lot of light for a 4x4 but my plants have been very happy so I never changed anything. I will try switching to 18/6 and see how they respond after they acclimate to less light and temp. Humidity ranges from 40-50% but usually in low 40s.

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Here is Sprout (the name I have given her) at 12 1/2 weeks. I earlier said it was going into 13th week which was wrong…maybe spent too much time under the lights. Trichome production seems like less than I was expecting but this plant keeps surprising me and it has ramped up in the last few days. I am getting so impatient to harvest but everyday i check she is just slowly fattening and shooting out new pistils all over, sugar leaves, leaves on colas have stopped yellowing since the big ones fell off and she just keeps growing. I have yet to seem even 1 amber tric under a loupe. I am pretty sure I will have to harvest the top half of her before the bottom flowers are ready. When you are not up close it looks like there is a lot of brown hairs but you cant see the white hairs of which there are many more of. I would say it is 30-40% brown hairs and less as you go down the plant.

Is this a normal auto grow or is this particular plant just slower than usual? I have a jeck herer about 5 weeks behind and she looks like she is going to be bigger than my first one. She already looks like she has more trichomes than the big plant and she has a lot more cola forming stalks. Any estimates on how long until harvest? I check her trichomes with a loupe a few times a day and there has been little change in color still after 12.5 weeks

Jack Herer is the bottom pic

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