In fairness it happens to everyone at some stage, although whether or not people admit to it is another thing.

Stretchy seedling syndrome. Its a nightmare scenario to deal with, the ramifications of which are not at first apparent. But left unattended to it will lead to height issues later, as well as seeing your buds finish off light and airey.

With no other choice available I put them under the HID lamp

Many medical growers, in a bid to minimise the risks involved with growing their own medicine (yeah they really do look upon it as medicine), are limited in the opportunities they have to grow and harvest a marijuana crop. It goes without saying then, they wish to get it right first time everytime if possible!

Canna Zine exists to help them do it!!

 ...and waited with fingers crossed!

Stretchy Seedlings?
The reasons for it happening can be many and varied.

Sometimes its just in the 'genes' and there is not a great deal you can do about it.

The fact of the matter is some sativa dominant species (normally with HAZE in the name a lot of the time) just can't grow as small plants.

 bless them.. they stretched before my eyes..

Their genetic make-up doesn't allow it so no matter how many thousands of lumens you bathe your seedlings in, they are going to grow...and grow. In fact given ideal conditions you will actually make things worse as the plant utilizes all of the extra light and converts it (via photo-synthesis) to energy.  And more energy equals more mad growth!

Paradox!

Indica domainant strains tend to behave themselves a little better, and if you're buying seeds from a well known brand and the seed package reads "F1 hybrid", then you can be pretty sure of what your going to get.

Even better than that, chances are someone may have already grown it, and pictures already exist that you can go and check out. Makes choosing your next strain a lot easier if you do a bit of homework first.

But what if it happens anyway?  Yeah this is the issue.

 Filled with fresh compost..

For the most part cannabis growers are limited to small closets and cupboards (not at all what the press reports..seriously), so a rogue plant which gets too leggy later can cause real issues, esspecially when they are literally bursting out of your grow space, as the smell bursts forth too, everytime you open the door!!

Critical Mass
The last grow I suffered leggy seedlings with was actually the last grow I did back in 2006, (although it finished in March 2007).

Critical Mass was the strain.

The Canna Zine network of growers, who provide all of our own colour images, work quite closely with The Seedsman , and will quite often germinate a few packs of a new batch of seeds on his behalf, in a bid to control quality and viability.

I'll be honest and say I don't know another seed vendor who goes to such lengths, and the seedsman support forums at www.ukcultivator.biz are full of satisfied customers who would agree as much!

Officially my status was "in between addresses" and like all good big sisters, mine stepped in and offered me somewhere to stay.

After sampling some of my previous crop of mango grown outdoors the previous summer it didn't take much persuading for my sis to allow me to set up a little grow box.

It was a mad rush job but eventually my box was set up, the seeds where wet, and I settled in for a long cold winter under lights.

The start of December 06!
With Christmas looming large on the horizon and my stash jars long ago emptied i had already decided to have a bit of a detox, which ended up lasting 6 weeks without touching cannabis.

In the meantime the seedlins were well under way, but I had suffered a problem or two in getting this far.

Because of the rushed nature of the construction of my grow space, I was unable to make arrangements for non-HID lighting.

Ordinarily I would have liked to have had some cool flouros to start the grow with but alas for one reason or another it wasn't to be.

So when the seeds germinated it was a choice between a metal halide or a high pressure sodium lamp. Neither of which are ideal.

Here's the science;

If you light up a high intensity discharge lamp (HID), then seal it in a small space like a cupboard, chances are its going to get pretty warm, pretty quick.

Unless you have ultimate confidence in your ventilation system (as well as your DIY wiring), I wouldn't be happy using this system unless it was a dire emergency.

In this instance it was a dire emergency!

With the seedlings already above the surface of the cubes the clock was ticking loudly and I was aware that they already should have been under lights.  Due to the fact that my entire life was packed in cardboard boxes I didn't have anything to hand so I decided to use what i did have..a 400w metal halide HID lamp.

With the seedlings just having broken through the cubes they were germinated in, I placed the tray under the metal halide lamp and left a door slightly ajar in a bid to dissipate some of the heat and humidity as these are the real culprits.

Left under high intensity discharge lights the seedlings soon over heat and they begin to stretch as a result.  The stem can double and ever treble in length over night and all you can do is watch, unless some action is taken.

I minimised stretch as much as possible by keeping an eye on temps and opening up the grow space if it got too warm, and after about 72 hours I was able to act on the stretch.

Once its stretched its stretched for ever, but a popular way of minimising the effect of stretch is by taking up the slack with some creative "potting on".

Essentially, if your seedlings have stretched, when you move them into their first pots, only half fill the pots with compost, and place your cubes or jiffy pellets into this compost.

After a day or two, and when the plant has settled and is showing a root or two at the pot drains, you can fill the pot right up to the brim with compost, and where the stem becomes submerged, it will grow new roots, and these new roots play a big part in anchoring your stem to the compost.

On this occasion the save worked well as I manage to keep the plants down to a reasonable size.  At least reasonable enough to fit in the little grow box I had built.

So if your seedlings start to stretch, all's not lost.

 alls well that ends well

Take the slack up with some creative potting on, and put an end to unexpected height issues once and for all.

Red Dragon

If cannabis growing is your thing why not join us on the canna zine forums where we will soon give away some amazing free goodies including a Volcano Vaporizer.

We're a new community so there is plenty of time to establish yourself without long-standing cliques to circumnavigate like you'll find on other boards so now is a really good time to join us.

I hope to see you there.

 RD

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