New Grower With Concerns About Stretching

I am a first time out door grower in southern Georgia! I am growing 2 auto flower super lemon haze plants and 2 non auto-flower gg x zkittles plants (all my seeds were bought from ilgm). So far they look nice and green but I am worried about stretching. I take them outside in the morning on the east side of my house so it gets hit by the morning sun, and once the sun is hitting the western side of my house i move it there, I then bring them in if its raining, and at night since its been dropping below the 60s at night. Its been about a week and a half since I germinated them in a glass of water. I sprayed them with water for the first week and have fed it one feed of fox farm nutrients 6 days in (bloom, boomerang, kangaroots and holy mackrel) Im also using the fox farm seed starting soil. Was just confirming everything looks fine so far here? Or if there is anything different I should be doing? I’d love to avoid stretching at all costs, but I may be overthinking it.
Really happy and excited to be a part of this group and cant wait to grow with my plants!
-Jeff




Stretching occurs when they are reaching for more light, so keeping the light at an appropriate distance will deter stretching. Also they should be getting a consistant light cycle every day (same number of hours), and they are a bit small for feeding yet, id keep em in a humid atmosphere and use a dome if you need to

Welcome aboard @R0ck3tshipz ! A little more soil in the cup wouldn’t hurt for your next grow. Also, be cautious with those opaque cups, as algae can potentially form. Your sprouts look good!

As @Medicineman33 stated, more light makes for less stretch.

Seedling starter soils usually have a couple/few weeks of nutrients, so you may not need to feed until transplant time.

With FF soils and nutes, later on in your grow, be mindful that they can have excess salt buildup, and there are recommended flushes every few weeks. Do you have all of the liquid trio? Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom? These 3 alone are good for a quality harvest, but as mentioned, they have a recommended flush in the feeding schedule.

Also, your autoflowers will start to flower on any lighting schedule, no warning lol. And it will probably be before you have “flipped” the light schedule for your non-autos. Your photoperiods (non-auto) will flower when the light cycle is flipped to 12/12. But will remain in veg state when left at 18/6. Leave it there until they are about ⅓ of the total size you want, then flip, because they can get up to 3x bigger in a matter of a couple weeks after.

Hope this helps! Good luck and happy growing!

Welcome to the community we’re glad to have you. Seedlings look good @Medicineman33 has you covered.
Good luck

Thank you for the info! Im going to be buying a light and a dome tonight! Is a MH light the route I should go?

Thanks for the info! Do you think it would be safe to transplant it to a better pot now, or should I wait until they get a big bigger? Thankfully I bought the liquid trio and a couple more on top of that. I think the box said dirty dozen. Since I am growing outdoors I was hoping that when the fall hits my non autos would flip but I am not sure if thats my best route now. Thanks again for the help!

Welcome to ILGM.
Make sure those cups have holes in the bottom. I usually poke holes all up and down the sides too. It helps get oxygen to the roots. I use a clear solo cup and put it in a colored cup. That way you can watch the root growth. :v::call_me_hand:

If you are going to move them outside to flower them you really dont need that high of a wattage light. It takes some power for them to flower but not nearly as much to veg. I know guys that still use old style cool white florescent bulbs to veg. I use shop style 4 ft led’s with full spectrum and even some blurples. I line my solo cups up in shoe and boot box sized rubbermaid containers with a chicken wire shelf for the cups to sit on

I’d give them a few days to transplant, so that way roots have really started to develop. Usually when the leaves start reaching past the rims of the cups. You can put the autos in their final home. The photos can go into a 1 or 2 gallon bag or pot for a few weeks, then into final homes since you’re going to acclimate them outside. 5 gallon would be ok or larger would be great. 7-10 gallon bags leave plenty of root space and that’ll help make for bigger yields.

Also, the FF Dirty Dozen. Good stuff, lotta extra work. If I missed the suggestion, or if you haven’t seen it check out Jacks 321. You’re going to use the essentials of the FF, the liquid Trio mentioned earlier, really quick. You can get 15-20 plants out of a $35 Jacks kit from eebay. The regular bottles of the trio will last you like 5.