Indoor growing is an art, put mildly. The requirements are high yet the produce is even higher time after time. Indoor growing has its secrets that many growers will not share with others and quite often the grow shop guy wont tell you as your wasting money in his or her grow shop trying to get the process correct. Whilst it would be simple to say, do this or do that, it actually requires you as the grower to know what is best, and this you learn over time from studying the plants natural life cycles and understanding the climates these plants require. A lot can be learned from asking the grow shop owner but care must be taken when being advised to use a product that is not suited for your environment. Grow shop owners are open for one reason, to make money. Selling you a product that requires little media is not beneficial, such as aeroponic systems. These will not require the grower to change the growth media as you would with soil's for instance, resulting in the grower not spending as much money, with this in mind grow shop owners direct customers to grow systems and growth feeds that require high usage of feeds and media's ensuring you return crop after crop.
Research Indoor Growing Products
Only research from like minded growers will put you in the correct mind when starting indoor growing. Forum's and Blogs are in abundance for all growers alike to share and contribute however what worked for one grower may not work for another, if there is one change in the growing environment such as temperature then the plants will not duplicate what another grower achieved. Research the plants origin,its climate in particular. How much moisture in the air does the plant prefer, is it from the North or South?, if from the North if will prefer a slightly colder climate than from the South for instance. Check out Grow Supplies
Feeds, Lighting and Climate
The three secrets of Indoor growing has to be the three elements plant require to flourish, feed, light and climate control.
1. Feed's - all plants require food with many different types available for each of the plants cycle enabling the grower to manipulate these cycles to their benefit. The dangers behind feeding is that you either feed too much or too strong a feed. Over feeding will drown the root zone and make the plant perform slowly at the very least, constant over feeding will cause root disease to form. Over strength feeding is common practice in indoor growing due to pushing the plants to their limits to achieve the maximum possible, however quite often more bad is being done than good as the plant tries to accept the increase in strength. Generally the grower should know when it required of him or her to higher the EC, however not always will the plant be ready. Growers quite often use a grow schedule they have found on the internet or from a friend, duplicating this schedule should produce the same many believe but this is not so due to not observing the plant growth spurts and other signals alerting the grower to higher the EC, such as 'paling' on the new growth. Pale green on the center of the new foliage tells you to increase the strength, and quite simply if the tips of the foliage show a browning then 'Tip Burn' is alerting you to lower the EC.
2. Lighting - Grow lights are used to manipulate the plants life cycles. Using grow lights allow the grower to determine which cycle the plant is in. This is either 18 hours of light in 24 hours or 12 of light in 24 hours. The latter being for flowering whilst 18/6 is for growth and propagation. The strength of the grow light determine the end result's possibilities, for instance if using a 250 watt sodium lamp for flowering you will only be able to produce 250 grams of 'cured' produce, whether this be flowers or fruits. The grow lights will produce the required lumens a plant needs to grow or flower, however do not expect a 250 watt lamp to grow, say, 50 plants to their maximum. Remember a 250 watt lamp will only produce 250 grams of cured produce, whether this be above 10 plants or 100 plants the outcome will be the same. For this purpose growing science is required.