Knucklemonkey's Infinite Multi-Strain Grow

I'm doing LST with little wire hooks that I am making out of wire hangers. So far it seems to be working well but this is my first attempt at LST so we'll see how it goes.

 

Today was a big day for me. It was a big day for 5 of the 6 original ladies from 2/18 because they got topped today. It was my first time topping a plant but I feel good that I did it correctly. The next new thing will be when I start fimming. I've been LSTing and now I'm topping... I told you I'm hardcore!

So 18 days after they busted out of the earth, all execpt Frangelica got topped. Frangelica's newest growth is a little too far along to top so I will need to wait for that growth to complete before topping her.

[note: All 3 of these pics are of Bunny. The 1st pic is of the "before topping", 2nd is of the "after topping" and the 3rd pic is of what I cut off when I topped her.]

 

I began LST pretty early on. Yesterday I topped 5 of the 6 original ladies and today I decided to do some fimming! If you notice in the 1st 2 pics below, the spot I topped yesterday is already getting good growth on either side of the cut. It looks pretty awesome, in fact. So I figured what the hell and I cut about 50% off of 5 new growth spots Bunny had. I feel good that i did it right but that's awfully hard chopping your pretty, green, beautiful baby. It's like giving your kid a shot.

[note: 1st and 2nd pics are of bunny pre-fimming (notice the growth at the topping spot), the 3rd, 4th and 5th are of bunny as I fimmed her and the 6th is of the original 6 ladies, now 19 days from seed.]

 

Thanks man but I've been LSTing for awhile on them now. That's how I have all of that crazy growth on that plant! If you look at the pics, the stem is bent and runs along the ground for a bit so there is a ton of growth coming from places that normally get no light. Hence my being able to fim the plant in 5 places 19 days from the day it broke the earth.

 

Thanks guys! It's pretty cool to think someone else is checking in on 'ol knuckle here. I'm totally obsessed with this right now and want very badly to make it STOR (that's "great" here in Denmark). I am reading a lot of the boards and learned last night that my setup is not ideal for CO2 so I need to find other things to enhance my grow.

Tonight I decided it was past time to crank up the LST more intensely than I have been doing the first 19 days. I went at it pretty aggressively with the 6 original ladies. Today is day 20 for them and I'm seeing definite crazy growth all over these suckers. That is a good thing since I will be cloning soon.

[note: 1st and 2nd pics are of Bunny. I wanted to show how well the topping is growing out! 3rd is of Bambi after LSTing her tonight, 4th is of Bella after a little LST, 5th and 6th are of all 18 aspiring ladies.]

 

If you are following this grow then you know I am waiting for ladybugs, one of nature's pesticides. The people I ordered them from say they will not ship until Mondy at the earliest so I have some time but I figured I'd go ahead and "ladybug-proof" the veg box. It occurs to me that a ladybug could/would take to flight and end up sucked into the exhust fan. If they somehow survive the fan then they'd be stuck in the filter.

So I put a little screen over the exhust hole and used one of those little duct clamps like you use on your clothes dryer to secure the screen. Picture #3 below shows how it worked out. Problem solved before it became a problem!

[note: 1st pic is of Bunny. Mainly wanted to show the growth on either side of where I topped her (2 tops baby!), 2nd is of all 18 ladies, 6 of them under hardcore LST and the 3rd pic is of the little screen fix I did on the exhaust fan.]

 

I forgot to mention that I raised the light from 19 inches to 25 inches above the pots. I'm noticing an odd ripple and upturn to the leaves and while they look extremely healthy, I know it isn't lack of water so I figure it might be stressing them having them so close to the light. 25 inches should be good right now though.

Thanks man! Glad to see you're following the grow too. I'm really being aggressive with the LST on all 6 of them and with the topping/fimming of 5 of the 6. I'm not messing with 1 of them other than LST right now just seeing what the differences are as they grow. And for a week now it's been nothing but water for them. Tomorrow I plan to hit them with 2 seperate mixes, 1 mix for the 6 originls and 1 mix for the 12 that came later. I'll explain that feeding breakdown tomorrow.

 

I fed the ladies heavily this morning. The original six got their first dose of Grow Big (6-4-4). They've been getting Big Bloom for a little while now every so often. I fed them according to the schedule (2 tblspoons of Big Bloom and 2 tespoons of grow big) but instead of 1 gallow of water I used 2 gallons of water. So it's 50% of what FoxFarm suggests. I just don't think they need much more than this yet.

Take a look at the first picture below. I'm fimming like crazy but I don't feel like I'm doing it properly. I know I'm topping properly but take a look at the pic and see the fimmings? Doesn't look right to me. Not yet anyway. It gives me a bad feeling that I'm not doing it correctly.

[note: 1st pic is a closeup of Bella. You can see the topping (directly under camera) is sprouting beautifully but look at the fimmings at the top of the pic and the top left. 2nd pic is of all 18 aspiring ladies.]

 

Thanks for the link, AW seems like an awesome guy. I've read that post before as I've read most of the stickies a number of times (I'm obsessed with this hobby). I wonder if this is a good purchase? I'm serious about high quality here but I'm frugal and would prefer to save money where I can.

I'm using the FoxFarm Trio. This is their schedule (I'm using half dosages when I use it at all).

That post might be what gave me the fear of overfeeding. Not sure, but I definately don't want to fertilize just for the sake of fertilizing. It's wierd but you don't want to hurt your plants by over fertilizing them but I'd love to give them steroids. I figure if my ladies can get to a better quality level due to a fert or nute then I'm in, but I'd rather ease into it. I have enough ladies going that I can experiment a little right now and I'm a total novice.

 

So after more reading today I decided to go for twice a day waterings/feedings. Smaller amounts more frequently is what I read so that's the plan.

I started LST on 4 more of the ladies today. I'm actually looking forward to getting the number of plants reduced soon. It's hard to get to the ones in the back of the box. They are all doing so well now...I'm curious how many males will come out of the 18.

I'm figuring that since I put the seedlings under the lights I'm going to veg for 5 weeks from seedling instead of 4. I think a seedling would grow for a week or so under different lights (CFLs?) and that the time under those wouldn't coumy toward the veg cycle. So by that math the original six are 16 days into the 28 day veg cycle. 12 days to get clones before it is time for flowering for those 6.

So far the spots I have fimmed are not running up like the spots where I topped them did. I'm learning so maybe that's a natural slowdown when you fimm as much as I did. Likely a little stress on them too with all the clipping and snipping.

They are extremely healthy looking overall. A little yellowing in the middle of the leaves on some but not much at all. I'm off the investigate that yellowing now.

[note: 1st pic is all 18 ladies, 2nd is of Bella, 3rd is of Fawn, 4th is of Bunny and the 5th is of Farrah, who just started LST today.]

 

Of the 18 aspiring ladies, 14 of them are now under LST. 6 of them have been topped, fimmed, pruned etc and 4 are still too small to do any of the above just yet.

I broke Farrah pretty close to her base today putting too much LST pressure on her. I gave her a kickstand and hopefully she'll be fine. She was eaten by the dog once when she was a seedling so she's from a broken home. Cleary.

[note: 1st pic is all 18 ladies, 2nd pic is of Bella, 3rd is of Bunny, 4th is a closeup of Bunny's topping area. Notice all the gnarled branches from the LST. The 5th picture is of Fawn.]