Maximizing yield

looking good . its a matter of opinion number of plants under 1000 watts to get max yield . its how you top and super crop and lolly pop . i like what you have going on now your going to do very well more plants does not mean more yield . for max yield a 1000 watt light does a 4/4 space so if you have 1 monster or 20 baby depending on how you grow you could get less or more . my opinion i like smaller plants and more of them reason there are a lot more tops so lets say 12 plants in 3 gallon pots in rows of 3 veg to there 6 inches tall all topped works best around here . some people do 1 plant others 4 or 6 so what works best for you ? your going to have to find out your self . once your plants are all done pull the stem out of the soil see how far the roots actually go there will be a vary few that have gone that deep in the 7. in a 3 its totally filled but does not affect yield . in bigger plants you need 5 but never seen a difference 5 vs 7 hope this all give you new ideas

 

You did well for your first time. Like said above if you had trained them a bit more I feel you would of gotten it. Try to flip(kinda depends on strain too) when you have atleast 75% of the net filled.

But I still feel you should try and spread your colors a bit more out if you can. I see some good spaces and they will grow fatter if they are not touching each other.

Also how deep is your canopy?

 

IMO pot size should be directly proportional to plant size. Going oversized doesn't seem to help the plant grow faster if you move it to the larger pot when it's too small to use it. I like to wait until my plant actually needs to be transplanted because it's outgrown the previous pot size. Then I move it.

When I look at those plants I think they look too small to be in a 7 gallon pot. I think they would do better in 5's because they'll probably stay wet too long in the 7's. I'm of the opinion that cannabis likes a wet/dry cycle in it's medium if you're not running an airstone so the roots can breathe oxygen. If you're in too big of a pot it stays wet almost all the time.

A 5 gallon isn't the best finishing pot in all situations. It's proportional to plant size. If I had smaller plants I might finish them in 3 gallon pots. What I like to see is them needing water or drying the pot out minimally every 3 days. If it takes longer then that between waterings I think the pot is too big or you don't have enough perlite in it.

Perlite is huge IMO you want good drainage and aeration in your medium whatever you're using. Many experienced growers know that near any medium can use an additional 15-25% perlite to make it drain and aerate best for cannabis.

I had some large white widows last round so I decided to try finishing one in a 7 gallon and one in a 5 gallon. The 7 gallon kicked the 5 gallon's ass by a little over 3 oz's.

This is the size plant I like to see in a 7 gallon. When I emptied the root ball out it was a solid mass. it filled the entire 7 gallon pot up with a mat of roots.


Maximizing yield? Probably one of the biggest things I've done is veg longer to make larger plants. I have two rooms so I can veg and train for up to 10 weeks before a plant gets put in the flower tent. In this amount of time you can build a real monster that is just waiting to explode as soon as you unleash the 12/12 power lights on it. You want to be almost running out of headroom and tent space to maximize yield. You want to be wondering if you should be cutting off a few branches so they don't burn. You want to fill up your room.

The other thing is a wide canopy. You want a perfectly even canopy no matter what method you use. You want a sea of tops the proper thickness so you get just the right amount of light penetration to mature all the buds to their max potential and keep all the main tops the perfect distance from the light, not too far, not too close. If you do that and keep the plants healthy the yield will follow.

 

5 week veg is a little short, especially when you're training them. I do almost twice as long. 13 oz's off that pair of WW's. They only got about 515 watts of led.

 

I guess with a scrog you almost want to settle into the finishing pot a little earlier then most since it's harder to transplant. I'll leave my plants in 3 gallon pots until the very end of veg. They're 2 months old and huge. They'll be drying the 3 gallon pot out every day and drinking 1/2 gallon a day of feed. Then I put them in 5 gallon or 7 gallon right when I put them in the bud tent usually.

You could do 3 gallon with your plant count and veg time but you'd have to feed more often. The plants could like the increased oxygen though. Bigger pots don't necessarily make bigger plants. I've seen 4' massive plants budded in 6" rockwool cubes. Look at mine in the 3.5gallon DWC pot.

I think the loose perlite rich aerating soil mix that dries out every day helps boost growth. I feed them on the lite side and they suck it all down to air before the next day.

I keep accidentally moving on to bigger and bigger plants. My newest one is drinking a gallon a day. It's DWC blue dream. Judging by my previous crops this is going to be 10+oz's and maybe up to a pound if I'm lucky. It's only about 2 weeks right now and just showing buds. It's about 4 1/2' tall with a 4'x2'6" canopy with 30+ tops. Vegged for 9 weeks under only 180 watts.

 

It's also much about the strain. The White Widow just has that tight node bud structure but a little stretchy at the same time, that makes nice colas. You do need that older larger stem structure to hold them up and feed them. Longer veg helps with that.

I think I've reached the limit in plant size for 3.5 gallon buckets. If I missed a single day of feed it would be disaster. It practically empties the bucket every day. It's full of roots all the way up to the net pot.

I actually have a second plant in there with the big one. I had moved it out to raise the light for the picture. It's a foot shorter though so it's not as fun to take pictures of. I'm doing 2 plants this round because they were just too big to fit any more in the 4x4. I think I'll end up doing just as good for yield as with 4 plants.

 

9 weeks go grow a tree It's a nice plant just seems like a lot of work for hydro lol. That's back backing right there. I mean I know when I grew monsters in coco 5 gallon and had to water that every 1-2 days I hated that after a while.

 

If the bud tent is full there's nothing else to do but wait 9 weeks and grow a tree. =)
I could start the plant later to get it shorter but that's not as fun. They're vegging under hardly any watts. I never really expected them to get this big.

 

Nah I hear you on that, that's why I been monster cropping. I even did my like 4th-5th week in flower. Reduces veg time so I don't have trees haha. Well, till I get a third tent set up atleast. I mean you are like 1-2 weeks in flower hope you don't run out of room heh.

 

I don't think I will. LED's don't seem to stretch as much in flower IMO. I just keep bending it wider each time I open the tent and see a top getting a little close. I can go a little higher with the light. About 4". There's some tops that are already about 14" from it. That's about as close as they can get.

This is kind of a mutant plant. I've vegged other strains as long and they didn't get that big. I've tried monster cropping/cloning in flower. I've had good luck getting roots but the turn around can take so long. I actually cloned a 9 week harvesting plant.

I'll probably bud this crop out and go back to slightly smaller 4 plants in the 4x4. If the yield is good then I'll just change to 2 monsters at a time from now on. The next round is wonder woman DWC. I only have one bucket going. I have two rooted White Rhinos I'm putting in two more buckets this week. They'll only get about a 6 week veg. I got a few more mommas of other strains in promix that will be big by next harvest. I'll do wonderwoman, 2 white rhino phenos, and a sensi star mom in promix.

 

If you're feeding with hydro nutrients just get one of the available sweeteners/carb loaders instead of molasses. They're the same thing but better made for their purpose. Molasses feeds microbes in the root zone and helps them thrive. Some of them can convert it to nutrients for the plant as well. I use AN's budcandy for my sweetener/carb loader. If you're using that you don't need molasses. It's a substitute.

I use florablend by GH, diamond nectar, and floralicious plus. I highly recommend florablend it's great stuff and cheap. I won't grow without it now. It's great for a mild fertilizer for clones and seedlings. It has a full NPK profile but it's very low like .5-1-1. It's basically an organic tea with kelp and other micronutrients that help fill holes in what the other bottles provide. Kelp is full of plant growth hormones as well. GH recommends using diamond nectar for humic acids during veg but swap in floralicious about week 4 of bud. It boost essential oil production. I think I paid $9.50 for florablend by the quart. Floralicious plus is more expensive.

 

Use the molasses for the first half of your flush. Molasses breaks down the salts in your medium and helps a lot for flush. It does also help your rizosphere but if you're using your nutes correctly there's really no need for that.