When I started this grow I assumed that at least half would be males. Well am on week one of bloom and they (all 12) appear to be all female. I am using a 4x4 grow tent with a 600 watt cool tube MH bulb.and a couple of 85 watt cfl's as supplemental light. The growth is so thick I fear that my final outcome will be less than what it could have been. I have read quite a few discussions on whether to trim the plants and it seems that the majority consensus is no, do not trim. So with my situation what do you more experienced growers advise. The grow is DWC in 5 gallon buckets. Would appreciate your experienced advice.
Lucky you to have this as your main problem. In my experience I found you will get roughly the same volume of bud from varying amounts of plants grown within the same area using the same lights and nutes etc. and veging for similar times. I have grown from 15 to 30 plants in the same rooms and get roughly the same finished volumes of bud no matter the number of plants. Therefore don't sweat the numbers. I might suggest you check out "defoliation" techniques from other posters in these forums to allow more light to lower areas of the plants G/L
The main problems that I see that you will have is the canopy height being different on some of the plants. I grow in a 4x4 also (usually 1-3 plants) and if you have different strains, or phenos, if you don't train them some will get higher than others. So you have to raise your light for the taller ones, and the lower ones get reduced light. If you can train them to be the same hight, and you can do some trimming of the lower areas you should be fine. Otherwise you might run out of room to raise you light, and risk burning the tops of the taller ones. You are running a cool tube, so the light can be a lot closer than normal open bulbs. I would recommend changing your MH light to a HPS bulb for flower, it provides a better spectrum for flowering than MH, you will be much happier with the results over MH. If you ballast is MH/HPS, you can get a good bulb for about $60
Yeah, I'm about as high as I can go with my light now. Maybe 3 inches more at the most. I have several HPS bulbs and I will change. But I'm afraid I have waited to long to attempt to bent the taller ones down. And to where. Its a solid canopy as you can see in the pictures. I may just have to sacrifice the tops of several of the tallest ones to save the rest. I want have this problem again, as Ill clone my next grow. Theres some fan leaves the size of 2 hands that are blocking out a lot of light . My first thought is to cut those out but everyone on this forum seems to think that's a bad idea. And I agree. They are thriving and quite healthy and they don't seem to be stressed. The fan leaves seem to be the backbone of the plant. They adsorb major amounts of nutrients and protect the young leaves from strong light and heat. And if you overdo the nutes they are the first ones to show any damage. They seem to exist solely to protect the plant. I'm quite impressed by the purpose they serve and not looking forward to cutting them. Thanks to you guys input, will think on this a little longer.
u ever watch the nature channel? old sick animals are the first to go.... u can cut the large fan leaves and all of the lower growth since this will produce low quality bud u want to protect ur tops since this is the best bud. look into LST to try and keep the plants low enuff
I am not big fan of doing extensive trimming, but I do trim lower leaves and small branches that will produce sugar buds from the bottom and near middle. Helps with air circulation and lets you get in to do cleanup maintenance. Here is a picture of one of a nice fan from a recent grow, had to take some off to get light and air circulation, still ended up with 8 zips from this plant after some selective trimming.... just don't over do it, and you'll be fine. You can try to bend and tuck the bigger fans at first if they are blocking light, they will continue to pop back up, so you will have to keep doing it.
Try getting those little pipe cleaners and tying the top down to itself to reduce its growing speed, look into getting some netting and listing it so you can spread those tips out. Each of my plants seem to have 5 tips with this method