Hi Not sure if this belongs in “Absolute Beginners†section butam sure that everyone can benefit from information below. I am a relatively new grower. Last 2 month have been all learning for me,soaking everything I can put my eyes on, practicing and making notes. I have found a tread on one other forum with the similartitle, and immediately started making notes on all techniques and items thatpeople implemented that brought the most improvement to yield and overallsuccess of their grows. As I waswriting, I noted that those will be the crucial points to research and will beinstrumental to my success. Below are my notes that I made in exact way I madethem. If you find any of them difficultto understand, please ask. Also, If youdo not see an item(s) that helped you or that you think maybe important, pleasepost for everyone's benefit. 1. 48 hours of completed darkness before you flipto 12/12 2. Removing fan leaves 2 weeks before harvest 3. Pruning and lolly popping 4. Removing lower buds and brunches (how to andwhen) 5. Throw pruning or lolypopping 2.5 weeks before12/12 6. Adding Molasses 1tsp per gallon and feed 3 timesduring flowering period 7. Using fluorescent during flowering period 8. 3 Days of complete darkness before flip toflowering 9. Removing fan leaves right before flowering andthen 4 weeks into it 10. Using PH meter and learn overall PH rules andstrategy 11. Good canopy management and Scrog strategy. Those are all the notes I gathered from 18 pages of postinginfo (most of it was empty conversation between posters). Please add to this. Also, since I and others will use this as a checklist to study to get good,maybe you can add some light to the items above. As for me, I will hit YouTube, Google search and the boardsearches for the items I outlined as I believe that perfecting those will getyou on a good, right track. Also, one thing I learned (no autoflower for serious growerswho expect serious yield) Happy Holidays and Happy learning
1 and 8: What is this supposed to achieve? Seems like a waste of time your plant could be growing? 2 and 9: Why would you want to remove the plant's mechanism for gathering light? Especially in the last two weeks of flower when the buds should be filling out. As chep said, not every growing tip is of equal worth.
viper, pruning is mean to distribute more energy into other processes. some people when growing tomatos cut off the smaller fruits just to get a couple big ones, i think some people do the same thing with cannabis. do vegetation leaves take up energy, or are they just making energy? i ask this becuase i dont know if i should prune or not. i see that the bugs also make little leaves on them. are these solar panels as well? if not what purpose do they serve? maybe i should cut the bottem vegetation so light can hit these buds? im wondering becuase i dont know what i should do about pruning when my plants become big enough
lolipopping is taking off all the lower shitty bud sites as they're appearing around week 2-4, this allows the plant to focus all its development on the top buds (bottom are usually mediocre anyhow so why fuck with em) called that because they look like lollipops, with bare stems and big tops
#1 is useful for long sativas, #11 is a good strategy. It's interesting to see all the techniques people use. Love the scrog method, it's the most productive form of LST but it's a good amount of work. Dialing in on a grow will do more for the plants than a lot of these techniques. Good lighting, ventilation, temps, nutrient-rich soil, and low-stress training can go a really long way... increasing your yield by ounces instead of grams.
The leaves take energy when they're initially forming, but after they've grown they're what creates new energy for the plant to use. So once a fan leaf has grown it uses a little bit of energy for upkeep and what not, but the rest of the energy it makes goes to the rest of the plant to be used for other processes, such as growing flowers. Hence why lopping off leaves doesn't make much sense. You're just reducing a plants light gathering ability. That's not to say there is no situation where you might want to remove a fan leaf or two, but as a general rule I wouldn't go around cutting leaves off my plants. It makes more sense to train the leaves to a better position if you want to redirect light to another area. It seems like a lot of people have the misconception that the buds are what need light, which isn't the case. There is a reason plants evolved to have leaves with a large surface area. The leaves are a plants energy source. A plant's flowers are just it's reproductive organs. The caveat with this is that marijuana's flowers have leaves located throughout, however, their surface area for gathering light is minimal compared to a fan leaf.
exactly. the plant is one big organism, transporting fluids, nutrients, and hormones throughout. Everything works together.
thanks. im not sure if i should prune my plants at all then. becuase my next batch of plants will be healthy, and i wont drop anything on them
I prune dying leaves, I have plenty others, no sense wasting the plant's energy trying to repair something when it has more important flowers to attend to otherwise, I pretty much leave it the fuck alone. LST to get her good and exposed, then hit the HPS and watch the show.
ive heard that those dying leaves are the plant absorbing the energy from them to use for the rest of the plant. i dont know how true that is though. i did trim my dying leaves and make my plant look like a palm tree once
that's yellowing leaves, normal near the end of flower I'm talking about dried up leaves from heat/fan/random pests/etc. It happens, no big deal.
I wasn't sure about the light off, and that is very much debatable, but like I said those were only notes worth looking into. I did pruning without bamboo sticks. No reason to make my plants waste their energy on something we can never benefit on. Molasses is something I have not heard before and wonder if it is truly of any benefit to the process.
Good pruning video. Watched it a few times. Tis pretty much covers it in a right way. [ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbGHqxNMAhs[/ame]
Molasses adds carbs for the microorganisms in the soil to feed on. It also adds a bit of calcium and magnesium to the soil for the plant as well. I use around 1 tbs per gallon.
So, you guys think that complete darkness is something not worth practicing? No one tried or heard of this technique?