Greetings fellow farmers! Continuing to learn lots. I searched the archieve but found no clear answer to my questions. 4th grow, Deep water, single sativa/kush hybrid, have upgraded to a 400w MH/HPS system since last grow. Plant is 26 days old and has grown well even with low nutes (ppm only running in the low 400s, currently 349, doing nute change today). I'm about to do a nylon mesh over the plant to help guide growth, but this thing is so bushy and stout! I did some trimming on my last set of plants, but not at this stage. Here are my questions" 1) What would YOU trim out of this plant? The big fans? Some of the little shoots coming off the larger branches? The plant itself split and has two main stalks (see pics). I have a fair amount of room horizontal and vertical (imagine shower/tub combo) and can add side CFLs as necessary. My goal would be to unshroud some of the growing shoots, as some are really really covered up and appear stunted. But some of those end up being 'drains' on the plant it seems and don't produce much, but is now the time to cut the lower dinky ones? Not gonna try lolipoping this one, or LST. Just want more controlled quality growth and utilization of light. 2) Was thinking i would prepare her for flowering soon. In preparation I plan to go to 16/8 on lights (currently 20/4) with todays nute change for a week, still using veg nutes one more time. With possible trimming and her current age, is the light reduction wise or will I be messing with the plants "power supply" right when I trim it and slow her down or hurt it? Plant will be 34 days old when I flip to 12/12 and flower nutes if I follow my current plan. So, what would you trim, and what would you do with lights? Thanks all!!! Pic #2 shows split. Plant started with three baby leaves and continued that theme!
I would trim nothing, as any problems you'll have with nuting or diseases, the fan leafs will be the first to go, so they are very nice indicators. If you trim off the fan leafs then it will start attacking the sugar leafs and the bud it self You can do a process called leaf tucking though. which is practically tucking leafs behind and under branches
I don't quite get what you're going to do here, scrog? Why not LST? I haven't thought of one scenario yet where it's not a good idea. I am against trimming as it induces stress, however small the scale. I like to spoil my bitches. I would just tie everything down flat and spread that bush out (heh heh...) to get the light in there. I don't have any hard data to back any of this up, just personal preference and intuition.
Thanks guys! I put up the net, did a nute change to 700ppm, 5.9ph, trimmed out about a dozen small leaves and two fans that were just too much in the way, and started training her to spread out a bit. We'll see how this goes. Input welcome! BTW, this is a Barney's Farm Red Dragon. Per their website : a West Himalayan Kush crossed with a true breeding Brazilian sativa. (Utopia Haze). So far, likin' what I'm seein'!
i would cut off the bottom 4 branches. and then cut all the leaves off each branch only leaving the 2 further budsites towards the end of the branch. veg for 1 more week then flower.