Updated scenes from within the 'tent

[chip]

Hi triche

nice looking garden, some good variety, nice strains etc. for me the A11 looks the best.

Ive not grown G#7 but for me the GD#9 is the best, a more well rounded and balanced smoke with an initial rush from a bong hit that has me dancing like Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

However....

Yes, that's right; I prune all the lower sites, leaving just mids and tops.

I've been saying this here for a while, but people seem too scared to do it! !

I hear what you are saying, and ive done it myself in the past, but IMO, its best to grow the plants smaller so that you dont have to trim anything, no air buds, no bare stems, no wasted energy etc. It always seems a shame when i see plants with a foot or so at the bottom where all the leaves and branches have been shaved off. Also, if you keep them smaller, you can squeeze more in and push your yield per square foot up.

Anyways, as always top grow triche

Chip

[TrichomeUK]

hehe, no offence chip, but I find it amusing when you try and teach me

"It always seems a shame when i see plants with a foot or so at the bottom where all the leaves and branches have been shaved off. Also, if you keep them smaller, you can squeeze more in and push your yield per square foot up."

I said earlier on the original "Scenes from within the tent" thread that I didn't have a mother to donate many little babies this time, so grew a smaller amount of larger plants.

What you are saying is ludicrous when dealing with medium-large indoor plants, and also possibly misconstrued about the leaves.

You see, indoor lights only have limited penetration and so the lower sites must be trimmed with medium-large plants, unless you're using 1KW bulbs.

What happens if someone wants to keep plant numbers down? Must they use 1KW's?!

What would you recommend to them?

What you do is prune the bud-sites, and leave the leaves - don't chop them - they'll yellow and die due to lack of light.

The yield from these few BoggleGums will be high, and the plant numbers low.

Everything I do is "a work in progress", working towards almost perfection eventually.

As I said, this is not a production tent - it's a variety tent, which will yield as high as possible for a small amount of plants, and will have awesome variety to boot.

Please bear in mind previous comments and the aims/restrictions of the grower.

All the best

[TrichomeUK]

PS. Chip, as you will learn, it depends on the plant as well - to train a slightly branchy strain into SOG, you must prune, etc., so it all depends on the plant and situation, and there is no right answer!

[TrichomeUK]

High and thanks Ot,

I have considered Yo-yo's thanks, although there is a net in there, and more net ready to support these plants - it was just the few late in flower which I moved from a wardrobe into the tent, which I tied up.

All the best

[chip]

easy triche,

hehe, no offence chip, but I find it amusing when you try and teach me, and I found it amusing when Mono played teacher too

Like we/you'cve said before, its about discussing different options because like you say, there is no right answer, just variations on a theme.

What you are saying is ludicrous when dealing with medium-large indoor plants, and also possibly misconstrued about the leaves.

you are missing the point triche, what i am saying is that in my opinion, and that of a few others, hydronaut for example, it is better use of the space, vertically and horizontally, to grow smaller plants. Like you have said, 600w has a limited penetration, so why grow a plant any taller than the depth to which the light can penetrate.

It seems like you and Mono think that if you take a picture of something, or grow some weed, then that must be the final, be all and end all, best possible grow or weed you are capable of.

:: ::

Getting to know you now triche and that makes it easier to laugh at some of the stuff you write.

Thanks for the entertainment, and also for taking the time to engage in a little discussion with me.

Chip

[TrichomeUK]

"Like you have said, 600w has a limited penetration, so why grow a plant any taller than the depth to which the light can penetrate."

>> In my case, because I didn't have enough clones to fill the space otherwise.

But in general to keep plant numbers down!

All the best

[TrichomeUK]

Please respond to this you over-zealous chippy:

"You see, indoor lights only have limited penetration and so the lower sites must be trimmed with medium-large plants, unless you're using 1KW bulbs.

What happens if someone wants to keep plant numbers down? Must they use 1KW's?!

What would you recommend to them?"

[chip]

, over zealous chippy, i like that

Yes, good point, after i posted the last reply and re-read your edited post i saw that question.

Definitely, if someone wants to grow less but larger plants, then for sure, trim off the lower bud sites, leave the leaves and yield more from the top of the plant. Sound advice.

Must they use 1kw lights? nah, whatever theyve got will probably do fine.

Thanks again triche

Chippy (over zealous) ::

[TrichomeUK]

High dude,

The 1KW bulbs are for unpruned trees, that's what I meant.

Over-zealous chippy, yes, over-ridingly keen to learn, yes, we like!

Keep up the good learning curve chippy,

[chip]

::

Edit: Yep, try and keep up triche, i'll shout back and tell you whats at the top

::

Sorry, had to add that, just to mek you laugh

Chip

[HydroNaut]

you are missing the point triche, what i am saying is that in my opinion, and that of a few others, hydronaut for example, it is better use of the space, vertically and horizontally, to grow smaller plants. Like you have said, 600w has a limited penetration, so why grow a plant any taller than the depth to which the light can penetrate.

Thats it!! drag me into it!

Of course tho we have it sussed eh Chip

Im such a windup

Peace

Hydronaut

[chip]

, :: thought you wouldnt mind.....

Chip

[HydroNaut]

.... waiting for the retort !!

Cheekily

Hydronaut

[TrichomeUK]

High there,

! btw

I found an article, which proports the merits of SOG, and thus short bud-sicles, which are really good, and I am not trying to argue against, but it also shows as well that even when using a 1KW bulb, if you prune, you will end up with more "Grade A" flowers, which is a point I didn't mention earlier.

The grades of flowers can be very different, and it's better to have a larger top of highgrade, than a smaller top and some small buds around the bottom.

Here it is, posted by an Unregistered guest at Overgrow:

"

Bending and Pruning ..... to maximize light

In some growing situations it is more advantageous to have plants that are wider than taller in order to maximize the number of branches or "shoots" within a given area.

It is less efficient in most indoor applications to have one large branch than it is to have several smaller ones. This is true due to the fact/s that when dealing with distance in terms of height, you must consider that artificial light intensity typically drops 50% for every foot it has to travel for the initial source. So if a five foot plant has a 1000Watt HPS producing 140,000 initial lumens and is suspended 18" above the plant tops, theoretically, the most light the lower branches and shoots may recieve would be around 2187 lumens, only 1.5% of the amount of light available in the first foot away from the light source. For example:

1st foot: 140,000 lumens X 0.5=70,000 lumens

2nd foot: 70,000 lumens X.05=35,000 lumens

3rd foot: 35,000 lumens X .05=17,500 lumens

4th foot: 17,500 lumens X.05 = 8,750 lumens

5th foot: 8,750 lumens X .05= 4,375 lumens

6th foot: 4,375 lumens X .05 = 2,187.5 lumens

Shorter plants will recieve more even lighting from the top to the bottom and as a result will ripen more evenly, have a higher percentage of Grade A flowers, have a lower percentage of "trash" to be manicured off the finish product, and yields become much more consistant from plant to plant.

Once the technique is mastered, it will simply be a matter of counting stems to determine yield consistancy. One of the most common methods used is the "sea of green method". There has been a lot of good writing on this method and it has provided growers who are willing to endure a couple of experimental crops while they are mastering this technique. Once dialed in, growers usually have to pick up their jaw at harvest time. One of the disadvantages to sea of green method is that it requires a large, supply of fresh plants. Where the grower may have had one plant in the past, they now have nine.

There is a specialized method of keeping plants very short, while producing many upright branches and shoots without the use of chemical growth regulators. So now instead of having nine plants in a 2' square you can have one plant that will have as many shoots and branches of the same height with a conventional sea of green method. The plants are wider than tall, and allow maximum light intensisty to penetrate the dense canopy to reach each individual flower. The finished plant should have the appearce and glow of a chandelier by harvet time.

The best candites for this technique are strains that like to branch a little more, strains that tend to branch less are still very useable but may require a little more time in veg growth before they can be flowered. One of the keys to this technique is the timing of when cuttings are removed from their mother plant. Typically, growers remove clones from the mother plants that are maintained in the vegative growth phase. For success with this techinique it is best if cuttings are taken in the second or third week of flowering. For growers who have never tried to root a cutting from a flowering plant, relax: they will root and you will be pleasantly surprised at the results. Some growers may not even recognize their plants during phases of this technique. there are several advantages to taking the cuttings from flowering plants. One benefit is that it is healthy and vigorous, has not been over-treated with growth regulators. and appears to be free of disease and pests. Also the cuttings taken from early flowering plants will take longer to root, usually two weeks or so for the rooting phase.

Rooting pre-flowering cuttings requires 24hours of light. this works out very well, as timing is very impotant to achieve success with this technique. if your plants require an 8 week flowering period, and cuttings are taken 2 weeks into flowering it leaves 4 weeks for vegative growth after accounting for the 2 week rooting period. This is perfect amount of time to develop short, highly branched plants ready to re-fill the grow room after harvest.

The main reason that cuttings are taken early into flowering is that many flowering short day plants will develop more internodes per inch of shoot growth in early flowering than than in vegative growth phase, where internodes tend to be spaced further apart. This will translate into many branches extending from a central point after returning to vegative growth on a plant that has increased very little in height. Inorder to ensure profuse branching, one week after rooting (allowing some time for the plants to develop some new shoot groth), the apical meristem or cental growing point is either bent back and tied with copper wire or simple removed (topped). the bending method is prefered as it may allow for hormones within the growing tip to be disfussed and translocated to other growing points, as opposed to being removed all together.

the result will be an extremely short plant with many, many branches. Internodal growth tends to be tighter as the plant is still partially flowering while growing. Also, the plant will have maintained some of its flowering hormones and will resond very quickly when returned to flowering. Once or twice during the four weeks of new growth after rooting, lightly mist your plants with a high quality fulvic acid mixed with a liquid sea kelp product as per manufactures directions. the natural cytokinins will encourage branching and rapid cell division.

As for nutrients, start by pre-soaking the rooting medium in 1/4 strength ful spectrum bloom ferts. Additions of high quality fulvic acid will also encourage healthy roots and vigourous new plants. After the cuttings have rooted, use 1/ strength of a 50/50 ratio of full spectrum veg. ferts and bloom ferts. One to one and a half weeks later, switchto a 3/4 to 1/4 ratio of grow to bloom solution and gradually increse the concentration until you are using nearly 100% veg. ferts.

Make sure your fertilizer contains all the nescessary elements required for plant growth (N,P,K,Ca,S,Mg,Fe,Zn,Mn,B,Mo,Cu and possibly Co and Ni) Your plants may not look as they usually do in this stage of growth, not to worry though, likely you will be surprised of the increased rate of branching. You may need to bend and prune some of the branches off in order to maximize light enetering the plant canopy. For the last week of vegative growth, use full strength growth formulation. Use at 1/4 strength every watering. Allow for 10 to 15% of the nutrient to run-off with each irrigation to help reduce salt build up in the root zone (rhizosphere). Follow your usual regimin for feeding in the bloom phase. A light spray of cytokinin containing products such as sea kelp with high quality fulvic acid once a week for the first three weeks of flowering will increse the number of flowering sites produced on each plant and provide a full range of naturally occuringand trace elements. You may not want to spray kelp products on your plants while adding flowering enhancers to your nutrient solution.

If the final space allocated to each plant is to be a SQFT. prune and bend the plant so that there are about nine branches eqaul in height per plant per SQFT of growing area. After 2-3 weeks into flowering, the lower 1/3 portion of the plant can be trimmed to supplu cuttings for the next crop and improve air circulation in the plant canopy.

As a word of caution, if a plant is re-cut and re-rooted many times, the window of oppurtunity for viruses and other growing problems increases. Occassionally, it is a good idea to start fresh mother plants from seed to ensure healthy crops although you may consider otherwise if your crop continue to perform.

Hopefully, you will enjoy continued success with this technique, which stems from ancient bonsai pruning practices. Although thoughsand of years old, these practices can help even the most cutting edge grower realize improved results. it's an interesting thought to note that many of the modern practices developed today might be followed by other growers centuries from now. We may not live forever, but what we leave behind can.

Following are additional tips for producing low profile, densley branched plants:

A.) Target your oscillating fans to vigorously sweep the under portion of the plant canopy.

B.) Enhanced HPS or metal halide bulbs produce more light in the blue portion of the spectrum. this often results in tighter internodal spacing in many plant varieties.

C.) lants will stretch more in high humidity. Wire a humidifier or small exhaust fan to a de-humidifier to keep humidity below 60%

D.) Day/night time temps. can tighten internodal spacing. Shorter bushier plants can be influenced by maintaining the day time temp less or equal to night time temps.

E.) High light, low heat produces very healthy plants. Air cooled shades or hoods can help to control heat, while incresing lamp to plant tolerances.

Im sure this will be great reading material and referancing information for the experienced and novice alike. Quite a bit of information pertaining to several areas of growing, Lighing, propagation, Nutrients ect... Although I do not implement the sea of green technique I religously experiment with bending and training. I like to go through a get to know you kinda period with new genetics and strains. I generally will grow a strain that I am unfamilair with using bening and training and letting the plant grow in its natural form ie. untrained, untopped.

Hope you all enjoy this bit of info.

Peace!"

All the best

[HydroNaut]

Hi Trich...i knew youd not take too long to answer

Wow...nice bit of info there...good reading...nice one!!

Btw...im not disagreeing with ya...theres soooo many ways of growing...just as well really,it would be pretty boring if everyone done it the same. :o

I knew id get a nice lenghty reply

Keep up the good work

Hydronaut