masshole61
- Posts
- 238
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- Joined
- Jul 21, 2010
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- 63
Hello fellow farmers
The pictures are of both sides of my 5 x 10 flower tent. I have to admit everyone looks pretty happy. I'm 3 1/2 weeks into flower , have cleaned out the lowers, top dressed with coast of Maine quoddy blend lobster compost and EWC they all responded really well. Soil grown in Scotts mix #4, Heavy 16 full line with a few microbial goodies.
My question to my farm friends and family is how much would you defoliate and when? these plants are 30" to 38" tall. I topped them once and LSTed the tallest ones to achieve a somewhat even canopy. I have a tendency to stuff a lot of plants into each 5x5 area. The left side has nine, the right has 16. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is for plant count on each side, I just start with a of plants and try to make it work. But am I crowding them too much?
What I'm trying to achieve is instead of shrub like tree growing, smaller plants focused on more quality top bud growth and less second tier growth. I experiment with something new almost every time and am concerned I'm not defoliating enough late in flower and not allowing enough light to penetrate to what would otherwise be quality bud.
It seems like a fine line between keeping fan leaves to promote photosynthesis, plucking fan leaves to allow light to reach buds below the top of the canopy and attempting to develop smaller plants with more focus on top bud development.
I've been reading the farm for years now and have learned a lot from you guys.
Any positive advice would be greatly appreciated