Mandelbr0t
- 25
- 3
If you're looking to flower soon I wouldn't top. I would tie them down/horizontal and bend/train the branches with clips. Once you do that you can lower your light down a bit closer to them, they look a little stretched for the veg cycle......but quite healthy. I assume your light is on the max setting?Hey everyone, this is my first grow and I grabbed clones that were already at about ~2+ weeks old. I had to iron out some other setup issues and environmental control issues in the flower rooms that I didn't think were going to be an issue/didn't realize would be an issue until the last minute. So I've had these big babies getting fed Athena Pro @ 3.0 EC, 5.7 pH, and a .9 - 1.0 VPD for a little over 2 weeks now (so maybe vegging over a month total now) and they seem to be doing pretty good. The problem is they are all packed extremely close together now that they have grown up, and to give them more space I need to move them into another room for flower. Below is a picture of what the Ice Cream Cake's look like. They are roughly about 32" tall, and my Apple Fritter's may be closer to 3' tall. You can see how they've started kind of stretching up since they have no room to grow outwards now due to have close the plants are together now from vegging so long.
They are under Phantom PhotoBIO 640w LED's right now, at about a 700 PPFD. They will be under the same PhotoBIO's in one room, as well as Gavita DE 1000's in the other room, but the goal will obviously be to keep the PPFD the same in both flower rooms (above what it's currently at.) Since Gavita recommends a minimum of 3' from the light to the top of the canopy, I need to do some topping (I assume) to get them down to the correct height. My friend says they will at least double, if not triple, in height once flipped to flower.
The very bottom of my trays are 2' from the floor, and from the bottom of the trays to the lights is a little over 6'. My ceilings are 9'4" tall and the lights are already up as much as they can go. I'm going to be using 3 gallon fabric pots, currently they are in 1 gallons for veg, and metaphorically busting at the seams. The plants are at 32" - 36" tall already (measured from the top of the coco in the pot to the top of the plant), so how much should I be cutting off here, or what should I be doing? This wasn't something I accounted for ahead of time, since I thought it would be get the clones, let them grow a week or so, then flip them over. Unforeseen circumstances did not allow me to do that.
The strains I'm running are:
Apple Fritter
Ice Cream Cake
OG Kush
Starkiller OG
Tropicana Cherry
The OG Kush is pretty short and squat and hasn't gotten super tall like the rest, so they are probably ok. Everything else has grown up pretty good. Will it be safe to top them as much as I might need to this late in veg? If so, how long should I wait after topping before flipping into flower? I appreciate any help or guidance!
If you're looking to flower soon I wouldn't top. I would tie them down/horizontal and bend/train the branches with clips. Once you do that you can lower your light down a bit closer to them, they look a little stretched for the veg cycle......but quite healthy. I assume your light is on the max setting?
If you do want to top I would then add more veg days (and still drop the light down) so they could have the time for new growrh/branches to fill in.
I dig the fact that your ceiling is so high. It can give you the verticle space to let plants get taller if that's what you want.
I wouldn’t top it now I’d do some lst and tie it down that will make it more bushy
It’s looks quite bendy you should be able to tie the top down quite a bit without breaking anything.
Tie the side stalks as well to the top of the pot.
Put holes in the top of the pot so you can tie it or use heavy duty tape if you have to alought even gorilla tape can let the string or whatever you use to tie it down slip
Rotate the side she’s tied down on and let it go untied In between rotating that will strengthen the stalk up and help her bear heavy fruiting
Tied down that will be a nice productive plant
I've seen nothing but good things from SOG, mostly SCROG .....great yields, efficient, uniformity, many tops per sqft.....I haven't seen as much trellising, but it comes down to how you build it, apply it, work it......I'm sure it's also a good thing to do. You'll find people here who do it.Do you guys recommend trellising still if I do the LST?
@Harpua my lights aren't on the max setting, I have the DLI set to 700ppfd and it is staying pretty close to that range. These things are f'ing huge now because they are still in veg. I've had further technical difficulties (had to replace my StealthRO 300 with a EvolutionRO 1000) because they are using up so much water now that between pre-charging/soaking the 3 gallon pots (in flower room) and feeding the 1 gallons each day, my StealthRO was only producing 236 gallons a day and that was running it 24 hours straight. I was concerned about the stress on my old well pump, so I just upped the system so I won't have to worry about it going forward.
Are there any little LST clips you guys recommend, or do you think I would be fine manually bending and tying down? I appreciate the responses and I apologize for the delay in replying, I don't get on here every day but I will check back daily over the next few days.
The first week or two they weren't stretching so bad. As time went on though, they started getting out of control. To help visualize it better, there were (72) 1 gallon pots on a tray, and were sitting there like that in more or less perfect environmental conditions and feeding schedules for about a month and a half. The only place they had to go was straight up and here I am.It's me or every grow I see with Athena nutrients have this same characteristics of long internodal distances and lanky stretched plants?
it's just an observation, since many started using it recently i see this trend.
Will observe from now on also if everyone using it is going high density grows aswell but I remember at least some.that weren't and had this characteristics too.
No in veg they were under Phantom PhotoBIO MX 680's @ 65% intensity or about 675-700 PAR. Some of them will continue in there in flower, the rest go into other flower room.Btw those vegged fully under Gavitas 1000w DE's?
You could flower them with proper training under a net and agressive topping of the really big ones, not gonna be a perfect solution, but it is what it is for this run.No in veg they were under Phantom PhotoBIO MX 680's @ 65% intensity or about 675-700 PAR. Some of them will continue in there in flower, the rest go into other flower room.
How many nodes need to be left after topping to still get a decent yield? Some of the tall ones are stretched so much that there aren't a lot of bottom nodes left that are doing that good because they were almost completely shielded from the canopy above. My friend thinks I should just take clones and start over, but he also has severe baseline anxiety to begin with, so he tends to overreact sometimes. In this case he may or may not be right, I don't know to be honest.You could flower them with proper training under a net and agressive topping of the really big ones, not gonna be a perfect solution, but it is what it is for this run.
Time is money.
For next cycle you have the means for a better vegging plan for sure ;-)
Depends on the density you have to flower, but 6-12 tops should be enough in most cases.How many nodes need to be left after topping to still get a decent yield? Some of the tall ones are stretched so much that there aren't a lot of bottom nodes left that are doing that good because they were almost completely shielded from the canopy above. My friend thinks I should just take clones and start over, but he also has severe baseline anxiety to begin with, so he tends to overreact sometimes. In this case he may or may not be right, I don't know to be honest.
Oh no, I absolutely did not want or need to veg them for 2 months. I thought everything was ready to go in my flower room, so I bought the clones and started, but it was just one setback after another and I only finally got it all ironed out. I didn't want to veg longer than 3 weeks to a monthBut another thing is, you want/need to veg them for two months? In that density isn't possible as you already experienced, you could control better veg speed with much lower watts and lower temperature if you need to veg for two months and they don't finish veg as giant monsters that will not fit your flower room after stretch.
You have a light(s)/coverage issue. This whole room, whatever the square fottage is, but (what looks like) one small light way up there. However you try to salvage a harvest out of this, you need to readdress your space so that you have a light or bank of lights right over a canopy, delivering the kind of straight down light power the plants in that space require. As a result you have plants that are lanky, reaching, growing weak, easily breakable stems. You'll probably spend more time and effort and electricity than the benefits of any potential very small harvest.Ok everyone, so my problem is worse than I thought. For the first time today, the other room is ready for everything to be flipped and so I started moving the plants over. Once I started getting through to the middle of the tables in veg, some of the plants are essentially all stretch and just look like shit to be honest. They were so top heavy and relying on the plants next to them to stay upright, that when we moved the first row of plants, 2 of the ones in the next row bent over and snapped at the base, complete loss. If I was moving them outside it may not be the end of the world, but due to my height constraints and the way they stretched so much, it seems to be a problem. It doesn't seem like I would have enough space on the tables if I bent them over, since they are already so big (4' + tall on many of them). Gavita DE's need 3' minimum from top of canopy to the light, and many of these plants only have a foot or less from the top of canopy to the light. I had planned on 18 sites per 4x8 table.
I realize I may have fucked everything up from having to wait so long (i.e. solving so many unexpected problems in flower room and having an almost 2 month veg period). Am I going to have to take clones and start over? Do y'all think I would still have the space to bend them over and put trellis/netting/scrog up? All the Ice Cream Cakes are monsters (in height) and are 12-16" from the lights. Some of the other strains are roughly 3' from the lights, but they are not in flower yet and would still be shooting up.
I wholly agree with all points quoted here. +1Depends on the density you have to flower, but 6-12 tops should be enough in most cases.
...
If yes you could clone them and make a good planned veg with proper density.
Me I would flower what I got while I veg what I need ;-), this way you cut some.of.the losses tho
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?