This Be How Dirbag Do...

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Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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Starting to wonder just how Inbred this mighty mite is... lol
3 cotyledeons on one of the mighty x god cross.
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Dirtbag

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MIMedGrower said:
Holy hell! That is some fast growth.
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I'm certainly happy with it. I also think had I not had the little hiccup the first week theyd be even bigger. This coco is easily on par with rockwool, but I'm finding it nice to be able to run other organic inputs more easily, and I find the roots are more protected from pests and pathogens in the fabric pot compared to the rockwool wrapping. The plants just seem happier.

Its gonna be fun seeing them in 3-4 weeks from now. I'm always amazed when I see my buddies big ass plants in teeny tiny fabric pots. It just looks wrong.

Think I've decided to take his advice for this crop and run the 70/30 pbp grow and bloom nutes for the first 3 weeks also. This dude hasnt let me down yet and has a ton of actual testing to back up a lot of why he does what he does. Hes also the guy who gave me most of my precious keeper strains so he knows what they like.
 
Dirtbag

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Also I'll throw in, that I think this new pruning method is making them grow faster too. I'm only ever removing the very young shoots at the nodes as they grow in so its low stress, and the plant is never putting energy into a node I'm not going to keep anyway. The thought is, when the branch only has one growing tip, that's where it focuses all its energy. The branch gets bigger, harder, better, faster and stronger than if the same branch were left with all its nodes growing shoots. lol, and veg is all about growing strong branches to support massive top growth. That's the theory anyway and there seems to be something to it. These branches are getting bigger and stronger by the hour it seems. When it comes time to flip there will be nothing to prune away really. Then when it's done, itll be all tops and mids with hardly any smalls, if any, making trimming a breeze. Not to sound too predictive... you never know how a crop is gonna go.

 
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Kanzeon

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Dirtbag said:
Also I'll throw in, that I think this new pruning method is making them grow faster too. I'm only ever removing the very young shoots at the nodes as they grow in so its low stress, and the plant is never putting energy into a node I'm not going to keep anyway. The thought is, when the branch only has one growing tip, that's where it focuses all its energy. The branch gets bigger, harder, better, faster and stronger than if the same branch were left with all its nodes growing shoots. lol, and veg is all about growing strong branches to support massive top growth. That's the theory anyway and there seems to be something to it. These branches are getting bigger and stronger by the hour it seems. When it comes time to flip there will be nothing to prune away really. Then when it's done, itll be all tops and mids with hardly any smalls, if any, making trimming a breeze. Not to sound too predictive... you never know how a crop is gonna go.

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I'm definitely going to start giving that a shot. It's just trimming the new shoots that you don't want to grow, like lollipopping before flipping to flower?
 
Dirtbag

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Kanzeon said:
I'm definitely going to start giving that a shot. It's just trimming the new shoots that you don't want to grow, like lollipopping before flipping to flower?
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Exactly. I top the plant when it has 10-12 growing nodes and let those become my main branches. Then just lollipop them up to the tip once a week, leaving the leaves intact, just removing the shoots. I do start removing some of the older fan leaves inside the plant low down on the branches around week 3 of veg.

Once you flip, you dont touch 'em. Just support it. You end up depending on strain with a 12-18" deep, flat canopy of well developed buds.

It's like, the much faster growing alternative to mainlining when you want a flat canopy. lol
Mainlining just seems unnecessarily OCD about making a symmetrical plant rather than just trying to encourage a pretty even canopy...
 
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Dirtbag

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This can be done to plants without topping too. Just lollipop the individual branches up until a few days before you flip. The buds that develop during the stretch phase on the ends of those branches are much bigger and in my experience easily make up for the growth removed lower down. And the branches will get bigger and stronger, faster as well.

Plants that stretch less, you stop lollipoping a bit earlier. Plants that stretch a lot like the violator you can prune to the very tip on the day you flip and still get a 16" branch full of plump, chunky mids with a sweet honkin' top bud.

Like this. This was a platinum cookie top from the first time I tried this technique. Changed the game for me. This plant had 9 other tops almost identical, a couple smaller lower down but still... you get the idea.
You know how much easier trimming is when the whole crop is made up of branches like this? A lot easier. lol
 
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Kanzeon

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Dirtbag said:
Exactly. I top the plant when it has 10-12 growing nodes and let those become my main branches. Then just lollipop them up to the tip once a week, leaving the leaves intact, just removing the shoots. I do start removing some of the older fan leaves inside the plant low down on the branches around week 3 of veg.

Once you flip, you dont touch 'em. Just support it. You end up depending on strain with a 12-18" deep, flat canopy of well developed buds.

It's like, the much faster growing alternative to mainlining when you want a flat canopy. lol
Mainlining just seems unnecessarily OCD about making a symmetrical plant rather than just trying to encourage a pretty even canopy...
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Awesome, thanks for the details.

Yeah, mainlining is nice but it's not the most efficient use of space unless the plant is gonna be trellised and grown horizontally. And it definitely slows growth down.
 
Dirtbag

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Kanzeon said:
Awesome, thanks for the details.

Yeah, mainlining is nice but it's not the most efficient use of space unless the plant is gonna be trellised and grown horizontally. And it definitely slows growth down.
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It looks damn cool when it's done right, I'll give it that. It just seems like it seriously sacrifices the growth rate by stressing the plants for really not much benefit. But to each their own.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Dirtbag said:
It looks damn cool when it's done right, I'll give it that. It just seems like it seriously sacrifices the growth rate by stressing the plants for really not much benefit. But to each their own.
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Oh yeah, absolutely. It's very cool from a horticultural training perspective. I'm sorta mainlining one of the ladies that I've got going now.

Do you use humic and fulvic acids in your grows? Would you add them to the watering mix or use them as a foliar? If as a foliar, in conjunction with anything else?
 
Dirtbag

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Kanzeon said:
Oh yeah, absolutely. It's very cool from a horticultural training perspective. I'm sorta mainlining one of the ladies that I've got going now.

Do you use humic and fulvic acids in your grows? Would you add them to the watering mix or use them as a foliar? If as a foliar, in conjunction with anything else?
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I have quite a bit in the past, and currently am using floralicious plus for some SWE and Humic. Ive never supplemented with humic/fulvic specifically. Only SWE/Humic mixes as the combo has been proven a valid biostimulant, and even has a pretty well documented ideal ratio of 5:2. But as a general rule I dont foliar my plants with anything. I like to keep things dry up top. But it can be fed foliar for sure. Some people think foliar spraying is pointless because the stoma are a one way street, but things can be absorbed by what I think is called translaminar absorbtion through the cell walls.
 
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Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Dirtbag said:
I have quite a bit in the past, and currently am using floralicious plus for some SWE and Humic. Ive never supplemented with humic/fulvic specifically. Only SWE/Humic mixes as the combo has been proven a valid biostimulant, and even has a pretty well documented ideal ratio of 5:2. But as a general rule I dont foliar my plants with anything. I like to keep things dry up top. But it can be fed foliar for sure. Some people think foliar spraying is pointless because the stoma are a one way street, but things can be absorbed by what I think is called translaminar absorbtion through the cell walls.
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Yeah, even the principle of osmosis means that some of the nutrients are absorbed by the plant somehow, right? I'm not sure I subscribe to the idea that stomata are a 1-way street, or else misting clones wouldn't keep them alive. Also iirc, the stomata only open once the humidity reaches a certain point. So if they close when the environment is dry, that would indicate that the function would likely be both to "inhale" and "exhale." If they stayed open when it was dry, it would make sense that they only exhale. Yeah?

TBH, foliars have been huge for me. They were a big turning point last winter.

I use one of Epsom salts and sulfur (PM preventative, as you know) from 3 or 4 nodes until a week before harvest and one of kelp extract, PFR-97, and aspirin through until pistils start showing up (that will likely get the humic/fulvic blend). But I'm also dealing with lower humidity than you are as well.
 
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