PooToe said:

She looks healthy. Good Job!

My process involves topping the plant after the 5th node has appeared back to the 4th node to spur more branching. You've gone beyond that timeline but you can still do it with excellent results. Topping is pruning to change the Apical Dominance the plant naturally follows in nature.

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I would also look into Low Stress Training(LST). Now is the time you want to start that but I would top first, give the plant a week to acclimate and then start training. Giving the plant a week to acclimate will also allow it to fortify the existing branches and sprout new ones so when you LST you'll have a good amount of branches and sprouts to train. These are more advanced grow skills so if you feel nervous about doing it and want to do a free grow for your first grow there is no problem in doing that. Topping and LST are methods to increase your harvest yields.

I usually don't prune leaves until I'm ready to flip, change the light schedule, to 12/12. This is for photo period seeds, both femmed and natural. With auto seeds they don't like to be fussed with much and the fixed timeline doesn't give you much time to correct any issues you may have so I usually don't do much beyond topping and LST. I keep pruning to a bare minimum with autos.

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luckytrees said:

Beautiful lady you have there man! I have a very similar vivosun set up and it's working great for me. Only thing I would suggest is to get a drain pan and something to lift your pot up a bit, so you can collect run off. I'm interested in the indicanja, so you don't add nutes with that, other than calmag?

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mstrpkl said:

Thanks!

With the indicanja, i read online that you actually dont wanna have runoff because it can drain the nutrients and microbiome in the soil so i try to just slow water the whole thing now. Before, i was just giving a smaller amount of water to avoid runoff, but a few people convinced me to just get the whole medium wet and that was great advice lol i havent added any nutrients at all to this plant, just plopped the seed in the soil and watered. Definitely recommend giving the purple cow a try!

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PooToe said:

Your info is right but it's wrong. Let me explain.

Yes, running large amounts of water through your media will strip out nutrient and microbial life. Keyword "large amounts of water". You could also call that "Flushing". Flushing is usually achieved by running three to five times the pot size of water through the media. I don't recommend flushing except in isolated cases where you toxed the soil with too much nutrient.

Regular watering with as much as 20% runoff is fine and will have no ill effects on your plants. More than likely it'll be good for them if you are feeding with salt based fertilizers as the runoff will remove some of the salt in the soil reducing the alkalinity in the soil pH..

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PooToe said:

Your info is right but it's wrong. Let me explain.

Yes, running large amounts of water through your media will strip out nutrient and microbial life. Keyword "large amounts of water". You could also call that "Flushing". Flushing is usually achieved by running three to five times the pot size of water through the media. I don't recommend flushing except in isolated cases where you toxed the soil with too much nutrient.

Regular watering with as much as 20% runoff is fine and will have no ill effects on your plants. More than likely it'll be good for them if you are feeding with salt based fertilizers as the runoff will remove some of the salt in the soil reducing the alkalinity in the soil pH.

To illustrate my point, in my last grow my pots were in plastic bins I bought at the Dollar General. They weren't elevated so runoff remained in the bin unless I removed it manually but I just let the runoff resoak back into the bag. Doesn't seem like it affected them much. You can see the bins in the photo below.

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BTW....I noticed you use a water pitcher for watering. I like to use a 2 liter soda bottle with holes poked in the cap when I'm hand watering. This allows me to be able to direct a soft stream of water wherever I need it without making mudholes in the media.

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mstrpkl said:

I water with distilled water, othwerwise all the water i have access too is WAY too hard and has WAY too much arsenic in it lol i i read that have to be very cafeful with runoff because distilled water essentially flushes the soil at all times if it runs off. Im not using any nutrients or anything, so as far as im aware i dont have to worry about the salt buildup.

That was all just recommendations i saw online from a few people who used the indicanja soil. I might end up giving a small amount of calmag closer to flowering stage, but im not gonna let this plant get too big because my grow space is pretty small, so i might not even need to use that.

Now that you talked about flushing, you got me thinking.... should i flush the plant in the 1 or 2 weeks prior to harvest? I actually havent looked into that for this type of soil at all yet... i know what im doing after work today lol

As always, appreciate the info @PooToe !

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AZreefer said:

Don't flush the indicanja. It's not needed or recommended by the manufacturer. I been doing an ass ton of reading on their FAQ page because I am sold on them for my next few grows.

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mstrpkl said:

Hell yea thanks for passing that on man!

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AZreefer said:

Np. Does the stuff smell when you water it? The nature's living im using this round has a serious shit smell to it. Every time I water it it has a funky order for a minute. It drowns out my fresh weed scent sometimes.

I read the indicanja is plant based compost so it has me curious as to the smell.

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mstrpkl said:

Hey everyone! Im growing a seed i got from a bag of Platinum Garlic OG from Triple Seven out here in AZ. Iv had some trouble keeping the temps down where my grow tent used to be, so i dedicated an extra room to it. I was keeping my temps between 70° and 80°, but with the new setup i think i can keep temps lower. Anyone think il stress her out too much if i lower temps by 5-10° on average? Shes only about 5 weeks old at this point.

Il post a couple baby pictures too so everyone can see her progression :)

Growing in purple cow indicanja soil using distilled water with a humidifier running basically 24/7 (AZ dry as fuck) in a 3 gallon fabric pot in a vivosun 2x2x4 grow tent with a 100W dimmable/adjustable vivosun aerolight

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PooToe said:

If you're going to LST now is the time to do it. If you wait too long the branches will get woody and harder to bend.

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PooToe said:

If you're going to LST now is the time to do it. If you wait too long the branches will get woody and harder to bend.

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BearWater said:

excellent job thus far! That plant looks amazing

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mstrpkl said:

Ok i just ordered some LST clamps online, should be here in 2 days. Im gonna give that a try. Wasnt planning on it for this plant just because its my first grow and i wanted to get a feel for the plant in general before i mess with it too much, but i guess if im trimming and defoliating then i should probably try to maximize the yield and do some LST. Also it seems like everyone wants to reach through the screen and do it for me so im gonna go for it lol hopefully the branches stay malleable enough. Il throw in a few update pictures when i gitter dun

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mstrpkl said:

Ok i just ordered some LST clamps online, should be here in 2 days. Im gonna give that a try. Wasnt planning on it for this plant just because its my first grow and i wanted to get a feel for the plant in general before i mess with it too much, but i guess if im trimming and defoliating then i should probably try to maximize the yield and do some LST. Also it seems like everyone wants to reach through the screen and do it for me so im gonna go for it lol hopefully the branches stay malleable enough. Il throw in a few update pictures when i gitter dun

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