All seems to be coming along better than expected for my first attempt at bending instead of topping. This is my first time growing Lemon Pie so I don't have anything to compare it to regard to topping. Also I will top the next one to see the difference. Meanwhile though I have gotten the first six branches out easily and I have branch 7 from the 4th node going straight up, then I removed the next pair, then there's two shoots coming straight up from the 6th node. And all the while there is no height increase. What I've been able to achieve that I could never do by simply topping is that I have kept all the large fan leaves even large leaves near the top because they are not covering anything. Once I could see I have a large outer ring of huge leaves, I thought I may as well do continuous defoliating from the new shoots, before they actually use their energy to build unnecessary leaves. I have also been keeping the ppm much lower than I used to, around 700 ppm. Interesting to see what takes place from here.
She looks very pretty! And she definitely is a long bloomer in my opinion. Seen some other diaryโs in here that finish on the suggested time but mine will take 14/15 weeks before she comes down. Best of luck and hope she yields you well โ๏ธ
@Freddd, imma keep watching ๐ just pulled mine down as having some humidity problems where I am! Hanging to dry atm. Stinksโฆvery fruity, skunky with a little citrus. Painfully got to wait another 10days now! This always feels like the longest 10days of my life ๐. Good luck bro โ๏ธ
Thank you for the detailed pictures and descriptions of training in veg, just starting out growing it's so helpful seeing that and then the final results.
Any chance of a well lit photo of the branch structure from underneath in week 9?
Best of health to you and this happy looking lady!
@Freddd, Aww yeah, money shots ๐ Nice thick branches pulled back super low down, looks nice.
Is that 800ppm-1000ppm on the /500 scale? Once I learned about how all the ppm/tds/whatever scales are just based on EC I learned EC and never went back.
Seems like every manufacturer has a recommended curve to the strength, makes sense, did that on my first grow and it turned out great.
Trying out just a super simple full blast EC ~2.0 mix from start to finish now as a bit of an experiment. The nutes I switched to are so damn cheap and I use the waste water outside, makes it that much easier if it turns out good enough. (Still have low standards for my own๐)
@Absurd, hey I appreciate the nice words I put a lot of love into these girls. This is the first time I've bent a plant over like this usually I'll top at the fourth node, or 3 node if I put two in a pot. I have also begun lowering my nutes ppm to about 800 growing and 1000 flowering, seems to be better that what I use to use which was about 50% stronger. This is a very branchy plant, I took a lot of undergrowth out and I'll take some more out and clean it up a bit. But basically the structure has grown out as you'd expect, however I have uploaded another two shots.
Que maravilha โ๏ธ
Boa sorte no cultivo e aproveita o desenvolvimento ๐
E no final que tenhas uma grande colheita ๐ฑ๐ฑ
Se quiseres passa pelo meu diรกrio e deixa o teu apoio
Orange stigmas, it's a good thing she doesn't have anthers ๐
Do you know what's causing the spotty necrosis?
She's bulking up! Took to the no-topping training well.
@Absurd, well you're doing pretty good in that bucket, it can only get easier. I think what really makes the difference is if the grower really loves this plant and the whole thing which obviously you do. If you had asked me a year ago I'd have been all in on those links at one stage I had calculations and charts and ratios it was like in that scene from 'a beautiful mind, https://youtu.be/hh84bamfe_A
You see I finally realised that there are so many variable, that you don't really know what's going on, if you really want to find out the stuff you want to know, then you have to create a dedicated space and do the direct reasearch yourself, direct knowledge, problem is to do it properly would be a giant undertaking, better to not bother, find something simple that works and then concentrate on growing variety.
Look take my seedsman grow the Northern Lights, is branchy and squat, the NYDiesel, is beautiful strong but still not too rigid. My seesdman grow #2 has a BigBug X NL which is massive Purple Haze which is diminutive. Now you see the advantage of the double planting I get to evaluate four beans, and lo and behold I now see that with my remaining beans, I should put BigBud X in it's own pot, and Same with NY Diesel. The other two might be nice but I'd have to evaluate the yield. If I wanted I could pull the Purple Haze, but instead, I'm taking the opportunity to see if I can just grow out a single stem.
Don't get caught up in the rabbit hole, grow more variety, you'll enjoy it more. That's what I do anyway.
@Freddd, from the GAs and ingredient lists I found I agree, GP3 seems to be just a slight tweak of GH flora trio.
You do you man, all for it as I'd be SUPER happy with any of those plants on your dairies.
I need the academics to guide my common sense, never had the knack for growing anything before diving into plant physiology and do cannabis in hydro. That said, the practical use of what I've learned reading so far has probably been minimal so I get it.
Regarding academic studies of effects of different spectra variations on whole plants though - there's been a few beyond comparing hps/mh/blurple/led, Bruce Bugbee et al., tons of citations on the Samuel Bilodeau et al. 2019 paper. I can link or share some if you want, Don't know the topic intimately, find it interesting but even less practical than learning general physiology for my home grow now that I chose my lights.
30L is a pretty good amount, should be able to get 4 weeks for the first couple of changes without too much drama I'd say, I've been getting 2 on a less than half volume in week 9 with one of my plants easy, not expecting to be able to safely go 2 weeks later in flower though.
What kind of source water do you have? Never had to hit mine with pH up even when I used GH flora (my tap is 7.4 so that raises it quick) but that's sounding a little like what my purple haze did, would just swing pH all over the place late in life.
Really hope I don't run into that again with my current plants, can't hear sativas talk to me yet, they just do whatever the hell they want๐
I think I can hear my black jack a little, but all it seems to say is "yeah, definitely a bush, yeah, I like being a short bush I don't like heights"
Speaking of doing whatever the hell they want, if you get some time could you give me a sanity check on my week9 strawberry cough update? I bent the shit out of a main cola to grow it right through the center of the plant to try and get her under control.
@Absurd, Yeah well I have a 30L outside res so definitely you'd need something stable like that. I'm hoping to just mix three times per complete grow, at 0, 4 and 8 weeks, after 8 weeks I'll just leave it. There's no way I'd head down the rabbit hole of trying to work it out on a cellular level, I reckon that it's the breeders who have really done the hard work and all we have to do is get a few basics right. I'm convinced that the 3 part gp3 or GHE (both the same basically) have everything needed and if I stick to a standard pattern it works well. So I'm just trying to forget the academic approach, I've been there, I mean all the academic studies that were done with different wavelengths of light and the effect on the plant cell were just done on single cells, not really useful in the real world. As everyone discovered as they switched to white lights.
I find the most satisfying results have come from me just using my own common sense. Take a look if you like at my first auto flower grow after 22 years, it's the OG Kush, I just rigged up a mini version of what I used to use, you can see the roots hanging in the air being sprayed a bit. Sort of. It worked well. But right from the beginning, I knew it is always about the roots. If the roots are bursting then you have to work hard to fuck it up!
30L seems about right for being big enough to stay stable, but small enough to handle easily. It's just like a buffer against the occasional wild swing. At the moment I've been experimenting with two things, one is to run the res for four weeks, and the other is to try and work out what the plant wants by the pH. For example usually I'm alway adding pH up, continuously up until there's come a point late in flower where she will stay stable for a while then suddenly go more acidic quickly, I figure something is happening, so I'm going to smoke some week and try and get into the plant spirit to explain to me what the fuck is going on. I want to hear it direct from the sativa's mouth, the cannabis whisperer.
@Absurd, Absolutely, there was hardly any trimming because I left some leaves on to protect the buds, but even the backs of the sugar leaves on the main buds are coated. It doesn't have "bag appeal" but it really does look fabulous. There's no knock you out pine terps, just a subtle lemon, spice. Yeah, I'd always be happy to go with either a Fast Buds or Short Stuff, they might even be connected somehow, but they do have the structure I like. I've gone off Dutch Passion they don't really grab me.
@Freddd, Squeezing fresh lemons ๐ Bottoms of the sugar leaves look nice and covered with trichs too. Think i'll be going with that breeder if I decide to pop some autos, looks like quality genetics.
@Absurd, Thanks man. I am pretty stoked, I didn't think I could do this without topping. This is the most all over resinous girl yet, the rosin just pours out of the Fat Mac before I even put any pressure on.