LSD-25 Auto: Tropical Grow

@Snapfest, There are a few folks who will tell you that to even trim ONE leaf constitutes a destruction of "circadean rhythm" or some such... Listen... Leaves do the photosynthesis work but leaves that inhibit light from getting to bud sites or air from moving around are not working for the good of the plant or the eventual harvest. I defoliate when necessary - but I don't take ALL the leaves off... that would be almost killing the plant... My attitude is that trimming off some of the leaves tells the plant to put more energy into the bud formation... You do what you want but if you've got a really bushy plant, it's probably going to really like getting a bit of a hair cut... If you decide to trim, don't do a WHOLE lot at first... go gently and see how your plant reacts... if there's no noticeable reaction, go ahead and trim a bit more in a couple of days if you feel you need to. As far as bending the tall one - yes! I had to do some pretty major LST (and even HST) on my Tangerine Dream... that silly plant grew to probably 50" and my tent is only 60" high so with the pot included, that baby was trying to bust out of the top! There were so many twists and turns I had to do to her to get her to stay in the tent, I couldn't accurately measure her height... And I did this all the way up to about 2 weeks before harvest... I ALSO did major defoliation on her, again, right up until about 2 weeks before harvest... my tent was a bloody jungle and even then I had to harvest in stages because the buds underneath hadn't been getting enough light and weren't ready... Take advice with a grain of salt and use your intuition to make the final decision... it's all a learning curve anyway and you're going to learn a lot - and each grow is going to be different. I thought I was getting pretty good at the business of growing - but then along came my current two grows and they've presented challenges and problems that I've struggled to get solutions to... but that's GOOD... the harvests won't be amazing but my learning has taken a giant leap forward! Go trim... and LST and HST (HST was scary for me... but my plants never even acknowledged the hard bend I gave them!)... You're doing great!

@GrowingGrannie, Thanks heaps! I knew that salt could provide some help but I didn't know the set-up with the buckets. I have a good source for volume rock salt here as I use the same stuff for my home water softener. This makes makes total sense. I can't thank you enough for the kind suggestion. I've also bent the tall one a little to compensate for it's height relative to the others. My bushy plant is healthy but it is super thick with veg. I keep hearing to not thin out some of the shade leaves but it's very tempting still.

@Snapfest, Good grief!! I applaud you for ALL your efforts!! You are nothing if not tenacious! Think about maybe doing some LST on the tall one? Just to kind of resolve that issue... But I have to tell you, I've had really bad times with a couple of grows... but nothing like what you're going through... Wish I could wave a magic wand and have at least SOME of your problems disappear! Are you running any kind of dehumidifier? Can you get your hands on some rock salt?? That's the BEST natural dehumidifier of all... but maybe you don't have room for, say, a 50lb bag of it? Just trying to come up with some alternatives for you! If you CAN get some rock salt (or calcium chloride)... here's how you can put it to use (got this off a website): To make a rock salt dehumidifier, you'll need a large bag of rock salt (also sometimes referred to as sodium chloride) and two 5-gallon buckets. You should be able to find both at a hardware store. Here's how to make it: Drill several small holes in one of the buckets along the sides and the bottom. Put the bucket with the holes inside the other bucket. Fill the bucket all the way up to the top with rock salt. Place the bucket in the area of your home you'd like to dehumidify. The bucket will begin to collect water, and that water will drip through the holes of the inside bucket. The water will then collect inside the outer bucket, trapping excess moisture Just make sure you empty the bucket of water - I'd start out checking it every day given your conditions! Anyway... more power to you...

I appreciate your suggestion but personally I wouldn't use it except as a last resort. It's probably my fungus phobia at play but introducing fungal organisms, even beneficial ones, makes me nervous. I just get a stray white fly here and there and I work to assassinate the little bastards whenever I see them. Neem Oil seems to be working as a deterrent. I just worry that the situation may be harder to control as flowering gets more busy. I can't isolate the outside elements where I am nearly as much as I would like.

Thanks for the advice. It's true what you say; three are fine but one is bushy as hell, but I'd also say it's the healthiest of the four. I'll wait until the last two weeks of flower before I worry about it again. Happy growing, DissNoof.