I flipped the plants to flower 2 days ago. Plants seem to be healthy overall. There are 3 plants I labeled A, B and C and took a clone of each. Clone A and B pretty quickly rooted to the pro-mix without any use of rooting inoculation or special procedure (except that I put a cut in half 1 liter bottle over the cups to increase moisture).
Specimen C unfortunately flopped over and died as quickly as the other 2 rooted. The plant that is the "C specimen" has been the least genetically vigorous of the 3. For example C-plant grew too tall and skinny immediately after germination and then upon growing to a decent height, became bushy and uncooperative in training. Basically, this plant had a tendency to grow in a really stiff and confined manner, making it difficult to spread the colas out, because it seemed like the plant went into stress when I tried to correct the problem.
I want to breed the best characteristics I can out of a small pool of genetic material, so I will probably not continue with C anyway, unless the weed is really good. I took a second cutting from C which is currently rooting.
The A-Specimen is the exact opposite of C. A-Plant grew a perfect height immediately and grew outward in a steady and healthy way. B-Specimen also grew well, but not quite as vigorously as A.
I gave the plants a really deep watering after flipping. Next week I will also add some more Rock Phosphate and Langbeinite to the soil as dry amendments to feed the plants during late flowering. Most of the other nutrients the plant needs will still be bio-available in the soil as a result of regular replenishment of dry nutrients after growing that feature an NPK profile. I don't have any brand of fertilizer I am loyal too. I usually buy whatever is the best organic fertilizers available at the end of the summer season, because local plant nurseries and hardware stores here liquidate their stock before winter.
I also cut the plants I harvest at the base, allowing the roots to decompose in the soil. This has a dual benefit, first the roots will provide nutrients back into the soil and also that the rotting roots would create a honeypot trap that will attract fungus gnats to the decaying roots rather than the healthy plant roots (generally pests go after sick or rotting material before healthy plants). If I were to get fungus gnats, this would give me more leverage to handle the problem without the gnats immediately attacking the roots of the healthy plants. Fungus gnats are my enemy when growing and almost every grow I have to eliminate them. The best advice I can give is to check your plants every day and if you see even a single gnat, take immediate action. Any type of pest in a grow tent will quickly proliferate and ruin the product potentially. My action to prevent gnats is: use organic diatomaceous earth in a thin layer over the soil. The shape of D.A. is such that it is like a giant burr that gets stuck to crawling/flying insects and kills the insects as well as their larvae. But at the same time, it is generally recognized as safe for human and animal consumption.
I do recommend this with a caveat though: D.E. is basically a powdery substance. As soon as it becomes wet, it no longer kills the insects. It is therefore best to apply this over soil that is dry at least an inch into the soil. I don't use D.E. during flowering stage if possible, because the fans and inline exhaust fan in the tent will pull the particles of D.E. over the buds and contaminate the end product unless you wash the buds. I haven't read that D.E. is unsafe to smoke, but based on what it does to insects, it also isn't something that I want piling up in my lungs. It is okay to use during veg in my opinion, because once it is hydrated it gets damp and clumpy and decomposes into the soil.
Il lollipop è consigliato farlo al termine della seconda settimana di fioritura ma rimuovere qualcosa che già siamo sicuri non produrrà molto non fa male! Sennò vedrai che al termine della seconda di fioritura avrai le idee ben chiare! Buona fortuna amico!!!
@Maryjane23, Thanks for the advice! Training and trimming are definitely two things I've been working on improving. I had plants before that took up the whole tent haha.