Week 6 is done!
Plant, should be roughly 50% done before it gets cut down.
It is extremely water demanding here in preflower, I have givevn it 4 liters of water today over 2 times, Last time just now, the pot was light and the soil was super dry :)
I fed it this evening with NPK from supermarket, just filled the lid of the can and put into a 2 liter water bucket, same with the 13,14 PK treatment.
Do not measure the amount, I just give it what the lid can hold, when I feel for it, today was a feel for it day :)
Plant is still growing, but branches are hardening up, now it's mostly tops that makes new tops, you know how it goes.
I counted losly all the tops that are directly exposed to the lights, meaning nothing above the top except air towards either sun or the LED light, depending on the position they get light from.
64 top shots was counted here after 6 weeks, 1 plant.
I assume I will hit over 70 perhaps around 80 top shots that are directly lit by the light source when we move a couple of weeks down the pipeline, we will see.
Otherwise? plant looks great! I just water it with water a lot these days, it's as you know, the climax of water comsumption right before real flower production starts, thats just how it is with these plants, so nothing new on that account.
There is no deficiencies to any noticable degree, I have 1 or 2 leafs out of 1000 that has rust marks, and that is FINE.
Pistils are starting to mature as expected, and I expect actual vegetation growth to somewhat stall "now" or this coming week. It's always week 7, these Autos "freeze" in size ~
In about 3 weeks I increase the PK 13:14 and give it a solid boost, then no more, then let it all taper of towards week 12 and attempt to kill the plant end week 12 with lack of water.
I dont fancy curing a plant that has just sucked up an entire river of water and all kinds of crap, makes the coffee stick taste bad, and it takes a lot longer to cure if the stems are pumped with water.
So what I usually do, is I run clean water in the bucket a week before I take plant down, and let it dry up completely on that load.
The bucket has NO drain system, you dont need drain if you dont overwater your plants. Just look at mine, it is thriving very well.
As for training LST goes, it's mostly complete, well today I bend down just 2 branches to expose more top shots directly to the sun, but its nothing like the start, the hard work is already done on the LST account, should also be clear on the images.
From now till harvest, all I need to do, is tuck large leafs to lower locations and gradually expose more and more top shots directly to the light emitter, I do NOT pinch off the leafs at this point, nor will I later, except if they start to curl and die close to the flowers.
I still have about 6-8 smaller branches I can lie down, which sits in the middle of the plant and on the edges which will expose more tops directly to the sun.
The reason why I am focused on exposing as many tops to the sun as possible is that they will all, no matter where, if maturing correctly, become exactly same size.
These cannabis flowers have a fixed size, so to speak, and if given direct light, they will grow to this size.
The only reason you can have large candy floss sticks is because the flower units touches each other, there is no other reason, if a large candy floss stick was LST in flower, all the flowers would get air around them, grow a bit bigger.
It should be logic, that flowers that gets direct sun grows larger than flowers that doesnt.
So that is why I spend the last 6 weeks now, methodically spacing out all the tops in the area within the bamboo frame work, using string to tie things down, and tuck leafs.
I need to do a final "big" tightening session, and from there its just tucking leafs and micro manage positions, I will do the big tightening session tomorrow.
You cannot wait for ever to do it, mid preflower is "last chance" in my book, and that is now.
Take care, and see you in a week!
@Hou_Stone, We will see! Going as planned so far :)
This is my first ever Auto, I have normally only grown my own hybrid for many years, regulars, sativa dominant, black and purple flowers, extra ordinarily resistant to mold, and flowers early on the season.
BUT! this year, I thought I wanted to try my Veg method on a single Auto, see how much I can squeeze out of the plant this way