Morning Lemon AK-47 Collaboration

STRETCHING THINGS OUT It’s about that time when if all is going as planned your plants should be showing signs of wanting to start stretching over the next couple of weeks. This signals the transition from vegetative growth into the bloom phase. Timing for the stretch can vary between strains as well as how much stretching can occur this may be affected by different factors like light, nutrients, temperature, genetics and phenotype differences even if they are from the same strain. It’s natural and beneficial to allow the inter-nodes to reasonably stretch in order to allow more light to reach the bud sites emerging from the nodes. What we want to avoid is over stretching causing long weak lanky stems subjecting them to breaking under the weight of those heavy buds later in the bloom phase spelling disaster. We also want to incorporate some plant training techniques to try to develop a more manageable and even plant canopy if possible. Keeping plants in too low of a light intensity will cause the plants to want to reach or stretch for the light so this needs to be addressed before it becomes an issue as early as possible right from the start of your grow. Keep in mind using too high of an intensity of light will cause the opposite effect of slowing growth possibly permanently stunting the plant. Using your trusty PPF/PAR meter to ensure the ideal light intensity almost eliminates this issue. The light spectrum is also important with auto flower plants it’s not unusual for the plants to begin showing pre-flowers by week 3 or 4. Try to avoid the temptation of hitting them with your bloom lights too soon because adding more red spectrum lights will cause even more stretching. Holding off until they are ¾ of the way through stretch or completely done stretching would be ideal to control or limit the amount of desired stretch. It can be a matter of preference and experience with knowing how much each strain will tend to stretch. Auto flower cannabis require less nutrients than photo period plants. Even during the peak stage of bloom, I find it is unusual to use more than ½ strength nutrients. Using too many nutrients too soon that are high in nitrogen and even phosphorus can cause excessive stretching. Remember our soil mixture has some nutrients in it already so using smaller 1/8 to1/4 strength nutrients which should be more than adequate during the first 3 or 4 weeks. If your plants are showing good progress and the leaf color is a healthy shade of green, you’re in good shape. If growth is slow or your leaves are very light green or yellow you have issues that need to be addressed. I will be discussing more about nutrients in week 6. So, skip ahead if needed. Larger differences between daytime and nighttime temperature can contribute to stretching. Maintaining a smaller temperature drop will help limit over stretching. Large swings can be avoided by running your lights longer hours or 24/7 if needed during the stretch. Plants also seem to stretch more after lights first come on after a dark period. Using air conditioners or heaters if necessary, to limit or eliminate temperature swing can also help. Because we are growing from seeds genetics and phenotype variants occur regularly. Sativa strains tend to do more stretching while Indica strains tend to grow shorter and wide. XL and XXL strains can produce larger plants and harvests so extra room may be needed. While most plants of the same strain will have similar traits there’s always a chance of a dominant rebel breaking out that’s larger or a runt which is smaller than the rest. Recognizing these plants early enough you can employ a few different strategies to keep them under control by using more of or limiting a few of the other items that influence growth and stretching. Growing multiple different strains creates a greater chance of height, growth and bloom time variables. Plant training using LST (Low Stress Training) to manipulate branch positions can help limit height, position branches and bud sites to create a more uniform canopy to ensure maximum light intensity to all buds for proper growth. For taller plants more aggressive LST work can be done by gently pulling branches lower and directing the growth to the outside edge of your pots using coated wire, pipe cleaners and twine if needed. For smaller plants you may only need to lightly LST the main stem and a few outer branches. I try to put off LST training when plants are small in order to prevent disturbing the crown of the plant which would mean possibly tearing some roots setting it back. I now wait until it’s about 8-9 inches tall and prefer to start bending back the top of the main stem at about 5 to 6 inches above the base of the plant. This needs to be done at a point where and while the stem is still soft and flexible enough to be manipulated. Bending it too far all at once could cause it to snap. You can bend it in stages while it’s still growing then bend it over more in a few days. You will acquire a feel for how far or much she’s willing to bend for you after a few grows. I don’t recommend using HST (High Stress Training) techniques like topping, FIM (Fimming), super cropping on auto flower plants while many growers have had excellent success in doing so these plants grow and bloom so quickly if done too late or incorrectly it can add too much time for them to recover hindering growth, flowering. While using multiple light stress techniques during your grows can produce a better end result the opposite effect can happen when causing too much stress. It can actually trigger your auto flower plants natural survival instincts and cause your plants to turn into hermaphrodites. If this goes unnoticed and pollen gets released you will have seeds in most of if not all of your plants if it gets blown around your tent, grow room, house clothes. It can also possibly contaminate future grows. Not a good thing! So, proceed with caution. WEEK 4 UPDATE The bloom is officially on! These girls are giving some stretch but still have some more left in them with the tallest one stopping at 18 inches. Started week with just straight ph correct water since I squeezed in one last feeding late in week 3. Middle of the week gave these girls a nice flush to get them ready for some bloom nutes. Highest runoff was 1250 ppm I'm sure there was a lot of stuff building up in there so I continued to flush until I got the runoff ppm in the 800-850 ppm range. Runoff ph was great in the 6.0-6.2 range. Followed up with a light nutrient solution of 450 ppm for the last quart of flush water. Let them dry out nicely for a few days last day of week I used 1 table spoon Organic Blackstrap Molasses per gallon of water ph corrected and added 1/2 teaspoon Great White beneficial microbes. Planning on one more application of great white in week 6. Flipped on my bloom lights PPF/PAR meter reading 550 - 650 umoles Giving me a DLI of 39.60 to 46.80 Moles per day great for budding stage. Tent temperature 81 F with an average leaf temperature of 75 and average humidity of 60%. Giving me a LVPD of 0.80 kPa