Shade-grown 2020

Week 5 and the plants are nice and healthy and thriving, most of the “sadness” from the late nutrients and heat stress is fading away with only a few sad yellowing leaves at the base to show for it so I am happy. Now to jump into some pointers for this week. ~Topping vs all-natural~ I am now debating with myself weather to continue to allow the plants to go with their natural form or to top. My decision To not top has been based on the “do-nothing” farming principles from the one straw revolution, for those who do not know what about this concept it’s basically stating that a plant in its natural form needs no work, where as a plant that has been topped or trained will always require work. We all know this work very well when we are gently bending branches out of the cage to get more light or prevent them from developing mold or setting up a nice flat SoG. That said there will always be a yield benefit when done properly. For now I think the plants will continue on there more natural journey of growth, I am honestly curious to see a fully grown cannabis plant that has never been topped, I have actually never seen this in person before. ~Leaf Miners~ This is a new one this year. True last year I had a couple leaves affected, but this year I have already had to remove almost 10 leaves, in otherwords I have already had the same amount of Leaf Miner damage as I saw last year, this has me concerned. For now the plants are small and picking off leaves is easy as I only have a handful to search through. But if I continue to see this problem I think I will apply some Spinosad and that should knock them right out. ~Slugs~ This is an interesting observation I have made, Slugs appear to love white plastic. It makes sense that white plastic staying relatively cool even in the morning sun and being a nice smooth surface for them would make for a perfect environment for them. Every morning I am out in the garden I see them both on my white grow bags and my white woven nylon greenhouse ends, they usually stay out until a little passed sunrise which for such a hot and dry environment it is unusual. For now they are not damaging the plants so a few beer traps have been put out to regulate the population. ~end of week thoughts~ I must apologize as it appears the week has ended on me before I even took any pictures. Week 6 should address this issue. But in reality the plant has not changed much, by the end of this week though I had not seen much growth, I appear to be Nitrogen deficient so I have adjusted my feeding schedule to 2x per week but sticking with my dry nutrients in an AAT set up I am surprised it still takes 3-5 days for the plant to respond, but some positive response has been noted. I will pick this back up at the beginning of week 6...with more pictures.