A lot more happening this week! As shown in the pics, and as suspected, I have a manganese deficiency. I've been keeping my pH level at 6.2 in coco, manganese is taken up best by the plant below 6.0 pH. Dropping my ph level to 5.8 pH, and flushing with lower pH, hopefully it will solve the issue over the course of a few days.
I made a new frame for a SCROG, with a "custom bend" in the CPVC pipe on both ends. The bend will allow me to take advantage of the slack material in the sides of my 4x4 tent. I'd previously taken 4" out of all the upright poles to shorten the tent so it would fit in the room due to low ceilings, meaning I had extra slack in my tent walls. The bend in the net frame pushes the sides of the tent out to 5 foot wide. My first SCROG net was a 6" mesh from Amazon, immediately knew I wanted a smaller mesh. Next time around I built my own with a 4" mesh and used the 4" for several grows. This time I decided to go with an even smaller, 3" mesh, and already I like it better. I don't really see myself going much smaller than 3" mesh though. It seems to work well, and any smaller and it may be too tight trying to work the plant through the opening sometimes, which if not careful, will damage the plant.
I usually use a & gal cloth pot, grow off rules stated we 0had to use a 5 gal pot. Seeing as I only had 7 gal on hand, I was stuck picking up a Root Farm 5 gal cloth pot locally, as you can see, the roots didn't really stay contained, nor did they "air prune", i had to tear them off before installing the net above.
On the last day of week 6 I finally got my net installed, and the plant SCROGged. I should have put the net in place a week or two earlier, it would have been easier to manipulate the plant, however the plant will still have a week to recover. I tie the net in place above the plant, and slowly lower it down, as I bend and super crop the main stalk over parallel to the net, and work all the branches underneath and spread them out. As the plant grows I'll continue to push branches back down through the net and moving them out to the next hole. This will greatly increase yields by allowing light to more bud sites, keeping all buds the same height and thus the same distance from the light. small budsites on a vertical branch, will transform into their own cola once the branch is laid on its side. Instead of a Christmas tree type of plant, with one large main cola, and smaller and smaller buds as you move further down the plant, you end up with a bunch of colas that are all close to the same size, and more importantly, the same level of maturity. The SCROG method, combined with super cropping, and defoliation has greatly increased my yields.
As the plant is getting worked into the net, I'll defoliate where necessary, ie a huge fan leaf covering bud sites, however for the next several weeks I'll be defoliating so mush every night or two, systematically trimming off all fan leaves, and stripping everything below the net, and any small bud sites that wont produce well. Usually by the time I'm half way through the flower stage there are no big fan leaves left to be found. It helps with light penetration, which results in a higher quality, higher quantity yield, as well as airflow, which will help prevent White Powdery Mildew and other molds etc. Once a fan leaf is 14 days old, its ability to photosynthesize light, starts to degrade. Once it reaches a certain point, the leaf drains more energy from the plant, than it's giving the plant. My best yields have been from heavily defoliated plants, my last grow I couldn't physically defoliate quite as heavily as usual, and I ended up about 25-30% less bud than expected
@Festerus, haha awesome, and thanks! I'm currently 14 weeks into the grow, just trying to get caught up on the diaries. Hoping to get all caught up over the next few days
@HAPPY91,thanks! I'm actually into week 7 of flower with this grow, but am really behind on the diary lol Trying to get caught up over the next couple days
@DreamOn, thanks! I may need it! Lol I’m limited to 5 weeks of veg, starting from the day they poked through the coco. Not use to such a short veg time while Scrogging
Been slacking with updates...had a front on collision, wrote off my truck, and have been dealing with that mess and Christmas. Seedlings are coming along nicely and will update this week