Green Knight Berry Bomb Hydro CFL - Experiment #1: Supercropped Defoliated ScROG

[spring2012]

Your Defoil comment makes sense. I am backing away from Defoil this grow but may use it in the future. I have a fairly small tent but I am able to vent to my attic. Still gets hot in there at times. I found that when I harvested my 4 girls and finally came down to 2 that the heat went up 5 degree! I enjoy the excitement I get when I look at your pics. I said this a month ago but its like a horror story that turns out OK!

 

[Green Knight]

Yes, she's getting a bit of a beating! The recovery rate is amazing, but because she's a regular photoperiod I think you can get away with more than with autos as you just keep her in veg and she has time to recover without setting things back too much

 

[jon705]

[/QUOTE]So my first thought on defoliation (and the argument against it on the basis that plants need their leaves for photsynthesis and removing them is bad) is that whilst it might knock the plant back ever so slightly, the net gain is a much larger leaf surface area and more photosynthesis shortly after defoliation than had it not taken place, with greater light exposure to branch / future bud sites.[/QUOTE]




well said bro

 

[Tony Sussan]

Totally agree with your statement on defoliation and how leaves come back in greater numbers but slightly smaller. This technique has been used by the japanese for centuries when training bonsai trees. Defoliate the tree and it throws out more smaller leaves which are better proportioned for what they are trying to achieve. Just in our case we want more nodes and higher photosynthesis rates.
Nice job on keeping this experiment going!

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks Tony. Yeah, I'm a big fan of bonsai, and they also take quite a beating to get them the way you want, with all the pruning and bending, root trimming etc. Plants are really tough!

 

[Green Knight]

So Day 35. Following the leaf stripping and supercropping last weekend she leafed out quite a bit more, and yesterday I did some more supercropping:

Fully snapped one branch so I've taped it; I'm sure it will be fine in the long run:

Time for another defoliation:

Now this did amaze me a bit in terms of recovery speed. Here she is not even 24 hours later:

What is a bit annoying though is that I turned the cfl off briefly to take a couple of photos without the light and stupidly turned it back on too quickly without letting it cool down, so it's broken. My own fault. A new bulb is on order which will probably get to me around Tuesday so I've had to put the mother in the dark for a few days and move the 30w cfl up to the main room.
It's all been noted for the next grow.

She'll get quite a lot less light intensity for the next few days though:

And the mother chilling in the dark for a few days:

 

[spring2012]

That blows with your light. Tues is close.

 

[jon705]

hey bro,I found this vid I watched a long time ago and Ive personally done what hes showing in the vid.the tecnique can come in pretty handy when height is an issue
Getting Scroggy - Update - 1 month into flower - scrog technique - YouTube

 

[BigIrishDoode]

looking good thats some defol_o_croppin if i ever saw any

 

[iSmokes]

That's strange! Why am I not here already lol?

better late than never

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks spring; all is now good and back to normal - the new bulb arrived this evening.

So she's been a few days under a 30w light which has probably slowed growth a bit but she otherwise looks healthy:

There's some minor leaf damage from when I snapped the branch super-cropping, but with the taping the branch is still growing and there appear to be no real side effects.

So I did a little more super cropping today. Nothing major, just as the tops grow bending them back down and spreading them out. I want to get more horizontal spread so it fills the space a bit more and then I'll get the screen in.

Jon - thanks for the video mate, I really like that idea. Based on that I reckon I'll top every top just before, or when, I switch to 12/12 and I should hopefully get a really nice dense screen. It will also be easy to replicate fairly in the next grow. The guy in the vid did it a bit into flower but I'm not sure if that was deliberate or a mistake as he only did it to one of the tops. I'm not sure when it would be best to do, but gut feeling says to do it a couple of days before switching to 12/12 to allow recovery and full development of the new tops during stretch etc.

The mother plant now has light again. She hasn't burst into bud overnight so don't think a few days in the dark will mess things up too much.

 

[Green Knight]

That's strange! Why am I not here already lol?

better late than never

Ha ha; you said that and I realised that I thought you were already here!

 

[ajagunle]

Good plan with the topping, I'm not sure the chap on the film would have been that sure of when he did it anyway ?

Are you going to defol at the same time?

 

[Green Knight]

Not sure really, but I try to alternate things a bit so I reckon what I might do is defoliate a few days before to allow for a bit of re-leafing, top, wait a few days and then switch to 12/12. I'll then let her stretch and when that's finished defoliate as required

 

[Rickie]

have taken this thread to heart and have adopted alot of your techniques top job bro !!

 

[spring2012]

Nice stuff!! I have been away fro a few days. Glad all is still well!

 

[jon705]

he defoliated 1 week into flower.I would only do it to a top that has 2 or 3 nice secondary branches to become new tops.if it only has tiny little leaves sticking out for secondaries then I would train it out instead.I think where you top it is the most important thing with this tecnique,there has to be nice secondary growth for it to work

 

[ajagunle]

This makes sense, so the topping promotes lower buds to main buds, I was trying to imagine how new buds could grow in such a short time

 

[jon705]

yep the plant just redirects the energy to the new"tops"

 

[Green Knight]

have taken this thread to heart and have adopted alot of your techniques top job bro !!

Thanks Rickie, I'm really pleased it's helpful. It is an experiment though at this stage and I've not got any results to speak of as yet so please take everything I'm doing with an element of caution and weigh it against your own and others' experience. I don't mind cocking it up with my own grow in the pursuit of science but I'd hate to be responsible for cocking up somebody else's!