Good Morning!
Popped in on the girls today and WOW is it a forest!
I believe there's a small zone where everything is absolutely optimum for cannabis growth, type and amount of light, nutrient mix, temperature and humidity, and apparently through reasonable instincts and dumb luck I have hit it. Not even one yellow leaf...anywhere...even way down under the canopy where there's almost zero light at all!
I didn't think this was possible no matter what you do, I thought some lower fan leaf attrition was inevitable, a metabolism thing. I have never, ever had plants this perfect. Not a single leaf tip on even the lowest leaves is discolored. So why?
The main difference is this entire grow has been maintained at a fairly low average temperature, between 65-73 degrees. Never touched over 80. I give credit to the time of year...it's soooo much easier to heat a room than cool it! Above the Arctic circle I think I would have no problem keeping a 70 degree grow room as long as I had electricity, but unless I figure out how to install an air conditioner that doesn't make any noise I won't be growing for about 3 months this summer.
I won't try another summer attic grow without AC. You only have to blow one juicy, beautiful grow to never, ever let it happen again. The idea of shutting everything down sucks but I still have a whole lot of very potent buds that are unsmokeable...they taste like absolute crap because I couldn't keep the temps down and that was a complete waste of time in my view. Sure, the stuff is great for edibles and I can make ten pounds of cannabutter I suppose but as I've said before, I didn't start growing to make cookies.
So now I believe flavor is the thing most critically affected by a too-high grow temperature, not potency. Right now the buds from my last, more temperature-friendly grow are the tastiest I've ever smoked. Other than temps, the other variables were virtually identical so there's the semi-scientific comparison and you can't argue with semi-science.
I'm high so I'm rambling.
Back to the grow, I have to say it's clear now the INCREDIBLE benefit of a few weeks of aggressive defoliation, combined with hardcore Scrogging. This canopy is now woven like a green quilt. The density is a 12 on a scale of 10. I have absolutely no idea which branch belongs to which plant in about 80% of the area since I ran them all around and through the Scrog net everywhere in a frantic tangle.
Every other day I pinch off probably 40 or 50 fan leaves to continue to pry the canopy open for some light to penetrate. The number of branches that are shooting up everywhere is literally uncountable. All this is somehow happening in a 5x7 foot area. I can already see a great difference in the branching compared to any previous grows, it's not even close. I worry some about how all these slender branches will be able to thicken enough to stay upright once they grow heavy buds but I guess we'll see. Most importantly, my math says this could be a massive yield because there are so many shoots everywhere.
They have been in flower for under a week. Maybe another week before they begin to show. So excited.
Peace, Hyena
This is the mother of half the plants I'm growing. Soooo yummy.
Hi 
