Monday update y'all...the one where I do the post-stretch thin!
Sunday was warm and sunny and it was flip day 21, so time to take out all the stuff I don't want to trim (#nolarf), as well as forcing the plant to move the growth hormones to the buds at the ends of the branches that I left. Let's take a look at the before and after for the Colombian Gold 2:
Here is the pile of stuff I took off:
When you separate some of it out, you can see that it's not just larfy buds. There a lot of long branches that go as well. Here are some of the ones I could be bothered to pull out for show-and-tell!
Here is the Durban Poison before and after:
And because some folks ask me about this process when I go through it, I thought I would give an example as well as a description:
This was a lower branch that I decided to leave on the plant, but I only wanted the end of the branch to have buds on it, so I pulled off all the stuff further down, leaving only the last few inches of buds to keep bulking. I take off what I call the lowers of the lowers.
I don't recommend this as a thinning method to everyone, but if you don't want to spend a lot of time trimming larf and want to maximize top growth near the lights, it's definitely the way to go.
I have no idea whether I get a bigger harvest by leaving only the tops and stripping the fluff or whether I never make up in top growth what I lose when I trim, but I don't really care! I want the inside of the plant pretty empty (as you can see in the main before/after pics) which helps when I spray for bugs and lowers the chance of PM or rot because of the enhanced airflow.
By the way, after I did the thinning, everything got sprayed with the Safer's Insecticidal Soap spray, and washed off about 4 hours later. No effect on the pistils but positive effect on the aphids!
Finally, here are the final heights for
@BeezLuiz's spreadsheet. The Durban Poison is topping out at 41":
And the Colombian Gold 2 is at 37":
They are still getting around 4.5g/gallon straight MC, not showing any signs of deficiencies, and they get 2.5 gallons each every third day (or at least they did before the thinning).
That's it for me today! Feel free to ask any questions that you think of, and tomorrow we'll take another look at the Candida GA3 experiment. I hope your weekend went well, and that the precautions you take will keep the virus from your door.
to my perpetual grow journal! I'm going to give the electric distiller a shot since it's not a huge investment at $100, and I can plug it in and leave it outside to work without having to deal with a fire under a still. And since I'm starting at 120 proof I'm curious to see how close to 190 I can get it.
