My First Time: AK47 & Gold Bar Kush

[DecorumEst]

Doing good !


In the top photo (I moved it around) this girl is not growing above ground because most of her energy is growing good roots undergroud. There is enough energy from photosynthesizing the light to grow, but she needs to go down into the soil and seek out the nutrients and elements that will be building blocks for growth. She is sending the search parties through the soil to locate good stuff.


In the bottom photo, she has located the good stuff in the soil, now she needs more leaves to gather more light energy to power the machinery of fetching those nutrients and elements from the soil and beginning construction of new light harvesting leaves and stems above ground.


If the soil stays moist, she will continue to build above ground until she has used up all the elements and nutrients she has discovered.

If the soil is allowed to dry out, she will be forced to grow more and more roots in search of water - and incidentally locate several new sources of nutrients in the soil. As the roots spread she has access to almost all the elements and nutrition in the soil, more than she needs at this stage.


So if you run wet and dry cycles in veg you create this vast underground infrastructure - the bigger and better the root system, the more access she has to the building materials to grow above ground. She has built a large network of roots to efficiently transport those nutrients.


On 2/13 I tossed a plant into flower that was 12" tall and 24" wide.
On 2/24 She was 24" tall and 24" wide.
Because the lights are on a flowering cycle (11 on/13 off) most of that growth is focused on making buds.


If I did my wet dry cycles right, she has access to all the nutrients in the soil. I am giving her all the water, foliar spray, and nutes that she can handle so she can produce her best possible crop of buds.



This is my philosphy of watering.
I know you didn't ask for all this.

I'm going to repost it on my own grow thread, so others who didn't ask for it can read it too

Yes!!! Awesome information, and u have affirmed my ways after much trial and error. And I'm joining in on the fun if u don't mind


Grow With Me - My Grow Journey

 

[MrGreene]

Nice work so far I've used those led shop lights in my breeding box for over a year now produced some good seed too. And I definitely agree with rad I used what I learned as sip trays/ swick tray with a gravity feed so I didn't have to keep topping it up, but I didn't add them until flower when root development is slowed to a crawl so wet dry cycles matter a whole lot less.

.........

Thanks redmud. Glad to know that you've had some success with those lights. The most I've seen so far are a couple of youtube videos of short term grow tests of veggies.

I'll be lifting the pots off of the swick in a few minutes so the roots can go searching.

I'll have to see if I can find your gravity feed. That sounds interesting.

 

[MrGreene]

Yes!!! Awesome information, and u have affirmed my ways after much trial and error. And I'm joining in on the fun if u don't mind


Grow With Me - My Grow Journey

Glad you're here cannalicious. That post you quoted by Rad is great. I feel lucky that he has taken an interest and took the time to make that post. It paints a great mental picture for me. I should print it and hang it in the grow area.

Learning from those with more experience will hopefully save us from errors so we can have mostly success.

 

[Radogast]

Nice work so far I've used those led shop lights in my breeding box for over a year now produced some good seed too. And I definitely agree with rad I used what I learned as sip trays/ swick tray with a gravity feed so I didn't have to keep topping it up, but I didn't add them until flower when root development is slowed to a crawl so wet dry cycles matter a whole lot less.

.........

veg - flower - or both?

Glad you're here ginganinja.

Me too. Been seing you over on Sweet Sue's thread and a few more

Yes!!! Awesome information, and u have affirmed my ways after much trial and error. And I'm joining in on the fun if u don't mind


Grow With Me - My Grow Journey

Glad you're here cannalicious. That post you quoted by Rad is great. I feel lucky that he has taken an interest and took the time to make that post. It paints a great mental picture for me. I should print it and hang it in the grow area.

Learning from those with more experience will hopefully save us from errors so we can have mostly success.

I'm glad you are all here - this thread is picking up steam.

I was so worried MrGreene would be depending on me for advice - I've grown some truly sad plants over the last 3 years. I actually had one plant growing for over a year yield 4 grams - which proves I can be more stubborn than smart. BUT I learned a lot about how not to water!

So glad you all showed up to give MrGreene a helping hand

 

[redmud]

Re: My First Time - AK47 & Gold Bar Kush

Good stuff for sure it's hard telling sometimes who is telling it like it actually is, and who is working with theory and confusing the situation.
Hey rad yeah the end of veg and beginning of flower is when I used them and working on some theories with the sip/swick trays I like to make sure my theories work before I take it public.

.........

 

[Radogast]

Re: My First Time - AK47 & Gold Bar Kush

Good stuff for sure it's hard telling sometimes who is telling it like it actually is, and who is working with theory and confusing the situation.
Hey rad yeah the end of veg and beginning of flower is when I used them and working on some theories with the sip/swick trays I like to make sure my theories work before I take it public.

.........

I have about 2 years using a swick in a 4x8' flowering room and over a year with a SWICK for late veg.- but my 3x6' flowering area SWICK is giving me excess humidity compared to my larger rooms in the old basement. I'm having to babysit my current SWICK until I set up a reliable dehumidifier. It is working and growing big buds, but I seem to be underfertilizing/underfeeding. I am confident I'll find the new balance. Possibly over confident

I mostly inflict my theories on myself and my plants before recommending to others - then again - it's hard to know the difference between what you have proven and what has worked for you. - Human brains are wired to detect patterns. Sometimes we detect patterns that don't exist

Mr Greene started out saying he planned to use a SWICK - so I won't argue against it, just nudge a little

 

[ginganinja30]

veg - flower - or both?




Me too. Been seing you over on Sweet Sue's thread and a few more






I'm glad you are all here - this thread is picking up steam.

I was so worried MrGreene would be depending on me for advice - I've grown some truly sad plants over the last 3 years. I actually had one plant growing for over a year yield 4 grams - which proves I can be more stubborn than smart. BUT I learned a lot about how not to water!

So glad you all showed up to give MrGreene a helping hand

Thanks Radogast and MrGreene.
The more I learn from you all, the more I want to learn and pay it forward.
There are so many knowledgeable and simply awesome individuals on here....... definitely so glad I found you all ..
...


1st Time Grow For My Beautiful Broken Brain

 

[MrGreene]

I was with AK earlier. We had a quiet talk while I caressed her softly. She isn't interested in whips and chains but is intrigued at the thought of being restrained. I told her that as soon as she is old enough we will experiment with some bondage. She seemed to get excited.

 

[Radogast]

I was with AK earlier. We had a quiet talk while I caressed her softly. She isn't interested in whips and chains but is intrigued at the thought of being restrained. I told her that as soon as she is old enough we will experiment with some bondage. She seemed to get excited.

It's good to discuss your limits in a calm, honest manner before beginning. As much for you as for her.

I like to be able to make frequent small adjustments, so we play with 18" 'canes' of 12 & 14 guage electrical wire. All my wire is a bit twisted. I twist 2 wires together at one end, the untangle them to leave one end into a corkscrew/pig tail shape. The twisted end is plunged into the soil -deep, deep, into the soil - near where I will be bending down an arm. I gently position the arm and bend the wire into a (candy) cane shape to lay against the 'wrist' and hold it firmly down. Held firm, the fingers are 'free' to grow up. Every few days I check the position, often sellecting a new 'wrist' and rebend the wire cane, or rebend over the 'wrist' at a different height. I rarely remove the twisted end from the soil and roots.

I have done the same with ribbons and plant ties, but strings need to be tied and retied between 2 points. I find I like the freedom to bend a wire, and rebend a wire into a new position as needed. 4 canes is enough for most plants. Sometimes I get up to 5 or 6. I remove the restraints when they are ready to flower, because it is easier to water without the canes in place.

 

[redmud]

So many similarities in our grow styles Rad

.........

 

[MrGreene]

It's good to discuss your limits in a calm, honest manner before beginning. As much for you as for her.

I like to be able to make frequent small adjustments, so we play with 18" 'canes' of 12 & 14 guage electrical wire. All my wire is a bit twisted. I twist 2 wires together at one end, the untangle them to leave one end into a corkscrew/pig tail shape. The twisted end is plunged into the soil -deep, deep, into the soil - near where I will be bending down an arm. I gently position the arm and bend the wire into a (candy) cane shape to lay against the 'wrist' and hold it firmly down. Held firm, the fingers are 'free' to grow up. Every few days I check the position, often sellecting a new 'wrist' and rebend the wire cane, or rebend over the 'wrist' at a different height. I rarely remove the twisted end from the soil and roots.

I have done the same with ribbons and plant ties, but strings need to be tied and retied between 2 points. I find I like the freedom to bend a wire, and rebend a wire into a new position as needed. 4 canes is enough for most plants. Sometimes I get up to 5 or 6. I remove the restraints when they are ready to flower, because it is easier to water without the canes in place.

I showed AK the picture and read this post to her. She seemed to get even more excited. I have some romex wire in the garage for when she is ready. I can see a few places where she is begging to be spread open a little. She seems to like the bigger pot and the low dose of nutes.

GBK looks like she also responding well to her new pot and nutes.

I've also been thinking about the trouble I have going to sleep and wonder if I should drop another seed soon. There are 18 strains/94 seeds sitting here to choose from. Bomb Seeds Hash Bomb stands out but KC Brains Northern Lights Special and KC Brains Sweet Dreams also have my attention. All three are reg seeds. Does anybody else make a spreadsheet of their seeds? I've found it is a good thing to reference and have most of the important things listed like genetics, reg or fem, yield, thc and cbd percent, height, and comments on expected effects.

Lighting looks like it shouldn't be a problem either. SweetSue sent the mars lights and I have replacement leds ordered for the damaged ones. Thanks again Sue. I also ordered some cobs, heat sinks, and drivers to do a budget cob build soon. I plan to take lots of pics of both projects.

 

[Radogast]

Congrats on your future lighting. That's a good thing You might not have to expand your electrical circuit capacity if using COBs.


I don't track my seeds, but I don't have many seeds. In the first 2 years I planted less than 10 seeds, I cloned dozens of plants.


Thoughts about topping and cloning.

In your photo below, for pure training purposes one usually makes the first top or FIM where the little hat is drawn (at the top.)

For taking a clone to grow out and flower, I usually choose to combine topping and cloning by taking my top above a branching node AT LEAST 2" down from the top. (see the little line a few nodes down - The longer you make it the better - I woud go down at least one more node..)

If you are cloning to sex the plant, look for a long enough branch below the canopy and clone that. (the circle area at the bottom of the plant will never reach the canopy. The branches just above MIGHT reach the canopy depending on how you train. )

The key takeaway: If you are cloning to sex the plant, you can go ahead and start topping and training the top of the plant now.

Later you may trim from the bottom of the plant for sexing clones. By topping the plant now, you actually force growth hormones down lower in the plant and speed up the branches that will become sexing clones.


Another takeaway: I'm not very good at finger painting on computer screens

 

[MrGreene]

Thanks Rad. The plan is to minimize the electrical load. A budget cob build should do that. I bought cheap cobs but got meanwell a driver. I can save the power now and upgrade to good cobs later while still using most of the other components like drivers and heat sinks.

I bought enough seeds so that I won't have to again for a long time unless I don't like what I have or another strain gets my attention. The two growing right now are both fem seeds but the majority of the rest are reg seeds.

I like your finger painting and so does AK. It made her a little nervous at first but she is starting to see the light. You covered a lot of perspectives and must have known that I have multiple goals.

She has agreed that we can start her bondage any time and that she will go topless soon.

 

[Radogast]

Hawaiian Skunk was topped several days ago - yesterday was her first time bound with wires


Top View (before) - I've been spreading the top two branches every couple of days after topping.

Tied down with wires - the branches may be trained lower after they lengthen. At some point they nee to be below the next 2 lower branch tips.

Top View (after) - The next 2 lower branches are laready closer to the top.

 

[MrGreene]

Correct me if I'm wrong. The way I understand what I think you're showing me combined with what I've read is that we want to top in order to promote growth from maybe 4 or 6 of the lower branches. We should train these to promote them to spread wider into an even canopy. We will later top these branches so that each one will have 2 potential bud sites instead of one. This will give multiple tops that are fairly even instead of one main with several smaller.

 

[MrGreene]

I went in to check on the girls tonight. GBK looks like she's happy.

I saw that AK had grown a little too close to her light and singed the tips of her top leaves. She was begging for attention and that's when I decided it was time to give it to her. We started out seeing how she liked restraints.

That went well enough that after a few minutes I decided it was time for her to go topless.

She responded with a strong skunky odor but didn't seem to mind. I got out the bubble cloner and checked to make sure it was working properly.

Then I found that the top wouldn't fit in the holder without trimming off the two side branches so I put all three in there after slicing then scraping.

This is how we ended our session tonight. I hope I didn't abuse her too bad or do it wrong.

I think GBK was paying attention and wants to be next. I told her to get bigger first.

 

[Radogast]

Correct me if I'm wrong. The way I understand what I think you're showing me combined with what I've read is that we want to top in order to promote growth from maybe 4 or 6 of the lower branches. We should train these to promote them to spread wider into an even canopy. We will later top these branches so that each one will have 2 potential bud sites instead of one. This will give multiple tops that are fairly even instead of one main with several smaller.

Train for multiple tops - but also train to limit the final height of your girl.


One time topping can yield A LOT of different branches, depenging on how you train and how she responds. Once you have your top branches going sideways you can get multiple new branches. This girl was only topped once

These up in the air look like a leaf with a leaf petiole, not a branch. I've never tried to root one of them. It may not have the right structure to grow roots. I never hurts to try You have the one true top (in the middle) that is ready to grow roots.

The snip up top is beautiful. You can see the two branches that will form your main canopy.

I like that you got a feeling for how to hold down branches, but the places you held down make no sense to me.

The white wires are holding leaf petioles. These will not affect the branching of the plant. In a few days, when the branches above them get longer, you can use the white wires to hold down those branches.

The red wires are holding down lower branches. This forces growth away from the tips and back up to other branches at the top of the plant, OR it forces them to divide into multiple branches. If you continue to hold them down, they will never reach the top of the canopy, which is where you want your buds to be. I would either A) let some of them that are strongest grow up to reach the top of the canopy, or B) cut them off and use them as clones for sexing, or C) cut them off and use them as compost.

Make sense?

 

[MrGreene]

Wow! That's a lot of tops for one topping.

IDK about the leaves rooting either but I'm betting since it is plant material with a stem and a way to collect light then at least there's a chance so why not try since the cloner is already running. If they don't make it then we know for sure. Lol

I knew the places wouldn't make sense. Partly because I don't know what I'm doing. The leaves (white wires) were moved to reduce shade/shadows on the lower branches. I guess there wasn't any sense in doing that and I was trying too hard. I expected that the lower branches would try to catch up and that having them tied would help them to get wide.

I think I should go remove the wires and try again in a couple days.

 

[Radogast]

I'm not convinced that leaves shading buds is a real issue - it might be.

I've just recently 'got it' that to get branches to grow wide, you have to let them grow up and then bend them over.

Lower branches never catch up until the tips of upper branches are bent low.

You can also slow down the upper branches by defoliating on or near the upper branches - but those are often big leaves, so removing them slows down the whole plant as well as the upper branches.

 

[MrGreene]

I'm not convinced that leaves shading buds is a real issue - it might be.

I've just recently 'got it' that to get branches to grow wide, you have to let them grow up and then bend them over.

Lower branches never catch up until the tips of upper branches are bent low.

You can also slow down the upper branches by defoliating on or near the upper branches - but those are often big leaves, so removing them slows down the whole plant as well as the upper branches.

Thanks Rad for watching after me and helping me along.

That makes sense letting the branches get tall first. I was thinking backwards that they would be more prone to stretch for the light if bent wide to reduce shading.

We don't want to slow down the plant, so the upper leaves will have to stay.