Pantagruel's 3rd - Northern Lights

[Light Addict]

Looking good yep its best to start em off nice and young with a flux. Im not sure Im happy with the strain I have for my flux. She has really short flower period. Next flux I do Ill pick wiser something with long flowering period!

 

[Mike Wright]

I'm excited to try it on my next grow. I need to get this one in the books quickly. Our consumption has grown with the convenience. What I just grew will run out a month faster than it should have!

Next time I'll be in no hurry.

 

[donpaul.p]

Hi mate,

dont think im sub'd so i am now, sounds like your taking a page out of LA's book and gifferent different training methods a try.

but always remember training is going to slow the grow time down so you will have to veg longer and flower longer but the end results should be worth it,
also try and make sure the plant is in the best health it can be, for example if you was giving defoliation a try but you was having problems with high temps and over or under watered then this will have a big negative affect on your plants and will slow you down a lot more,

so keep the plants healthy, if you have any problems with plant health then dont start the training until it recovers
for some types of training their are times in the grow when you dont do anything or you at least stop training, again ill use defoliation for an example, you can defol as much as you like in veg and all you will have to deal with is the slow down in growth while the plant recovers, but when you flip 12-12 make sure the plant is fully recovered, it takes anything from 7 to 14 days for the plant to get back to rapid growth, the only other time not to defol is during the stretch period in flower, if you do decide to try defol or some other method such as hst then stop 2 weeks before you flip 12-12 then dont do anything to the plant until after day 14 to 21 of 12-12, you want to have the plant at its best during the stretch period,

another tip you may or may not be aware of is when is the correct time to change to flowering nutes, well i used to change to flowering nutes when i flippped the lights to 12-12, so 2 weeks before the flip id stop the veg feed nutes and just give plain water then when i flipped to lights to 12-12 id start giving the plant the flower stage feed and i thought i was doing the right thing.

but it wasnt, during the stretch period the plant is in rapid growth and needs the most N, so ive had much better results changing to flower stage feed after day 21 of 12-12 or when i can see all the pistils growing and not just at the nodes,
why i do this is because if we look at outdoor growers they dont know when the plant is going into flower as they are not setting the lights, so outdoor growers start the flower stage feed when they can actually see the plants in flower, so i use this method and i find the plant looks much healthier and seems to grow much better during this time.

chances are you might know all that i have said but ive not checked your other journals so wasnt sure, but if its no good for you then im sure that info will benefit someone who follows your grow,

 

[Mike Wright]

Great tips Paul. I realize now I am going to have to go light on the training this time to meet my timeline. I will keep the N nutes going into the stretch to. Much appreciated.

 

[Mike Wright]

Just repotted the Northern Lights in 10 inch pots and Durban Poison in 8 inch pots. 2 more weeks of veg for these ladies.

 

[Mike Wright]

Vegging under the wide spectrum HPS seems to be working out. At first I thought I fucked up the fim on the smaller of the twin plants, but it seems ok. I'm experimenting with defol, doing a little more on one plant than the other to judge the difference. The Durban girls are really bushing out, one is much larger than the other two. When I harvest the NL, I will leave a couple of branches to over-mature as this is supposed to force it to hermie, then breed it with the large DP (hopefully). NL's are 5 weeks, DP's are 2.

 

[Mike Wright]

Decided to LST the largest Northern Lights plant. Pics in a day or two when it starts to take.

 

[Mike Wright]

The plant I bent has so many nice growing tips and the branches are really taking off. I am so tempted to LST the other one now too, but I'll resist the urge.

 

[Light Addict]

well done for comparing! Your doing good work. Keep it up!

 

[Mike Wright]

Thanks Light! I like the way that the plant recovers so quickly from the LST versus the topped one really slowed down a lot.

Pics compare a natural plant (lollipopped), LST'd plant, and a topped/fimmed plant. The LST'd looks best to me.

 

[Campesino]

definitely the LST one... As L.A said, very good info thank you :good job:

 

[Mike Wright]

Did a little more work on it.

 

[Mike Wright]

Up early trying to catch up on some journals. Some great tips by donpaul on potting on the lightmans multi-style training page.

Been trying to take a page from that book myself - I've got 3 Northern Lights plants going in 3 different styles. The bushiest one I left untrained, just lollipopped her a bit. Her twin sister (2 plants from the same seed) got a good fimming at node 4. The tallest one seemed most suitable for LST.

I have to say, I have a new respect for you hard-core trainers. It's a lot of work keeping the plant in shape! Practice I guess.

Here are the sisters at 6 weeks.

 

[Mike Wright]

Did some defol and topped the 3 DP plants in preparation for the flip to 12/12 which I'll do on Saturday.

In the meantime here's a pic I took yesterday showing 2 days growth on my LST trained Northern Lights girl.

 

[Mike Wright]

Time to flip to 12/12!

Everybody is healthy. DP's are showing a little nute burn around the edges but I hope they'll grow out of it.

I'm wondering if I should start defoling the branches yet, not taking the whole branch, I mean taking the back leaves off the branches themselves. So far I've just been taking the main fan leaves.

Here's how everybody looks day one, the untopped NL1, LST'd NL2, Fimmed NL3, everyone together.

 

[Mike Wright]

One week since flipping to 12/12. Everyone is growing happily. The Durbans are stretching way more than the NL's and looks like they are starting to flower too. Not so much the NL's yet - maybe the Indicas take longer to react.

After I took these pics I decided to bend the branches on the topped plant NL3 to so next update I'll show the reaction to that.

 

[Mike Wright]

Here I've bent the branches on NL3 which was topped. Also for comparison the NL1 which is getting pretty bushy. It's one week flower, and I haven't pruned this one at all since early on in veg. I'm hoping for some feedback on when exactly to chop the fan leaves and how much to take.

 

[Light Addict]

Hey buddy she is a looker firstly if you want more stretch/growth over the next week then dont strip anything! If your happy and dont want her bigger then go for it.
You could simply kink/ supercrop the fan leave stems and tuck some offending leaves away a little, this means no stunt. Its all just on what girl you want If you are gonna strip now then dont go wild. Just start with the fans that are pointing back in on each branch. I always take these off with my training. Its the one sat towards end of each branch, it points back in to center and covers all node points below. So its up to you really my friend.
She is lovely and Im sure whatever you choose you will be fine my friend! Shout me anytime

 

[Mike Wright]

Outta sight! Thanks Light! I do want her as big as possible, so I'll do just as you say and wait until the stretch is all done.

Oh, and congrats on POTY. No surprises there, although no shortage of competition either!!!

 

[Mike Wright]

Wow, everything just kicked into high gear today. I can pretty much watch the girls grow and see the first flowers coming in fast.