TTKlaus' 3rd Grow Journal - Dragons Rose

Day 41 - Thinning Day for Fathers Day!

Today was the day to thin and train. I brought the plants out of their grow cabinet for the first time to inspect, trim and train. Check it out!
Before:


After:


 
Day 41 was also the day to rig up an auto watering setup for when I go up to the VT Legalization Celebration and have to leave the darlings alone for 10 days!

I used 1/4" drip irrigation line, a small aquarium pump, 5 gallon bucket and a digital timer.



The timer is set to run for 2 minutes every day. The water line is installed to go straight down into the water reservoirs of my wicking grow trays. Hopefully, it will put about 1/4" of water into the tray for the plants daily needs. I will finetune this quantity over the course of this coming week.

TTKlaus
 
I also added some CannaCharger soil to the top of my base soil today. CannaCharger is a nutrient rich organic soil designed for Cannabis' needs for nutrients. It is really good stuff, with it there should not be need for additional nutes for the rest of the lifecycle of the plants. It is made by Purple Cow Organics. Purple Cow will release it to the public this summer. I am one of the test growers for them.

TTKlaus
 
Final update before heading to Vermont for the legalization celebration!

I have been fine tuning my autowater setup for the last few days. It seems to be working fine. The test will be being gone for 10 days and hopefully return to happy plants!
The below images show the open wicking trays with water flowing into them. These were taken on Day 52.



On to Day 54- - - - Flowering day. I switched the little darlings to 12/12 this morning. They are between 8-11 inches tall. My cabinet allows for about 26" plants. I hope the Dragon Rose will not stretch more than that!



TTKlaus
 
Day64 - Some discoveries....

I thought I had switched the plants to flower on Day54. With the turmoil of trying to get out of town I did not change the timer to 12/12. So....the plants were still happily growing in veg for an additional 10 days. The autowater system worked for the most part, one of the supply lines sprung a leak though. The result was that not all plants received enough water to stay super healthy. Mainly the 2nd plant from left in the photo. The leaf tips turned an ugly brown and died off. Good news is, all but 1 small plant survived! And all but one clone survived.





I attempted to sex the pre-flowers this time. I believe the plant below is a girl! What do you guys think?

TTKlaus
 
I have been talking to some guys about trimming/thinning and the myth of canopy penetration. It appears lot's of growers still think that you need a tremendous amount of energy (wattage) to penetrate the plant canopy. I think it's total BS! I took my PAR meter outside yesterday and measured canopy penetration around my yards shrubs and trees. Of course, the light source is our sun. There was near ZERO canopy penetration. This leads me to the other myth to strip all leaves off the plants, mostly lower fan leaves. Those are the largest leaves on a plant. Cutting them out takes the energy life storage right out of the plants. Fan leaves is where all energy gets processed and stored for distribution within the plant.
I did follow the advise of others, not necessarily on this board, and cut off a lot of my large fan leaves to allow for more "canopy penetration". I now know better and will not do it again! Leave the leaves on the plants until they turn yellow on their own is my new motto!

TTKLaus
 
I have been talking to some guys about trimming/thinning and the myth of canopy penetration. It appears lot's of growers still think that you need a tremendous amount of energy (wattage) to penetrate the plant canopy. I think it's total BS! I took my PAR meter outside yesterday and measured canopy penetration around my yards shrubs and trees. Of course, the light source is our sun. There was near ZERO canopy penetration. This leads me to the other myth to strip all leaves off the plants, mostly lower fan leaves. Those are the largest leaves on a plant. Cutting them out takes the energy life storage right out of the plants. Fan leaves is where all energy gets processed and stored for distribution within the plant.
I did follow the advise of others, not necessarily on this board, and cut off a lot of my large fan leaves to allow for more "canopy penetration". I now know better and will not do it again! Leave the leaves on the plants until they turn yellow on their own is my new motto!

TTKLaus
I was just about ready to trim my girls.

Maybe now I won't. What do you guys think?
 
I think the center of the plant needs the most attention when it comes to removing leaves. If you can't get enough replenished air thru it is where the yield falls off. In the out doors you have mother nature blowing her winds thru the plant and everything's happy but in a tent or closet it's hard to get air around and thru the plant. My 2 cents.
 
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