Fourth of July Crop

[Shovelhandle]

I made a decent size batch. Just used a little to repot a couple o' plants and the rest is for the next grow. I like to get the stuff when it's available local because I do run out too. And then I have to make a trip to Big City to get some of the ingredients. Also, it's hard to mix all that up in the shed in the winter.

Shov

ps, Jesus loves you, jacko

[Jerry Garcia 2007]

Looking real nice Shov. How tall are they?

They look ready to flower but I see you still have some horizontal space. I wait untill 3/4 of horizontal space is full, I keep my plants LSTed to no higher than 8'' untill I can't see the bucket looking strait down. Then let them veg vertically until they are 12'' to 16'' tall. this all takes around 6 to 8 weeks.

Just something you may want to try. oh yeh forgot one thing. something else I do is trim the fan leaves that cover any new branch top from direct light. This is 90% of the time the ones that point strait up when you LST and I remove them at that time. Branches seem to grow quicker when I do that.

[Shovelhandle]

I don't know how tall they are. A couple were snapped off so those are shorter. A few are "S" shaped and those are the bigger plants. The shorter plants may be 10" tall?

Maybe it's a optical illusion, but looking from the top the horizontal plane is pretty green and dense already. The footprint of the twelve pails as close to touch is 48" x 32". I feel that the one 400 Watt HPS is stretched as it is to cover that area and as the plants grow taller the light may not penetrate to all the bud sites. I really didn't think that I'd be finishing all the plants when I started. I'm not used to having 100% healthy females.
I have the 2' x 4' four tube T5 for side lighting and will have to use a couple of CFLs or a 4' florescent to add light to the other side. I've grown experimenting with lots of ideas, this grow is diff as I'm not FIM or cropping at all, just LST. I don't want to trim fan leaves at this time. I did trim quite a bit of the bottom branches, as I've found this effective.

Shov

[Jerry Garcia 2007]

Yeh I realize there are going to be differences between our grows ( ex. light, space, ect. ) But 12 in that space is going to be cramped. I can't fit more than 9 plants in 5 gal. buckets in a 48''x48'' space under a 600 watt HPS.

Also when you say bottom branches do you mean the small weak looking ones that grow from nodes facing the dirt or the ones that form from the first nodes? Reason I ask is the branches that form from the lower nodes produce the largest colas except for the main cola that forms from the main shoot.

[Weedhound]

Jeez....nice bud in your avatar there jerry!

[Jerry Garcia 2007]

Weedhound:

That is from my current grow that is at harvest right now. Stop by and take a look. "second grow from cloans and THC Bomb seed"

Btw that is a White Widow cola.

[Shovelhandle]

I realize that. I explained how that came to be and I really do not have a solution except to 86 a few of those plants. I can't get myself to do that and I dodn't want too expand to another grow area. If I did I might let them veg until I could get them outdoors. Eventually I will have to deal with removing some of those plants, but there aren't any that deserve to die.

As far as cutting the bottom branches, I usually end up cutting the bottom branches eventually as they become totally shaded and produce little. I've cut as much as six of the branches off the bottoms with no loss of buddage.

I really appreciate you continued input, JG. This is not my first "load of pumpkins", I've been growing outdoors off and on for forty years, annually for the past eight or so. The indoor grows are failry new to me. I've learned just about everything I know in the past two years. Much of that knowledge from folks like you. Thanks.

So, what to do with the extra plants? Last Spring I threw some females out...hated to do that.

Shov

[zebulon]

It would be a real shame to trow out such beautiful & healthy plants...and you can't put them out because it's still too cold...

[Shovelhandle]

A conundrum, yes it is. :smokin:

Sho

[Shovelhandle]

Looking real nice Shov. How tall are they?

They look ready to flower but I see you still have some horizontal space. I wait untill 3/4 of horizontal space is full, I keep my plants LSTed to no higher than 8'' untill I can't see the bucket looking strait down. Then let them veg vertically until they are 12'' to 16'' tall. this all takes around 6 to 8 weeks.


Plants are all 12-14" tall, except for one shorty, 10" tall. The buckets are different heights but I try to even them up. They are six and a half weeks old. Here's a better shot of them from overhead. The color is adjusted for the HPS to show better.

[attachment=o185669]

Shov