How Close

[Legal1T]

Hi Guys,

Am very new to this in fact this is my first grow,
Am into my second week of flowering and have noticed that 1 of my five plants is a good 12" smaller than the biggest,now my question is how close should i have the plants together?should the leaves be intertwining with one another? does it do any harm if the are?
i should say i have 1.2x1.2 area.

Legal1T Reviewed by Legal1T on 01-04-2011. How Close Hi Guys, Am very new to this in fact this is my first grow, Am into my second week of flowering and have noticed that 1 of my five plants is a good 12" smaller than the biggest,now my question is how close should i have the plants together?should the leaves be intertwining with one another? does it do any harm if the are? i should say i have 1.2x1.2 area. Rating: 5

[Rusty Trichome]

If that's 1.2 sq. ft, then no...it's not enough room. If it's 1.2 sq meters, then yes...it's enough. Plants needelbow room, air circulation and access to the light.

Leaves that rub back-n-forth against each other will cause what I call leaftip irritation. It's like using an eraser on a cheap piece of paper. Sooner or later it rub's through the other leaf. (dead spots) Not really a big deal, but not something to strive for either.

Depending on where you got your seeds, now-a-days breeders seem to be worying less about strain integrity than the all-mighty dollar. As a result, the plants are not "stabilized". This means you, as the consumer, will usually get a couple of different phenotypes. One phenotype will take after the mom, one phenotype will take after the dad, and a bunch of phenotypes will be varying combinations of both. Some quality breeding houses are more careful, and they do back-cross to stabilize the strain they're selling. (hopefully only one or two phenotypes) This is a Readers Digest version, but close enough to explain the differences in growth, size, shape, colors, flowering times and effects.
-or-
The little one might just be a stunted runt, struggling to keep-up. :jointsmile:

[bigjim1985]

hi peeps just a quick question i have 4 jack herra plant thay have 3 weeks left now i have just snipped an few of the big fan leaves off to get the light to the bottom buds. now have i made a mistake . what will happen???

[TANKJR]

If there is light hitting your floor, that's light wasted. If there is light hitting the walls and not being reflected back towards the plants, this is light wasted. If there is no reflector over the light and you have light hitting the ceiling, that's light wasted. Make the most of the light you are using, and try to minimize light waste. This is my guide for how close plants can be to each other in veg mode, and so far, I have not seen what RT describes as leaf irritation. (that's a good thing, right, Rusty?) In flower mode, I stop worrying so much about how much light the floor is getting and worry more about how much light each bud is getting, since they are only getting 12 hours, it should be a good strong close 12 hours of light to the maximum amount of buds. Almost none of my plants grow exactly alike and I grow from clones most of the time...nothing to really worry about as far as plant size goes...just let it keep growing and it may just catch up to the others....mine often do by the end! I attribute the differences in size to where they are in relation to the light (I only use 1!) and the slight variations in nutes and water and other things I may have done to slow one down...and I do make mistakes all the time! That's one more reason to love this plant....even I can grow one!

Hey Big Jim, nothing to worry about....just be conservative when trimming! You haven't really hurt anything, but don't take off any you don't have to.

[Rusty Trichome]

Some strains grow straight-up, some spread-out. If the leaves are being blown back-n-forth across each other, you can usually turn the pot a bit to avoid this.

Removing the fans is a bad idea in my book. If the leaf is getting light, photosynthesis is happening. If photosynthesis is happening, the buds will get their fair share of the benefits. (sugars, mobile stored nutrients, temperature regulation, moisture retention...) If you cut the fans to get the bud more light, you lose a good portion of the benefits the bud was recieving, and no bud is as proficient at photosynthesis as the fans. In other words...the fan leaf is not there to support itself, it's there to do it's part for the plant as a whole. Also, if the fan's aren't necessary, why would cannabis evolution have kept them?
Removing fans can and usually will stunt the buds. There are techniques calling for this assault, but they are usually given time to recover (and resume normal growth) before flowering.

5 plants in a 1.2 square foot space...the largest container that could do that is 5 one gallon containers, and that's squeezing them in. (I just measured my one galloners...6 inches in diameter each) My plants outgrow one gallon containers about three quarters of the way through the growth phase. (or so) Hopefully he meant a 1.2 square meter space.

[Legal1T]

Rusty,

Thank you for the advice,it is 1.2 square and over the last few days i`ve kept an aye on her and to tell you the truth she is budding more than the others so am well happy!

I shall get some pics up for you over the next few days so you can have a look and see if am doing it right!