Are they going to outgrow my tent?

[ilikeweed21]

Hello fellow growers, how are you doing? I have 3 plants (California Dream, Acapulco Gold, Original Skunk #1) in a growtent (3x3x6) and i am growing them vertically as you can see in the pics. I have been vegging them for 3 months now (except the OS #1 which has been vegging for 2).

California Dream and Acapulco Gold have gotten very tall (~1.3 m), i am waiting to fight a thrips infestation before i put them to flower. As you can see i have put plastic netting around the tent walls and keep tying them to it. But they have grown too much, making the tent look like a jungle, and they got me worried that they may outgrow it when they are about to flower. I have a 400w and a 250w stacked onto each other.

What would you do if you were me? Fight the thrips infestation or put them straight to flower ASAP?

Thank you, wish happiness to your green babies!!

 

[JHerbz]

plants grow 2x-3x their size starting a few days after they realise they are in flower.

The more sativa the cross is the more it will stretch.

So in other words, yeah.

If it was me i would flower NOW, and fight the thrips within the first 5 days.

That things gonna be a JUNGLE.



Other option is to top a good few inches off them...

 

[ilikeweed21]

Thanks for answering man, i appreciate it a lot. Pyrethrum is ok to use against thrips? I want to spray the plants after lights go off today. Ordered some Spinosad too, it should be on its way. I am scared to top a few inches off them, it inhibits danger of turning them to hermies? Have you personally tried it? If it is nescessary i will do it, but i would avoid it if i can.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

If you are worried about cutting the tops off remove the lower branches and buds sights and gentle bend the tops down to where you just trimmed. This will keep the best bud sights and allow you to remove some of the smaller buds. Just tie the top colas to the lower stems.

 

[JHerbz]

I personally have topped my plants in flower/removed whole branches before.
Yeah it stresses them but it can take it, just cant over do it.

Its more of a danger in late flower.
krunchbubble took 6" cuts off his early flowering girl scout cookies..

you can look more into it if you want.

Yeah the Pyrethrum should work. and definately spinosad/neem oil.

 

[JHerbz]

Or you can try what Icha said.

 

[ilikeweed21]

Wow, that is interesting and sounds safer than the choice of topping off the plants! Very nice suggestion my friend! How many of the lower branches should i remove? Like 1/3 of the plant or it would be too much cutting? After spraying them with pyrethrum i am gonna keep lights off for 36 hours and then they are going straight into flowering. Temps are gonna be an issue since i don't have an air condition, but from what it seems i have no other choice.

 

[Tonygreen]

Crazy style. Good luck bro.

 

[JHerbz]

Wow, that is interesting and sounds safer than the choice of topping off the plants! Very nice suggestion my friend! How many of the lower branches should i remove? Like 1/3 of the plant or it would be too much cutting? After spraying them with pyrethrum i am gonna keep lights off for 36 hours and then they are going straight into flowering. Temps are gonna be an issue since i don't have an air condition, but from what it seems i have no other choice.

Ive never had a thrip problem so ive been reading up on it, seems people really endorse the spinosad/neem oil cure.

Maybe you should wait up on switching them to flower? up to you tho,

I would just remove with whatever amount you feel safe removing.

 

[ilikeweed21]

I personally have topped my plants in flower/removed whole branches before.
Yeah it stresses them but it can take it, just cant over do it.

Its more of a danger in late flower.
krunchbubble took 6" cuts off his early flowering GS Cookies..

you can look more into it if you want.

Yeah the Pyrethrum should work. and definately spinosad/neem oil.

Thanks for telling me this bro, it would make it a bit easier to top them off knowing that someone else has done it successfully. I am gonna try and remove some lower branches first, if things don't go as i want, i will try cutting the tops.

@Tonygreen- I am glad that you like my style of growing dude, thanks for the wishes

 

[ilikeweed21]

Ive never had a thrip problem so ive been reading up on it, seems people really endorse the spinosad/neem oil cure.

Maybe you should wait up on switching them to flower? up to you tho,

I would just remove with whatever amount you feel safe removing.

Yeah, from what i have read, most people state that spinosad/neem is DA CURE for thrips. I know that they make buds their homes, that's why i wanted to get rid of them before flowering begins.

But i will have one week before the first buds start forming, that gives me time to apply pyrethrum today and spinosad when i get it with the mail after 4-5 days. Gonna lightproof my tent completely amongst other things, i may remove the lamp that shines my bedroom for reassurance.

 

[akdmkz]

At the onset of flowering cut the bottom 1/3 of the plant.

 

[ilikeweed21]

You recommend me to do this in order to tie taller tops to the lower part where i am going to cut or just cut 1/3? And something else, Spinosad can be used in order to drench soil? Because from what i have read these little fuckers reside not only on the leaves, but in soil too.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I like to have about 2/3 of my grow area filled with leaf and bud sites before I flip. Remove whatever you think you can on the bottom while still being able to fill that area with top colas to get that 2/3 area filled. If you have a real stretchy plant you may want to reduce that 2/3 to 1/2/. I would not recommend topping as this is where your biggest buds will come from. If you like trimming smaller buds then go ahead and top.

Should you out grow your area you can trim again after stretch and still have extra root mass to support bigger buds.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I thought I would post some pictures of what I meant above.

The first pictures is the branch that I bent down to fill in below.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=38692&pictureid=915414

The second picture shows a drawing of the branch structure under the buds.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=38692&pictureid=915416

This last pictures shows the actual buds that are depicted by circles in the picture above.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=38692&pictureid=915415

If you look closely you will see the stem between the two smaller buds on the right of the above picture. This branch was sacrificed to allow the screen to be filled in with the bigger bud on the left. I don't know about you but I would much rather trim the bud on the left then 8-10 of the smaller buds to get the same weight.

I am still working on perfecting my screen filling, but it is obvious that some of the lower branches can be replaced with buds pulled down from the top to get better buds and a higher over quality.

Hope this helps.

 

[ilikeweed21]

Thanks very much for taking the time to make the procedure more comprehensive my friend! I will take your example into much consideration, propably going to do something similar to what you did .

I am getting back to my babies to 2-3 days, i am gonna put them in flower and give em some neem oil (last time i used pyrethrum). I am also going to use your technique or something similar. Seems like i have some work to do! In terms of root mass, they are sitting in 7 gal smart pots, so i don't think there will be a problem!

 

[avant gardener]

for the thrips:
neem and spinosad with a good wetting agent like sm-90, at 7 day intervals
-OR-
one shot of imidacloprid (bayer tree and shrub, merit 75, or criterion)

for the jungle:
dude, just top them, but do it 8 or 10 inches down instead of just pinching the apical meristem. this won't stress your plants a bit. you'll have time to make sure the creepy crawlies are gone before you flip them and your treatment options become seriously limited. and oh, you'll have twice as many top colas. boo yah!

 

[ilikeweed21]

From what i have read in numerous sites neem and spinosad guarantee total removal of those little bastards. I don't know the second substance you mentioned man, how much does it cost?

For spinosad they were asking 100$ for 100 ml bottle, i could not afford that much. Ordered pure neem 100% and i have got pyrethrum too. You think these two could do the trick?

Are you sure that cutting the top 1/3 won't stress them and lead to hermies? In theory its the most ideal solution, i will have plenty of time to turn them to flower and fight thrips effectively. Plus i will have the possibility to flower by 15th August or later. That way i will have to use the air coolers for about only 2-3 weeks after this time. On one hand they cool quite effectively now that heat is not that much but they create moisture of 50%+ and i am concerned about mold during flowering.

Without the air coolers temps reach 90-95 F easily, i am using them all the time with lights on and temps can reach 80-85 (85 more usually). I made carton boxes, opened 2 4" holes in each box and connected them to the inline holes of my growtent. But they are creating moisture as i said. I am interested to hear more about the top 1/3, has any of you guys tried it and worked out ok?

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I have topped plants before with no ill side affects. It is strain dependent. Like I said before you get better buds from the top. If you have enough time for them to recover you will indeed get more tops that will put out more buds. I have cut the ends of branches off right when I put plants in flower and the new end buds where still small. How long it takes to recover I do not know. Every time I top in vertical I end up with to much growth from the remaining branches and end up with small buds and excessive fluff. The choice is yours and I wish you the best.

 

[ilikeweed21]

The truth is that i am in a dilemma on what is the best thing to do. I could definitely wait more if there is a way to control their height and pass through August with them still in veg and flowering them early in September. That way they would not have to face 85F+ in flowering.

That was the initial plan. However, from what you can see i want something that will effectively control height, both options seem good on that. On winning more time, topping wins, i did not know it could be done that way, i knew that those techniques besides LST are supposed to be used earlier. I still have a few days to make the final decision, when i get back i will have to act fast.

I had small buds and excessive fluff from the previous grow (this is my third one in total). The only good that i found to this was that there is very little chance your buds will get moldy (10% of my first crop was lost to mold). Other than that they were very airy, before i put them to jars i thought i had 300 grams minimum. After putting them in jars, i saw that i had barely hit 200. Of course in my case this was due to high heat and not topping.

Thanks for the wishes my friend, you were very helpful, i appreciate it!