DTW Coco- Learning by doing - 600HPS multi strain SCROG

[greenops]

Btw, don't feel under pressure to do it just because I've said so. Feel free to tell me to fuck off

Nah bro, i do wanna give it a try. My only concern is, the chemical fungicide i sprayed the plants with may not be degraded as effectively when the plants are stripped of their fan leaves. I'm imagining that the toxins may have it easier to trans locate to the buds too... There's a good dude I know who may have an answer to this. I'm just waiting for his feedback.

its looking great man i like your style screen of green

Thank you

 

[papaduc]

What was the fungicide for?

 

[greenops]

Last grow I battled powder mildew and lost. I threw everything away. This grow I wanted to do everything to prevent it from happening. I used a chemical fungicide that was recommended by someone I know working at a grow shop. Only after I used it, I found out that the ingredients can be pretty harmful.

 

[papaduc]

Well that's one more reason to defoliate then. The leaves will only act to store any residual chemicals, not cycle them quicker, if that's what you're thinking.

 

[BudGreene]

The only thing I've found that makes it go away, is to make sure lights-off temp/humidity is balanced. Basically no more than a 10 degree temp drop, and don't let the humidity skyrocket. Keep a slow steady vent fan going in the dark, keep a dehuey on, and make sure it's not too cool.

 

[greenops]

Day 72 from seed / Day 23 bloom

Seeing papaducs impressive results i decided it's worth a try. I clipped methodically all the leaves that were blocking other bud sites. Many lower buds are now much more exposed to the light. I didn't go in as much as papaduc would have wanted, but i'm sure i took enough to increase air circulation inside the scrog. There were couple decent established buds squeezed in between taller buds. I was able to free them and give em space. It was all enough to fill a shopping bag and everything smelt like i harvested. My hands were extremely sticky and smelly afterwards.

I won't be surprised if the plants will get into some kind of shock but they look pretty normal today, a half day later. I plan to repeat the process after 2 weeks, depending on the results.

The bud sites are now starting to show more bud formation. It's like their stacking. Especially the headband 3 on the top right exploded after a slow start. The Humboldt Seeds strains are pretty smelly up to this point, while the Reserva Privadas smell milder, more floral and a bit citrusy.

As the plants approach their 4th week of flowering, i will introduce them to some PK 13. I've heard it affects taste when used late in flowering so i'll go moderately. Has anyone used PK 13 before? What were the results?

The first picture is before defoliation.

 

[greenops]

Some more pics...

 

[resinscientist]

Canna vs. House & Garden ? Aqua vs coco ? DTW vs recirculating coco bato/dutch bucket system?

 

[papaduc]

Looks good. A lot tidier and airflow will be much better.

If you want to experiment with extreme defoliation and gauge for yourself the results, pick one plant out and strip it bare. See the difference in the development of that compared to the others and decide whether you'd use it again in future.

I've done headband btw. Get the right one and she's lovely. Not much of a smell in flower; a bit piney near the end. But dried and smoked... different story.

With regards the PK, what are you using now and at what strength?

 

[greenops]

I don't think that experiment will proof anything cuz I'm not working with clones. Out of 8 plants, only the 2 Headbands are from the same strain. Even those 2 Headbands don't look a like, the other one looks to be about 10 days ahead in terms bud size.

However, would it make sense if I make an experiment on one plant only. I'll compare two similar branches, then strip one of them completely?

Regarding the PK, I'm using Hesi's Coco line. I'm at 1.1 ec at the moment, thats a bit more than half the recommended dose. I haven't used the PK yet.

 

[papaduc]

Replace 0.2 of the hesi with 0.2 of the pk. Stay at 1.1.

You might like the effect that completely defoliating has on the buds at screen level. Even on different strains it'll show you something.

Put it this way, if you strip one or half a plant to the point where there's hardly any leaf on it, seeing how it develops over the next few weeks will be a learning curve you might apply on your next grow. I know from running a tightly packed screen that defoliating helps to solidify a lot of what would otherwise be fluffy through lack of light and space.

As long as whatever you strip is letting light through and isn't blocked out by the bushier plants, that's all that matters.

 

[greenops]

Thanks for the info regarding PK.

OK, I may continue defoliating 1 or 2 plants in about 2 weeks. First I'm going to let them recover from the stress.

I'm getting the idea that you're theory is, the less fan leaves it has, the more buds it will produce? I thought that the purpose of defoliating was just to let light through the lower buds. That can be achieved by leaving a few fan leaves that don't block any bud sites. Would you recommend to cut those too?

 

[papaduc]

What I'm basically saying is feel free to have a mess around without worrying that removing fan leaves will affect the plant in a negative way., Don't be shy with what you take. You might find that the plant you defoliate is the one which gives you the highest ratio of quality bud, vs leafy stuff, which can happen easily in a packed scrog net.

When I ran the packed scrog you saw in the pictures, I defoliated the plants to the point where I actually thought they wouldn't have enough foliage to process the light. Everything came off.

Come harvest time, it told me a lot. It showed me that whatever we think about the fan leaves acting as solar panels and harvesting the light energy - and that without them the plant can't process the light it receives - is not as clear cut as we think.

If you want to leave it as is, that's cool. But if you want to have a little mess around and see what you think of the results, then do so and do so knowing that it definitely won't have a negative effect.

 

[greenops]

Day 81 from seed - Day 32 in bloom

So it seems that the stacking phase is done and the buds are beginning to swell.
The Headband #3 on the upper right corner is already forming some decent colas. I think she's going to be a huge producer.
The OG#18 located just under the headband3 is obviously behind and appears to produce golf ball looking buds.

From the looks of it, they're going to finish sooner than I thought. I actually want them to take 70-77 days of flowering, only because of the pesticide issue. If the plants live longer, there will be less traces of residue. At least that's what I hope. Maybe switching to MH for the last 20 days or so will slow em down.

I now started to add PK13 but everything still half dose. The last feed was was at 1.0 EC, 5.8pH. I just started to run the drippers 4 times per light cycle. Recently I noticed a few edges curling, looking like taco leaves. I took a pic of it up close which u can see below. Hope someone can tell me what it is... I suck at recognizing symptoms.




Another weird thing that I recently noticed is at the bottom of the pots. I used to see healthy roots poking out there, but now it has some kind of white foamy looking substance on it. When I touch it it crumbles, like salt? I'm pretty sure I get enough run off, so I have no idea why it's happening, or if it's normal. Took a picture of that too.





As it gets colder outside, the hottest spot in the tent rarely exceeds 75F. And that's when the ballast is set to 600w. But a lot of leaves aren't looking so juicy anymore, they rather look crispy. Maybe it's the same issue that's causing the taco leaves....

However, all in all, i think they're doing good. I see a shitload of trichomes and the plants don't seem all too bothered from the defoliation. I will continue to do some more in a couple days. Perhaps I'll defoliate one plant completely.

So far, the HSO strains are very impressive in regards to smell. Every one, the Lost Coast, Green Crack and the Trainwreck are smelling pretty dank up to this point. And so does the Fruity Chronic Juice from Delicious Seeds. The Headbands have a very faint, fuel like smell while the OG#18 has a little floral odor. Hope they get smellier though.




<<<>>>>

 

[Caravaggio]

ill go ahead and follow this. can someone link me to papaducs thread where he heavily defoliated?

 

[papaduc]

I didn't do a thread on it. I just posted up the results. I will do in the near future though and I'll let you know when I'm about to do it.

 

[Caravaggio]

I didn't do a thread on it. I just posted up the results. I will do in the near future though and I'll let you know when I'm about to do it.

ok cool. i didn't see the results but hear they were good

 

[greenops]

Day 88 from Seed - Day 39 in Bloom

I did some more defoliation. Even though I wanted to do one completely i just got too exhausted. This looks like easy work, but due to the tent and just the way i set every thing up, its a real physical challenge to get to certain spots. But I'm glad i did because there were couple lower buds pressed so close together than they felt really moist. I was able to free em up and bring some fresh air in there.

So now that most fan leaves are gone, I can see a lot of those taco leaves, where the edges of the blades just roll up. Has anyone any idea what this could be? Heat stress or some kind of lockout? I'm able to maintain the temps under 73F now, but unfortunately there was one time about 2 weeks ago where the temps peaked at 93F! Something went wrong with the ventilation.. i checked everything, reset the timer of the fans and it didnt happen again.




Also I get more and more of these yellow leaves and some leaves that are just darker, kinda purple in the middle. They are mostly at the top. Something must be going on. I checked the run off, pH is more or less 5.3 and ec 1.3, while my feeding solution is at 5.8-6.2 pH and 1.1 EC.




I guess there might be some light salt build up so I'm going to do some flushing and just continue with a lighter solution of around 0.9 EC.

What also bothers me is the lack of smell of the Skywalker OG and the Headbands...Not sure if this is caused by the growing conditions or if i just had bad luck with the phenotypes. The Humboldt Seeds strains on the other hand smell real nice.

 

[Buddler]

Green looking good, taco leaves can be low humidity, drinking more water then nutes hence salt buildup, as you are figuring out on your own. I agree a low nute flush get your ph up. Keep postin man your getting things dialed hopefully the low smelling weed will come out with a good cure in the jars no hay smell, Next grow maybe look into getting some drip clean.. Bud

 

[papaduc]

That's a nice canopy mate.

Don't worry about the lack of smell on the headbands... It's something I noticed with them, they're not a strong smelling plant. But they do make up for it when they're dry and in a joint.

Drop the ec of the hesi base on them by 0.2, in fact on the next feed drop it by 0.4, but leave the PK in there.

Sorry, I've just re-read and you said you're going to lower the ec to 0.9. Make that up with 0.3 base + 0.4 PK on top of your tap, just for this feed, then carry on at 0.8ec, made up of 0.4 base and 0.2 PK on top of your tap. Put the PK in first. They should be good on that.