First vertical donut

[Ichabod Crane]

Somewhere around 4-5 weeks. The top half off the screens is pretty loaded with nice colas, but the bottom half isn't as full. There's a Few random buds down there, but it's not what I was going for. not sure if this strain is the best for vert, or of I just need to prune and train differently? I think I'll get a decent haul, but not the solid wall of colas I see in some of these vert grows.
Thoughts?

-gil

Try bending some of the upper branch tips back down. The top of the branch will release auxins and slow any lower buds from filling out. It will also stop lower branches from stretching. By bending the tip down it stops auxins from getting to the lower parts of the plant. Then after they start to stretch let any stretching branch reach for the lights. Tie them back to the screens when this happens only when you have to.

It is better to over veg when you do this. That way you can clean out all the smaller branches and use the tips to fill in with. The tips will give you the best buds. This will add more work when you place hem into flower but it is worth it.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Thanks for the tips! I think that makes sense. The problem does seem to be a lack of main growing tips on the lower half. I think the placement of the lower bulb is fine. I was considering trying to match a stretchy strain with a low stretch strain to let them fill the top and bottom separately, if that makes sense. Has anyone ever tried to do it that way?

 

[Ichabod Crane]

That would be very difficult to control. I would not do it, but it is your grow.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

That's why I'm asking. I really don't know what I'm doing, so I'll take advice from more experienced growers. I might try it on just one of my 4 screens just a an experiment.
Thanks for helping out.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Go ahead try it. Who knows you may learn a better style. Just don't make it your main grow till you know it works.

Me I don't like heavy sativa or indica strains for screens. To hard to keep in the right place with sativa and to much chopping of the plant with indicas. I want a plant that will stretch about 10 inches in flower.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Thanks IC. Your vert thread in your sig is one of the ones that made me want to try the vert style. I just don't have the nerve to strip them like you do. I tried to trim out as much little nonsense as I could, but nothing like your naked girls. Help me understand. On that thread you have pics from when you striped them and there are not that many tips left on the plants. But then you come back 2 months later, and it's a solid wall of bud?! Where did all the bud come from? If you remove all but like 15 growing tips at the flip, then shouldn't you end up with like 15 buds in the end? . My brain just can't make sense of your grow.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I only took off the fans. I don't normally take that many leaves when I put them into flower. I only did that because I wanted to completely get rid of the spider mites that the plants had. For that reason only I removed the leaves to get better coverage when I sprayed for the mites.

The reason the plants bounced back was because it had the root mass to support the growth. They also had the energy reserves because the mites had just attacvked the plants.

As for the tips being only 15 that is not entirely true. Because the way I tied them to the screens and opened up the inside of the plant more tips grew from the existing branches. These sites where exsposed to the light and grew branches.

It also has to do with plants that are a good fit for the way I grow. Not to much stretch taht is hard to tie to the screen. And also not so little that the screen does not fill in fully. Some where close to 50/50 indica to sative.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Thanks for all the tips guys! I'm sure it'll get a little better with each run. And this one isn't going to be a loss, just not the solid wall I had in my mind after reading IC's thread, and some others. I'm also in the process of sorting seeds and pheno hunting, so I might find a more suitable pheno eventually. I've only got about 3 weeks left on this run, so I'm not sure there's much more I could do. There are more fans in there than some of you guys leave, but I don't know if slowly removing them at this point will help?
I'm grateful for any advice anyone has, so please keep it coming. My hope is that perhaps someone else might also learn from my grow and the advice given.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Here they are at 7 weeks. Just hacked a bunch of fans, and tied lots of floppy buds back to the screen.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

.

 

[olddirtybastard]

Wow that's a lot better than my first attempt at vertical

What you got there looks about right. Definitely do not be afraid to grow them a little oversized, extra leaves and branches can always be pruned. I wish I had some pictures of when I started using screens for my vert...

Another good technique is to take all the long stemmed large fan leaves and tie them in bunches then tuck them behind the screen to give the buds light. Time consuming all the training and trimming, one session usually took me a good 4-6 hours, but so worth it in vert.

 

[Relentless]

very nice Gil. glad to see you separated the lights from each other so now they can be adjusted independently.. when I was running a vert system I made the same mistake and the first grow the top light was pretty useless.. got the thread tagged, will be following along.
keep up the good work!

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Glad to see you here relentless!
Especially since the next run in this donut will be mostly your strains! Got about 12 days left. Switching to strait ro water to flush.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

A few random buds at around 9 weeks :

Lemon skunk X bluedigiberry f2


Unknown OG

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Did u cross that lemonsk x blue digi? Looks nice, have u ran it before?

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Yeah, my cross. Check out the bluedigiberry Thread for the first run of it :
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=265726

This one is just a little one I I put in late to fill the bottom. It's just got a few buds on it. The first run was in my horizontal cab, and the buds good huge. Super frosty and smells awesome.

 

[Gil Tokerson]

Chopped at 73 days. Ended up with a nice pile of stanky flowers:


I've got more, just need to upload them.

 

[Hundred Gram Oz]

Nice work, Gil! Looks like some killer bud too.

Peace,
HGO