Leave Your Plants Alone - Please!

[Justa6655321]

ILion, yes everyone has their own style that works for them and I’m glad to see you have your system down however I think most growing mistakes happen because of too much messing around. Over watering is a great example...I look at my plants and can tell if they need water or not and I’m sure most experienced growers have this ability however you don’t water every day do you or check the soil every day? I have a friend that insists on watering every other day because that's "what he was told" he has no idea what he is doing and his plants always die. Bottom line is I think most people give their plants way too much attention and handling especially new growers. They kill their plants with kindness

 

[redandblack303]

Don't touch my plants. I try to touch my girls as little as possible, too much goodness happening, let them grow, naturally.

 

[ZoeFresssh666]

great thread, Justa. A healthy tip.

 

[fishwater]

I have the perfect example... I pulled a hermie out of the room the last grow, set it in the corner of my clothes closet and forgot about it for about 3 weeks... closet door was always open but the bedroom is usually dark, but it got enough light apparently. When I found it again, it didnt look any different than it did when I put it in there, so I put it in the living room window, gave it a shot of water and let it grow. I pruned the balls off it, watered it one more time in 5 weeks. The window was cold at night... below 0 outside.. but it still produced an oz of killer weed, even with the broken stems it recieved while I was experimenting with some supercropping methods.... Just couldnt kill it......

 

[justintime420]

just dont be a robot in the garden and stick to this writen plan that you read about...just get a good feel for your strain and your plant and im sure you will be able to touch or not touch it just like justa said by simply looking at it. If its growing fine then leave it alone until you get a problem. my humble opinion

 

[B. Friendly]

FU%$ i just killed a SSSDH seedling, screwing with it to make it stand straighter. F@#$ if i only would have left it alone, down to 6 of 10 now. Sh&!

 

[Trichromedout]

I'm a pro at killing seedlings with love!!!! Its hard not to want to give them some nutes before they are ready. I have gained some restraint and learned water only till 4th or 5th node has corrected my problems. I do fine once they have some age in em' I just try to do too much too soon sometimes and it has bit me in the ass. I was stuck running Green Spirit 5 cycles cause I kept killing my seedlings. Less can definately be more especially when they are really young.

 

[StealthyStalks]

Good post! I know more than a few people who literally love their plants to death, time after time. I have always been amazed at how well my "neglected" plots have done when I couldn't care for them as much as I'd liked to. Again, good post and great point!

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

I have a young doctor likes to check and recheck every bandage and every cut, bruise, and scrape on patients. He will change bandages two or three times more than necessary and while he is being very careful he is also disturbing the body’s ability to heal itself. I have another friend that is into salt water fish and reefs….he is always putting his hands in the tank rearranging things and cleaning.

You know, it's probably just what turns them on,

So I was thinking - Don’t fidget with your stuff. Let Mother Nature do her work. Let your plants grow and leave them alone!

I think you just blew it in the growbook industry, I mean, "leave them alone" won't fill up a grow bible, lol

I have seen many growers checking and rechecking and watering and watering and babying and such….I can tell if my plants need water by just looking at them. I can tell if they are sick or healthy or need more nutrients just by looking at them.

So can I, but I still spend hours with them (and in times when tricky bugs like mites invade it's double in hours). What you're saying implies that you keep constant watch over things, which means you don't leave them alone. Coaching your plants, building their structure, trimming them to grow into a way that suits the characteristics of the genetics, will increase your productivity.
Or so my humble experience tells me.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

I like to say "give them what the need and nothing more." People are under the assumption that more nutes and more watering = more bud but it is the opposite. Less is more with cannabis.

Some pay attention and learn and some are hopelessly clueless and refuse to listen to their plants. They will forever be mediocre growers producing mediocre weed.

 

[funkervogt]

I recently started a C99 BX grow. I've been waiting for a good C99 for a while now.

I was so excited about the grow that I began over-mothering my plants. This mostly came in the form of over-watering/spraying. This resulted in fungus gnats on my new girls. I sprayed with AzaMax to kill the gnats, which have done some damage over the past few weeks, along with the (albeit minor) damage from the AzaMax.

I over-mothered. I've done this before, and told myself I wouldn't do it again. I won't lose my plants over it, that's for sure, but fuck if I didn't DO IT AGAIN!

Over-mothering kills. Ask any progeny of a ethnically middle eastern mother.

 

[xceptional]

i have to agree 100% that is always my downfall with anything new so i know it to be the truth. my issue is i spend so much time researching and learning that i want to try EVERYTHING but i cant, have to wait three months, this sucks lol. im growing hydroponic with one res so it's even worse for me because i can not just mess with one i'm messing with them all. adding in some soil plants the next run i can mess with and i'll leave my cash crop in the hydro alone.

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

I like to say "give them what the need and nothing more." People are under the assumption that more nutes and more watering = more bud but it is the opposite. Less is more with cannabis.

Let me give you some facts concerning this,

A plant has two primary ways of obtaining energy, root feeding and photosynthesis. It's like two motors running in symbiosis.

The thing is, the faster one of them runs, the faster the other motor is driven to run. Meaning that if you - as an example - up your wattage from 600w to 1000w, the plant will try to take advantage of the extra light and kick photosynthesis into a higher gear, carbohydrate production therefore increases as will cellular growth. But in order to do so, nutrient uptake from roots will have to increase as well since the plant needs more building material for growth. So, if there's a lack of nutrients, it will stall the increase in photosynthesis.
It works the other way around too. The slower one motor runs, the slower the other one will run. If you decrease light output, the whole metabolism of the plant will slow down, and since the plant now needs less nutrients, the nute levels that were dialed in before are now too high.
Equally, even if your light output and feeding are dialed in, lack of CO2 in the air (carbon is the essential building block in growth) could hold these two motors back from running at a certain potential.

So where am I going with all this? Well, saying "give them what they need and nothing more" is relative and not very helpful.

Increase light output and they WILL need more of everything. On the other hand, overdosing on nutrients while photosynthesis keeps the plant metabolism on a certain level is pointless and counter-active. I believe that's kind of what the thread starter wanted to say, no point in over-doing things if it doesn't pay off.

But, the more you know about plant metabolism, the more you can tweak it to your advantage.
Plants are very advanced biological machines. Simply saying "just leave it alone" is kind of like saying "just leave your car alone, it will work best if you don't mess with it".

True if you don't know anything about cars, not true if you're a fine mechanic.

 

[blinx420]

Am too lazy to overtend my plants hell I only water when i feel like it lmao!! once in a while I like to look at them to see how much they've grown tho but yeah they seem to be happy..

 

[Classyathome]

True Dat!!!

Netwerx had kinda slacked off w/ regard to our grow - we were revegging some FMS SuperSkunk.

Last time I was over, we got really high, and he told me he thought they were dead, as he hadn't watered, fed or even looked at them in "quite awhile".

Well - they were huge, I mean really bushy, green, beautiful...

Cannabis is a weed - it loves life, and is VERY tenacious.

 

[Balance]

Gonna have to vote for the K.I.S.S. crowd.

 

[Montana]

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/farm-for-the-future/

 

[stoney917]

whats up everyone it all depends on ur style i wish i can leave my buckets alone 4 a few days i grow in 5gal waterfarm dwc each bucket is seperated and individual im a lazy person on my down time and i noticed if i dont adjust my ph back down to 5.5 range every 24 hrs if i let it go 48hrs im at 7-7.5 way to high evrey 24hrs my ph is at 6.2-6.4 it goes up about 1 full point everyday. the days im feelin lazy and i let it go up it doesnt show neg effects but i bring it down first thing in the morning and hope no damage was done sommetimes i wish i grew in dirt or had bigger buckets so i can go away and leave my babies without worrying the whole time but i chose my method like my results so i must put in the work i noticed that later on in flower i can top up my buckets witha lower ph ro water around 5.2 and it seems slow the ph increase but i havent dialed that part in yet and the amt of water added will never be the same depending on what the plants wants that day and the day before and the next day but all that said to each there own and u lucky soil growers have the ability to ignore ur ladies ur very lucky but to all my hydro growers out there like me keep checkin atleast 1x a day even if u do n othin some days i go into the room to adjust my ph and end up staring at my plants for a few hours doin nothing but admiring theyre beauty and forget to adjust the ph but i would never let it go more then 2 days
DIRT PEOPLE =LEAVE IT ALONE
HYDRO=DAILY INSPECTION

 

[Khyber13]

Growing Weed

Growing Weed

Marijuana needs alot of Attention. Leaf removal does stunt the growth of plants. For me I feed my plants 2 times & come back in 1-2 days and let them get larger then Re-load. Im Still a Fan of Suppercropping, Topping & Femming. A plant can go from seed to 1 ft in about a month.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Let me give you some facts concerning this,

A plant has two primary ways of obtaining energy, root feeding and photosynthesis. It's like two motors running in symbiosis.

The thing is, the faster one of them runs, the faster the other motor is driven to run. Meaning that if you - as an example - up your wattage from 600w to 1000w, the plant will try to take advantage of the extra light and kick photosynthesis into a higher gear, carbohydrate production therefore increases as will cellular growth. But in order to do so, nutrient uptake from roots will have to increase as well since the plant needs more building material for growth. So, if there's a lack of nutrients, it will stall the increase in photosynthesis.
It works the other way around too. The slower one motor runs, the slower the other one will run. If you decrease light output, the whole metabolism of the plant will slow down, and since the plant now needs less nutrients, the nute levels that were dialed in before are now too high.
Equally, even if your light output and feeding are dialed in, lack of CO2 in the air (carbon is the essential building block in growth) could hold these two motors back from running at a certain potential.

So where am I going with all this? Well, saying "give them what they need and nothing more" is relative and not very helpful.

Increase light output and they WILL need more of everything. On the other hand, overdosing on nutrients while photosynthesis keeps the plant metabolism on a certain level is pointless and counter-active. I believe that's kind of what the thread starter wanted to say, no point in over-doing things if it doesn't pay off.

But, the more you know about plant metabolism, the more you can tweak it to your advantage.
Plants are very advanced biological machines. Simply saying "just leave it alone" is kind of like saying "just leave your car alone, it will work best if you don't mess with it".

True if you don't know anything about cars, not true if you're a fine mechanic.

I agree, although my statement was not meant to be taken as "just leave it alone." It was more along the lines of "find what makes them happy and keep it there."

Using your automotive comparison as an example, high nutrient levels (comparatively) is like running methanol in your Honda. It's the wrong fuel for the application. Conversely, running 87 in your Ferrari will result in detonation. Just like tuning a car, you need to have all the factors in the equation to get a proper solution.

Of course I'll need to ramp up nutrient levels if the light levels are increased. That really wasn't my point. My point was that if I have a nutrient solution that is meeting all the plants requirements for photosynthesis, it is not necessarily advantageous to raise the PPM's. It is more likely to cause stress than do anything beneficial.