If at first you don't succeed

I can think of some advantages.

1. By lollipoping a bushed plant you are allowing for more light to flowering sites.
2. By lollipoping a bushed plant you are encouraging the plant to focus its energy to the tops.
3. A plant that is not topped such as the ones I am growing now will have more budding sites, therefore, better light penetration is achieved by thinning.
4. Despite thinning at day 21, the plant will replace some of that foliage regardless.
   The first two weeks of flowering is a transition period. By week three the plant is now focused on flowers and not on vegetation. So, I guess this is a good time to remove the larger fan leaves so the nutrients can be sent to the flowering sites instead of being wasted on vegetation that is not necessary. However, I am now contemplating a somewhat different theory based on House & Gardens claim that their product BudXL forces the plant to transport existing sugars from leaves into the flowers. Therefore, I am theorizing that perhaps it might be good to leave more of those leaves on, since there is a great deal of sugar in those fan leaves. That is IF BudXL actually does what it claims.

You have seen my plants and the light penetration I’m getting there. On one plant some of the lower flowers are bending the branches down and twisting. I’ve had to tie them up. They’re getting big

It seems that no matter how much I clip off, that GDP still looks bushy though there is good circulation underneath the canopy.

I flipped them on Dec. 27 and removed the restraints to let them finish with minimal stress. I hope I have enough headroom.

Pistils are starting to increase so I should see some budlets coming along. No issues so far with environment or media. They take 2L per day now which I alternate with added molasses.

Should be interesting to see how badly the light will affect final output.

Cheers all.

GDP:

PP:

GDP:

Looking pretty awesome

Beautiful they have you, the eye rejoices! What a light you have?

Thanks. I am using a TS1000 in the tent and a 10W LED flood lamp in the closet for vegging. It’ll probably get switched around again once I upgrade my lights. I am impressed with that 10W flood I keep about 12" over the young GDP. I am thinking maybe a gang of 3-4 would be good for a small veg area. Cheap too!

Once again, I made sure that the LEDs are now good. I want to switch to LED bulbs. I have a 400-watt Sylvania Grolux high-pressure sodium lamp in my tent. I think two 120 watt LED panels will be enough for a tent of 100 by 100 centimeters.

I’d love to set up my HID again if only I can figure out a way to control temps without resorting to air conditioning.

I also love this light, it’s like a living warm. It is not difficult for me to control the temperature in winter, there is a specific minus outside. Now it is warmer -18 Celsius. And in the summer it is up to +40 sometimes it is hot in the tent. I try to grow in the open air in the summer. One problem with humidity is that the room is very dry.

Week 3 flowering update:

GDP:

PP:

Budlets starting to form up. Environment has been steady at 70-77F lights on with ~50% RH. Lights off does not vary much temp wise but RH drops to ~30%.

Been raising lights too as the plants average a 1cm growth overnight. Should stop stretch soon I hope as I am fast running out of room. But if I do, I will have to resort to supercropping.

Tent shot:

The youngest GDP still puttering along in the closet with a 10w flood lamp:

Cheers all.

Oh here it comes…oh here it comes. Beautiful

Starting week 4 flower:

GDP:

Punch Pie:

Pollinated buds:

GDP:

I guess I’ve been lucky with the environment so far. It looks small compared to what I used to get with HID but…oh well. I have another light planned for the following grow.

Cheers.

Next two in the roster:

Unknown gender GDP that has been idling in the closet under a 10w LED lamp:

And the GDP clone that was left in the fridge for 2 weeks prior to transplant:

She still droops when I removed the inner dome though it did take a couple of hours to do so. I suppose by next week she would have rooted. This one I plan on using my 15G pot using the same soil from the HID grow. The worms have pretty much taken care of any roots.

Still chugging along:

GDP:

Cola that is by far edge of light:

I would have thought it would be smaller than the main seeing as how it was further away.

PP:

Still not impressed with growth characteristics. I am hoping the seeds I made with the shorter Afghani’s pollen will tame it down.

Seeded buds:

GDP:

All in all, I am happy with the progress even though my lights are underpowered. That should change soon. Temps and RH have remained unchanged. Watered today with tea of alfalfa, hi-P guano, compost and molasses.

Cheers.

I would cover the two soldering points with a drop of silicone on each or at the very least electricians tape to prevent a couple rough drops from causing a short.

Dude you are skilled!

The two points in the circleare the danger and theline through shows what could happen
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I was wondering what you were talking about until I remembered that flood lamp. Yeah, I should insulate it to prevent shorting them out and have been meaning to lay some layers of fingernail polish on them. It’s one of those things that are temporary until they morph into permanency, hah hah.

But yes you are 100% correct. Thanks.

GDP has started to show her true colors this past week:

At lights on, temps hover between 70-73 with RH steady at around ~50%. Lights off however sees the RH drop to 29% with temps dropping to 66. Still have to fiddle with the environment as the setup is dependent on outside air.

The Punch Pie is also showing purpling albeit not as obvious as the GDP.

More evident on seeded bud:

Not too bad for 150w out the wall don’t you think? Please ignore the pic captions. I keep forgetting to change the settings on the phone cam.

Cheers.

Well, it seems like they are not going to get any bigger:

I had to chop the PP down in the start of week 6. It hermied on me which was something I had been expecting since it was bag seed. So now I just have these itty-bitty buds to allow to mature.

Main cola:

Some side branches:

I’ve managed to keep temps stable at ~70 during lights on with RH at ~40%. Lights off temps does go down to the mid 60s with RH at ~25%. Not ideal but I had to remove the small humidifier in my tent due to the white dust it emitted coating everything inside. My tap water is too calcified and I would need an RO system to run that properly. I could only imagine how that coating affected the plant as a whole. Sigh…another expense.

Cheers and happy growing.