Can someone tell me why the bottom two third of my plants are crap?

[Psyco G]

I only get big dank buds from the top third of all my plants, the bottoms usually die or go to nothing, what can I do to stop this, or should I just strip it all off?

 

[quokka]

Lots of people just take all of the lower 'popcorn' off so they get nicer colas.

 

[quokka]

I forgot to say, maybe the bottoms are insignificant because the tops are dense and taking all of the light?

Not enough light gets through the canopy.

 

[Psyco G]

My light is quite high, to I think next crop I'll either strip some fan leaves or just take the bottom stuff off

 

[Phatlewtz]

Prune the shit out of the bottom 2/3,,,, read the medman law of 4..my quality went up a amountnoticable

 

[JamieShoes]

sure... you have poor light penetration down there.


edit - so do most of us... it's good advice to remove the bottom third entirely (I do anyway)

edit2 I see you think your light is high... how high? Do you do the 30 second hand test? ie you hold your hand flat at the height of your tallest bud and see if it gets "uncomfortable" within 30 seconds... otherwise 18 inches is about right for a bare bulb and around 5-8 inches for a cooltube.

 

[SS-]

Yep. I trim bottom half to two third depending on strain and get much better nuggage using the Medman way. Really not any larf left on the plant and still about the same yield. Sometimes slightly less when I get too aggressive.

 

[Psyco G]

My light is right at the top of my tent, I have been experimenting with strains and had a couple of sativas grow right into it a couple of grows ago.

I only visit once a week sometimes less and have a friend water and feed, they tend not to pay much attention and just unzip water and zip up.

So I moved my light, recently I've settled on a strain I like so I will have a better idea of where to put it in relation to the plants, I may invest in some of those ropes that let you raise and lower it easily. As atm the are tied with rope.

So remove ing the fan leaves is a no no for you guys then?

 

[Psyco G]

Anyone got a link for the median law of four?

 

[JamieShoes]

here ya go - https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=258224

 

[JamieShoes]

My light is right at the top of my tent, I have been experimenting with strains and had a couple of sativas grow right into it a couple of grows ago.

I only visit once a week sometimes less and have a friend water and feed, they tend not to pay much attention and just unzip water and zip up.

So I moved my light, recently I've settled on a strain I like so I will have a better idea of where to put it in relation to the plants, I may invest in some of those ropes that let you raise and lower it easily. As atm the are tied with rope.

So remove ing the fan leaves is a no no for you guys then?

I remove around 25-30% of larger (lower) fans and if theres a big one shading a nice bud site at the top, that comes off too... there is no hard and fast rules with regards pruning... I've seen threads which advocate removing much much more than I do personally and others which say a leaf is there to do a job and NO leaves should come off... for me 25-30% seems to be right...

I also prune depending on my humidity... if the humidity is too high, removing a bunch of fat fans will reduce it.. (dont go crazy with that tho)

ANOTHER THING - If your light is "too" far away, it will cause the plants to stretch into it... this means you'll have much longer internodes... which will mean a thinner weaker plant.

you can get the easy rollers bro, but you can also get cheap chains and s-hooks from the B&Q/Home Depot

edit - my pruned and finished plant would look like this...

 

[Psyco G]

Thanks for the help bro, my plants look just like that but with extra shit at the bottom, some of the bigger fan leaves die off in late flush, so I'd need to prune well before that maybe in late veg early flower so the lower bud sites get the most of the light.


I'm running psycosis atm it does stretch but nothing bad. I'll dial it in again. I used to have decent bud all the way up when I grew at my old site but I did have CFls at low level and pruned every fan leaf. I also knew my strains a lot better so knew what I could get away with, I've not grown for a few years, I could get the same bud from a smaller plant quicker than a bigger plant that I lost two thirds of, it's wasted veg time really isn't it? Two thirds of a plant is a lot to lose, I was sure I was getting more by keeping them smaller.

 

[JamieShoes]

I used to wonder about the veg time vs lost lower bud, but what I find is I don't actually lose any weight It seems the energy which would have been used to maintain those lower bud sites is diverted to the tops which swell just that little bit more... the plants (like the one in the pic) that are in 12 liter pots (of coco) come out on average about 70g... but with a lot less popcorn - which also means a lot less fannying on at trim time

p.s my personal method is to only remove ONE third

 

[Psyco G]

The only reason I done it how I did was because I was a strain junkie I used to like to get em in and get em out quick so the next new thing could go in. I ran a perpetual system.

It's hard trying to remember why I done things, because we all adapt our methods to how we grow. I don't remember what I used to pull as I never weighed it, I know my mate worked it out once and I was pulling a gram per watt, 1.2 I think it was.

Now I have to adapt to a new environment and the challenges it brings. I'll get there though.

Maybe I got more bottom growth before because I had plants at different stages of flower so light was able to get through better?

 

[Psyco G]

Like I had a system of what I fed and how I done things, which worked perfect for me, now at this new site I'm having to change loads of things I used to do, as I can't get to my plants everyday so if I over feed I might not be able to flush for four days, and things like that.