I snipped...52 branches out of the canopy from the 8 plants.
I opened the door a couple minutes before lights on and noticed the FIRST fading leaf. The canopy is thick enough, it's shading light. I've been looking at things the last couple of days wondering where the next cut off was going to be.
They haven't actually...stopped stretching yet. F'ing beasts.
I'm looking at the canopy...dismayed. I'm hearing the pecking of my fingers across several dozen of IC posts - as I consider "defoliation" - because the shading is heavy and the stretch has been wow and the lights don't penetrate deep.
So I start looking at that 16" range. I start focusing in on - pistils and resin or not - thin stems, that just aren't carrying anything but larf later. I folded down 3 or 4 four of those such branches and saw where they were sitting within the canopy. After focusing on those, and taking a step back, I could see I was making some progress. Light was hitting places it wasn't before.
The end result was me culling 52 branches, creating a new, higher canopy, that really didn't disturb the bread and butter, but has allowed WAY more light into the areas it is needed.
I didn't need to start stripping leaves. I didn't need to "defoliate". I needed proper canopy management.
This is going to get interesting. Redwood forest interesting.
dank.Frank
Good luck on the Zskittle mix frank. I've smoked a lot of Zskittle and mixes with it, and they definitely got the taste down, unfortunately though the potency seems to seriously lack with it. I'm hoping you'll find a pheno to break the mold.
@nickman - I told Karma I couldn't test unless it was something that stood a chance at IC 2020. I only have one more run before the entry has to be grown! He suggested the zkittles x as having a competitive chance, so, I'm going to give it ago. I'm really doubting it though, given I'm a potency is king sort of smoker, but I trust KG.
dank.Frank
I supper cropped the plants before the net went on, instead of topping, before they went into flower, twice. I do think I'm good though with the stretch. They are beginning to lean towards the light, which means they aren't growing any taller.
I'd prefer not to again late in flower because I think it stresses them out. My one cola self seeded a bit last round when I bent her late.
dank.Frank
I tried using a kiddie pool. It was too small and a pain in the posterior to store.Get yourself a plastic kiddie pool. It's life changing. Break up your root balls in the pool, mix your amendments, refill your bags. I find that I lose some soil volume over time for whatever reason and tend to add fresh compost and more worm castings to compensate.
When I was using pots - I always had two batches of soil in rotation. One was always the recycle round, that had just been amended. I'd leave it in the kiddie pool. Always enough for both veg and flower cycles, since it's the same mix regardless.
dank.Frank