Tangerine Dream Defoliation

I decided to do the defoliation today. I took about 2 showboxes full of leaves and small branching and by the end I was able to feel the air coming all the way through the plant again. I was very happy with how she turned out. I think I took just the right amount.

Before Sideshot.
After Sideshot.
Before Canopy.
After Canopy.
 
Y’all makin me blush talkin about my grows over here. Lol. I believe whole heartedly in the quadline and I will be using that method with all my photoperiod girls for sure. The Autos will mainly be filler in smaller pots and I will just have to learn more about them and the timing of when to do things to them and decide which ones might do well with the quad and which ones would do better without the topping.
As for Doc’s Kit....I’m learning more about it each day. I ordered a refractometer that should be here Monday to measure Brix levels. I don’t think the G13 will be in the High Brix level. I’m certain the Chem 91’ will be at this point. Doc noticed a drop in brix after defoliation. So I’m curious to see first hand how it changes things. And I want to find a way to maximize the amount I can defol and maintain High Brix levels. I imagine at some point after my understanding of the different parts of docs kit increases and after some trial and error, that I will have my own way to use the kit with the quadline method that will maximize the benefits of each. That’s my goal anyway. I want to document it all and hopefully it will be a simple process for someone else someday. I appreciate the kind words of affirmation.....especially coming from 2 growers that I really look up to.
 
I don't think Doc would sponsor that and I would really have a hard time spending more money just to try it out.

The kit is inexpensive! It's like $92 from doc but you need to locally source pro mix 3.8 cu ft bale for around 45 and 20-30 lbs of EWC another 35 so all in $172. The soil will get you 6 #7's or 4 #10's, approx 42 gallons of soil which you can reuse 3 times or more. The nutes in that 92 kit will only last 1 grow and you could need extra trans drench and growth drench if you feed heavy which a lot of us are doing. @neikodog is experimenting with pro mix that is 25% coco with great results but that is an advanced move.

Real quick plug here Ase. I am a kit grower for life. The produce is nothing short of amazing. It's all organic, very easy to grow, no ph corecting, no flushing, great support. I see your in a grove but maybe something to consider in the future. You can train as usual. The kit is very forgiving so no worries about any talk about schedule. It's all very loose.

:passitleft:
 
The kit is inexpensive! It's like $92 from doc but you need to locally source pro mix 3.8 cu ft bale for around 45 and 20-30 lbs of EWC another 35 so all in $172. The soil will get you 6 #7's or 4 #10's, approx 42 gallons of soil which you can reuse 3 times or more. The nutes in that 92 kit will only last 1 grow and you could need extra trans drench and growth drench if you feed heavy which a lot of us are doing. @neikodog is experimenting with pro mix that is 25% coco with great results but that is an advanced move.

Real quick plug here Ase. I am a kit grower for life. The produce is nothing short of amazing. It's all organic, very easy to grow, no ph corecting, no flushing, great support. I see your in a grove but maybe something to consider in the future. You can train as usual. The kit is very forgiving so no worries about any talk about schedule. It's all very loose.

:passitleft:

The kit definitely works and I’ve seen impressive results. I’m just not really trying anything new until I buy a house though. Gotta take care of the grown up stuff first. At that point I’ll have some more room for experimenting as I want to get into breeding too. I do want to try the kit though and it’s on my radar but I do love my coco and it’d be fun to see the differences between them in the end. Probably will get around to all that in about a year but until then I’ll stay in my lane with coco.
 
I think the best way to illustrate this will be in pictures.

This was the start of stretch. The plants were growing fast but not stretching yet. Things were growing at a good steady pace
Early stretch. Once the plant start going into stretch mode you begin to see light green color on the leaves. They are starting to grow so fast that the tips and middle of the fan leaves are a normal green leaf color but as you go towards the bottom of the leaf where the stem is you can see a much lighter green color. You can also see it near where the colas are forming because the stem is growing pretty fast as well.
Mid stretch. Things are in full force and whole fan leaves can now be that light green color because it is just pumping out growth. You see that "fresh lighter green" color everywhere and the plant is just in full force stretch mode. The fresh green is basically new growth that the plant hasn't been able to store nutrients and stuff in quite yet to darken in up.
End of stretch. The plant is still stretching a bit but the light green color is noticeably going away. There might be a little bit left on some of the fan leaves and some of the colas that are still trying to make a last push to the top of the canopy but for the most part it has slowed way down. Everything is getting back to that darker green and now the plant is forming "buttons" or budsights.

Does that work for ya @JustMeds ? Good question!
Beautiful information in this post!! Tangerine dream is looking just amazing. Seriously in awe Ase :adore:
 
Day 52 Flower Multi-Strain, Day 25 Flower Tangerine Dream

The Multi-Strain girls keep trucking along and still really no issues at all in this tent. Every time I make that statement something ends up going wrong but the airflow is good in the tent and they really seem healthy so I am banking on a strong and error free finish. It looks like I will be harvesting the Double Berry and Purple Trainwreck next weekend at the 9 week flower mark and likely the DTF a week after those and who knows on the GSC. It's still got white hairs all over but is starting to bulk up but maybe 2 weeks left for her. The Double Berry and the Purple Trainwreck seem to be both drinking less then they used to. The DTF is drinking just a tad less and the GSC is drinking the same as it has been. In my experience plants tend to drink a little less as they start the finishing process. They will also start to sag a little trying to hold up the weight of their flowers and that is also a sign I look for. I haven't said this in a while but from top to bottom I think this will be the highest quality bud I have grown to date. The smell is strong (which is a great sign for potency) and there is frost everywhere.

The DTF just keeps going strong and holding up well. The colas are growing bigger and the structure is holding very nicely, especially for being right next to the fan. Trichs on this gal were mostly clear with about 15-20% cloudy. I think she will be starting the finishing process now. To me the finishing process starts the last two weeks of a plant life. The first of the two final weeks I still give it nutrients but not as intense as before and then the last week I usually lower the feed way down and then finish the last 5 or so days with just water and molasses. So when I say this DTF is just starting that process that probably means a couple weeks left for her.


The Purple Trainwreck is sagging bigtime and I will likely have to use more ties to hold up the larger branches. I plan to harvest her in about 10 days. Her trichomes were like 30% clear, 65% cloudy and 5% amber. This plant did way better then the first one I ever grew so I am really excited to see the end results with her.


The Double Berry is like a rhino it is so strong. The buds are so fat and it isn't sagging at all. The smell is the strongest on this one out of the bunch and it is going to be very Indica. The width of the colas are really impressive to me for how short she is and this is the perfect example of why I say Indicas can be quadlined as well. They just grow differently but still have a great support structure and will get solid yields.


The GSC is a shock to me. I have been very lucky with this girl and she is turning into a phenomenal plant. She will have the tent to herself for a little bit of time I think because I think she still has a ways to go. I'm loving the structure of her though and the colas are really going to stack nicely as she gets fatter. She is really the most beautiful plant of the bunch.



Too bad for the GSC that I am growing the Tangerine Dream right now or she would be the star of the grow room. This Tangerine Dream though is getting better and better by the day. I think the structure is really good on it and is going to hold the weight of the colas well. The 4 main colas are going to be huge and everything is stacking perfectly. There is no signs of any sort of deficiency or nute burn on the leaves and they still have that nice shimmer to them. I think I am starting to exceed my own expectations of my growing ability with her and I finally have a plant that looks like a one of a kind plant. When I first got on the forums there was just a couple people who grew unreal plants and I can still imagine pictures of them in my head. Maybe in the end this Tangerine Dream will fit into that category.

Trunk. As one of my friends said, "It's turning into a real tree". The scaling goes halfway up all the branches.
Structure of the Quadline.
Sideshot. She is stacking very nicely.
Canopy. Happy to have space and airflow since the defoliation.
Cola. Should only get bigger and bigger from here!
 
Beautiful information in this post!! Tangerine dream is looking just amazing. Seriously in awe Ase :adore:
Thanks HH! I'm a very visual person so it's the best way I know how to show someone what I am talking about. I think recognizing these stages is really important when quadlining an auto! You don't know the exact time it is going to start flowering but when you can recognize the growth rates and what they look like you know when you can stop training so hard so they just grow and get good vertical size to them. That is as long as you don't have some crazy finicky autos that like to go into flower right after you top them...:hmmmm:. I've done 8-9 autos and quadlined all of them and never had that happen but autos are crazy and that's why I stick to photos for the most part.
 
Hey Everyone! About 10 months ago I started a journal with the intention of it being a long, ongoing journal. Even to the point that I thought it would be the last one that I would do no matter if it was one year or ten years later. I was finding doing journals on every grow that I did made for a lot of different journals so I decided to put it all into one. When I made that journal I never anticipated how big it would get. With the 420 Magazine Forums upgrade it switched pages numbers around and it would be very tough for new followers to find the key information that I had listed in the past. Since the forum did a revamp, I decided to do one too. I needed to update some small tweaks in my feed schedule and the way I do things now anyways so this new journal will reflect all that! Not a ton has changed so if you followed me before it will probably be along the same lines. I'm always thankful for the people that follow me and I look forward to seeing some new faces around here. I have always said that if you have any questions, please ask them. Chances are other people have the same questions as you and just wont speak up.

My History
I have been growing now for just under 2 years total. I started with 2 Mars Hydro Reflector 96s and one tent. I grew in soil and I grew all the same strain, Nirvana Aurora Indica. After this grow I decided to give coco a shot because I really liked what @TheBlaze did in his grows. I had a few hiccups to start but nothing drastic and was using a very basic feed formula, the Lucas Formula. I had good results for my first coco grow but was not thrilled with the quality of the bud. It was good but I felt like I could do better than the Lucas Formula was giving and I was right. I did some research on coco feed schedules and really learned about nutrients and put together my very own schedule. It seems to really work and a few people like @DobeWan are using it and having really gorgeous plants. I also came up with my own training method called Quadlining. This training method has quite a few people trying it out and having great results. It has landed me 3 Plant of the Months in a row here on 420Magazine. The best part is I was a total rookie when I started growing. Everything I have learned has come from this website and I'm thankful to be able to give back to this awesome community.

Feed Schedule
One of the most frequently asked questions in growing is about nutrients. You could constantly chase your tail trying to find the right way to use nutrients. In my opinion nutrients are necessary but not as important as environment or light. Both environment and light can change the amount of nutrients your plant needs but the nutrients can't say the same about effecting the other two. It is still important to get the nutrients schedule correct but the hard part is everyone's grow area is different, requiring different needs for the plants. Learning about nutrients is something worth doing. It's eye opening. I tried to follow people's schedules and realized I never fully understood what I was giving my plants and at what stages they needed boosts or decreases in certain nutrients.

With that being said I use GH products for now. It's the 3 part series as a base with cal-mag. I run a few additives as well. I might add one or two more to the lineup but am really happy with all these. They are affordable and I get very good results.


Here is my feed schedule. If I decide to veg longer then I will just follow week 5's veg nutrients until ready. With that being said, you have to learn how to read your plants. different strains use different levels of each nutrient. Some of them drink more than others. This is just my rough guide. Currently I really don't use exact measurements anymore to get the perfect ratios. I kind of know if I put certain amounts in what my end PPM will be and I haven't had to use PH up or down in a long time with this schedule. It is almost always right at 6.0.


I also pre-treat any coco that I use with a soaking of 1-1-1 N-P-K and a PPM of around 350 with cal-mag being about 150. Aways pretreat your coco and soak it. Coco is a medium with nothing in it. If you give your plant nothing it will not like it! This is one of the most common problems when transplanting or even from growing the seed from the beginning. The plant needs calcium and it can't get any unless the coco has some sort of nutes loaded into it. I also sprinkle Great White on the roots when I transplant to help the roots not miss a beat and hopefully causing very little stress when transplanting.

I water with nutes everyday and I usually mix up 5 gallons each time and then use that to water for a couple days. In the beginning I try to keep the coco relatively damp and not saturated. I am a firm believer that roots want to go exploring and if they are have enough water then they won't. A larger root mass means a larger plant and more bud potential. I run a drain to waste system by hand feeding but I don't always want to see runoff, in fact most of the time I don't want runoff. In the first weeks of veg I get very little runoff ever. As the plants get larger and enter vigorous veg I start to get runoff every few waterings. After stretch in flower I begin watering twice a day. The first watering I don't want runoff and usually if I give the same amount a while later it will cause just a little runoff or none at all. This happens daily, by now the roots have filled the pot and the plant should be focusing on bud swelling. The biggest key to watering is knowing how heavy your pots are when full saturated and how light they are when dry. You can judge how much each plant is drinking according to that and it's the best way to do so.

Once a week I water to runoff of about 30% just to flush out any buildup of salts. I usually will only water once the next day to keep things from over-saturating. You will not kill your plants by overwatering in coco but you can do damage to the roots if they are constantly soaked. It can also cause algae buildup and bugs love that. The very last two-ish weeks I flush the plants (about 12 days before I want to pull them) and use Florakleen and ph to 6.0. I measure runoff until it is the same as what is coming out and then from there on I water as needed with regular, unPH'd water until the end. The Florakleen breaks down any remaining salts and the water flushes them out. By PH'ing to 6.0 it allows the plant to grab anything else it needs before I lock it out with regular water so it can finish.

The best way to determine how much to water is to pick your whole plant up right after you give it a full watering (with some drainage coming out the bottom). Use that as your gauge for how much the plant needs. I like to keep my plants to where they are asking for water a little bit everyday. The pots are usually pretty light when I pick them up. I noticed in my last grow the saturation of roots happened at the bottom of the pots mainly. I am use Hydroton now to prevent that. My water is a ppm of 34, which is great. I make beer as well and we are known for having some of the best water. In coco it is essential to always keep cal-mag levels at a certain base. Plants in coco use a lot of both. I fill my 5 gallon bucket with water and then add cal-mag until my PPM is 200. After that I add nutes to hit the PPM for the week using the N-P-K ratios listed in the table. These ratios are based on what the plant needs at given points in the 10 week flower lifecycle.

I will focus a lot on quadlining and training when the time comes. The girls I will be training are Chemdawg, Purple Envy, Super Iced Grapefruit and White Rhino. All plants who either won me an award or I've had great results from. I will do a separate post on those later. Thanks to all that come along for the ride this time! To all newer people, please ask questions if you have any!

Click Here to Jump to Quadline Training in Detail
Well my water is 120 out of the tap,so should I put in calendar mag in till say 300 ppm?,then nutes,then pH to5.8?
 
Great Update Ase! The GSC is beautiful. What’s the breeder on that one again. I know that’s been asked a couple times. And of course the TD.....yassss!

Ape Origin GSC. I won it in a prize pack for Grow Journal of the Month. I’ve got one more seed of it left I think.
 
I know there's lots of love for the Tangerine Dream and the GSC, but that Double Berry is structured nicely and has awesome colas. Indicas absolutely can and should be quadlined - you get to open up the stout structure, and the short height means you can easily get good penetration through the length of the cola.

I feel like trying soil in the future fits with the willingness to experiment that you've had. I know for me it's only a matter of when. It won't make sense for me for the near future but I'll try it eventually.
 
Day 56 Flower Multi-Strain, Day 29 Flower Tangerine Dream

Since I did a more detailed post last time on the Multi-Strain girls, I decided to keep it simple with these ones. Literally nothing has changed since the last update. The trichs are all the same as well. The Purple Trainwreck and Double Berry will likely start getting just water and molasses in a couple days. Harvest for them is in about a week.

Side tent shot. You can see more of the purpling of the Purple Trainwreck now.

The Tangerine Dream is looking as good as I could have imagined at this point. The "Dream" smell is coming out now so it now smells like an orange tic tac with a fruity/piney finish.

Cola.
Canopy.
Sideshot. The stacking is going very well!
 
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