Pizzaguy2023
420 Member
First grow, just started to flower. Was thinking of thinning to get more light. Where and how much?
First Grow need help on defoliation on Pineapple Express Auto
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Personally I only train autos no pruning no topping only pulling down of main stem for lower growth apical dominance to occur.
skirk
Well-Known Member
When my autos go into preflower I remove large fans covering bud sites and lower fans to open up. Three weeks later I repeat. This works for my auto grows.
Delps8
Well-Known Member
I don't remove leaves "to expose bud sites" because, one, I've never seen any data to support the practice and, second, bud sites do not need direct light to mature, and, third, bud sites are poor at photosynthesizing whereas the the leaves, usually fan leaves, that are removed have the primary function of converting light to sugar and other chemicals that are needed for a plant to survive. Other than that, I think it's an excellent idea.
If you want more light on your plant, put more light on your plant.
Cannabis will thrive at light levels of 1000±µmols. Yield and crop quality increase in an almost linear manner as light levels increase. There's lots of research on this and the dozen or so papers that I've read since I've been growing make similar arguments re. light amount and spectrum.
My advice, and you can read my journals which show, one, I practice what I preach and, second, cannabis will produce prodigious amount of flower in a small space, would be for you to get a light meter and get your light levels as close to 1kµmols as possible. That's $25 for the light meter, turn the power up for your light, and, if the rest of your grow is going well, you will get a significant increase in crop yield and quality.
If you want more light on your plant, put more light on your plant.
Cannabis will thrive at light levels of 1000±µmols. Yield and crop quality increase in an almost linear manner as light levels increase. There's lots of research on this and the dozen or so papers that I've read since I've been growing make similar arguments re. light amount and spectrum.
My advice, and you can read my journals which show, one, I practice what I preach and, second, cannabis will produce prodigious amount of flower in a small space, would be for you to get a light meter and get your light levels as close to 1kµmols as possible. That's $25 for the light meter, turn the power up for your light, and, if the rest of your grow is going well, you will get a significant increase in crop yield and quality.
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Pizzaguy2023
420 Member
Thanks for the reply Delps8, I will read through your journals. Im using a free light meter from my phonenot sure if that suffces.
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- #6
Pizzaguy2023
420 Member
I will train on my second grow. Too late on this one. Plus I doing DWC and need to figure out a good way to secure the tie downs.
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- #7
Pizzaguy2023
420 Member
When my autos go into preflower I remove large fans covering bud sites and lower fans to open up. Three weeks later I repeat. This works for my auto grows.
- Thread starter
- #8
Pizzaguy2023
420 Member
Thanks for the advice. Pictures help a great deal.
Delps8
Well-Known Member
My choices:
- Apogee, Li-Cor PAR/ePar meter. I don't have any info about Spot On. The cheap "quantum" meters on the 'Zon have range and quality issues.
- Light meter
- Manufacturer's recommendations
- Photone
After testing Photone (twice) on my iPhone and trading email with the programmer, I would recommend a lux meter. I use a Uni-T UT383 and have tested is against my Apogee, which is calibrated annually.
I realize that the Photone is < $$ than a light meter but, unless you can calibrate the output from Photone against a known good source, you may get readings that are too high or too low.
I've traded email with their programmer (I've been writing software for a living since the early 90's) and one of the challenges he faces is that he can write the software to correct for the issues in a given sensor but there are a huge number of phones out there, with many different sensors and those sensors may change with each model year. Not an easy task to keep up with that.
iPhones are easier for the software to deal with (full disclosure - I worked for Apple for three years but I'm not an Apple fanboi) but since there are so many different phones, it is a crap shoot. When tested on an XSMax, which is an older phone, there was no reading with a "blurple" light and, when I tested it against a Growcraft, the results from Photone were 16% high. It's good that the error was consistent but the fact that it was 16% high was surprising.
Results of my second Photone test:
Another light issue - disregard the PPFD graphic for autos that displays on the growlightscience.com web site. After trading email with them about Photone, I enquired about the source for their numbers. Their rationale was that a DLI of 45 was what is recommended for photoperiod cannabis so that's what they recommend for autos. Autos will grow quite nicely at 45 mols but there's no particular reason to give them only 45 mols. Many auto growers give their grows far higher light levels than 45 mols and their results are well over 500 gm/meter sq.
I'm not banging on Photone…only. The folks at Migro are in the same boat. The light levels that Shame, the president of the company, recommends are well below optimal and, once again, zero research to back up their recommendations. Shane did a YT video with Bruce Bugbee and, when the good Doctor talked about light levels ≈ 1kµmols, you could see Shane having his WTF moment about light levels. The lights from Migro are "brilliant" design but they're > 100µmols shy of hitting the light saturation point.
