I have 2 auto plants on day 42, new grower, would you defoliate these?

[The123321]

I am new to growing. I have 2 auto plants on day 42 that are very short and bushy and here are a few images on there. What do you think?

I made a few mistakes in the grow. I had what looked like light stress and heat stress then I raised the light to around 30" from the tops of the plants and have worked to keep the temperature in the tent lower for it. I am working on trying to fix what looks like calmag deficiency on there. The plant at the right was given mostly jobes fertilizer spikes to see if that would work and the right plant does not look as good as the left plant. I am just trying to keep it going to harvest what I can on it. The left plant is the 1 that I am mainly trying to get a good harvest on as it is not nearly as bad looking as the right plant is on there.

It is hard to water the plants without making a mess. I want there to be really good air flow and I want to do what I can to keep mold out of the buds. Would you defoliate these plants? What would you do if these were your plants? Would you start cutting out a few leaves a day or go ahead and trim it down a lot now while it is still early in flowering on there?

The details for it

• The plants are northern cheese haze autos by mephisto on day 36 in 3 gallon fabric pots of coco coir with perlite
• 32x32 tent with 240w kingbrite led quantum board on like 75% power at like 30" on 24/0
• Temperature around 75-79f and RH around 50%
• The 2 plants have Dr. Earth Organic Tomato Vegetable 4-6-3 and Dr. Earth Bud & Bloom Flower Girl 3-9-4 that I mixed in with the coco on there.
  • The left plant had 1/4 cup total of 75% 4-6-3 with 25% 3-9-4 then on day 30 I top dressed 1/8 cup total of 50% 4-6-3 with 50% 3-9-4.
  • The right plant had 1/8 cup total of 75% 4-6-3 with 25% 3-9-4 with 2 jobes 4-4-4 fertilizer spikes in it then on day 30 I put 1 jobes 4-4-4 with 1 jobes 2-7-4 fertilizer spikes in it then 1 jobes 2-7-5 spike on like day 40 on there.
• I hand water daily with around 1/3 gallon of tap water to each plant with around 3 ml/gallon of calmag that I ph to around 5.8 - 6.2. I do not water to runoff on there. I did a 2 gallon per plant flush with ph water with calmag a few days ago on there.

What do you think? Tips or recommendations? What would you do for it on there?

 

[Pennywise]

Look at it from the top a remove any leaves blocking light. Autos I wouldn’t do a lot at this point you don’t want to slow them down any.

 

[Apoc]

Get some real fertilizer quick, PH your water, add Cal/Mag.

Do those and you can get a decent harvest. If you can't find anything else grab tomato fertilizer.

Defoliate, I do myself and had good luck. Start by just opening up 5 or 6 bud spots twice a week. Once big nugs appear you can defoliate a little more aggressive.

I've got two sour Lowryder auto in a side by side, one defoliated and one not, the defoliated will be a substantially larger harvest.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I personally would watch density closely. And I would be more concerned of mold potential.
My last auto grow I had some mold @45% humidity. After being told a bunch “you won’t get mold at that humidity” And it was due to not enough aeration through the plant.

Next time I face this. I will chop anything I need to, to get it under control. Cause the alternative for me would be to still have to butcher the plants to remove the affected stuff anyways. Which is a stress on flowering, and the loss of some really big nugs.

And you definitely have some deficiency/toxicity issues. Looks like you still have a little ways to go. So I would definitely try to get that under control!

 

[skirk]

With another 40-50 days to go, I'd clear out under growth to facilitate your thoughts on airflow. Seems like you'll be eliminating a lot of problems on your future grows. As to making a mess, I epoxied a flexible oils spout to my Fiskars water jug for hard to reach areas and to reduce flow. It's functional. Good first grow and good luck. Auto BlueBerry Domina. Day 57.

 

[Apoc]

A car transmission funnel is an easy cheap way to water. Think mine was 2.99 free shipping on Amazon.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I use a tile saw pump! Works like a dream.

 

[bebecillo]

Check fertilizer/water as everyone suggested and chop on friday. Your plant is resting today, if you prune today she's gonna get stressed. More info in my signature.