LJFM White Widow Grow

[LJFM]

Trouble strikes again, this time doubled! But one of the problems actually negated the other problem a bit

Allow me to elaborate, I set my side dome light on a new smaller stand and I guess some tape got loose and it fell...right on to my plant

BUT luckily? my timer somehow got messed up again ( I think one of my cats may have been messing around near it) so while I was gone it wasn't getting fried for another 3 hours..

So a few less hours to her day but she's walking away with only some minor damage. Only 2 branches were affected and only 2 or 3 leaves are badly damaged between them.

Clearly I have bad luck but I guess misfortune is more likely to happen in cheap on the fly grows. She's still Truckin and so am I. And when I get to toke her at the end of it all I'll get to look back and say What a Long Strange Trip its Been

 

[ggrant]

Believe it or not, some growers do this on purpose, LJ!

It's call HST (Heavy Stress Training). Basically you damage the plant, and as it repairs itself, it not only grows stronger, it produces more bud sites (that's why it's done).

I've used LST (Light Stress Training), which is basically tieing down the main colas as the plant grows. This is done to limit plant height. Call me a softie, but I'm not interested in using HST.

Send a picture when you get a chance.

 

[Louis]

I got some pretty good pictures of LST training on my grow journal. It seems to be going okay, I first topped the plant then tied down the 4 main branches. Hope the rest of your grow has no more mishaps and I will be following..

 

[LJFM]

Welcome aboard Louis!

I'll get some pictures up when I get home from work tonight

 

[LJFM]

I got her out to take pics of the light damage and I saw some mite webbing. So I went around the whole plant clearing any I could find and smooshing any mites I saw underneath. I only see one ladybug left alive now so I'm going to try something else. I just ordered some Liquid Lady bug. It's supposed to be completely safe around humans and pets and safe during flowering.

I'm going to keep pulling her out and cleaning her until that spray gets here. I would really hate to lose her to them.

Anyway, This is a pic of the top cola - one of the branches affected.

The bud near the bottom here is probably the only real casualty other than some fan leaves

These are my two favorite branches

If you look closely you can see white spots on the leaves from the mites. Despicable things anyway

 

[Louis]

Mites? That sucks man, I hope you can get the problem under control. There is tons of stuff out there to rid your plants of these nasty little pains in the asses, I guess its up to you on what route to take. I guess something thats not gonna affect the flowering of your plants. Hope you can get rid of um!I will be watching.

 

[253Chiefin]

That liquid ladybug should square you off iust right..too bad about your SM problem good thing you caught that early. You have a good chance to save it now

 

[LJFM]

I've known about them for a while. I had some real ladybugs but I don't think I released enough of them and all but one are gone or dead now. So hopefully a vigorous regiment with the LL will get rid of them.

 

[LJFM]

Day 44 Flowering Update

Howdy All,

Liquid Lady bug came today. I cleared off the little guy that was still hanging on and doused her. The directions say to saturate it 2 days in a row then wait 6 days and spray again. I'll probably do a 4th spray just to be sure. It definitely seemed to work I didn't see any little critter movement at all. The spray evaporates pretty quickly as well.

The plant herself aside from the white spots from mites is looking really good. There are about 12 real good colas that I think could easily be at least 2 -3 grams a piece. Wishful thinking maybe but a guy can dream.

Enough blabbering more cannaporn

Profile

The Twins as I call them

This is a branch that got all twisted around a stick but there are thick buds all the way up the stem with the way it opened up to light

Here's the "top" cola that got damaged, recovering well

A closer up of the bent branch. It's probably the thickest one so far.

Such a purdy little bush.

 

[ggrant]

LJ said:

A closer up of the bent branch. It's probably the thickest one so far.

See what you can do with LST, LJFM! It's L-ementary, my dear Watson.

The dirty little secret among the plant world is that cannabis plants like the rough trade scene.

There, I said it - now the world knows.

 

[LJFM]

Lol, it would appear to be so ggrant!

 

[ggrant]

Hey LJ,

I was in a rush with my last post and I thought you might like a more scientific explanation.

Training, whether it be HST or LST, is done for the same reason: to reduce the level of auxins in the tip of the plant. Cannabis is a plant that grows with a characteristic called "apical dominance." This means that, like other plants, it will do everything it can to push a single tip towards the source of light. We call the tip of a plant that grows like this the apical tip or the terminal tip. The tips of the cannabis plants are also where the biggest colas are produced due to their proximity to the source of light.

Apical Bud

The tip of the plant is also where a particular type of auxin (plant hormone) is most prevalent. It's called indole-3-acetic-acid (IAA). Unfortunately, due to the chemical properties of IAA, you won't see it in the rooting hormones you can buy. More than likely, you'll find other auxins such as indole-3-butyric-acid (IBA) and/or a-Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA).

Plant Auxin

Now, the auxins promote growth when they are at certain levels but they can also inhibit, or stunt, the growth of certain aspects of the plants if they are at higher levels. This is the case for cannabis plants. The plant is perfectly happy pushing one bud up as far as it can to the source of light. The other buds, lower down the branch, will remain auxiliary buds and branching is not as likely to occur in these places. This is especially true in smaller, indoor environments. This is because the auxin production within the apical tip is very high, preventing the lower buds from growing out.

So, training, whether HST or LST, is done to accomplish one of two things:
1) Removing/inhibiting the main source of auxins
2) Making the plant think the apical tip is no longer the best source of light

By removing the main source of auxins, the lower (auxiliary) buds are no longer inhibited. The plant will now concentrate on the auxiliary buds and cause branching to occur in order to get itself a new apical tip. In ideal environments, the plant will grow somewhat symmetrically so that means you can very often more than double the number of growing tips.

By making the plant think its apical tip is no longer the best source of light, it will send the message (via auxins and other chemicals) to the auxiliary buds lower down the stem that they need to grow up to get to the light. The tip is not removed, but new bud sites are formed further down the stem. Depending on the length of the stem and strain of the plant, you can get many bud sites to grow this way.

In either case, you end up with more bud sites closer to your light source than before and, most of the time, you'll end up with a more even, bushier canopy to ensure your lights are being utilized to their fullest.

P. S. You might think the person who wrote the previous post was stoned (he wasn't) and the person who wrote this one wasn't (he was).

 

[LJFM]

Thanks for that info ggrant!

 

[Louis]

Here some pics of some LST/HST training I did to one of my plants due to height restrictions.

I first topped the plant, then tied down the four main branches

 

[Louis]

The above pics were taken a couple of weeks ago, here are some updated pics.


LST/HST progress, over ten new budsites at top of plant

This is how plant looked before branches were tied down

 

[LJFM]

Cool Louis,

Yeah I inherited my plant when she was about a foot tall so I had to actually break the main stem and bend it over as well as tie down a couple of branches. It kept her nice and short which I also needed due to height restrictions, and opened up lower bud sites to light. For my next grow I'll be going from seed or fresh clones and I'll be able to lst from the beginning.

 

[ggrant]

Great Pictures, Louis!

What height do you have available, LJ? Mine space has about a four foot ceiling.

 

[LJFM]

My current box is roughly 2 feet tall. It not really enough to let any babies shoot up to their full potential size wise but this WW has shown me that through LST you can have a decent sized little bush.

My next grow I think I'm going to start seedlings at 12/12 a few days after they get established and try and run a handful of smaller plants possibly utilizing the sog method. I'd like to grow one of those autoflowering strains or one that's meant to just be one super plump cola instead of branching all out.

 

[ggrant]

The SOG method is supposed to be good. You set up a zillion clones and they grow together into a single green-headed monster, LJ.

I've though of doing it myself, but my space isn't well-suited for installing a screen.

If you do SOG, you don't need to use autoflowers as the SOG screen limits the height of the canopy.

 

[Mark Green]

Hate to do it but, your talking about scrog. The scrog method uses a screen and needs a longer veg time. Were as the sog method is semply packing as many clones as close together as you can. Run a low to no veg time to keep branching down. Pack your space and shoot for a fast turn around. I run a perpetual sog, harvesting every 3-4 weeks, about 13 weeks from cutting the clone.
Both are great ways the fill you space.
As for box hight I only have 3ft. So I know you can still make it work. Totally look into some autos, I have read about a few that stay short and state to finish in 45-55 days. One even stated a 9 week finish from seed... Idk how true any of that is... I have yet to really play with any autos.