Growing too fast and fan leaves too large.

[Jason]

My Yvonna 7 at Week IV GH Trio is 28" tall. Just changed to 12/12 light schedule to Transition to Flower tomorrow. My first grow maxed out at 24" when harvested.
Can some one give me an estimated harvest height for this Triffid? I may have to relocate to maintain good distance from the light.
My other "problem" is the Lavender has HUGE fan leaves and lots of them. Very dense foliage. Not much light getting inside that plant.
When should I start looking to thin these out? Which week of the feeding schedule?
My first bucket grow, I trimmed too early and nearly ruined her. Don't want to do that again.
Thanks for any insights.

[bee9e]

I would take off the biggest fan leaves. So that the budsites are exposed to light. You will reap the rewards later

[Jason]

Thank you,. I agree. Its all about timing and what percentage to cut per cutting session.
My first experience did not turn out well. So I want to be careful and informed.
How long do I want the fan leaves to feed the plant/buds before trimming?
Week V seems early. I change to Week V feeding tomorrow.
The dang Lavender looks like its a rain forest plant. During first grow they got bushy and airy. This time, much more bush. And WAY bigger fan leaves.
All from clones. I don't do any seeds.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Real pretty plant , brother you got a lot of leaves to take off , you need to get light and air in there. Take 5 or 6 of those big ones every 3 or 4 days till you get her right.

[Jason]

Thank you! I can do that. The rain forest look might look health for a PLANT, but not so much for those precious flowers. Or as my uncle in East TN says, "flares".
As in "I'm goin' to the sto' to buy some flares fer grandma. It's Sunday and she loves flares on Sunday."
The accent has been acquired since the late 1700's, so it's pretty thick.
So I want my flares to come out r e a l n i c e.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Sounds like all my folks , hell man we might even be kin. Good Luck with your plant.

[Jason]

Cool. Being kin is very possible.
After the Revolution, the Continental Congress could not pay my ancestors for their war service. So they gave them land grants in an area in Indian Territory called Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin.
Which they helped survey and it became the state we call Tennessee.
It was a pretty rough-n-tough place back then. And remained so until sometime in the 1960's.
Last time I was there in the '90's, Jackson was still a dry county. Unless you had an out of country driver's license.
I could have beer and wine in the Holiday Inn. So I could have a drink or six, but my local cousins suffered through sweet tea.

Thanks for the trimming tips. Incremental sounds like a good way to go.

A TN cousin won the Masters golf thing in the early '60's.

I gave that game up when I kept losing balls in high school.

I would go the grocery store with my grandfather when we'd visit one month per summer for Decoration, Family Reunion and tobacco harvest.
He'd buy three things. Coffee, sugar and coffee. Everything else he raised or bartered for. Well, except bullets. He's also buy those. 22 shorts for squirrels.
Which taste better than you might think if you stew them long enough.

[desertdan]

I like grilled squirrel. My brother in law made one hell of a mixed critter grill.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Brother that's what we were raised on that and fish and what we grew in the garden.My grandpa would have been kinda nice to the folks from East Tenn but he would have been kinda wary cause he would have told everyone here that's getting kinda close to "YankeeLand ". Till he got to know em. P.S. been playing since elementary school, still play least twice a week

[Jason]

Sherman's people came through, killed the husband of the house, and stole two horses, leaving a pregnant woman with two kids, no horses and no husband. Yankees haven't been popular for a while in that area. The only thing more reviled were Revenuers.
I have a picture of myself on that unborn child's lap when he was in his 90's. I was 3.

My grandfather's 700 acres included a number of ponds he'd stock with trout. Oh, man, that was one thing I looked forward to.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Sherman was a SOB they called Jackson chimneyville , starved us out at Vicksburg. When we were young every year the river got real low we would go below the bluffs on the sandbags and find mini balls by the buckets ,still got plenty. They fought like hell right here.

[Jason]

Thank you for the tips and bringing back memories. Picking tobacco and family reunions back then were so very 18th/19th Century.
Glad I did it, glad I don't need to now.

[Jason]

Just found this article by Nebula Haze. Very informative.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/nebulas-bud-based-defoliation-tutorial

[Zativa]

My $.02 worth is that it is an extremely healthy plant, but not the kind of growth pattern we are used to seeing. I would hesitate to trim it as if it were the usual tall/upright pattern we usually see. It knows how to grow as a large/round ball of a bush, let it do its thing and work with it instead of trying to turn it into a 'normal looking' pot plant. Do you know the variety name?

[Jason]

Thank you Sativa, but I just did the deed. Its Lavender 2 by Soma from a clone. Just did a light thinning. I just took out some of the larger ones. This one is MUCH bushier than the first 3 I grew.
Week V GH Trio + CaMg. Second week of 12/12 lights starts today.
I topped it, so yes, it will not have the Xmas tree look.

After reading Nebula's tute, Week V is a good time for a first trim. I didn't want to wait too deep into flower and risk not gaining the full benefit of the trim.
Earlier would have been scary. But I was in Transition for a week last week, and first full week into flower this week. So the timing seemed right.
Time will tell. Or as they say in Russia, "If we live, we will know."