Questions About Nebula's Manifolding Technique

[Organic357]

After hearing Nebula on The Green Sunshine Company podcast I have am thinking of trying manifolding on my grow currently in flower.

The background. I am growing Aurora Indica, Cannatonic CBD, Lemon OG Haze, Nebula CBD, Northern Light and Tangie. They will flower in a 5' x 5' Gorilla Grow Tent with an extension to give me 7 feed of total hight. This means each plant can grow to a maximum of 62” or 5’2” allowing for a 4" hanging height and 18" between my two Electric Sky 300 LEDs and the top of my plant canopy. Growing in KIS Organics living soil.

Following are my questions.

1. Each of my six girls has two shriveled leaves opposite one another. They would be the leaves encountered moving from the soil line up the main stem of the trunk. I am thinking I should NOT count these as a node, is that correct?

2. My six girls will be moved into a 5' x 5' Gorilla Grow Tent for flower. I am concerned about space considerations. If 8 colas would be too many could't I just have 4 colas?

3. I have heard that Cannabis grown using Manifolding is not as potent. Has anyone experienced this?

4. Is Manifolding supposed to give one greater yields? I saw where one person got 4 ounces on one plant. That used to be my average without manifolding. Meanwhile I know a fellow grower who lets his plants grow for up to a year but gets a pound/16 ounces or more per plant.

[quirk]

I've had success with Nebula's/nug buckets manifold technique.
For training and topping purposes, I start my node count at first multi fingered leaves.No problem with yield or potency. Auto grower.

[Organic357]

Quirk, thank you for the information. I think that I am going to try this with all six of my photoperiod gals. I am impressed with your girls. They look great.

I also like your forum picture. I always wanted to fly a bi-plane and especially a Fokker VII. One more aside. If perchance you are a clandestine grower it is probably good that your flash may have blocked out identifying information in the photograph behind your girls. Just watching your 6 and reminding your to keep up your OPSEC. My thought was are those Air Force or Navy planes. My eyes are getting a little too old.

[crunchyfrog]

Hey Organic, may be reading this wrong, but you sound like a commercial grower,,,? If you are, this site is for us home growers, I would like to say you are not welcome here. However, if your are not your probably should read the quadsquad thread on the 420 magazine forum. I wish is you luck if you are a home grower and will gladly help you search the internet for how to grow weed.

[Organic357]

Hi Crunchy, I am not a commercial grower. You will notice only 6 plants (in veg) and grows in a 5' x 5' grow tent. if you looked at my past posts it is obvious that I am not a commercial grower. I've been a member of this forum since July of 2019 and have been growing for 8 years. I am just not familiar with some aspects of Manifolding.

[crunchyfrog]

Sorry, and thanks for the response keeping me in line... A 5x5 tent had me thinking... By the way,. I think (know) this is a ground breaking site (is that a pun?) that even commercial growers would be interested following/reading. So, my sincere apologies if I am not reading you correctly. So, to relative to max yields, have your read about quadlining, one grower got over 20 oz per plant.? 420 magazine had a thread titled "The Quadquad Thread, A Community For Quadlining" I think is very interesting reading. Apologies again....

[Organic357]

It is okay Crunchy I figured your heart was in the right place. You remind me of a friend who has been growing for over 40 years. What I did recently was to make two big changes, I moved to living soil and two Electric Sky 300 LED lights. Compounding this is that I think I got some suboptimal genetics from a seed bank that used to be recommended here and I suspect that the living soil I purchased may have been a little old. My friend that has grown for 40 years also had issues with some of these same seeds and soil. He will harvest an ounce to an ounce and an ounce and a half per plant just letting it grow normally.

I think that you will find that most commercial growers are plugged into resources that we would love to have. In fact I think that if we had commercial growers they could do more for us than we could for them.

My current goal is to figure out how grow completely organic medicine in living soil with good yields and potency. I used to pull 4 ounces per plant using Fox Farm soil and nutes and Nectar of the Gods soil and Botanicare nutes.

[gbauto]

I've used some form of Nebula's manifolding on my girls for the past 4 years.
What seems to work best for me is this:
I top at the 4th node, strip the 1st and 2nd nodes.
This leaves me with nodes on the 3rd and 4th.
I let those grow out a few nodes on the 4th and then top those back to the first set.
That leaves me with 6 primary branches. I veg to about 13" above the pot and flip to flower. Most of the strains I've run usually finish around 40" tall.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9SJCKTMRsp485upz6

Although you have a decent amount of lighting, I would really focus on building a flat canopy.
That's where yield will come from.
My typical indoor girls yield from 3/4 to 1 1/4 pound of dried flower

[Organic357]

Thank you gbauto. One thing I am trying to understand is diameter of a plant that has been manifolded. At ~2 feet I should be okay. I can understand the point about having a level canopy. Currently I have 3 plants under each of my LED's. Having never used this method it took me a moment to think about it but I now understand your variation on Nebula's method. How would you compare your potency to any other method you have used?

[Organic357]

Gbauto,

I saw that in the two pictures you uploaded that one had 8 primary branches. Based on what you wrote I what thinking of this. Follow your instructions to essentially get rid of everything except the 3rd and 4th nodes. Each of these remaining nodes formerly the 3rd and 4th will in turn produce 2 branches. These two branches will be pruned again resulting in each of them producing 2 branches each for a total of 4 branches. In summary, the former 3rd nodes will now become the 1st node. The former 4th node will now be the 2nd node. Each of these nodes will have 4 branches each for a grand total of 8 primary branches.

My job will be to train them to grow equidistant from one another and develop a flat canopy. This I will do using tie downs.

You stated that my lighting is adequate.
So should I be able to train my plants to have a diameter of 24” or less based on your experience? I am concerned about having space between the plants for air circulation and for me to be able to reach all of my girls to water them as needed.

[crunchyfrog]

Hey, peace... I am beginning to see where you are coming from. So, here is my take. Organic is a vague adjective. For example, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are all naturally found but can be made available in man made form . Your choice in how to use either. I certainly respect your position as a naturalist and, as evidenced by the current strange times we are all experiencing, natural growing may be what we all will be doing in our future.

[Organic357]

My reasons for wanting to use a super / water only soil are multiple. Having 12 grows under my belt, I just don't enjoy paying for nutes and soil for each grow, mixing up different nutes each week, having to flush periodically and needing to throw out my soil after each grow. Having said that I still pH my water. Where I live it is naturally around 8 - 8.2. Even though you are not supposed to have to pH with these soils you can increase your yields by doing so if your water is out of the 6.3 - 6.8 range. Some even advise pH'ing down to the mid 5's. I am also concerned about some heavy metals in inorganic mineral salt nutrients making their way into my 'smoke'. I also think that a well grown organic plant will give one a longer, smoother high/experience. In summary, for me it is a matter of time, money, health and quality. I think super soil will be the future once it is perfected for many growers. For you guys in the group it is like shaving. At first it is fun, after 45 years, not so much. I am not judging anyone else. Heck I had great yields with nutes and throw away soil. But what if we super/living soil folks could find an easier cheaper way to grow great bud. Wouldn't that be a nice gift to the world?

[Farmall]

Organic357 WHEW! Man, I could scream with excitement...but, we’ve discussed this before. If you are using the crop as a medicinal plant and you are not introducing chemical fertilizers... definitely try juicing fan leaves after 4-6 weeks of flower. I did this for about 5 weeks almost daily and I felt 10 yrs younger within the first week. I have mentioned this before and finally have realized what so many old friends from the old days were preaching, thing is, it took me 40 more years to get on board. Thankfully, I’ve had few issues along the path that I would have permanently screwed up.

by the way, I’ve never used the soil brand you have but Cali and I discussed it again the other day. I would have ordered some to try but when I went to to the cart, the shipping was more than the product. Until they ship Amazon Prime, it ain’t in the cards

by the way, don’t drink it straight from a blender...mix with apple, cucumber, lemon, and other typical green drink juices

[Organic357]

Hi Farmall I always enjoy hearing from you. I am going to try to save the fan leaves at least those that don't turn yellow and juice them or find another way to extract their goodness.

I think the best thing as far as super soil is to make your own. I had a neighbor who swore he was going to start growing. So I placed a big order figuring that we would split it when he got the money. Well he flaked and I will never trust him again. Anyway I figure I now have enough soil for 6 grows of 6 plants if I never re-used the soil. So even though it was a big cost up front it will be cheaper in the long run. Around $40 per grow of 6 plants if I reuse it 3 times. If would either find a good recipe and make your own, maybe with some trustworthy friend or try to find some of the kindsoil (kindsoil.com) in your area at a grow store. Unfortunately the shipping costs will kill you but if you don't want to make your own you might put a pencil to it. Allow that you can re-use the soil 2 or 3 times. Some have used it 5 times. I only supplement with unsulfered molasses and Mammoth P weekly and sometimes compost tea.

[Cali]

Farmall Yes the shipping for those soils already mixed and bagged for you are expensive. That’s why I just bought the nutrients and minerals mix from Buildasoil and I sourced out my own sphagnum peat moss, aeration rock, and compost. That CC mix makes 9 cubic feet of soil, that’s 60 gallons. I initially only made 20 gallons so all I needed was 1 bag of compost $20 and aeration another $10-20 and Sphagnum peat moss which at e time I payed more on line but found it at Lowe’s for 11.99 (for the 3.0cf bale I payed more for the smaller 2.0 bale)I just bought one about a week ago. That’s about 60 bucks and the CC mix is about the same so let’s say $130 and I have enough minerals and nutrients mix for another 40 gallons of soil. Now I have 2 20 gallon pots and I just mixed another 10 the other night and still have a lot of the mix left for top dressing or to make more soil. I spend a bit more because I used rice hulls a natural form of silica plus aeration and I used lava rock (has minerals)but found it was too big so I added pumice rock 1/8-1/4 size but if you keep it simple as I wrote about $140 for 60 gallons of soil that only gets better (shipping of this mix is free). I water with kelp, aloe Vera, soap nuts and ripe dress once a week malted barley. When you listen to the podcast you will understand why. It’s a simple mix but proven. My only issue has been overwatering but I feel this grow I finally got it here is how they look now. I included a couple clone pics at about 17 days old well rooted just using kelp meal water no aloe Vera this time.

[Farmall]

These photos of the root development on these clones is exceptionally good. Obviously a strong statement for the quality of your mix and certainly a major motivator for me to get going immediately....thanks Cali for the substantial heads up. I will get back in touch once I have it all ready fo go. Like a squirrel, I’m gathering my supplies for this fall !👍

[Organic357]

Very nice Cali. Thank you for sharing the pics. I hear you about watering. Knowing when to water is still a challenge for me. One thing I have read is that with living soils you should never water to the point of runoff and never flush.