I REALLY need advice!!

[Bigpapa]

So, I'm at the 5 week mark in my first grow in my new stealth box. I'm growing Northern Lights in DWC under a Mars Hydro 300 watt LED light. My average daytime temp is about 75 degrees with a RH of 55%. I'm using General Hydroponics nutrients at full strength recommended here with a ph of 6.4 as checked today when the pictures above were taken. I am planning to reduce the nutrients to 1/2 strength at my next water change and reducing the ph to 6.0. That brings me finally to my question. Please take a look at my plants and let me know how you would thin this growth out. In the future I will only be doing 1 plant. Unfortunately this first time I have 2 going and I can see for myself that they are too close together. These plants were topped about 2 weeks ago. They are only about 3-4 inches tall and the foliage is very dense. Please advise.

 

[Green75]

Pics don't work...

 

[Bigpapa]

No Title

How about now?

 

[Speedygreen]

Yea for hydro i believe ur ph shld b around 5.6-6 but im an organic grower check the gwe site to get a better idea for me in your situation yes 1 plant next time lol and take nutes down to about 60% just my opinion

 

[Weasel]

Not 100% clear on the question but I may have smoked one too many here...

I'm not sure how much space you have or want to fill, but normally under a 300 W light I would expect to fill about a six square-foot area or maybe a little more. I don't see a big problem with the foliage being the way it is. Are you trying to get the growth to spread and cover more area? Reduce the number of bud sites?

If you're trying to thin them out and reduce the number of bud sites I would probably take out the middle sites. So in the second photo I see about ten budsites. You could take out the four ones in the middle and leave the six larger ones on that are on the outside edges. Take out some of the lower foliage if you feel you need to. But generally these are issues that sort themselves out naturally especially in early flowering. A plant's canopy is somewhat two dimensional. Only so much bud can fit in a given area, but you may want to try and get a smaller number of bigger buds rather than a larger number of smaller buds. Lower shaded foliage gets squeezed out and dies down naturally.

Like Speedygreen said your ph should be around 5.6.

I don't use leds. I notice they grow stockier plants. You could try raising the lights higher if you want the plants to stretch out more though.

 

[South Sierra Dude]

What's going on in there? Toped? Once, twice? Veg looks dark at a glance but I didn't look that close. Really I would go find my scissors at this point but that's me.

 

[alltatup]

No Title

So, I'm at the 5 week mark in my first grow in my new stealth box. I'm growing Northern Lights in DWC under a Mars Hydro 300 watt LED light. My average daytime temp is about 75 degrees with a RH of 55%. I'm using General Hydroponics nutrients at full strength recommended here with a ph of 6.4 as checked today when the pictures above were taken. I am planning to reduce the nutrients to 1/2 strength at my next water change and reducing the ph to 6.0. That brings me finally to my question. Please take a look at my plants and let me know how you would thin this growth out. In the future I will only be doing 1 plant. Unfortunately this first time I have 2 going and I can see for myself that they are too close together. These plants were topped about 2 weeks ago. They are only about 3-4 inches tall and the foliage is very dense. Please advise.

Hey bigpapa, your girls look great!!! Mine looked just like that a few weeks ago: I started training them (no topping) very early on, and they stayed low and very dense. I have defoliated all along the way; they are now in week 1 flower. The pictures are of the same plant between Dec. 17 and Jan 5: I kept training and removing leaves blocking bud sites I wanted to become colas. Hope the pics help!!

 

[Green75]

I hear defoliation works well....

 

[alltatup]

Who told you that!!!???

 

[Green75]

A little birdy on my shoulder

 

[alltatup]

AHA! You have a talking parrot!!!

 

[Bigpapa]

No Title

My plants have reacted very well to 2 rounds of defoliating. But since I'm only a couple of weeks from switching to flower I'm done. I want to give my plants time to fully recover. This shot was taken AFTER the first round of trimming.

 

[alltatup]

WOW, looks GREAT, BP!!!!! EXCELLENT JOB!!!

 

[Bigpapa]

No Title

Less than 24 hours after defoliating and my plants have completely recovered................COMPLETELY!! In fact, they look like I didn't trim them at all. I can't believe how quickly they recover. I wish I would have taken pictures of how much I cut off. It was a very large pile of leaves 🍃.

 

[Karlee]

Green's birdy knows what he says! they look happy now!

 

[spinzella]

green75 please take good care of that bird. if he dies us newbies are screwed