Defoliation advice

I’m at about week 4-5 of flower. Is it too late to cut the larfy lower bud sites out? Got 7 plants in a 4x4 and I can get good light down there

@TolkinWhite I’d say yeah it’s too late. The shock at this time would stunt flower and the plant would also lose all of the nutrients stored in the lowers. This will cause the plant to cannibalize the uppers first as stacking and senescence starts which will end up costing you some yield.

I personally wouldn’t do any defoliation after about week 2 of flower so it can recover before stacking and ripening starts.

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Ok, thanks. I’m only on my 2nd grow, im not thrilled with the results so far. The next one is gonna be epic tho lol

@TolkinWhite what are you working with man? I can help you get some bulk on your next run if you want.

Yeah that’d be great. I’ll tell u what tho, I just noticed one of the other plants have possible leaf seporia so I’m gonna go down and cut all the affected leaves off and ill take a pic of the plants and tell u my plan for the next grow. I appreciate it

These are 7 Green Crack plants

Ok, so let’s take it issue by issue and pardon the long message lol. Firstly, the pic of the leaf. What do you think those spots are? My guess is leaf seporia. I just cut off as many as I could see, probably 10 or so.

In no particular order, 1 pic shows how I kinda lollipopped the plants, but I wish I went further up before I flipped, too much larf on some of the plants.

The other pic shows height differences im not crazy about. And the closeup pic of the one bud stalk, what do u think about the bud spacing?

My soil is Promix with myco already in it mixed with potting soil and the fertilizer is straight Gaia Green All Purpose with worm castings and now Gaia Green Bloom with an instant Stump Tea now and then. Its worked a lot better than my first grow which was Coast of Maine. Those were 4 plants and at time of harvest the tops of the buds were about the same height as the bottom of this grow’s canopy, so I’m doing better. I got about a half pound from my first grow.

My next grow will be in a designated bedroom upstairs that will have heating and air conditioning so ill be able to regulate the environment much better and ill have a ton more space.

The soil im gonna use is blank, just premixed bags of perlite and coco and perlite, also with bio-char and I was gonna use the same fertilizers.

My light is an OpticLed 650S with a triple dimmer for red, white and blue. Right now I just have the red and white on and in veg I just had blue and white on. Ill leave it at that for now and see what you think. BTW, the next grow will be 8 Green Cracks too

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@TolkinWhite are the affected leaves over the whole plant, just on the upper growth, or just on the bottom growth? Are your branches and stems weak too? What is your current substrate ph?

It looks like it might be leaf septoria because I see a purplish circle around some of the spots. That’s the easiest way I have found to tell the difference between calcium deficiency and leaf septoria. Just to be certain though it would be helpful if you answered my first few questions.

As far as the lollipoping I use the rule of 3. I leave 3 nodes for each main top that I want and cut the rest off before I flip to flower when I go for yield (with the exception of the merristem or center cola if i haven’t topped it). I also cut off every side branch that has not made its way to the top of my canopy yet. Then every 3rd day or so I make sure to clean up under the lollipop to keep it clean until the 3rd week of flower starts then I just let them go and only selectively remove dead or diseased leaves. I also do quite a bit of lst tie downs to get good light penetration and keep good airflow in yhe canopy.

Green crack will have some tall and short ones. It’s just the way it is as a hybrid plant but it has a pretty stable chemotype so each one will have pretty much the same effects and flavor. What I see in your tent though looks more like a lighting issue.

It’s nothing to worry about usually. In this case though it looks like the ones near the edge of the tent are getting less light and stretching. Easy fix is daily plant rotation so they get more even light distribution. It’s why the ones under your light appear denser and bushier and the ones near the edges look lankier comparatively.

Otherwise your substrate and nutes sound good. Can’t really go wrong with promix or coco with Gaia green and wormcastings. Plants look really healthy aside from the septoria which can be prevented easily with the lst I mentioned and some better airflow. Make sure to keep humidity in range too to help prevent it. Another thing that helps prevent it is using a dry mulch layer on top of the substrate to help prevent getting spores on the lower leaves from the soil.

I look forward to seeing you get these green crack ladies dialed in. Happy growing man. :v:

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The spots are pretty much all throughout the plant. Not every leaf, but high, low, and middle. I just picked off what I could. My substrate ph is about 5.9. I use RO water. The stems are pretty solid compared to my first grow, they stayed rubbery for a long time. Definitely need to move the plants around more so ill get on that. What about lighting tho? I have my blue dimmer turned all the way to 0. At this late stage I don’t even know if it will make a difference.

Also, I’ve just learned about T5 leds in ballasts. They seem like it would be cheaper than buying led bar lights. My light cost $1300. When I get my grow room going, I dont wanna lay out that kind of money because I could probably utilize a 10x10 area and still have plenty of room to move around. What kind of light do you have?

This is a picture of my first grow. Plants were very short with just on big giant bud on each branch. Kyle’s Sweet Island strain

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@TolkinWhite about your lighting, the spectrum and light is fine. All I was referring to is that the edges and corners of the tent always get the least amount of light so when you pack a tent with sog or try to fill it to the edges with supercropping and lst techniques the edges and corners will stretch because they aren’t getting as much light as they are in the center. So rotating your plants will help mitigate that. Switch their spots and turn them a 1/4 turn or so every day or every other day. Like playing musical chairs with your plants.

I currently have a few lights but the one I’m running in my 4x4 is a Mars Hydro FCE-4800. It gets the job done. Manage to get pretty decent yields with it. When I’m able I’m looking to upgrade to either Timber, the geek beast, or one of the new Kind ones with the UV controls.

As far as the t5 style leds they’re inexpensive for a reason (compared to bar led, cob, and qb). They’re designed for herbs and small indoor gardens. They’ll work for germination, seedling, and early veg but cannabis needs a lot more light than they offer and you’d be better off using regular t5 fluorescent bulbs if you want bigger yields and flowers. Leds also use drivers instead of ballasts (similar principle but different) so if you have a ballast on your t5 rig you’d need to swap that out with a led driver. They do sell rigs with led drivers too though now. In my experience though the led t5s aren’t really the best for cannabis but they’re still great and cost efficient for indoor veggie and herb gardens.

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@TolkinWhite also, thanks for the answers. That pH is in range for coco and with the spots being everywhere definitely sounds like leaf septoria. It usually won’t hurt flowers though but it can diminish yields if you get a bad enough infection to kill off most of the foliage or impede photosynthesis.

Good stuff, ill have to do that more often. They do get moved around and spun but usually only about every 4 days or so when I water.

Thanks for the light advice. I really want to get the new AC Infinity 4x4 lights but they’re still in development. Right now they only have the 2x2s. I’m thinking 4 of those 4x4s would do nice in the grow room

@TolkinWhite I’ve heard of their development but haven’t seen the specs or price tag yet so I’ll wait to speak on those.

Ac infinity stuff is usually great though. What I call a proper value. You get decent gear for a relatively affordable price.

Definitely. They need to pick up the pace tho. I needed fans really bad for this grow so I settled for their 6" 10 oscillating because the oscillating wasn’t out for another month. Then I finally did get the oscillating and its great. But now I’m stuck with the first one too lol. Id rather have 2 oscillating. I love how quiet they are. I also have the exhaust fan and they’re all tied in to the same controller so its nice

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Hey man, I just notice a leaf situation. What do u think about this? The buds on this plant seem a little smaller compared to the other ones. I also have 1 plant that has a shutload of orange hairs on the buds compared to the other plants, didn’t take a pic of that. Some of the plants have a few orange hairs but the one has noticeably more. I just cut those funky leaves off. There weren’t many, gotta go back and check again.

@TolkinWhite do you have photos of the underside of the leaves?

@TolkinWhite it looks like potassium, calcium, and zinc deficiency at first glance. Can you take some photos of the lower leaves too along with the underside so I can better help diagnose?

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Sure, so I didn’t notice anything odd on the bottom, just up high. Also sent a comparison of the pistils so u can see the difference on the one plant. These r 2 different ones than the ones with the brown leaves.

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@TolkinWhite alright. So phosphorus excess is ruled out and so is potassium deficiency. It doesn’t appear to be leaf septoria either so it’s likely calcium deficiency. I’d just add some calmag to your ro water to an ec of .2 before adding nutrients if you’re doing a tea. Or just water it straight in. Gaia green is great but it’s usually used with soil or in combination with worm castings that have higher levels of calcium. When used by itself with ro water in a coco grow you will see calcium deficiencies pretty commonly later in flower.

As far as the pistils, it looks like the one that is turning first is still healthy. I don’t see signs of botrytis in the photo so it may have just been forced to start maturing faster due to stress. Have you had high temps and low/high humidity lately? Heat stress along with a calcium deficiency can make flowers stunt and mature faster due to stress but brining the environment under control and addressing the calcium deficiency will slow it back down again and it will start to bulk up more and mature a bit slower along with the others that don’t appear to be as stressed.

Ok, so I might have miscommunicated before but I am in soil. Promix peat with myco already in it mixed with potting soil. I did use worm castings in the initial soil build but I could only use 1 cup in each 3 gallon pot so thats probably a big part of the problem. It said use 1/3 castings but I didn’t buy enough and had to transplant that day because the roots were coming out of the solo cups and I panicked and just got them into the pots. Next time I’m gonna buy a nice big bag.

My temps fluctuate between 70 and 80 for the most part, obvious more on the high range with the light on. Humidity is in the 60s for the most part, a little lower when I have the ac on. When I went down tonight it was at 45 rh because the ac is on, we got a heat wave going here. My basement is a nightmare as far as rh control goes, very damp. Thats why I’m making the grow room upstairs.

So, tomorrow ill go get some calmag. Do you think I should just give it to every plant to be safe? And what about top dressing with worm castings now?

@TolkinWhite I’d personally give some to all of the plants if you’ve had them on the same feeding schedule and they’re the same genetics. Just a bit of calmag and water then top dress with the castings and water those in. Should be fine. Maybe make a tea with the castings too to help boost the microbe populations in your substrate. Temps aren’t too high but that 80f range can cause some heat stress in calcium deficient plants.

Higher humidity coming into flower should be addressed too especially if you’ve already had a septoria issue. Try to keep rh 50% or under in flower. I personally drop to between 35-45% once stacking starts and let them finish out that way with modern genetics.

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