Coffin_Dodger's Ceiling Dodging Second Grow

[Coffin_Dodger]

Hey, everyone!
I’m new to posting, so pardon if I’m missing something here as far as what to include or how to format this. Hope everyone’s well, and running solidly.
My partner and I are on our second grow, with a good amount of research under us, but only one lucky run which thankfully made it through to harvest. That first one was bagseed, and we felt confident with moving on to some beans we bought through NASC. I won’t mention the breeder, but there wasn’t much information to go off of as far as what to expect from their strains.
We’re in day 22 of flowering now, after vegging for 50 days (what we now know was too long. ) As soon as we flipped, three of our four girls took off like bottle rockets. We were seeing multiple inches of growth straight up every day for about that first week and a half, hoping they’d slow as they got close to the light. Well, hope and shit in both hands, and we found which fills up first- the 4x4 tent.
We’re now looking at three girls that are between 6.5 and 8.5 feet tall. The light is ratcheted as far up as we can get it, but some shoots have even pushed up into the space between the light and ceiling (what little there is.) The shade from the biggest three have all but choked out our fourth girl, even. We’re limited on moving them or otherwise, being in an RDWC system. We’ve done what little we can at this point to train the tallest shoots away from the light and runt.
After searching other forums and grow guides, etc. it seems like the options are turning down light intensity, lowering DLI by shortening their day cycle, or supercropping/decapitation.

What have you all done, or what would you recommend in this situation? Other than obviously flipping sooner when you don’t know how a cultivar will finish…
Thanks in advance for any tips or pointers in the right direction, ya’ll. Have a great one!

Coffin_Dodger

[DougDawson]

I would just Supercrop any branches that are too tall. They are more than happy to be bent over and likely won’t skip a beat.

[GlassJoeGrows]

Second supercropping/high stress training. Be careful to pick a spot that’s not so thick that it will break entirely when bent, but aside from that it’s your best option if you can’t change the parameters of the grow much.

Topping the shoots works, but ideally you want to do it earlier when possible so that the shoots below it have time to grow.

It sounds like you’ve already learned a lot for future grows; managing the size and shape of the canopy is one of the most important parts of growing cannabis.

If you don’t have trellis netting, I would look into it. It’s an inexpensive and popular way to manage the canopy height and shape. You set one layer at your desired height, train all your branches out laterally underneath it, and let the shoots grow up through the grid. If the branches need support, you can add another layer of the netting above the first.

[logangrowgan2020]

Long veg and DWC = huge plants! Awesome learning experience here will be following along to see how y’all end up.

[FirstCavApache64]

It’s a little on the late side of when I like to supercrop normally but in your case I’d have to agree with the previous posts and say it’s the best option. Dialing down the lights intensity would hurt yield and quality as the lowers end up really larfy and won’t yield much with much less light than normal. Knowing the stretch habits of the strains you’re growing is one of the keys to keeping the canopy height manageable. Next run ask some questions about the strain you plan on running and I’m sure you can get an idea of how much it normally gains in height after flip. I supercrop most everything a week or so before flip to get the tops as flat as possible.

[Coffin_Dodger]

Thanks for the advice, everyone! Just need to take a few deep breaths and get it done, yeah?
Gonna be doing just that when the lights come up tonight.
We’ll definitely post some pictures of before and after and down the road, make this a bit of a short troubleshoot journal. Gives a reason to feel better about hurting the girls. Hahaha
Thanks again,

Coffin_Dodger

[Coffin_Dodger]

Heyhey, everybody! Hope you and yours are well.
…the deed is done! First go at late supercropping. Let’s see how these photos turned out. Sorry in advance for the terrible shots. Hard to get good angles in the tent with them, and any picture from the outside would be missing the point for the most part…

Here is the whole mess from the front of the tent, before supercropping. You can see the kind of internodal space I was talking about- sometimes four or five inches, which would just appear damn near over a single day cycle, it seemed.

Here is an attempt at holding the camera above it all, facing the front of the tent. Hard angle with some of the tallest branches out of frame or just barely in on the far right.

Here is immediately after most of the bends being made. The stalks were pretty wide even as high as we bent most of them. Thicker than a pencil, less than a permanent marker. We found massaging the whole space between the nodes to be the only way to get enough give to bend them in most cases. Some outer skin was broken/split, but no branches snapped off.

This is an admittedly terrible shot of the space between the light and the now bent down on itself canopy.

Here’s close ups of one of the rougher breaks:

And one of the gentler ones:

Here’s a rough shot of the runt:

Lastly, here’s some under canopy, baby bud, and vegging shot (about a month old):

When my partner wakes up, I may have time before I have to crash for the day to post some of her shots of our first grow- which had plenty of mistakes in it’s own right, but will make me feel better about posting…

Thanks again to anyone following along, or with anymore advice to give. I’ll definitely keep y’all updated.

Coffin_Dodger

[Coffin_Dodger]

Alright, managed to get some pictures of earlier this run and from the first run, so I figured I’d drop those here. Again, we appreciate any advice or feedback! Thanks in advance.

Some veg from this round:

Just after flipping to flower, through the front of the tent. Shows the kind of stretch we had…

The canopy not long before the flip, we defoliated and pruned quite a bit between this shot and the 21st day.

Some tops from around then.

An earlier shot of the whole canopy. The runt was stunted by the circulating fan intensity, initially. She caught up a bit as you can see in the other pictures so far, but then got choked out by the massive stretch the other three had. The two in the front are “Cultivar A fem” and the two in the back are “Cultivar B reg” (again, from what I’ve heard, mentioning too many specifics of breeder/cultivar might be a bad idea anywhere online.) The front left one here, diagonal from the runt, saw some earlier issues which we rectified with early pruning, but caught right up, and is now a problem child along side the others.

Under canopy before any major defol or pruning.

The canopy when we realize now we probably should have flipped, about three weeks into veg.

Side shot from the same(ish time)

Early training.
Here are before and after shots of the aforementioned early problem on that Fem that had trouble.
Before, sad little sprout:

After pruning the problems off and hoping, while my partner nursed her back to health:

She did a great job bringing her back. We’ve since replaced that shit Crane huey with an ACI T3, just needed something while we waited on shipping. Haha

And some shots from our first ever run, last year through winter.

It was bagseed, and we had the thought to mostly let them do what they did- to learn as much as we could about how things work. We let things get pretty wild, had one of the four herm on us, but came out of it with 15+ ounces of bud and lots of larf and sugar leaf, which we froze some of, made a small bit of bubble of some, and use some as shake/trim for joint filling frugality. Hahaha. Here’s some of that in mid-late flower.

Coffin_Dodger

[BudLarfy]

Lol I have the same rdwc system from pa hydro. That sucker cranks! Over veg in a 4x4 happens quick.

[BudLarfy]

I do the same exact technique with the binder clips and garden wire to train before they reach the trellis

[parttime]

Beautiful garden! I’m distracted by your username though, you a fan of Fences?

[Coffin_Dodger]

Me? Never heard of it except for brokering contraband or partitioning gardens. Hahah. What is?
The username is from my nickname from days in metal and punk bands and later tattooing. I’ve almost died, a lot. In some clever ways, at that. Just my luck hahah

Coffin_Dodger

[Coffin_Dodger]

Nice garden! We’re planning on scrogging next run or the one after. How much space do you keep between your medium and net?

Edit: Yeah, the system is definitely a beast! How long have you been using yours? Anything to look out for?
Coffin_Dodger

[parttime]

Haha oh dang. I realized that it was just a normal term after I asked it! Fences is a band/musician (sad boy whiny shit haha), and the dude has “Coffin Dodger” as a belly rocker, so I’ve seen people with that as their username just because they were a fan of his! Definitely a rad nickname though. Hard to kill haha

[BudLarfy]

Idk maybe a foot high on a 3 foot plant. Scrog is an art I still haven’t mastered even though I’ve pretty much used one on every run(only 4-5 total). For instance this time I learned with a second layer of net for me at least I should have defoliated harder between the two screens or even lollipop up to the top screen. Great run anyway. Only my first so far so not a ton of tips except to watch reservoir temp. I got really bad root rot right off the rip only 74°. Saved em and crushed it but I’ll only run hydro in winter now.

[BudLarfy]

@Pigeonman has a beautifully documented journal with this rdwc system or maybe a diy clone of it. I poured over it during my run for pointers. Just search pink cookies and UK cheese

[Pigeonman]

@BudLarfy thanks for the memberberries!!!

@Coffin_Dodger here you go!

4 Site RDWC Fallponics - U.K. Cheese & Pink Cookies

This will be my first grow journal here and I’m excited to both share and learn as this adventure continues! Medium Type: RDWC/Fallponics Number of Sites: 4 Reservoir Total L/G: 81L/30G (reservoir is mounted outside of the tent) Lights: 2x Mars Hydro TSL-2000 Tent: Fusion Hut 4x4 Nutrient Family: Trip Tonic (local brand) Air Pump: 45L/min (or) 700 GPH (stone in each site) Water Pump: 25L/min (or) 400 GPH (outside of reservoir) Fans (Intake): 4" inline Canfan (air taken from the AC/Ducti…

[BudLarfy]

Knock the dust.off that thing holmes!

[Coffin_Dodger]

Heyhey, everyone! Happy “weekend!” I work 4/10, so I can really only keep up well Sunday-Wednesday mornings. Thanks for all the love, and for helping take the plunge into bending these girls quite a bit. Feeling better about seeing this through a harvest.
We bent all the branches that could, nearly snapped the ones that didn’t want to, and got things at least off of the light.
Here’s a couple new shots of the bent on itself, layered canopy we have now.

We were relieved to see even the most dramatic bend/breaks springing back toward the light within 12 hours. You can see some of that exhibited here. Not the best shot, but this branch comes in out of frame and headed down from the right, then swoops happily back up to it’s terminus bud sites. Not the best circumstances to be in, for sure, but this has given us EVEN more to marvel at with these plants.

Many of the lowers have sprung up in the aftermath, as you can see. Most of them look very immature still, now coming to the end of week four in flower, but it gives us hope.
Unfortunately, some of the top most buds have seen a bit too much light, from what we can tell, and are presenting more like this:

There wasn’t much actual burning, and we have been able to remove those leaves, but some “light-poisoned” looking ones remain. While they look poorly, they seem very much alive. Do they look like they may pose a problem?

All in all, we’re happy for the experience, the lessons learned, and the new technique unlocked. Hahaha. Thanks again to anyone following and giving support while we troubleshoot this one.
One more shot of one of the happier looking baby buds:

Stay up, y’all!

Coffin_Dodger

[Coffin_Dodger]

Great run, @Pigeonman! Looking forward to keeping at it with this RDWC, and damn glad to know it comes so highly recommended. Been through a couple of your journals now, and love what you’re doing outside. Looking forward to diversifying and some outdoor veggies and berries down the road, ourselves!
Coffin_Dodger