If my clones take I plan on doing something like this - no topping, minimal training, no up-pot, flip early and finish fast. I’m interested to try this approach because it seems suited to our small-space grows. As opposed to what I’ve been doing with topping and extensive LST to make a branchy bushy plant. We’ll see.
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Forsure, topping there is always that lag time to a degree where the rest of the plant takes a bit to get going and or fill the space you just cut out, just past experience ive found those that do the whole prolonged training myself included then eventual flip its just a long process that doesn’t necessarily result in better yields especially considering extra time frames, its been my playing with autos and there finite time frame that ive found i can get quite even and filled canopys just with flopping and shaping side branches slightly with really no loss of time.
Take a look at my older grow journals and just summarize and quickly scan the pictures you’ll see it doesn’t take much to get a sufficient canopy, latest grows aren’t a great example of that just cause of me playing with other things.
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I can’t speak to autos because I don’t know but this is not my experience with photos. I once fimmed one and got 5 tops and it seemed stalled but it was just dividing it’s energy between growing the 5 tops.
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Auto and photos both lag just cause your apex that has that dominance growth and auxin production happening at its tip is now snipped away so they take a little bit to divert to your other side shoots, flopping is more just light damage as the original apex is still there and doing its normal thing its just now the side branches sense they are seeing greater light than the apex and start to pick up their own production and in a day or two everything is usually moving along quite decently with me having to bring back down that original apex to keep that growth going in the side branches.
Really though if the plant is healthy and vigorous topping and or flopping one may not see much difference, its more in the smaller plants or those that may be having a rougher time that you will see the delay.
No different that say if one was to defoliate too heavily, just not as much as a set back.
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Yes I could see that being the case. If everything is going swimmingly I wouldn’t think twice about doing it but I’m also a flopper if the mood strikes me at the time.
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I’m the flopping and light training first with lower fluff and overlapping fan leaf removal leaving the plant as much intact as possible, and if shit goes airy then topping, branch removal, heavy defoliation, stem folding ect
All just tools for a similar end goal, no real right or wrong in my mind just preferences and what works best for yourself.
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Yeah I’m with you. I rarely defoliate until later on but if things are crowded it’s a different story.
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Day 25/11/5 missed yesterday i suppose.
Top cab, did a cycle over and res swap last night, still looking rough and small on them but there surviving, should kick them to flower to see what are males, and or take a closer look for an indications. then i could up pot what remains.
The older set of the younger plants, they went sideways a coupel days back smallest one crashed and the rest started to follow, guessing a root rot issue plus high pH from some signs that showed, as for the younger plants so far so good.
And same goes for the last cab with that photo stump now throwing out reveg leaves so may be able to take some cuttings in a couple weeks if it continues growing well.
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Day 27/13/7
Back left two have shown as males at least seem that way with early preflowers, all the rest look to be females, so im gonna up pot the two remain on the left side and likely take the healthier or busier plants on the right and also up pot two and cull the other two.
This cab right side went a little sideways, may be from the compacted mix and something ec/ph wise, either way far right two plants are males anyways and also have the wicks popped up so those pots can dry out but i make some decisions on what i want to up pot and keep and go from there.
And the other cab, reveg leaves getting bigger and the two other plants growing well and the garden plants some i need to repot or plant outside.
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Day 29/9
Did some refining and re-potted the photos that remained, will take a couple days to rebound as i reduced back their root balls decently just to get rid as much of that old media.
And removed those struggling auto and moved over the one res with dual plants.
And more growth from the reveg plant, plus garden plants moving along.
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Day 31/11
Plant are recovering and moving along and the reveg plant is growing some more, also started some more seeds which i will shuffle in as i move out the garden plants.
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Day 34/14
Slow progress, really should have adjusted expectations on wicks and potting mix vs forced watering coco, or may just need to upscale pot volume to suit the slowness.
Younger one also moving along, likely will reduce to two on the left side.
And garden plants doing well plus the reveg plant.
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Looking great brother.
I’d like to ask you if you could post a pic of the wick setup from the bottom of the pot.
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So some thoughts, pulled a couple of the weaker plants to see how their roots were going, they were water logged.
So here the thing and what im thinking, with wicks there really is no time for the pots to dry back any to help roots expand out in search of water so expansion is slow and even with promix HP and my small containers the media is still holding enough water to where i can squeeze the mix and have water run out by a decent amount.
Solutions to having less water being held in the mix, is add more perlite, go to fabric or air pots due to increased air exchange, or just abandon wicks and go to intermittent watering again.
Now kinda makes sense why octopot users and the likes go to fabric pots as otherwise likely they would stay too saturated in a plastic pot, also they have the height media wise where the plant can have a bigger dry zone when bottom watering or wicking which i unfortunately cant pull off with my limited height, now having to use a fabric pot to help dry out your media to me seems like a chasing your tail type of problem in that one is creating solutions for a media that isn’t as suited in the first place for being consistently wet from a octo/auto/wicking pot style method.
So without goign down that route decided to try a higher perlite mix first, and grabbed a bag of perlite tonight and mixed it to my base promix hp and repotted all the plants that i kept and we will see where that takes me.
Ideally i should make up some test pots with wicks over just water and test them at different ratios till i find a point where the mix remain moist but not enough to where i can wring out water from it if i squeezed a hand full.
Now saying that if i cant find a good mix level, and give this another couple goes, i may need to go get a bag of coco and go back to pumps and auto waters to keep it simple as if i have to add more perlite, and or go to fabric pots, and bigger pots yet smaller yields then the cost and benefit i was trying to go for with wicks is kinda point less.
So gonna try a couple more things but may have to ditch the wick method for myself and my situation.
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Could you reduce the cross sectional area of the wick to reduce the flow?
Maybe something like a ‘choke-point’?
Cheers
G
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smaller wick yea could halve them easily, but id still think if the media wants the water it will get it, a smaller wick should just slow down the transfer rate… but is something to test 
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alright made up some test pots, gonna let them cook and soak for a day or two then see how much water they are holding onto.
4 different mixes plus cut the wicks in half, Top right is straight promix hp and what i was doing, top left is 25% added perlite to that HP, bottom left is 50% perlite to HP, and bottom right is another potting mix “cheaper” with 25% added perlite.
@iceman literally its just some mop material as wicks going through the drain holes in my pots, and the reservoirs have their lids modified to allow the pots to sit down in them somewhat to lower their overall height and encourage air hoots out the bottom if they wanted.
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Ahh, you’ve finally satisfied my curiosity.
Thank you!
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A rubber band around the wick at an appropriate height?
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Day 36/16
As said repotted all the plants in a bit more perlite dense mix to hopefully reduce water retention, and jammed the ones i kept all in the top chamber, the photos will turn around as i can give them as much time as needed, the two autos we will see how much i hampered them but mind you kinda if i left them they would of run into issues anyways type thing.
And garden plants plus that lone reveg and some seeds sneaking up in the corner that i wasn’t expect much from.
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