A good way to do a little defoliation but not too much is to go through each node (pairs of 2) up the main stem and trim off every other fan leaves at each node. You can do just the bottom half, I personally like to go right to the top, although in flower, you’d probably just want to trim leaves that are blocking bud sites and leave the rest
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Oh that’s a good idea I’ve never thought of! I may have to try that here at some point, thanks!
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Oh wow, that looks like that opens up everything quite a bit! I’ll definitely remember this one and incorporate it in, seems like a really good way to do this.
I’m definitely switching to soil for awhile after this run. It’s hard to handle big nute swings in DWC so I’m super trying to limit what I take off and when to make it as easy as possible for me and the plants. Taking just a few leaves here and there like that though would definitely help out and shouldn’t hurt much… Will see. Thanks again!
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I just grew the Franco’s lemon cheese last season
I am very excited to get home and sample it myself
Never tried a “cheese “ before … it’s been curing since mid April so I am hoping it’s fantastic already
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Oh nice! Did you get some definite cheese smells off them? or any of that lemon that should be in there? I grabbed both just in-case as I really want a strong cheese smell/taste to breed with, or just keep.
I think the Exodus is supposed to be more musky cheese though, I was hoping the franco’s is more lemony/berry/sweet cheese.
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Tbh I was stuck Madagascar for the past 16 wks because of Rona ,my young fella helped out and harvested it for me , he said it kicks arse smoke wise straight after the dry … so next week when I finally get out of isolation it will be my first exposure to the end result hence the excitement - I will let you know for sure what flavours there are and grab a photo
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oh ok gotcha! Man that has to suck being gone from your grow for so long, especially during prime time but that’s awesome you had someone to take care of it all! Definitely looking forward to your report on it, thanks! Hope you have a safe trip back to it 
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Alright, start of Week 3, day 15.
Godberry - ~15" tall
Purple MAC - ~36" tall - She’s starting to smell, I was congested last night so I only got just a whiff of something but it was just nasty smelling, haven’t been able to pin it down though. Had to pinch the tall branches before they grow into the light… 4 boards are running 320w total at the wall, can go higher but don’t think I need to… I just need a bigger tent!
Russian Snow - Also ~36" tall - Haven’t get much smells off her yet but its still early.
Northern Cheese Haze - ~6" tall at most, looks like she’s starting to flower 
But she does have this going on now!
Maybe she’ll be worth running, ugh…
And the Forum Stomper x Creme De La Chem - Slow af but moving along… Auto’s are not easy.
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Definitely did suck mate and very appreciative that I got anything at all this last go round ,I am experimenting with a LITFA Guerrilla grow as I am away from home a lot working . I had timed It Perfectly until ole Rona showed up and derailed the whole planet lol
This coming season. I have some modifications to how I manage the process planned that I hope will give me bigger plants
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Start of Week 4! All flowering this time is done under 13 Off/11 On. Think I forgot to mention that.
3x3 Tent With Russian Snow(Left) and Purple MAC(Right).
So glad I flowered these at 16" tall, I was worried they were gonna be too short but boy was that wrong
The Russian Snow is like ~38"(2.4x) tall and the Purple MAC is ~42"(2.6x) tall. Thankfully I think the stretch is about over. Had to make shift some new hangers for my lights to raise them higher and I only have another 8" or so I can raise them. Driver is maxed out at the wall at 360watts pushing 4 R-Spec’s from HLG. I would trim off all the lower growth but not trying to deal with nute/ph swings this time so I’m leaving 'em. Worst case I’ll have some larf to run through the rosin press 
Current Feed:
ArmourSI 2ml/gal
CaliMagic 1ml/gal
Epsom Salt 1/8 tsp/gal
Maxibloom 1/3 tsp/gal
Liquid Koolbloom 1ml/gal
DiamondNectar 2ml/gal
Clorox 0.2ml/gal
PH-5.8 EC-1.22
Next is the Godberry! Moved her into the my short veg tent with 2 Samsung F-Strip LT-F564B’s running on an HLG-120H-54A almost maxed out.
In DWC she was done at 60 days so I’m expecting the same here but we’ll see. She gets the same nutes from the DWC before I ph it and add clorox. I just separate off a gallon. Then she gets Seachem Safe to dechlorinate the water, FloraNectar, and Tribus Original. At the moment I’ve been doing FEED - WATER - WATER and so far so good, could be better but its at least not worse. She’s starting to get fat little buds in there ^^
And finally, my sad little Auto tent
Northern Cheese Haze (Left) and Forum Stomper x Creme De La Chem (Right)
NCH is 35 days old and full on flowering at maybe 6" tall
Gonna have like 7 buds if she finishes The FSxCDLC is 20 days old and looking ready to explode in growth soon so I hope it happens before she starts flowering like this other one. Guess we’ll see here in a couple weeks 
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Forum Stomper x Creme De La Chem
She is 24 days old, 6 inches tall, working on the 6th node, and already reeks of what I can best describe as Chem Candy. Just big Chem smell right up front that melts into a sweet candy smell on the back end. It is absolutely delicious
I think she’s my new favorite plant Why does Mephisto only make autos
Now would be the time to top but I don’t think I’m going to, just gonna let her be since this is more experimental/fun than anything else. She’s grown an inch/day the last two or three days and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. About to catch up to the NCH…
The Northern Cheese Haze is a different story, that one doesn’t seem be getting taller than 7 inches or so and has zero smell whatsoever I am starting to see trichomes though and she’s FINALLY starting to put out a bunch of roots into the tub. Should cut her down and not waste my time by I don’t have anything else to run in the meantime while I wait for the main tent to finish here in another 5-6 weeks. Least should get an eighth or so out of it
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Alright, Start of Week 5!
Fun times with the DWC tote’s. Been fighting massive PH drop in the totes now that I’m lowering the amount of nutes I’m using. Have to PH Up every 12 hours or so. Swapping the res weekly. Roots have completely taken over both totes. Will be happy to move to soil after this as it’s getting to be a lot of work down there. I spend a solid hour working on stuff down there Every. Single. Day. Really cuts down on my time to just sit and enjoy them. Anyways, on with the show!
3x3
Yes the light is at an angle. Still planning on getting a 4x4 tent here in the near future, not sure if it’ll be before or after this grow. Trying to just deal with the limited space at the moment as tent prices have gone through the roof the last couple months.
Russian Snow
Purple MAC
Starting to stack up and get crystal-ly… Would expect a bit more at 28 days but I’m sure we’ll be fine on that and weight from this tent
2x2
Godberry
She is just doing fantastic under these 2x F-Strips at around 100w. I have to adjust the color on here as the lights are 3k and the color is pure HPS Yellow. Color is accurate to the eye though. She’s definitely starting to get fat and is reeking of hash, lemons, and berries in that order. Smell is definitely a bit more complex than when she was in the DWC
Autos
So… I’ve had my lights on 24/0 since the start of these autos, thinking that’s a good reason why they’re so short. I just switched the lighting a couple days ago to 20/4 and noticing a bit more height recently. Gonna have to remember that.
FSxCDLC
Started flowering Saturday, see how this goes. Her Chem/Candy smell comes and goes throughout the day but man is it delicious
NCH
Starting to look like bud and stack up… This thing is such a fail
but I can’t cut her down. Even if its just an eighth it’ll be worth. Must do better next time!
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All the girls are coming along nicely. Starting to get chunky for sure.
Here’s the autos
Northern Cheese Haze
Still no smell really
I think she’s starting to but just real light at the moment. Roots have exploded into the tote, should’ve grabbed a pic of that, maybe next time. Still only ~8 inches tall at best but I think she’s gonna be ALL bud by the end of it. There’s buds at every node top to bottom.
FSxCDLC
Favorite girl right here
so wish these were photos… I’d just run this for the foreseeable future if I could. Her chemcandy smell is so mouth-wateringly delicious 
Starting to come along at least. I haven’t really fed her at all yet. I did one water with a couple grams of Kelp Extract from Greenleaf Nutrients(megacrop) but thats it for nutes as she’s sitting in mostly FFOF so she didn’t even need that but there’s some extra beneficial stuff in that Kelp so I did it anyways. Otherwise she mostly just gets ph’d water. Every 2nd-3rd water or so I’ll add in some Diamond Nectar and/or Flora Nectar, Tribus Original or Great White, and that’s it. So far so good.
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Start of Week 6! Day 36
Godberry
Starting to look like 3-4 weeks left, last one was taken at 60 days on a 12/12 schedule, this one is 11on/13off the whole time so we’ll see if it makes a difference… Been alternating between ~500ppm maxibloom/liquid koolbloom/epsom salt, and just straight water.
Purple MAC
These little yellow spots on the buds bother me, not used to seeing that. Assuming its from growing so fast?
Did I mention I need a bigger tent?
Russian Snow
Coming right along, starting to like her better than the MAC but we’ll see…
Autos
NCH
She’s basically on the same feed as the Russian Snow/Purple MAC, tons of roots, just doing her thing.
FSxCDLC
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Day 39 - Mid-Week Update
That Purple MAC is finally coming around. Finally that rank smell is gone and been replaced with a pastry of some kind. Getting a strong fruits smell up front and a pastry/cake type smell on the backend. Smells delicious Almost makes me wish I took a clone but I honestly hated how this plant grew in veg and not a big fan of flower growth either, mainly that almost 3x stretch, but overall I’m at least happy with her. Not sure if I’ll pop the other 5 beans any time soon or not, leaning towards no unless the smoke is absolutely phenomenal and I’m not betting on that.
Think that’s light burn on the leaves up top there? Could be burn/lockout. Too much liquid koolbloom started locking out calcium so had to reset the res again. Also she’s foxtailing like a mofo up top, also thinking the light as she’s been like 5 inches away from my rspec qb’s. Just raised the lights up a bit more this morning. She’s at like 46" tall right now.
The Russian Snow though, that’s definitely my favorite of the two. Not a big fan of all the extra leaves she has compared to the mac, but she’s just as vigorous, stays shorter, and the buds just look great. She’s got a dank smell, like damp wood or something, but its been getting sweeter as the days go on and just yeah, damn good.
Took me two days or so of opening the tent and buds and branches just pouring out before I finally realized that her buds are too fat for her to hold up! Thankfully I had bought a bunch of plant yoyo’s for the Godberry from last grow that I never needed so used them and got most of her hung up now and sucking in that sweet sweet light. The PMAC only had maybe 3 lower branches that needed some help but the RS was more like most of her branches needed help. Got like 10 yoyo’s on her so far. See how this goes.
The Godberry is full on color-changing pistils right now and looks like she’s starting to fade.
I took the last one at 60 days on 12/12 and I think she could’ve gone to 65 or so. Current grow all the Photos have been getting 11/13 from flip so we’ll see if that speeds things up a bit or not. Going to try and take this one a bit later than the first one. The smells out of this one are way more complex than when I had her in DWC. She has strong hash and musk smells coming through that prominent Lemon-Berry scent and I never had that at all in the last run. I’ve also been turning her pot 1/4 turn every day so all the buds get all the light at some point, she’s starting to lean pretty hard for her stature(bout ~16") so we’ll see if she needs tied up too before she’s done. Didn’t have that “problem” in DWC before either. Thinking I may be done with hydroponics for awhile. The soil results speak for themselves imo.
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heh heh I sure hope you don’t think I’m a turd for saying this…
The plants look overdosed. The claw formation is never good. Enhancing the flavours of the plant depends on doing a Good Job™! It was scary times when your plants were showing mega signs of crazy ph swings. With the twisted leaves turning this way and that. Roots deformed by exposure to toxic conditions. Each time the plant undergoes a stress, it breaks down THC precursors to survive - This explains why your DWC plants weren’t good. I am suspicious of all the “things” you are adding to the DWC. Is it that complicated?
Don’t worry if I sound too critical - you are getting an “A” for effort Sometimes I don’t even go down there during the day to check on 'em.
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Oh no worries! I appreciate any chat I can get in here, and anything to help improve is super appreciated!
I don’t remember having any issues 10+ years ago : It’s not that it’s too hard but I’m still experimenting with different nutes and things to find what works for me and what doesn’t. Also doesn’t help I’m growing totally different plants each time… I still get a big pH swing with the maxibloom at anything at or less than 1/2 tsp/gallon. The catch is that’s too strong for dwc most of the time. The most I’ve given is 3/4 tsp/gal at the height of transition for about a week or two before I needed to start dropping it. At week ~4 they wanna drop to ~400ppm @0.5 scale and yeah, big pH swings after a day or so with that small amount of nutes. Experimenting on top of that isn’t helping really… and only having a 3-4 gallon res with no control bucket on each tote is making the swings more pronounced. Most of the weird/burnt growth now is from pH being between 4-5 for 12+hrs at a time or brief lockouts from too much pk booster that I no longer think is needed at all. I’m doing more to stay on top of it this time though after experiencing it last grow.
The Purple Mac is also a bit more picky/sensitive than the Russian Snow is, and both are a little more picky than the GodBerry was last run. I could fine tune the nutes for each one but I’m not too worried about it. It looks like I’ll get more weight than I did last run and overall it’s not horrible. Could definitely be better though I know but it’s not too bad either imo. I’ve definitely seen worse
The Godberry dwc turned out good bud for sure last time, it’s not that it didn’t. I just think the one in soil this time is doing a little better than the dwc did. I messed it up less. The dwc run she was locked out for at least two weeks. This soil run has bigger buds(for her size) and they smell more complex. Also easier to maintain and that is beginning to be a big deal for me lately and the main push to soil for the next run of NL5Haze. Soil plants take a few minutes every day or two, dwc has been like 20-60 minutes every single night. Least for flower. Would be less with a proper setup but yeah
For nutes I think I’ve finally narrowed down what I want to use.
ArmorSI
Maxigro/Maxibloom
Calimagic
Epsom salt
And additives
Diamond Nectar - Humic/Fulvic acids. I have found a big difference in added frost coverage while using this stuff, but also seems easier to get tip burn if nutes are towards the top end of what’s needed.
Great White - not for dwc, but I just recently got some of this stuff and I can understand some of the hype about it. I’ve seen a big difference in plants with it compared to without it
Still not sure on the FloraNectar or things like that. And I’m gonna see about the dry koolbloom before these are done…
But that’s it really. I’ve been trying other additives, other nute lines(think I have 5? different lines), and boosters, since I started this journal and this is what I’m liking so far to keep it relatively simple and proven.
I did bookmark a water-only soil recipe that I plan to try soon too so may not need nutes at all with that. Definitely going to keep trying to improve from here on out 
thanks for the comments and taking the time to read this 
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ok, great! I’ll tell you I pared mine down to micro nutrients and macros - no additives. The recipie calls for thrive alive b1 - which I never use. And sugar daddy epsom salts… which I never use. I only give it some pk boost after the buds are well established. Oh yah it calls for calmag…which I never use. so veg is “boost” - micros, “veg” - NPKs. Bloom is “boost” - micros, and “bloom” NPK, then in final phases I add PK boost. The nutrient contains DTP for chelation of transition metals. uhh sorry if I’m just spaffing out the chemistry words. OK so DTP/EDTA(diamine tetra phosphate/Ethelene diamine tetra acetate) keeps things like iron from precipitating if the ph drifts - that’s chelation. PH drifts when the nutrients are being consumed but the plant can operate in a single digit of the ph range. like 5.5 to 6.5 - so you don’t need to keep hammering it.
OK now for the offensive part:
Things that you are adding to the plant have to be carefully tested for “real world” effects. umm cannabis has a heavy psychogenic side. So you have to perform an experiment using control groups before you can say “chemical X had result Y”. I mean like…well… Raphael Mechoulam - Wikipedia right? You can look at a plant and make a claim…but for it to be real - there has to be some kind of thing you can hold in your hand. I mean, I know a guy… he adds some kind of “enzyme” to his grow - that he swears by. Except he can’t tell you what it does. Unless it increases my trichome count/THC levels - count me out.
heh heh just some food for thought.
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Ah so you’re using the Technaflora line of nutes? I haven’t tried those yet.
I’ve found I have to use calimagic or something like it or I get calcium deficiency, but I’ve only needed around 1ml/gallon at any stage of growth. And same with epsom salt, if I don’t add it I immediately get leaf taco’s and later, chlorosis. And that’s using tap water at ~150ppm that’s like 70/30 calcium carbonate and magnesium.
So those and the maxigro/maxibloom are what I’m down to needing. I haven’t quantified the diamond nectar nor done any pure scientific control to 100% verify a difference between using it and not, but I’ve seen and smelt a difference when I use it compared to when I don’t use it. There is added crystals everywhere and the smells are stronger, and it just makes sense to me to use them as they’re very beneficial to all plants.
I’ve stayed away from any "magical enzyme: products for the most part. Tried a couple here and there over the years and they either do nothing or aren’t exactly helpful. Maybe in particular situations only.
And then the PK Boost seems to be useful but yeah, you kinda gotta know where your plant is at to make use of it so I’m kinda relegating it to the shelf until I can run the same plant(s) repeatedly.
Thanks for the added info and breakdown though. Lots to think about here ^^
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