Should I LST or TOP?

L

luiji

Well-Known Member
Hi guys,

I'm on my first grow and questions are popping every damn minute I spend thinking about my garden :-D

I'm growing 10 White Widows and 10 Critical Mass in a 240 cm x 120 cm grow tent, right now thei're 1.5 weeks since leaving the ground. Using one 600w MH but the complete setup is made up of 3 x 600w (two of them are the lumitek 400v dimmable ballast and 400v lamp, OFF TOPIC QUESTION: do you think that 400v systems are better than the regular 240v and worth the extra €??) thei're on 2.5 x 2.5 inch pots and after that I plan on moving them to 1.5 gal pot to finish the veg stage and a week before turning the lights I'll put them on their final 3gal pots.

I plan on doing some scrog to achieve an even canopy and to control the height but still thinking if with this setup is it worth to top once (to get two mains) or twice (to get four mains) and after that start LSTing with the scrog net or just use the scrog net to LST them and get the so desired even canopy.

Here are some pictures too get you excited :fire::bigjoint:



 
Final Phase

Final Phase

Well-Known Member
Hmmmmm, ain't got a clue what for you to do.... Do know this - If your WW is the real thing get ready for a great harvest!
I've had WW two different times in the past 8 years. First time I thought something was wrong - Good herb, but not fantastic
and the buds had a pink hue. Didn't match up with strain review pics... Got WW clones from StrainBank out of San Diego.
Killer herb!!!!!!!!!!
 
L

luiji

Well-Known Member
Not going to top right now, just trying to plan ahead what I'm going to do with them...if topping is worth or not
 
L

luiji

Well-Known Member
Final Phase said:
Hmmmmm, ain't got a clue what for you to do.... Do know this - If your WW is the real thing get ready for a great harvest!
I've had WW two different times in the past 8 years. First time I thought something was wrong - Good herb, but not fantastic
and the buds had a pink hue. Didn't match up with strain review pics... Got WW clones from StrainBank out of San Diego.
Killer herb!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Got them all from royalqueenseeds
 
Tupapa

Tupapa

Well-Known Member
luiji said:
Hi guys,

I'm on my first grow and questions are popping every damn minute I spend thinking about my garden :-D

I'm growing 10 White Widows and 10 Critical Mass in a 240 cm x 120 cm grow tent, right now thei're 1.5 weeks since leaving the ground. Using one 600w MH but the complete setup is made up of 3 x 600w (two of them are the lumitek 400v dimmable ballast and 400v lamp, OFF TOPIC QUESTION: do you think that 400v systems are better than the regular 240v and worth the extra €??) thei're on 2.5 x 2.5 inch pots and after that I plan on moving them to 1.5 gal pot to finish the veg stage and a week before turning the lights I'll put them on their final 3gal pots.

I plan on doing some scrog to achieve an even canopy and to control the height but still thinking if with this setup is it worth to top once (to get two mains) or twice (to get four mains) and after that start LSTing with the scrog net or just use the scrog net to LST them and get the so desired even canopy.

Here are some pictures too get you excited :fire::bigjoint:



Click to expand...
Both. Lol
 
Flowki

Flowki

Well-Known Member
Just my opinion but if you want to run all 20 you will likely have to use around 1 to 2 gal pots while factoring in drain dish size. They probably won't fit that space in a uniformed manner as you would likely need 24 for that (rows of 4). But the extra space will leave room for you fan so it's not wasted anyway. You would likely not do any topping or lst as the pot sizes are probably too small for a longer veg time and the canopy should fill out nicely anyway. Look into the guys doing sog for more info on that. They do tend to use hydro as it's likely due to the logistics that would be involved to manually feed that many pots + access issues. But, if you are looking for the quickest harvest with the most weight that's probably your best bet. No expert but looking at the size of those you may be good to flower them in 2 to 3 weeks (don't quote me).

What I would personally do is run 8 plants in that space with 4gal+ final pots. I'd leave a little space around the outside walls of the tent and adjust the light footprints accordingly (around 2.5foot long by 6foot. You'd get some nice overlapping on the central plants, the slight gaps around the outer edges of tent will be good for airflow and you may also slightly offset the foot print/plants to one side leaving space for heater/fan or what ever else you need. 8 plants will be easier to water with a wand/pole of some sort and getting access to drain the trays with a pump or what ever you want to use will be much easier. You will ofc be topping these and for around 8 (or lots of lst) or what ever you choose but it will add more time into veg. Just another ball park number but they may not be ready to flower until some 6 to 9 weeks from now with the size of the pots and the training to do.
 
L

luiji

Well-Known Member
Flowki said:
Just my opinion but if you want to run all 20 you will likely have to use around 1 to 2 gal pots while factoring in drain dish size. They probably won't fit that space in a uniformed manner as you would likely need 24 for that (rows of 4). But the extra space will leave room for you fan so it's not wasted anyway. You would likely not do any topping or lst as the pot sizes are probably too small for a longer veg time and the canopy should fill out nicely anyway. Look into the guys doing sog for more info on that. They do tend to use hydro as it's likely due to the logistics that would be involved to manually feed that many pots + access issues. But, if you are looking for the quickest harvest with the most weight that's probably your best bet. No expert but looking at the size of those you may be good to flower them in 2 to 3 weeks (don't quote me).

What I would personally do is run 8 plants in that space with 4gal+ final pots. I'd leave a little space around the outside walls of the tent and adjust the light footprints accordingly (around 2.5foot long by 6foot. You'd get some nice overlapping on the central plants, the slight gaps around the outer edges of tent will be good for airflow and you may also slightly offset the foot print/plants to one side leaving space for heater/fan or what ever else you need. 8 plants will be easier to water with a wand/pole of some sort and getting access to drain the trays with a pump or what ever you want to use will be much easier. You will ofc be topping these and for around 8 (or lots of lst) or what ever you choose but it will add more time into veg. Just another ball park number but they may not be ready to flower until some 6 to 9 weeks from now with the size of the pots and the training to do.
Click to expand...
My final pots will be 3gal but I'm kinda worried that my tent will overcrowd by the end of veg since I just topped them once (only topping I'll do this grow) and with 22days since leaving the ground they're filling the space...if that happens I'll just remove one or two of them to get some more space.
This is my first grow and it's basically a test run to get my mind arround topping, scrogging, temps, nuts..., next grow I'll probably look into fewer plants with bigger pots
 
Flowki

Flowki

Well-Known Member
luiji said:
My final pots will be 3gal but I'm kinda worried that my tent will overcrowd by the end of veg since I just topped them once (only topping I'll do this grow) and with 22days since leaving the ground they're filling the space...if that happens I'll just remove one or two of them to get some more space.
This is my first grow and it's basically a test run to get my mind arround topping, scrogging, temps, nuts..., next grow I'll probably look into fewer plants with bigger pots
Click to expand...
It's entirely your choice but I would be scared with so many topped plants cramped together. I think your biggest enemy will be the amount of pots, dense canopy and soil surface area. The day and after of watering will see big spikes in humidity from evaporation and the dense canopy/packed walls trapping pockets of moisture may lead to real trouble in mid to late flower. A rh meter may not be very accurate in such a cramped situation. Do you plan on keeping all the lower vents/windows open for passive intake?.

I understand you want to use this as a test run but in a cramped tent like that you may well lose all of it. It's almost like the more healthy and better you grow these out the more risk I feel it will be for you.

Oh btw, they did look lovely in the pics best of luck
 
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L

luiji

Well-Known Member
Flowki said:
It's entirely your choice but I would be scared with so many topped plants cramped together. I think your biggest enemy will be the amount of pots, dense canopy and soil surface area. The day and after of watering will see big spikes in humidity from evaporation and the dense canopy/packed walls trapping pockets of moisture may lead to real trouble in mid to late flower. A rh meter may not be very accurate in such a cramped situation. Do you plan on keeping all the lower vents/windows open for passive intake?.

I understand you want to use this as a test run but in a cramped tent like that you may well lose all of it. It's almost like the more healthy and better you grow these out the more risk I feel it will be for you.

Oh btw, they did look lovely in the pics best of luck
Click to expand...
Little update on the girls first:





I've just ordered a dehumidifier that will probably run for the most part of flower and since I'll have 3 x 600w running in flower I'll probably leave some of the vents/windows open all of the time to keep temps in check, although with my intake in its max I probably wont have that big of a problem with temps but I'm getting kind of scared about the quantity of plants and am not shure if I should just take, lets say, 4/5 of them off the grow or if I should just turn the lights in about one week from now...I also plan on lollipopping them before flower stars since the bottom branches will just be useless due to almost no light getting to them
 
Flowki

Flowki

Well-Known Member
Your out take will be dictated by the amount of intake or else you'll implode the tent ;p. Open all the vents and put a feather (etc) on one, if it sticks firm to the mesh then it's not getting enough intake or the out take is just too high. So then you'd have to open a lower vent hole if you have one.

Dehumidifier won't hurt but the problem you have if they do get over crowded is the mid canopy will have little airflow/movement so over lapping leaves will trap moisture along with the sides of the tent. Loli popping does seem like a safety choice in this situation where as normally it's a divided topic. But I dare say most people against loli popping would suggest that if you didn't cramp plants together you would not need to do it in the first place. On top of that, if your plants are say 1.5f tall and you loli pop, your lights can penetrate that far so you are losing weight. So then you are kinda removing the point of doing more plants since you'd likely get similar weight by putting in about 5 less that have more space and don't need to be loli poped (don't quote the numbers ;p). But, defoliated plants that have mostly big tops will be easier to trim so maybe you will like that idea.

Have you done a test run with all 600's going?. It's going to be a lot of heat and if you can't maintain lower flower temps through out the 12 hours you may be better off going with 2. If your out side humidity is high/spiking yet you are forced to suck in lots of air due to heat it might be a problem. I don't think a huey would be able to keep up with that but somebody with more experience in that situation could tell you more. You should also closely monitor your night time humidity, the setting on out take may need to be turned up/down or w/e your environment requires. One would imagine a low setting with dehumidifier would keep it right but again somebody with more experience of that issue could tell you.

Anyway your plants look lovely and you look like you've done a lot of research so you'll probably figure it out regardless. What you really do need to consider though is that by the time you realize some buds are starting to rot theirs not much you can do about it other than cutting it off, at that point it means your environment has failed but hopefully you don't lose much. Just make sure you stick by your guns of removing plants if they get too crowded after the stretch. Post pics at that time if you like I'm sure people will let you know if it looks risky.
 
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