Manifolding (Menorah'n) Plants in a GreenHouse

End of 5th wk. of flower (not bloom). Stripped all of the fan leaves from every plant, 7-days ago (at wk. 4). The MMJ caregiver gave me 10-seeds in a cotton-packed glass tube - sativa hybrids he developed. Ethiopian + Mauritius. The thin-leaf light-green plant on the left, SuperSilverHaze x (Mauritius x Ethiopian) will ripen later (70+ days) than the dark green ones on the right, SuperWrecker N-cut x (Maritius x Ethiopian). Both are in their 5th week of flower.
I'm leaving the existing fan leaves on the (left) plant, but anytime an existing fan leaf enlarges on the dark green plants, they get removed. To me, there's only two types of fan leaves: The large spread ones with a thick water-filled stem, easy to reach with snips (they all get removed, 4th week of flower), and the smaller fan leaves directly connected to layers of flower within the bud structure, that you'd have to dig-in to reach the stem and clip it. Those smaller fan leaves develop trich-glands (I leave those). I'm at war with non-trich carrying fan leaves. In the 5th week of flower, trichless fan leaves are free-loading bums, and nurture-greedy like every organism on earth. They shade buds and try their best to stifle their growth in a cage-grow.
Having the center of the plants open to sunlight allows the innermost buds the opp. to develop into hard bodies. So, far I believe that cage-growing in a 6x8x8 greenhouse is a viable method, coupled with manifolding and super cropping. But, will the dark green plants buds grow to fill-in the space left by the removed water leaf, with 4-5 wks left to flower? I'll stop using Epsom Salts (1 tsp/gal) now at the end of the 5th week of flower, as new trich glands produced won't have time to develop by harvest. I'll be able to tell if this is so, from the ice-water bubble I make from the trimmings. Less leaves to deal with at harvest is OK with me. Cut 'em early A.M and hang them in a grow tent with indirect clip-fan air venting. Done.
I've had no aphids or grasshopper problems using TetraSan/Cease/Spinosad before 2nd week of flower, and then 4th wk of flower Kontos as a systemic drench, and weekly alternate spraying of Cease/Spinosad/ or Milstop/BT. No time wasted on Aphid misery.
Note: When you cut those first big-stemmed water leaves, do so at their stem/branch junction. If you leave an 1/8" stub, flowers will not fill in completely.

hydra-glide said:

Having the center of the plants open to sunlight allows the innermost buds the opp. to develop into hard bodies

Click to expand...

I do the inverse-- everything that is a meager bud beneath the canopy goes away, and the fan leaves are unmolested.
I've never been impressed by what those tiny buds turn into when given light.
But I don't make extracts, so I just don't use them anyway.

This is my first attempt with manifolding in a cage. Mine have a sharper "Y" than manifold plants that were tied-down in 1-gal. pots to begin with. I had an 18" diameter limit. I regularly removed undergrowth and larfy buds. These that remain get full sun. We'll see how they turn out in 4-5 weeks.
Trich-color dictates harvest date. I cut my last crop when 1/4 of the trichs were amber. By the time they cured in 6-months they were 50% amber.

~ (photo) Hashish!, 2nd edition, Robert Connell Clarke ~
Week 5-1/2 and the dark green plants have stopped growing upwards, and are now beginning to bulk-up as expected. Advantages I found to using open-cages on 18" rolling platforms (open, meaning huge 4panel x 4panel holes have been cut-out on opposite sides, at the middle, and very top positions) is that the limbs grow long and are flexible and can be bent and tied to any open sun-place available on the cage front. I've supported the colas at the middle and top using foam-wire, and red tie-wire elsewhere. The fan leaves get clipped every three days. All I want for harvest is to cut them early A.M. and hang them. I don't want to shuck any more leaves ever again. This is similar to how they grow (staked) kif in tetla-Katama, Moroc (Atlas Mnts. over the Medit.shown in that cliffside pic. OG). Furrow irrigated on once or twice a season.
I've concentrated on keeping fan leaves off the lower buds, and keeping them tie-wired into the sun so they harden. These three plants still have 4-weeks to go. The plants on the left, many weeks longer. None of these plants have ever broken a branch. I've used no Silica or additives at all. Only Jack's.

PITFALLS IN FINISHING:
"When using the Cease, combine it with MilStop instead of (two drops of unscented Dawn) soap. (15% of the MilStop is a surfactant (an ingrtedient that causes the pesticide to spread and stay on the leaf.)
Cooler and foggier days are a trigger for Botrytis and powdery mildew. The MilStop, all by itself, is not much more than a temporary band aid for Botrytis and PM. Thus, drench those buds with the combination". - farmer

ON FLUSHING PLANTS BEFORE HARVEST:
"First off, I don't flush. Never found any difference between flushed and non-flushed bud, and see no need to deprive the gals of nutrients essential for growth during the last days of their lives. One cannot flush a plant, but by repeatedly watering heavily, the soil can be leached of salts -- which would only be necessary if one was over-feeding".

"Heavy 16 is simply over-hyped potassium sulfate and water. If the goal of flushing is to remove nutrients from the plant (impossible), or salts from the soil, I see using Heavy 16 as an "additive" to be counter intuitive". - farmer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• I'm going to cut, trim, hang to dry, and weigh my 6-plant harvest as it's ripens. I'll need to grow a years personal supply (aprox. 12-14 oz.) in the 6x8x8 GH every one-and-done season (and trim makes fine bubble) - or I'll need a 10x10 SecureGrow instead.

Here I have yellow creeping into the leaves. With two more weeks until harvest, I'm juicing the plants with Jack's 20-20-20 Veg. nutes one time, then resuming the Jack's Finisher at the next feeding.

Harvested the tops of three plants this morning. Fed the remaining plants Kontos and Jacks Aqua-gold finisher. I'll drench them again tomorrow A.M. to be certain that the entire root-ball is saturated. No bugs or bud rot this grow, for the first time. Might have been that I used seeds instead of clones. Might be because of repeated defoliation. Most helpful was Cease and Milstop apps twice a week. The suns out bright, the hurricane is falling apart, so I'm letting the remaining drk. green buds harden, and now I can re-tie some of them for direct sun exposure.
Drying them in a tent with an ceiling exhaust fan running 24/7 for indirect airflow. I can stand up while trimming sugar leaves, letting them drop to the floor into empty Costco water-box flats for auto-collection and drying for the pre-bubble event. Going green here. No wasted plant matter. My next opps will be bubble hash from this crop. This site is great. Thanks

"The lower buds now getting sun won't harden any further, the only thing else to happen is the trichomes turning amber"
- farmer.

Bud rot is prevented by good airflow. Defoliation helps with this.

My crops grew from seeds germinating May 14, and the first three harvested Oct. 1,2,3rd. Imo, reflecting on GmEasy's link posted on a previous page, that said in general, "When you defoliate, the plant thinks it's being attacked by animals or weather. It's job is to veg, bloom, and flower at all cost. It's only defense is make more ThC to make animals and pests think twice before biting it." I agree with that theory. I would say this is the most powerful, long lasting, energizing, cannabis I've ever experienced, if the strain name wasn't SuperWrecker. I have not reached a "ceiling", and I'm smoking flower only a week old (but not the chlorophyll sugar leaves). I'm a total devotee for defoliation.
I regularly cut all large non-trich globe bearing leaves after the 5th week of flower.

It's easier to locate the plump stem's base when the plants are fresh to one-day cut, imo. This leaf got missed, but these non-trich leaves stand out.
If you can see the stem base of the leaf to snip-it then do it. If you have to dig into the bud to snip a leaf, then let it fall into the box-flats under them. All good bubble material. And it's best to get these large "turn-to-paper" leaves off while they're green and easy to access without disturbing the trichs.
Whether you cut the big leaves off while growing or when hanging, this is what the "thrifty" farmer wants to end up with. Sugar-leaf sheathing can be shucked over a trim bin wearing nitrile gloves. No scissors needed.
View attachment 4214627 This is my set-up. A 100w LED isn't even warm, and it's a more focused beam. I keep the transfer distances close. When the lights right, trich glands fall like rain.
These are the remaining three. 81 days in bloom & flower. 63 day in flower and only one still has that bright crystal-chandelier brilliance (not ready for harvest) look. The other two have trichs that are a dull milky-white. Both have 1/2 brown, 1/2 white pistils, but the crystal one more white than brown. I want to trim all the unwanted leaves off these plants while potted, so all I need to do is cut and hang them, with a fan pointed off-center to keep air moving and be done.

Beware. Your plants probably get 24/7 fan air on them. Don't forget to keep air moving on them from the moment they're cut. Bud rot can set-in overnight. I thought having just the tent supply and exhaust fans were enough... not! I got bud rot (black, bubbly, sugar leaves) overnight on (5) branches. I isolated them hanging with fan-air that kept them slightly swaying, and they dried-out, but are only good for bubble.
One clip fan 6ft. (2 meters) away and pointed off-center towards them is enough. The plants should move slightly 24/7 if your dry-room are these conditions.

This is required PPE suit ($12. amazon), organic vapor mask, eye-cover, mud boots, and HDX 1-gal. pump bottle. This getup and the chemicals and Kelloggs Raised-Bed potting mix and Jacks nutes are THE way for me. Open cages will be used next season, with the 6-panel x 6-panel opposite side openings rising from mid-level, and another facing-pair of (off-set from the middle holes), with the same 6x6 openings rising from the fabric pot height level, for full 3-gal blue-can hand-watering and Dramm wand access.
This is the "finished" sheathed bud, easily base-clipped from it's stem branch. The buds first go into the black, 1-gal humidor jar to test for moisture content to not be above 62 RH. Most are dried to 55% RH by this time. But safe to check before wide-mouth Bell jarring to cure in the cool dark for months. Wearing nitrile gloves, the cured buds are rubbed clean of sugar-leaves over the trim bin. The sugar leaves are then moved to a dedicated "bubble" Rubbermaid container, and the collected kif from the trim-bin bottom tray is carded into a pile and sparked as reward for a job well done. The first three plant's harvested buds as shown, weighed 16.64 ozs. Subtracting for stems and sugar-leaf, the weight will probably net about what?.... 8-9 oz? We'll see after the sugar leaves are cured enough to "rubber shuck" after final harvest next week.

RH is in the single-digits around here. The drying tent RH went into double digits for a day, then I soaked a heavy bath towel with water, zipped the tent front shut but bottom and top zippers open, and brought the tent's RH up to 45% in five hours.

The last plant standing, 6 of 6. So ripe it smells like rotting fruit. Pistils are brown and half-brown tipped. Began as see on May 15, and final harvest was Oct. 24th. 6 months, 9-days total for sativa. 94-days in bloom and flower. Next year I'd like to find some SFV Kush seeds to go with the sativas. 6-plants is max for me.
I believe that all weighed for the 6-plants, probably 32 oz. shucked of non-trichome leaves. At least a years stock-worth. I'll be doing the same cage-grow in May, I like the harvest results, and standing to trim leaves and for plant watering. When the plants get harvested and the room less crowded, the branches were released from their tie-downs and the buds seemed to fatten more in the following two weeks, as shown here. I moved the plants around during veg and flowering - didn't seem to bother them at all.There's a 4-panel x 6-panel access hole created on each opposing side of the top fence. The 4-panel across begin at the bottom exposed panels, the first of which overlap onto the lower fence, where their wired together in about four places around the perimeter. Then the hole is 6-panels in height, because you'll need the room to work on the plants when their huge. The photo shows the overlap and the upper fence with 5•H panels removed, the panel below needs to be removed, then there'd be (6) panels and only (1) panel in place at the very top perimeter surround for strength.
For the lower off-set quadrant, and facing each other access holes, the holes should be 4-panels x 5-panels•H, to accept that blue 3-gallon watering can that's used specifically for Kontos hand-watering during bloom and flower. By offsetting the access holes on top and bottom fencing, the structural strength is maintained, and the tower won't partially collapse mid-grow.
I've removed the 6-horseshoe staples around the 18" base that held the wire fence in place, keeping the circles of fence in the empty greenhouse, and the 4-castered base platforms in a shed.
Ball makes an amber quart jar now, and they make the plastic seal-caps. I like them. 62RH packs stay liquid, so I'm certain they seal.

TIME SENSITIVE ALERT!
While your harvest is still soft in the center, now is the time to Cob:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/cob-curing.978719/

To each their own of course, but you're defoliation technique is too much imo. While I am not a proponent of defoliation, everything I have read about it says you should never continually defoliate.

You defoliate around day 20 of flower, (Towards the end of stretch) and again around day 40 ( where they transition into packing on weight.) Just the two times, and avoid doing it otherwise. It stresses the plant out, and you want to allow it time to recover and progress.

Who knows I guess. You have bud at the end here, and maybe that's enough!

I think defoliating stresses the plant to make more tHc. Mine are mind-rip. I have to continue with the same method next season. I like not having all the leaves to strip at the end. Defoliating only twice would leave too many leaves to deal with.
••
I know it's said that the plants quit producing more leaves after the 5th or 6th week. I was continually removing leaves directly at the bottom of the buds that never frost-up, like every 5-days, and even at the 8th and 9th week. The only leaves I left anywhere on the plants had to have trich dusting's or they were removed. Even so I had plenty of bud-bottom leaves to remove right up to harvest time.
If I removed any leaves sticking out of the buds, then they always had trichs at the base of the leaves and those I save for bubble as part of the harvest routine. The reason I remove those leaves and as close to the stem as possible, is so that "bud-flower" will fill in the gap that removing the stem and leaf leaves creates. There is always at least one or two leaf brackets that I leave on each bud, but they always appear after I've defoilated the first bud-brackets. The plants continually make new leaves around the bud structure, as if their life depended on it.
•
For centuries, in the wild and damaged, the plants produce more tHc to ward-off animals. I've also noticed that my fan-leaf pile this season wasn't touched by brown snails, and the pile is surrounded by healthy ice plant that's a natural habitat for brown snails. I never saw one brown snail in the greenhouse either. Maybe the leaves are too "hot" and peppery for their liking.

And if you missed it earlier, in Vegetation and Bloom Stage, this is the ONLY chemical you need to efficiently kill all cannabis related maladies. No extra fungicide or mildew-cide needed. And no worries at all about aphids or mites. Ever. Use this from 1-gallon pots, until the 2nd week of flower, or while the buds are still very small. A time saver that is specifically for cannabis. Finally. Proud enough to put the word on their Rockwell® label.
https://www.domyown.com/ecovia-in-emulsifiable-concentrate-p-18068.html?keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjwyOreBRAYEiwAR2mSkhX5FaNCSvCYgWwaqgiUy_2aXuFhmTKaB3NFSE-__tExIOLTQaLl7RoC9QIQAvD_BwE
•
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Hi folks! I'm unable to grow a one-and-done this season, as I'm having foot surgery at the VA May 14, and that's four weeks, give or take, to be off my feet. But, I'm here to say that my manifold open-cage method worked great, and the crop is the strongest ever. I grew (6) plants and enough *hard-buds to last through the season, plus the trim from this last grow for bubble.
My 2018 research revealed that cutting off any and most all non-sugar coated leaves will make the plant think it's being attacked by Sabre tooth tigers or dinosaurs, as the plant is 10k yrs. old or more. It knows when it's being eaten-on and will produce more tHc in order to over-dose a predator, imo.
So, thanks to everyone for letting my experiment run-on here on riu without spamming-it up with back and forth, and now I'll be the quiet observer for 2019. Have a great grow-season.

*Hard buds, because cutting off all of the pesky water leaves exposed the manifolding buds to direct sunshine all day. Look at 'em!
I've gone back to my 2017 Panama Red and Vanilla Kush buds that ran full term (63-days or more in flower, 72 days for the pan-red), that had more water leaves, etc. left on the plant, and those buds are squishy, nothing like the buds from the 2018 cage-grow. Plus, I spun the plants around during flower on those caster 18" plywood disc, and the sun-greedy little so and so's thrived on being rotated.

My plants weren't truly T-manifold because I didn't tie the first two opposing limbs down to horizontal. Had I done so, the sun-exposed limbs would have sent shoots ("risers" in the plumbing trade) upward immediately compared to the extra time it took for my "Y" manifold to produce limbs. However, a T-manifold would have increased the plant width and gone outside of the 18" diameter cage, although I could have trained those "risers" to thread the cage, and later super-cropped the tops.
Next season I'll grow half T, and half Y to test for yield.
From this, my 7th season, I've harvested (36) amber qt. Ball jars full of trich-leaf shrouded buds, which reduce in jar volume with gravity-compaction (like pretzels), and in final trimming, but which all goes to bubble.

Actually, there's too much going on in my life to spend 6-weeks off my foot recovering from surgery, so my Dr. and I concluded to post pone the procedure until needed.
Back to being an 8th season planter. Maybe only (4) plants this year, (6) were full time for me, but will probably start with (6) in case of hermie or scraggly develop. Happy cropping, mine's going in earlier than May 14th, I want to finish Oct. 1 w/ 63-day (5th generation crossing) Lemon Kush, and 70-day Sovereign American Indian Nation - Sativa seeds, that were strong CBD medicine. Starting 4-seeds of each, and see what pops, taking the strongest 4 or 5.

hydra-glide said:

PITFALLS IN FINISHING:
"When using the Cease, combine it with MilStop instead of (two drops of unscented Dawn) soap. (15% of the MilStop is a surfactant (an ingrtedient that causes the pesticide to spread and stay on the leaf.)
Cooler and foggier days are a trigger for Botrytis and powdery mildew. The MilStop, all by itself, is not much more than a temporary band aid for Botrytis and PM. Thus, drench those buds with the combination". - farmer

ON FLUSHING PLANTS BEFORE HARVEST:
"First off, I don't flush. Never found any difference between flushed and non-flushed bud, and see no need to deprive the gals of nutrients essential for growth during the last days of their lives. One cannot flush a plant, but by repeatedly watering heavily, the soil can be leached of salts -- which would only be necessary if one was over-feeding".
View attachment 4204467
"Heavy 16 is simply over-hyped potassium sulfate and water. If the goal of flushing is to remove nutrients from the plant (impossible), or salts from the soil, I see using Heavy 16 as an "additive" to be counter intuitive". - farmer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• I'm going to cut, trim, hang to dry, and weigh my 6-plant harvest as it's ripens. I'll need to grow a years personal supply (aprox. 12-14 oz.) in the 6x8x8 GH every one-and-done season (and trim makes fine bubble) - or I'll need a 10x10 SecureGrow instead.

Click to expand...

flushing plants is a waist of time in my book also.