Plucking Leaves

Northwood said:

Well I'd certainly appreciate if you can point me to better cannabis plant training videos on YouTube that you were talking about. I'm always looking to improve in that regard.

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Ok, the guy can do some damn good work as far as that - and sharing video's.
Thing is? It's rather simple......
AND I understand that book learning is rather lacking on that stuff. Now there is where "Kushman" should focus his attention - say write a book with lots of pictures too?

Tell you what. I have a cpl more months before I take a sabbatical (Going to sail around the world - Bucket list thing).
Be happy to answer any questions.. I'm not the only one around that can answer those questions either...
Ever seen the German 45 degree plastic branch trainers?....Nice.
Poke around here in the search feature - some nice work with pics on that here too.

Dr. Who said:

Ever seen the German 45 degree plastic branch trainers?....Nice.

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Those clips are really cool, and so much more convenient than tying 100 strings to branches to hold them down. I'm a bit of a klutz when training and end up breaking a lot of branches, especially those squat fat "indica" genetics like the crazy plant I'm growing now.

Even when I grow 4 plants I like to grow them big, and always have the problem of not quite knowing when to stop suckering them (I grow under LED, usually from seed). TBH scrogs drive me crazy sometimes. I can never get all the colas even in height in flower. So even when I get the canopy even after flip to flower, the more vigorous stems just grow more quickly, leaving me with perhaps more vertical structure than I want.

Scrogs can easily turn into a logistical nightmare for me when trying to fill each hole with one cola, so I only use them when I think it's necessary, usually with "sativa" leaning strains that want to grow 15 feet high. My current grow is the only time I've used a scrog net for an Indica, but I'm trying something silly by trying to fill a single 5X5 tent with one very fat squat lady. Just a personal challenge, but it has cost me at least one grow cycle this year. But growing weed has to be fun too.

Normally I don't train and defoliate much, and do admittedly get a lot of popcorn crap. I still aim to fill my 5X5 with colas though, and almost always yielded over 1kg of manicured cured bud from the 4 plants, thee times each year. From the other stuff I make bubble hash in Frenchy-style temple balls from the popcorn and anything else I'm too lazy to trim.

Northwood said:

Frenchy-style temple balls

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?? Temple Balls are/were Tibetan........Came from rubbing hands on the buds and rolling the goo on your hands into balls. Generally black or dark brown.
Like the real original Thai Stick's were fat and weighed in at a zip or more each... The little skinny lowland ones came later on and were called Thai stick but, I never saw them as the "same".....

I see. Your having fun then. That's good!

Yeah that training thing can be annoying..... Call me old but, I still like to play the game my way... I get what I want/need. That's enough for me.
I do lolly and some sucker removal. Past that. I have no belief in "defoliation" per say.

Some day try this; Harvest the ripe mains and leave the unripe lowers on the plant. Let them run another 2 weeks (or more) and harvest those when ripe. The quality/potency of those "pop corn" buds will blow you away.
I have a cpl of patients that will only take my "late harvest" results...

Reminds me that in reality. If properly ripened. Those lower buds actually will have a higher THC content then the mains - NO SHIT!
UB is a big proponent of that. So is Jorge and most other "Old guys" of growing.

I used to laugh at many who "attacked" Uncle Ben for his work. They never noticed who, many of the plant pictures in Jorge's grow bible are accredited to! Not to mention that his topping and training tech is some of the best, as far as learning from it goes...

Ol Ben spends time making wine from his grapes in the fall. He has some good verities.

Dr. Who said:

Some day try this; Harvest the ripe mains and leave the unripe lowers on the plant. Let them run another 2 weeks (or more) and harvest those when ripe. The quality/potency of those "pop corn" buds will blow you away.

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I've tried it many times, and in fact I'm a huge proponent of staggering harvest by taking the upper-most parts of the colas first to allow the lowers to ripen. The problem with taking entire large plants down in one shot is that it's too much compromise for me. Bud doesn't ripen all at the same time on a plant, and usually people settle for ripe uppers where they check the trichomes and harvest immature bud at the same time further below. I used to wonder why people harvest even large plants all in one shot, and I can only conclude that they can't wait an extra week or 2 due to wanting to rotate plants out of there and free up a room/tent as quickly as possible to increase production. It seems a lot of folks are after quantity more than quality I guess?

I like the little extra time, because after taking the top colas closest to the lights I can lower the lights too, and that provides more light not just to the lower buds I'm trying to ripen, but also to the newly spouted cover crop I seeded in late flower. By the time the plants are fully harvested, the cover crop is already established and I waste no time getting my next plants started in there. I still make hash out of the lower stuff though. I want mature trichomes in that too.