Unexplainable High EC

[IceCalibur]

Hi,

Thought I'd make a brief update as you'd all previously asked.

This photo was taken a couple of days ago.

Attachment 420426

It's looking good to my eye. I did thin it out 4 or 5 days ago as much as I was confident to do so but to be honest I'm itching to remove more. I've cleared as many of the leaves from over the flower sites as I dare but being such a short and compact plant I'm scared to remove too much more from it without really knowing what I'm doing.

From an EC perspective this last 3 days the EC in/out has been 1.5/1.2 but I'm going to up the input a little to around 1.8 and see if that stabalises it. I've also started to add in some PK boost. It's hard with an auto to know exactly when to do it (not to mension the fact it's my first grow) but reading atound week 5-6 ish is about the right time.

Distance between light and tip is about 18-20 inches. I'm measuring 720 at the top and 540 lower down the plant. My DLI is anything between 31 and 48 depnding on which bud I'm measuring but that seems fine.

Will update again in a week or so.

Thanks

MJ

I agree she is looking good MadJohn, I understand what you mean with autos..but really it's the same principle..if you see the leaves get too dark, just ease off a little, same with burnt tips.

Looks like you're doing a great job to me

[MadJohn]

Hi,

Quick update and a few questions.

I noticed that EC was starting to climb 3 or 4 days ago and I'm assuming this was the transition from stretch into the next phase as it's stopped growing. With a roughtly 30% runoff I'm seeing 1.9-2.1 so I've dialed back the neuts a fair amount (gone from 1.8/1.9 in to 1.2/1.3) but going to need to wait a few days to see that take effect. Today I'm hoping to see about 1.6/1.7 as it drops back. As I wasn't quick enough to react I've had a little bit of leaf tip burn but apart from that it looks healthy enough.

First Question
Installed my RO system yesterday and seems to be working fine. With only a couple of weeks to go my gut reaction is not to rock the boat and swap over to using RO water at this point and instead just leave it until the next grow, does that sound reasonable? The only thing driving the change might be my neuts situation and using the RO water would drop 0.6EC. That's quite a shock tot he plants though I'm guessing at a critical time. Maybe mixing 80/20 ro/tap or something is the answer.

Second question
I'm still not happy with the amount of leaves covering the buds lower down on the plant. I'm sooooooo tempted to just cut them off but this late into flowering I'm very wary as every single site I've read says don't defoliate/trim late on in flowering. What do you think? I'm probably looking at about 10 leaves to make a difference but as the plant has been so stunted all along anyway and I'm very wary of anything affecting its yield (which is already going to be sub 1oz I think anyway) it seems like a bad thing to trim even a handful of leaves off. There is also two fan leaves that are also showing signs of being on their last legs I'd like to chop.

Third Question
Over the past 24h, the leaves around the "main" cola last few days are turning lighter. I tried photographing it however the photos don't really show the contrast but here's the best I could manage though I've messed a little with the contrast to try and show it a little better.



I think the picture shows how much lighter those leaves are than the surrounding fan leaves. I'm getting trichome development as I can just about see them so I thought maybe it's just a bit of frosting (and as it's a WW hybrid I guess it's going to look a little, well white). It might also be associated with the neuts situation that should settle over the next few days. I also dropped my light a couple of inches yesterday so it could be a little bit of light burn. I've lifted them again today to give to top of the canopy about 50 DLI (according to Photone) but it was only about 8000pppd so I can't imagine that would be enough to cause that almost overnight.

As always, any help/advice/guidance is very much appreciated.

MJ

[Farmer Geddon]

Use the RO now if you want to. They're tough buggers that can survive transplanting and aggressive defoliation. Changing from duff water to RO isn't going to phase them.

Leaf tip discolouration during the flowing stretch can be ignored. Will make no difference to the final yield. I call it 'stretch marks'.

[barney_b]

2nd Question - I take a handful of leaves per day during flower until I'm happy with the light exposure. Hell I've removed 50% or more at a time and the plants never protest. Vegetation requires light to grow. I feel perfectly fine sacrificing a leaf that I'm not going to smoke for a bud which I will. Don't be afraid of working your autos!

Cheers
B

[MadJohn]

Use the RO now if you want to. They're tough buggers that can survive transplanting and aggressive defoliation. Changing from duff water to RO isn't going to phase them.

Leaf tip discolouration during the flowing stretch can be ignored. Will make no difference to the final yield. I call it 'stretch marks'.

Hahahaha nice I like that I will swop over to RO today then.

2nd Question - I take a handful of leaves per day during flower until I'm happy with the light exposure. Hell I've removed 50% or more at a time and the plants never protest. Vegetation requires light to grow. I feel perfectly fine sacrificing a leaf that I'm not going to smoke for a bud which I will. Don't be afraid of working your autos!

Cheers
B

OK and thanks. I did take off another 3 leaves yesterday but I think I'll take off another handful today. It's such a compact bush that the leaves are really covering everything up. Perhaps being a little more aggressive with it is the answer.

I've learned so much from this grow.

Thanks all again for all your help

MJ