I have seen many pictures of plants that were trained or bent to stay at a uniform low height so all the buds get an equal amount. This is my first grow and I didn’t do that. I also see many pictures of plants that are extremely tall and covered in buds. How do you get the lower buds to receive enough light?
My plant is currently 24" tall and growing like crazy. Only in week 2 of flowering. Girl Scout Cookies Extreme auto.
A combination of the right lights, training and patience. In all honesty most of us defoliate below a certain point to avoid ‘larfy’ buds. Those growing for edibles only may handle plants differently.
Here’s a good example of training using a SCROG:
That plant delivered 402 grams of flower in jars.
That plant is a beautiful thing! For the people who don’t train and just let the plant grow tall I wonder how they manage to get decent buds at the bottom of the plant. Do you think some are using lights mounted sideways down low?
If you do leave lower buds on, or if you have buds around the edges of the canopy that don’t get a whole lot of light, then you can also do a staged harvest. I am doing this with 2 of my plants right now. I took a partial harvest off the top of the plant on Friday and I’ve left those flowers that weren’t ripened yet on the plant to harvest in another week to 10 days after they’ve fully ripened.
Is there a point where it is safe to defoliate as the buds start getting closer to harvest? I assume the plant needs some leaves to continue doing it’s thing.
It’s best to leave at least 3 nodes at the top. The leaves help produce the sugars that the plant needs to sustain itself.
Once the stretch is over you won’t have to think about defoliating any more. I take off troublesome leaves and lower bud sites all of the way though the stretch (week 4ish.)
Do you find that the buds receiving less light take longer for the pistils to change to the right color indicating harvest time? The instructions on when to harvest are pretty specific according to the download I received from this website.
If I did a staged harvest would I remove the upper leaves once those buds were taken? Thanks.
So you actually remove the lower buds? Does this give more energy to the upper buds? Should I do that now. I am in about week 2 of flowering. Plant has grown 10" in the past week or so.
The pistils tend to darken at the same time over most of the plant, but those not getting much light at all may not change until later. You will see a visible difference in the ripeness of your flowers when you get to that point and it will be fairly obvious which are ready and which are not.
When I take a flower then all of it comes off as well as a few inches of stem below it. If you zoom in you can see the stubs of the branches where I cut flower off.
Here’s one of the flowers that came off of the plant. There is a good 1 to 2 inches of stem that came off with it.
Hey sorry to interrupt . I’m trying to post a question and can’t figure out how . Can anyone help me out when u have time plz
My rule is: if it is under the canopy, or if it has no chance of growing out from under the canopy, then it comes off.
Here’s a typical flowering structure of one of my plants.
@Artski87 first of all welcome to a amazing forum. You need to go here first. If you want to get someone’s attention use the @ then their user name. Like @Artski87 or @Davyg
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Then here
Then select from there what you want to ask and where you want to ask it. Hope this helps 
So I’m signed in and I don’t have the option for new topic for some reason
Thanks I’ll keep trying
I had the same problem when I first joined. You have to click on the “forum” tab above the magnifying glass at the top of the screen. Then you should see “New Topic” approximately half way down your screen on the right side.
I attached pictures so you can see how my plant is growing, low branches are wide. What’s your opinion on a plant like this as far as removing the lower stuff? Thanks.
I don’t know that I would do any defoliation on that plant. Defoliation is intended to address light and airflow issues, and your plant isn’t all that dense.
I’m using an HLG 260W QB V2 rspec light. Do you think I would need to add a second light to get more dense growth with shorter node spacing for my next grow?
I followed the advice of only running my light at half for the first month. I had it at 24" above the plant. Currently at 18".
Should I try running the light at 100% and a little bit lower next time?
You can try but I don’t know that it is going to make a whole lot of difference with an auto. Autos kind of do their own thing and they aren’t all that receptive to training. You can grow a compact photo, but I haven’t seen many photos that were all that dense among autos. An HLG 260 is plenty of light for one plant.
Your plant is doing great. Let it do its thing and she will reward you.
Usually only outdoor plants do that. Sunlight has a sort of polarization that we can’t duplicate with artificial lights. Plus it’s basically a hydrogen bomb too lol.
