Question on status of Sour Diesel Auto, buds seem like they should be plumping up more

Selective trimming thinning of autos is not a problem. You do want to do it a early as possible and do a little at a time. Start at the bottom interior and work your way up and out. If you see baby buds buried in there that do not stand a chance of making it to the canopy, take them out now too. Baby larf steals from the buds.
Can you raise the three plants a foot or so? Your light is so high because of SD the other three will pay dearly for it. Isn’t the recommended hanging height for the TSW2000 around 18". How far are your plants from the light? You want to have the tops of all of your plants as even as you can. That way they all get high quality light.

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I’ve been thinking about that as the AK and CBD have matured more. I’ll have to search around for a few milk crates I think I have laying around. To bump them up for a bit. The SD keeps reaching for the light which worries me. Going to have to re rig my light and take off the wire hangers that came with the light as it’s caused me to be maxed out currently on the distance I can move it up.

Just finished the first trim. Felt like I took a lot more off than shows. Started opening up the bud sites on the Super Skunk, and took off a lot of the lower interior leaves that didn’t look so hot as well as some of the interior bud sites that looked like they were going to struggle. Should I water with nutrients tonight or wait till the morning? They are due for some next watering but they could probably hold up till tomorrow moisture wise. Although they are getting pretty light when I lift them. My light cycle is off during the night as it’s easier for me and to deal with when they sleeping when I am. Not sure if that matters too much. Just thought I read something about watering with before the dark cycle. Here’s some pics of the progress and one special one of my 14 year old cat who said it smelled and tasted lip smacking good.

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When you do not break the apical dominance of these plants, it becomes the chicken and an egg thing. The more you raise the light the more they will reach for it. I would suggest bending it over as much as possible without super cropping it. See if you can take 12" off of its height. You will also want to elevate the other plants. Try to get the light so it is 18 - 20 above the plants. You will be rewarded with better buds.
This is what I have in the tent from 12 days ago. The two up front have a couple buds that are about 4" taller than every thing else (AK47 photos). It is a bit a packed house and I ran out of horizontal space. Otherwise, I would have tied them down.

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Great explanation. Freaks me out to bend it over The light measured at 19” from the Kush and 18” from the AK this morning. Probably set my light up so I can bring it up more and debating the bend. The SD seems very fickle when I adjust and tuck some of her leaves. How far along in flower are yours in the photo. They look phenomenal, man. Speechless really. Debating a lot on going to photoperiod seeds next. Just felt like an auto would give me less stress on dictating the grow, but the more I read the more I realize it takes a lot out of our control. So glad I finally jumped into growing. Made my life a lot more enjoyable, and allows me to decompress when I’m in the tent. Thank you to everybody on this forum in helping me realize my true passion. Growing what I’ve loved my whole life.

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If you are growing outside, it is hard to beat the shape and appearance of a huge plant in its natural form. Inside is to totally different animal. On one of my first grows I had a White Widow auto go wild on me. She stretched like crazy and was a foot taller than her sisters. I was running out of height in the tent besides. It gets ugly what you have to resort to. I grabbed the center of the stalk and tied it to the tent’s corner pole pulling it off center as much as I could. I then lashed some heavy wire to the stem that I had bent. Over the next couple of days I bent the wire some more and secured it to what ever I could. On another occasion I slid a tomato cage over the plant and used the cage to bend and secure the plant.
I have become a strong proponent of plant training. It does not matter if it is an auto or photo.
This is a Jack Herer auto. She had an unusually long veg period and I took advantage of it. I simply kept tying (staples) her down and spreading her out by going around the perimeter of the pot. I did not top her although she would have benefited from it (more of an experiment on my part0
9/11 day 51 (starts flowering within a few days)

9/17 day 57 starting to stretch and first signs of flowers


Lastly, 11/27 day 128 and a week before harvesting her. The inside dimensions of the scrog is 22x22

The photo is from 3/8 and on day 36 of 12/12 lights. It took a little over a week for them to transition into flower so actual flower days is closer to 28+_

I started growing with autos. Same thought process as you. After 4 or 5 auto grows switched to photos. Photos are much more rewarding, at least for me. There are plenty of growers that love their autos and do amazing things with them. I still grow single autos (jack herer is an example) but I grow photos in the tent. The picture I first sent is of six clones. Another benefit of photos. If you get a really nice plant you can extent its life by cloning it.
This is a link to my current project. A little preview:

Let’s Grow Some Purple Kush

Speaking of clones, after the jack herer I used that space to do a sea of green with twelve NL & AK47 clones. It was fun and different Sea of Green Acres AK47 & NL Clones
If you have questions, just reach out. I will help if I can or tag someone I think that can. I have not been at it that long myself but I enjoy the hell out of it.

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Really thinking switching to photos for the next round now after reading your other topics. Got everything boosted with what I could find for now. Still a little low on the Kush and AK but measured out at around 16”from light SD is still at 9”. Haven’t got the balls to bend her yet. And the Super Skunk taped out at 18” and starting to stretch. Been taking a few leaves here and there after the trim a few nights ago. Really understand the concepts now on why training is so important. The 4x4 looked so big when everything was starting. Now it feels too small. And still need to change and a few a few things in there. Need more air movement and grab a fan soon. Space heater/ fan / humidifier is burning some of my leaves when the heat is comes on it. Need to have it directed away and get some small clip fans or at least on that oscillates. Took runof readings last night. Going in at 6.45 ph, 1150 ppm with flower (PK) nutrients, coming out at 6.6-6.8 ph and 1200 ppm. The Kush did read around 900 ppm and has shown a little yellowing on mostly older leaves.

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What are those things called between your pots and catch trays?

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They are old square drain tops from my work. They would fit on top of a box that collects surface water.

Nice, looks like they work nice for that. I just thought of maybe using some aluminum serrated step pieces… the pointy traction part of em shouldnt hurt the plant/dirt/grow bag would it?

They do work pretty good. I live in a pretty rural area and the nearest landscape supply doesn’t carry much, so I improvised. And in regards to your question I think as long as you lifted straight up on your pots you’d be okay. Might tear them if you slide. I think just about anything would work as long as they could support your pots when full after watering. Believe the point is allowing air to move and trying to not promote fungus as well as letting the excess drain off.

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The more I think about it the more I think it will work good so gonna try it, Weld some small legs on should be good. :crossed_fingers:Thanks for the input

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Well I made half a dozen of them, I think they’ll work great

I can stand on em and not budge em lol

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Nice work, man. Those look awesome. Now I’m jealous.

Those stands are great.

@Turf_pharmer I have been of A similar mindset related to growing autos. I only grow them outside and only for the purpose of getting a July harvest. I’ve always felt like the only real advantage for autos is tricking your natural light schedule and for years it confused the hell out of me why anyone growing indoors would bother with autos given that they have full control over their lighting schedule.

The piece of the puzzle that I was missing is that autos will finish faster than their photo Counterparts and according to the Internet at large it seems that autos are now near as makes no difference equivalent to photoperiod Plants in terms of their potency.

The first time I grew auto flower plants a whole bunch of years ago It was a trade off. You get a quick flowering plant that You can harvest outdoors months before your regular plants are ready but you would get reduced potency – those ruderalis genes were still a much larger piece of the pie in those earlier hybrids and ruderalis has a much lower THC content.

Things have definitely shifted. It makes a lot more sense to me why people, even experienced growers, are growing autos indoors. I am still not but hey who the hell am I

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I see your point as I’m going through that issue in this grow. I had chose autos based on the idea of having all of the plants finish at the same time, condensing the harvesting, curing process to all in one and utilizing my tent for multiple purposes. But I’m in a situation that appears that all of my plants will finish at different times, as all have matured much differently. So the next goal is to figure out harvesting and drying location and the process of maintaining the correct environment for this processes. But with all that, it still has to be one of the most calming,

I agree, when things are growing well it’s nice to just look at things and relax. With so many things in life that are out of our control really really more than ever like that it is reassuring and calming to be able to exert some positive control over your garden

I suppose one positive thing you have going related to your dilemma is that because you are growing autos , Depending on your space availability, you could move some of them out of the tent and start using it as a drying room while the rest of them finish. You don’t have to worry about light leaks or any of that.

I ran into a similar problem back in the fall. I had just moved into a new house and did not have anything prepared for drying or curing my outdoor harvest.

I wound up using the fridge drying method with my spare beer fridge. Had to relocate my beer for a couple of weeks!

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Ha ha. Don’t have a spare fridge unfortunately. And I have a full house still, so trying to figure this one out is tough. More worried about the smell during drying. Was intending on using the tent as I could keep the smell in check with exhaust fan, but know I’m almost thinking I should get a second tent for drying as well as moving into photos. Then I could have a veg and flower tent and schedule drying accordingly. Just out of curiosity what is your favorite strain you have grown? I picked the ones I’m using just because I grew up on the classics.

Little update. It’s Day 62 since sprout and finishing week 4 of flower on the Sour Diesel, CBD Kush is about the same, AK 47 is half a week behind that and Super Skunk is second week or so. CBD is changing colors a little and hairs are starting to turn a little Sour has fattened up but still cranking with almost no pistol s changing yet. AK has really hit stride and filling nicely. Super Skunk has been stretching and kicking new pistols out for about a week. Still dumbfounded on why the Sour is moving along slowly. Feel lime it is going to go for 100+ days. Kush seems more on the correct schedule.


Order of pics : AK 47, Sour D, CBD Kush, SuperSkunk

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More pics

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