Pruning advice

[mojosat]

Greetings all. So I am 4 weeks into flowering as of today on my first grow after a 10 year break. I started with bag seed to get my feet back underneath me before worrying about genetics. I am growing in a tent that is 24x36x60 with a 400 watt switchable HPS/MH l;amp. My temps go between 70-79 degrees and my humidity stays between 35-42%. I am growing in 5 gallon buckets with Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil. They get roughly 3/4s of a gallon of purified water water every 3rd day and 1 gallon of nutrient mix every 6th or 7th day. I fed them today and used 1 gallon of purified water with 15 mls each of AN Sensi bloom parts a and b, 3 drops of SuperThrive, and just enough PH Down to put the mix at 5.9 I have been upping the nutrients by a couple of mls per gallon each week, the mix was at solid 1050 ppm and PH of 5.9. Even though I made some pretty bad mistakes early on and stressed them so bad the first week of veg that I thought they wouldn't recover, they are at this stage, the healthiest plants I have ever raised. Using good soil and nutrients this go around has made all the difference.

Now my issue, my tent is not tall enough and as of now my HPS is at the tippy top of the tent. Like I said, I made a lo of mistakes and was too far in to change after I learned about SCROG. I think they have finished their stretch or vertical growth at this point but my question or issue is, will 16 inches from top of the plants to the bulb be enough me to finish the last 4-5 weeks or should I figure something out like modifying the tent. I am also looking for any advice I can get about pruning the two healthy looking plants (the third scraggly one was my mother plant) to expose some of the middle branches to more light? Whatever the strain was, the growth is super dense. Lastly, would adding a couple of 26 watt uvb bulbs at this point help bring the frost out? Thanks all!

RLTW

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[Rosebud]

mojosat, welcome to MP, glad you are here. Your plant looks nice. I am confused, are you vegging and flowering in the same space? I would trim the vegging one by topping another few inches, maybe like 4. Your temps are good. The flowering one won't grow much if any taller. Tell me more.

 

[mojosat]

Thanks Rosebud. No, the taller plant on the left is\was my mother and has been outdoors until a week ago when pistils started to appear everywhere as the days got a bit shorter, so I quarantined it for 48 hours to make sure there was no infestation and then moved it into the flowering space with the others to let it finish out its life cycle, I am not expecting much from it. Right now all the clones which I took about 3 weeks ago are in a separate clone box that I built. Eventually I will order a tent with at least 72 inches of height and that will become my flowering space. Those clones are in one gallon pots and in 4 weeks when the batch flowering now finishes, I am going to put 4 plants into 2 city picker boxes (similar to earth boxes) and scrog those 4 plants.

My concern is with the two plants on the right being so dense is there a need to prune some of the fan leaves so the mid and lower nodes will get some more light?
Any thoughts on the uvb question?

 

[RubyRed]

What is that in the center of the top Bud?

:banana:

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

At 4 weeks flowering, I personally would not recommend trimming anything. Nodes do not need light. The fan leaves are where all the photosynthesis takes place. You could do some lst--spread the branches out some, but I wouldn't be for trimming things at this point. I can't answer your question about the uvb light.

 

[mojosat]

Very helpful, thanks THG.

 

[mojosat]

Do my nutrient levels sound about right or is there room to push?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Different strains have way different nutrient needs. I like to up the nutrients each week until I see a bit of nute burn and then back off a tad. Your pH is really not in the right range for soil. For soil, you want to keep your pH in the 6.3 to 6.8 range.

 

[mojosat]

Thanks again, remembering why I loved this place so much 10 years ago!@

 

[mojosat]

I am also working on first dwc grow so that I have something ready to go into flowering in 3-4 weeks when this batch finishes. I have been running that res at 5.8 for the first couple of weeks and probably got my numbers mixed up. I did adjust them to 6.4 for their watering this morning. Thanks again all, I am sure I will be back soon with a ton of DWC questions.

 

[Rosebud]

Mojo for the grow mojosat!