Lighting Plant training for autocobs - need some tips from you all

[Hippy_BiotabsF70]

yes of course, you are right. I think a meter and your eye is a good combination. the meter give the foundation you build a house on, any design you like.
What do you mean by auto's grow from seeds so no knowledge is available?

Well if you had a set of clones each one is likely to require roughly the same light, nutes, etc. If you grow from seed, you have way more variation of plants (phenotypes), so its basically impossible to predict / know what each plant requires. Growing from seed means many more variables and therefore we are able to predict a lot less.

So I just mean with clones you have some existing knowledge of the plants, with seeds you have to wait and see what you get and then try to give them what they need.

Sorry I'm not very good at explaining my thoughts!

 

[McDee]

Wish there was a discussion board on plant training on AFN.

Right now I have the luxury of putting two autocobs per plant that are flowering now. And the others that are seedlings/veg get one per plant. But eventually I'm going to run out of autocobs for the two per plant method. I love the two per plant just because of the spread, not so much the lumens.

I top my plants and LST them and end up with a wide canopy going in to flowering. Got a lot of bud sites. But when I have to switch to one autocob per plant I don't think I'll have enough spread.

Looking for some tips on what to do. Either raise a light up really high for the spread? Or should I take a different approach to how I train plants so that I dont need a 2 light spread?

I made a suggestion for a training spot, great minds think alike lol. It depends on what your growing. Not every strain responds well to topping, so unless your growing the same strains all the time it's hard to say that xyz is the way to go. Training advice would be easier to give if you gave a strain. Not sure if any strains dont like, but lst is always a good one, leaf tucking too. It's your hst you need to be careful with. But don't get me wrong, I'm one abusive s.o.b. lol!

 

[lunarman]

I made a suggestion for a training spot, great minds think alike lol. It depends on what your growing. Not every strain responds well to topping, so unless your growing the same strains all the time it's hard to say that xyz is the way to go. Training advice would be easier to give if you gave a strain. Not sure if any strains dont like, but lst is always a good one, leaf tucking too. It's your hst you need to be careful with. But don't get me wrong, I'm one abusive s.o.b. lol!

agreed. and for sure should have a training board. its so key. im experimenting with lst using weighted rings i put on a main stem to spread it out. its more interactive than tie downs

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[McDee]

agreed. and for sure should have a training board. its so key. im experimenting with lst using weighted rings i put on a main stem to spread it out. its more interactive than tie downs

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That's cool, would like to do stuff like that but I got limited space so just use reg soft ties. But I supercrop, top, lst, lollipop, what else you got... want to mainline but can't do experiments for now.

 

[Padawan1972]

I have not let any of my girls grow natural...I don have the head space...plus, I really like the hands on LST'ing

 

[BigSm0]

It’s more important to understand why your doing what your doing than just following along with what everyone else is doing. This is the best thing I have read here on GWEasy.

The inverse square law is really the biggest hurdle in lighting. Short and wide is much better than tall and skinny. You can’t physically see the light being less powerful at the bottom of a 10” long branch but the plant does. If it was flat or flatter more light would be hitting the entire branch and yield you much more. I am also convinced that allowing the main branch to be the dominate branch will also yield much less too. When pulled down the side branches grow at much faster rates. I’m not saying I’m a super grower by any means but I have noticed huge improvements with a trained plant over an untrained plant. Which leads me to smart pots and how much I don’t like them. Air pots have the holes in them for easy training. I just spent an hour drilling holes in the fabric on the smart pots to accept ties.

 

[Dabber]

@BigSm0 I use a paper punch to make my holes in my fabric pots takes 2 secs

Great read

 

[BigSm0]

Sort of hard to see in the pics but I got a shot of the bud on the left which is pulled away. Don’t want to defoliate which leads to the lower half of the plant in darkness. I managed to pull each branch away enough where the whole plant gained a foot in width and is now 4 inches shorter. 4 inches according to my par meter is 25% more light and that 25% gain is in the middle to lower half of the plant. I bet this will also lead to 25% more yield as well. Buds in darkness compared to buds bathing under cob light.

I am also feeding bloom nutrients only now. I see the claw

 

[BigSm0]

@BigSm0 I use a paper punch to make my holes in my fabric pots takes 2 secs
View attachment 850779

Great read

This is what I love about Afn! I stared at the pots for about 10 minutes saying wtf do I do now. 2 handles isn’t enough. Ohhhh my Milwaukee drill. Ya know if I used a hole punch lol. Great idea!

 

[BigSm0]

So these two were trained extensively. I’m now past 6 feet wide on these 2 alone. I’m sure if I let them grow naturally they would be well through the ceiling.

I honestly think par meters are a waste of money but they do show how fast light drops off at distance. I’d much rather have an even 300umole across a 3x3 plant vs 1200umole on top of a bean pole. Watts per square foot, efficiency, Par, ppf and ppfd are very vague measurements when growing style and how the lights getting to the plant makes the biggest difference.

If you look closely you can see the 3 buds on the top left, they were just about touching each other before I tied them a bit more.

These are in 7 gallon pots too.

20 gallon tote for reference.