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

[lunarman]

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?

 

[Master_gRoshi]

can i see the gals.
Id be happy to look. And give my approach to bondage on some ladies

 

[lunarman]

Here is one plant that I have two autocobs on now. It seems to me that even with two autocobs on it there are still too many bud sites. I'll likely end up with a bunch of smallish buds instead of a handful of big ones. It was topped and spread wide with LST and now in a scrog trellis net. I'm worried I have way too many bud sites even with two autocobs. Again, I wish there was a discussion area dedicate just for plant training with some stickies etc. Most plant training ideas are buried in journals and hard to search.

I'm wondering if there is a way to minimize the canopy width/size so that one light would cover a plant well right thru to harvest. Maybe not top it? And no LST?

 

[Master_gRoshi]

Here is one plant that I have two autocobs on now. It seems to me that even with two autocobs on it there are still too many bud sites. I'll likely end up with a bunch of smallish buds instead of a handful of big ones. It was topped and spread wide with LST and now in a scrog trellis net. I'm worried I have way too many bud sites even with two autocobs. Again, I wish there was a discussion area dedicate just for plant training with some stickies etc. Most plant training ideas are buried in journals and hard to search.

I'm wondering if there is a way to minimize the canopy width/size so that one light would cover a plant well right thru to harvest. Maybe not top it? And no LST?

View attachment 841112

its in trellis already even. Beside cleaning the undercarriage. Not much to be done.
And i would give her as much light as you can to cover her. Then let her go. She is in good shape

 

[lunarman]

can i see the gals.
Id be happy to look. And give my approach to bondage on some ladies

Thank you. Appreciate it. Here are some more pics. It's hard to take pics of plants that show what I'm talking about.

This is the same Dinafem Critical but different plant. Started same time. It's shorter and stout. But again a lot of bud sites.

This is the same as the first pic, the taller plant. Pic taken further back to show fuller perspective. It stretched more. And has so many bud sites on it all over the place. The top, the sides, underneath. And I have pruned this a lot (at least for me it seems like a lot but I'm a new to this).

 

[lunarman]

its in trellis already even. Beside cleaning the undercarriage. Not much to be done.
And i would give her as much light as you can to cover her. Then let her go. She is in good shape

question. If a bud site has surrounding bud sites, do the end up all as one bud usually?

And I have seen a lot of pics where plants were trimmed just before harvest and they have like maybe 6 colas. Do they start out bushy and wide like mine and just end up with a few colas in the end?

 

[BigSm0]

Yes the buds usually clump together and form one big bud. Like this.

I have also been skipping the ties lately and just pushing the branches outward. If it’s a stubborn main branch it may need a tie or two. This plant was growing like a Christmas tree until I gave her some love. I just mentioned this to another grower but it seems like when the main is tied down the whole plant changes. These side branches shoot out and new growth everywhere.

As for light and the number of cobs I know it seems like coverage is more important but I will say overall intensity or light hitting the plant drops dramatically when the lights are raised. More leaves getting light but much less light overall. I’d still take a wide plant outside the coverage area than an x-mas tree with one cola getting light.

 

[lunarman]

Yes the buds usually clump together and form one big bud. Like this.
View attachment 841130
I have also been skipping the ties lately and just pushing the branches outward. If it’s a stubborn main branch it may need a tie or two. This plant was growing like a Christmas tree until I gave her some love. I just mentioned this to another grower but it seems like when the main is tied down the whole plant changes. These side branches shoot out and new growth everywhere.
View attachment 841128

As for light and the number of cobs I know it seems like coverage is more important but I will say overall intensity or light hitting the plant drops dramatically when the lights are raised. More leaves getting light but much less light overall. I’d still take a wide plant outside the coverage area than an x-mas tree with one cola getting light.

do you top/fim?

i went out to the garage and lowered the lights after reading your post. i better c some big kolas in the morning instead of popcorn bigsm0!!!

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[lunarman]

Yes the buds usually clump together and form one big bud. Like this.
View attachment 841130
I have also been skipping the ties lately and just pushing the branches outward. If it’s a stubborn main branch it may need a tie or two. This plant was growing like a Christmas tree until I gave her some love. I just mentioned this to another grower but it seems like when the main is tied down the whole plant changes. These side branches shoot out and new growth everywhere.
View attachment 841128

As for light and the number of cobs I know it seems like coverage is more important but I will say overall intensity or light hitting the plant drops dramatically when the lights are raised. More leaves getting light but much less light overall. I’d still take a wide plant outside the coverage area than an x-mas tree with one cola getting light.

As you probably recall I have 2 600 watt HPS lights too and I thought these will help me get my with one autocob per plant. I could put two plants under one 600 watt HPS and one cob each and that would work awesome. But I just got an electric bill that was 4 times that I expected. It was high because I was running heaters for heat and HPS and LED. So I am trying to get by thru the winter without using the HPS. Therefore I'm kind of down to one cob per plant.

Thought about what you wrote some more. This is the thing that is a conundrum. You say its better to keep the lights closer to get the most intensity and I get that. But with the training I'm doing with Topping and LST I get a pretty even canopy but it's a big one and I find one light, close for intensity, might not be enough. So I'm wondering how can I make my canopy smaller in size/area with some sort of training plan.

 

[lunarman]

I decided to make some decisions on my own. Decided that LST and topping are just the beginning and are good techniques to start out and maintain an even canopy. But when I can only hang one cob per plant and I don't want it too high since that reduces intensity, but I want coverage too, I should reduce the canopy density and the amount of leaf shading so a single cob can get to more parts of the plant and all the buds. Its true you would probably do this under any lighting conditions. But it just clicked for me today that I should try this.

I read a couple of growweedeasy.com tutorials on defoliating and went to work and stripped out of lot of fan leaves on my two Critical 2.0's. I tried to leave fan leaves that were part of a good kola stem. The canopy is not as thick and busy now. The cob's should be able to get some lumens on to the buds much better now.

They look a little droopy now but hoping in 3-4 days they recover and show some good improvement.