Lower Leaf Drop Day 9 of Flower In Hydro

xtsho

Well-Known Member
I'm a non-defoliator myself. I just let them fall off on their own. I just don't like fiddling with the plants as many do. I plant, grow, harvest. At most I might top once and do some supercropping to keep things even. I don't bother with any leaves.

I do as little as possible. It works for me. :peace:
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Well it's like this. My last grow I defoliated pretty heavily and ran into problems. I had bad leaf drop in flower that I blamed on my attempts at defoliation. I've been reading lots of threads on here about it and there are many growers who don't do it. Now I can go either way myself; I'm really only interested in a quality product.
They'll make all kinds of shitty lower bud this way; you're right about that for sure. And I really hate trimming that shit up too. I have no problem defoliating them but I don't think it's the excess of leaves that's causing the drop and I'd like to get that stopped most of all.
Where did the leaf drop occur? Lower portion of the plant? Upper? Did you also remove all of the lower branches that would not reach the canopy? If you have leaf drop from branches you failed to remove that had no light access to the canopy then that is a canopy training problem / light access problem. Not a nutritive issue.
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I'm a non-defoliator myself. I just let them fall off on their own. I just don't like fiddling with the plants as many do. I plant, grow, harvest. At most I might top once and do some supercropping to keep things even. I don't bother with any leaves.

I do as little as possible. It works for me. :peace:
Every garden is unique to the needs of the gardener operating it. I can dig that. Back in my soil days I didn't defoliate at all. In hydro though growth is simply too fast. If I did not defoliate my yield would suffer immensely. My electric is around $650/month. Diminished yields due to lack of training is not an option for me if I want to keep the lights on :)
 

MustGro

Well-Known Member
Where did the leaf drop occur? Lower portion of the plant? Upper? Did you also remove all of the lower branches that would not reach the canopy? If you have leaf drop from branches you failed to remove that had no light access to the canopy then that is a canopy training problem / light access problem. Not a nutritive issue.
You're making great points man. I can't argue with anything you're saying. Just scared of a repeat from last time.
Always drop from the bottoms with me. Last grow most or all of the bottoms were gone so they started eating up all the higher up fans.
 

MustGro

Well-Known Member
So I dumped the nutes about 3 hours ago, got a load of FloraKleen running now. After I finish online I'll dump that and I think I'll do another quick plain 55PPM water wash for an hour or so before I mix my first tank of Jack's.
So it's the 2 part and I printed off their feedchart. They shoot for an EC of 2.4 and mix for 100 gallons. My AeroFlo reservoir is probably 30 gallons and each finger holds 1 maybe 2 gallons if you have the levels up high; I'm running 4 fingers. I usually mix for 30 gallons and just top up the water and check my PPM. Mostly I hit 1000 PPM plus with the GH nutes. After my plants started using more nutes and killing the PPM in under a week I bumped to 35 gallons at mixing day but the water volume stayed the same.
So they list approximately 380 grams of A and 250 grams of B in 100 gals. I worked that out to be 114 grams of A and 75 grams of B. The epsom is easy at ! gram per gallon, so 30 grams. That mix should put me at 2.4 in 30 gallons but like I said I'm more like 35 plus so it'll bring the PPM closer to 2.0. My plants are putting out 7 gallons from the dehumids daily and I'm adding 6 gallons of 55 PPM water daily so even if it's a little warm at 2.0 it'll be 1.8 in a day; I think. But I can cut those numbers if anyone thinks it's better.
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Up next is the same plant but from the side with it's neighbor after a trim,
Next the same plants but higher up.
Lastly, same plants, but the tops.
Those are some of the healthiest plants I've seen on a RIU post in a minute. I really want you to understand what you're experiencing with the leaf drop at the bottom of your plant is absolutely normal. Notice how the leaves turned yellow before they dried and dropped off? That's simply a leaf that doesn't have light access. The plant uses that leaf for all it can. When it is no longer able to photosynthesize due to limited light access what happens? The plant uses all of it's available elements. It yellows. It dries. It drops off. Do you see any necrosis on the yellowing leaf? No. Do you know why? You have healthy plants :) If you have leaves that turn necrotic then die and drop off you have serious problems going on. A leaf at the bottom / center of your plant buried beneath a monster canopy that turns yellow, slowly dries, then drops off is a sign of a healthy functioning and vivacious plant. If you do not wish to see leaf drop like that then you need to remove all growth that will not make it to your canopy. Think of it like the tropical rain forest homie. You want that big lush canopy at the top. What good does all that growth beneath the canopy with no light access do for flower development? Not much, right?

Congratulations on growing some very healthy plants there. I love growers like you. You love your plants so much even the slightest imperfection gets you fired up. I can dig that. There are a lot of gardeners that are the opposite of you who run dirty fucking grow rooms and produce dirty low quality pot. You are the opposite of those guys, and that's a good thing. You just need a better understanding of why your plants are doing what they're dong. The learning never stops homie. Keep on growing in every way possible :)
 

MustGro

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the kind words and advice again. Growing weed is my life, it's the main thing I do, it's why I get out of bed in the morning and get in the room before the flowering lights come on. I'd be lost without it and there's ALWAYS something new to learn about it.
Need some side lighting though. I'd harvest some of that lower bush with better side lighting.
 

getogrow

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the kind words and advice again. Growing weed is my life, it's the main thing I do, it's why I get out of bed in the morning and get in the room before the flowering lights come on. I'd be lost without it and there's ALWAYS something new to learn about it.
Need some side lighting though. I'd harvest some of that lower bush with better side lighting.
He is right , that is completely normal. You got 30k leaves on one plant and the bottom 100 or 2 are falling , that is completely normal and is caused from lack of light and food.
Your plants are SUPER HEALTHY and bushy as hell! I DO NOT defol much and i dont agree with half the guys doing it BUT with your plants being so full , i would have no choice but to BUTCHER them on the bottoms.

I can see 50 or so branches i would take off so that the plant focus on the tops only. (canopy level)

Thin her out real good. no reason to take all the leaves off but thin her out so the light can get into her or cut all that stuff off the bottom. (a LOT)
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the kind words and advice again. Growing weed is my life, it's the main thing I do, it's why I get out of bed in the morning and get in the room before the flowering lights come on. I'd be lost without it and there's ALWAYS something new to learn about it.
Need some side lighting though. I'd harvest some of that lower bush with better side lighting.
It sounds like you and I share the same affliction. That's a good thing man. Nothing too scary or bad will happen to you in the garden. You won't impregnate some girl you don't want to share your life with, you won't lose $200 on a bar tab, and you'll always have a sweet sticky stash of cheebah to share with your buddies :)
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
He is right , that is completely normal. You got 30k leaves on one plant and the bottom 100 or 2 are falling , that is completely normal and is caused from lack of light and food.
Your plants are SUPER HEALTHY and bushy as hell! I DO NOT defol much and i dont agree with half the guys doing it BUT with your plants being so full , i would have no choice but to BUTCHER them on the bottoms.

I can see 50 or so branches i would take off so that the plant focus on the tops only. (canopy level)

Thin her out real good. no reason to take all the leaves off but thin her out so the light can get into her or cut all that stuff off the bottom. (a LOT)
Love your profile pic. Makes me laugh when I see it and I don't know why :)
 

getogrow

Well-Known Member
I met those guys in his avitar. Bubbles and Ricky from the Trailer Park Boys. A friend of mine used to work on the set and got me invited to a party years ago before they got so famous. I didn't really fit in but cool to go hang out a bit.
:clap: *bowing down*

You are the man! ive never met um but i wish i would have....Did you meet the whole crew or just a couple ? how about lahey ?
 

MustGro

Well-Known Member
So I took your mixing advice @jonnynobody ; 3.6g jack's 5-12-26, 1.1g epsom salt, and 2.4g calcium nitrate per gallon and I added them in that order 'cause you sent me them in the right order according to the mixing directions. I multiplied them all by 30 to get 108, 33, and 72 grams of each. I put about 30 gallons in the reservoir at about 19C (66F), turned the chiller pump on (850 GPH) and the air so it'd mix up nice. Put a gallon of real hot water in a 5 gallon bucket and put the 108 grams of part A in it. I poured it back and forth with another 5 gallon bucket about 10 times until there was no more residue in the bucket, then into the reservoir. Another hot gallon for the epsom and into the res, same for the 72 grams of part B. I let it run around for 15-20 minutes then took her vitals. 825 PPM (1.65 EC) at 20.6C (69F) with a PH of 5.8 with no adjustment. How sweet is that!
I plugged the circulation pump in (750 GPH) and filled up the fingers. The water level came out pretty good; I run it a little low to get a nice waterfall effect. We'll see how the PPM lasts this week.
 
Top