More tops - more nutes?

fellowfelon

fellowfelon

Well-Known Member
I got a big vigorous ass plant with like 10 tops and another one with only 4. The former drinks about twice as much, too. Both about mid-flower. It seems a bit silly to me to be feeding them both the same amount of nutrients. I've never had a nute burn with either of them. Should I up the dosage on the bigger one?
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't....they will only take up as much nutrient as they need & simply leave the rest to sit idle in your medium as dissolved salts. Even a relatively weak ppm should provide more than enough of what they need: less IS more.
If your plants exhibit signs of a deficiency or begin to get light green in color you can always give a boost by upping the ppms but giving them more nutes just because one plant is growing more vigorously than the other could result in toxicity and/or even synthetic death. You might gain a better understanding of what is happening if you figure out why the one plant is doing better than the other in the first place than to adjust feeding schedule.
It is more important IMO to give them the right amount of nutrient for their stage of growth which for me should be slightly less than what is recommended by the nutrient mfger measured in ppms or EC. A tsp is just not accurate enough.
 
fellowfelon

fellowfelon

Well-Known Member
Thanks a lot for the info! I don't have scientific equipment to measure things in the water, but I use about the maximum dosage from the label. The reason I want to feed the bigger plant more, is that its buds are by far less developed on the bigger tree, which is unfortunate. Would any nute modifications help with that?
 
mollymcgrammar

mollymcgrammar

Well-Known Member
fellowfelon said:
Thanks a lot for the info! I don't have scientific equipment to measure things in the water, but I use about the maximum dosage from the label. The reason I want to feed the bigger plant more, is that its buds are by far less developed on the bigger tree, which is unfortunate. Would any nute modifications help with that?
Click to expand...
Sometimes more tops means smaller buds per top.

Pics?
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
fellowfelon said:
Thanks a lot for the info! I don't have scientific equipment to measure things in the water, but I use about the maximum dosage from the label. The reason I want to feed the bigger plant more, is that its buds are by far less developed on the bigger tree, which is unfortunate. Would any nute modifications help with that?
Click to expand...
All you really need is a cheapass ppm meter - paid like $13 for mine- amazon i think. You just take a reading of your water as it is & then take another reading after mixing up your nutrient solution- subtract the first number you get which is your water ppm & you'll know what ppm your nutrients are mixed to. Easy breezy.
Either way you measure up your nutes a stronger mix will not positively affect the plants in fact you will be more likely to "burn" them that way. Nothing you dump on them that comes from a bottle will increase mass or grow more or better buds- it is the lighting, nodal thickness, and time in veg that governs yield & plant mass. If you want an even canopy with buds all the same size you'll need an hid light with a hood to deliver a more even amount of lumens to your plants which should be trained & positioned underneath to recieve the photons it emits. A couple cfls work great for vegging small plants but cfls need to be too close for them to be effective at flowering buds. Upgrade your lighting & train your plants for an even canopy & you'll get bigger buds all the same size. Growing from clones also helps as plants from seeds take too damn long.
 
fellowfelon

fellowfelon

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
All you really need is a cheapass ppm meter - paid like $13 for mine- amazon i think. You just take a reading of your water as it is & then take another reading after mixing up your nutrient solution- subtract the first number you get which is your water ppm & you'll know what ppm your nutrients are mixed to. Easy breezy.
Either way you measure up your nutes a stronger mix will not positively affect the plants in fact you will be more likely to "burn" them that way. Nothing you dump on them that comes from a bottle will increase mass or grow more or better buds- it is the lighting, nodal thickness, and time in veg that governs yield & plant mass. If you want an even canopy with buds all the same size you'll need an hid light with a hood to deliver a more even amount of lumens to your plants which should be trained & positioned underneath to recieve the photons it emits. A couple cfls work great for vegging small plants but cfls need to be too close for them to be effective at flowering buds. Upgrade your lighting & train your plants for an even canopy & you'll get bigger buds all the same size. Growing from clones also helps as plants from seeds take too damn long.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot!

Richard Drysift said:
Yes but you would've needed to top these several times while they were in veg & then allowed them time to recover.
Click to expand...
So are you saying "topping in veg only"?
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Yeah it's a bit too late to train these as they are already budding out- you can try to pinch in between the top nodes (supercropping) which might help fatten them up a little. I use this technique to even out the canopy to get the structure I want before flipping to flower cycle.
In the future for your next run try this: wait till your plant has a few sets of nodes & then either snip off the top completely or cut it in half when the 2 leaf tips are praying like a pair of hands (Called a FIM for "fuck, I missed"). This will force the lower branches to become new colas which will increase overall yield & allow further training. Untrained plants just grow straight up like a Christmas tree but only have 1 single cola- more colas allowed to grow out to size will yield more over an untrained plant every time.
 
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