Extremely bushy and short plant

Hey Guys,
Thanks for reading this, any input is greatly appreciated as I’m a complete novice here.

I have a indoor plant just getting out of control, I’m getting close to the point of giving up.

Plant is 6weeks old and is so damned bushy, like extremely bushy, so much so that all the leaves seem to be “crushing “ or folding each other.

Plant is grown in a 25L pot with clay balls only and base of pot has many holes , there is a 70L resi under the pot so roots have grown into that.

I have a small pump and air stones constantly moving and bubbling the water, also have a water chiller set to 19c.

First thing that comes to mind is too much light, however in this case the light isn’t a problem I think as I have the light 90cm from canopy and on lvl 2 dim, PPFD readings have never been above 250, 18hrs on 6hrs off. I have a second plant that is a runt that is reaching for light.

Using canna aqua an and b at Cannas light scheduled , rhizotonic and cannazym and also half the recommended dose of bloom silica.

Unfortunately I made the mistake of topping twice but I only did this in hopes of spreading the plant out after I was seeing the bushyness. Also tying down the nodes which I’m just discovering is making the over crowding worse.

I’ve been pruning about 10 or so leaves weekly to try and get better air circulation, I have two 6in oscillating fans blowing with in-line extraction fan.
Photos attached is right after the pruning so it look way bushier.

Grew from seed, strain cream caramel fem photo.

Can anyone please give me some advice on what do I do from here ?
I don’t mind how long I need to keep her in veg but don’t want to spend all this time and effort only to start getting mould or something.
Or should I put this one as a lesson learnt and start over new.

Sorry about photo quality, it’s extremely hard to get in there.

Why would you give up? The plant is very healthy.........just thin it out.

Yeah if a plant ever needed a defoliation, its that one.
One thing I would do, is remove most , if not all all of the leaves, growing INWARD, towards the STALK of the plant, and get rid of some of the huge fan leaves. But Id not go to heavy all at once. Id do a bit, and wait a day, and see how the plant reacts. If it just keeps going right along, take more leaves off, and continue the process, until you are satisfied by the condition of the plant.
It really shouldnt bother the plant to strip some leaves off of it. As it is, it will be a mold magnet.
I also suggest getting as much fresh air exchange as possible going on.

jimihendrix1 said:

Yeah if a plant ever needed a defoliation, its that one.
One thing I would do, is remove most , if not all all of the leaves, growing INWARD, towards the STALK of the plant, and get rid of some of the huge fan leaves. But Id not go to heavy all at once. Id do a bit, and wait a day, and see how the plant reacts. If it just keeps going right along, take more leaves off, and continue the process, until you are satisfied by the condition of the plant.
It really shouldnt bother the plant to strip some leaves off of it. As it is, it will be a mold magnet.
I also suggest getting as much fresh air exchange as possible going on.

Click to expand...

Hey Jimihendrix,
Thanks for your comment.
I definitely agree.. I think I’ve been going too lite on the pruning, only removing a dozen or so leaves a week but it just bursts some more leaves back in no time.,
I’ll follow your advice and defoliate those inward growing leaves and do a little more when I see the plant continues to grow.
Is it worth snipping off the lower nodes or should I just trim leaves for now and monitor ?

MickFoster said:

Why would you give up? The plant is very healthy.........just thin it out.

Click to expand...

Will do Mick.
Is it ok to trim the lower nodes or should I just stick with trimming the leaves for now ?

You can remove some lower nodes if you need to. I prefer to leave as many as I can, as long as the top is getting light, but I remove the newly growing shoots from below, keeping the budding top. This will help prevent larfy buds and keep from having a mess down below.

I have a plant that’s like this in my journal - slow to veg, won’t stretch, wants to identify as a basketball, and has very close short nodes. It also turns woody pretty fast, and requires constant defoliation and training, but the smoke is solid and the terps are pretty special, so I’m learning to adapt and get her to produce. I’m on my 3rd run with her and still fighting with her nearly every day. She got another big defoliation and prune yesterday.

Some plants just make you work for it, but it can be done.