Overcrowded? Mold Risk?

My four plants grew much wider and taller than last year. They've grown into each other and I'm worried about the lack of airflow. I pulled back and tucked some of the branches into the trellis netting to open up some gap.

Do you think running these 6" oscillating fans will help, or just a waste of electricity?

Will heavy pruning a week into flower shock the plant?

Not that bad. Vents will help much. Pruning wont shock them, I prefer cuting whole branches pointing inside the plant, small branches with no exceptations of big buds, damaged branches and when necessaery, fan leaves, also pointing inside.

edit: but i would wait with venting until 4 weeks of flowering.

It depends on your climate. I live in an area where rain is rare in the summer, I do very little pruning(almost none), and I rarely have mold issues so to me, that's not that bad.

Overcrowding can diminish the quality of your overall yield rot or not. But if you are happy smoking larf it might not be that big of a deal for you. I would be lollipopping and defoling until you got decent light penetration and airflow around the plants. You can heavy prune a flowering plant within the first 3 weeks. After that it gets risky.

With outdoors light penetration is not as big of an issue as indoors. Defoliation is not as necessary outdoor as it is with growing indoor. But if you live in a wet climate airflow is important.

Funkentelechy said:

With outdoors light penetration is not as big of an issue as indoors. Defoliation is not as necessary outdoor as it is with growing indoor. But if you live in a wet climate airflow is important.

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I'm in Central Coast California. There is usually some breeze, and occasional gusty winds. Right now we have tropical moisture from a southern storm coming through, but it will clear out in 3 days. I'm going to cover them and keep the fans running.

I would be a little concerned about the fog where you're at as fall sets in. Some preemptive mold treatment might be a good plan.
I live in the Sierra Nevada's, North of Tahoe.

Funkentelechy said:

I would be a little concerned about the fog where you're at as fall sets in. Some preemptive mold treatment might be a good plan.
I live in the Sierra Nevada's, North of Tahoe.

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Maybe an organic fungicide like Monterey Complete Disease Control?

Yes, I have heard good things about that one. As I said I rarely have mold issues so I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to fungicides, but I have had success with neem, or milk strange as that may seem, at a ten parts water to one part milk ratio.

Also, of course, be careful using any fungicide anytime near harvest. I have a friend who had to throw away half of his harvest last year because he sprayed Neem about a week and a half before harvest.

I used neem every 10 days, with Pro-Tekt silica as a surfactant, until last week when the pre-flower turned to flower. I'll do more research on the Monterey CDC. If I use it, I'll wash the buds.

Do you live near Downiville? I used to race mountain bikes there. Some great fishing too.

defoliate you can avoid mold

bigboerboel said:

Do you live near Downiville? I used to race mountain bikes there. Some great fishing too.

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I live North of Downieville, near Quincy. Downieville is a cool town though.