Today is the day. FIM’ing is a first to me. This is a hobby and I feel that you have to willing to try things out so that you can identify the best path forward. I have topped an auto plant that I grew from bag seed so it was unintentionally but it worked out alright. The plant grew out instead of up. Then on my first grow I did not top or FIM. That was a big mistake. My plants grew 4’ tall and I had to harvest in stages. This limited my yield as most of the plant had inadequate lighting g most of its life. So this is my third take on autos and I will try out FIM’ing. This is a video that @Nicky made and I will use it as my guide.
First time FIM’er so far so good. It’s looking like 4 tops to me. Although we are only two days since FIM’ing. I took pic of the same plant from a different angle.
To review my cut location as even though I made what looked like 4 tops I still had growth in the center. So o cut down a lil further and will post updated pics.
Here are two different plants that I went back and cut at the 5th node and the second at the 4th node.
I have now started using full strength Jacks with silica and fish sh!t.
I am down to 5 plants now as the seedling did not make it. These plants are now 21 days in and will be transplanted to 1 gallon plastic pots before going to 5 gallon fabric pots.
Pic is showing roots at the bottom of the largest plant. All 5 plants have roots coming out of the bottom. So I will transplant tonight.
Hard to tell since pics are a little blurry but it does looked topped. If so, not the end of the world. Plants look healthy and should rebound quickly. Are those autos or photos? If autos, consider transplant directly into large/final pot ASAP.
I’m planning to grow super lemon haze autos this summer. Looking forward to see your grow progress!
I have 3 more chances with this batch to try and get the FIM right.
I started transplanting from solo cup sized starter pots to 1 Gallon pots and then watered with 50ml of full strength Jacks, with Silica, and Fish Sh!t. Medium is Coco with perlite.20:80.
The largest plant had done nice roots, the second largest I transplanted had noticeable less roots so I decided to hold off on the other 3 plants and let them build their roots a lil more and turned up the light a lil more.
They look good! Personally, I would have went straight into the largest pot after the solo cup. I’ve only grown an auto once and it started flowering 2-3 weeks after it sprouted so it was pretty short. Only did LST to so it bushed out some without impeding growth. Just be super careful when transplanting so they don’t stunt or slow down just in case they do flower quickly on you.
@Naturalmedsman
I transplanted into a larger pot on my first run with autos without letting the roots develop more and when I harvested I looked at the root ball and it was small close to the size of a baseball. Since then I have switched nutes and have made a practice of watering the outer diameter of the pot to help encourage the roots to stretch. I also water from a reservoir and placed the water outlet next to my the stalk of the plant. I will move towards the outside perimeter as well. I will go into 5 gallon fabric pots for the final transplant.
After 3 days of being transplanted into 1 Gallon containers all plants have had significant growth over the last 3 days with the smaller plants nearly doubling in size. When I transplanted I also connected my reservoir to the plants and every feeding (Twice a day) it’s getting full strength jacks 321, fish sh!t, and silica.
I attempted to FIM again and have since transplanted and let the ladies grow. So here are 3 plants and I don’t know how to tell if I missed my FIM or not?
I have gotten the plants all set up in the 4x4 and there are a few things that I have been doing which I believe have helped the plants progress.
I put the least developed plant next to the humidifier to promote growth I cycle the smallest or least developed plant to be closest to the humidifier. Also for all of the other plants I rotate the plants 1/4 turn to make sure that are areas of the plants are growing well. When I do this I keep also move the position of my water feeding lines so that roots have to stretching to get water.
I have also defoliated more fan leaves from the plant so that more bud site get more light as well as keeping air flowing through the plants.
I am having uneven growth amongst the plants so I have put 3/5 plants on platforms to bring them closer to the lights so they can increase their growth all in the attempt of frowning with an even canopy. An even canopy should produce similar results amongst the ladies.
