Northern Lights Flower - 2nd Installment - SCROG

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This is a continuation of [Northern Lights First Photo Grow] (Northern Lights First Photo Grow) and Northern Lights First Photo Grow - Flower Today is June 15, grow day 69, 12/12 day 14.
Today I prepared the girls for the SCROG net by cleaning up the bottom growth, removing some buried buds and exposing the most viable bud sites. I tried to keep in mind @Myfriendis410 words during this process. Which is, to leave as much top growth / fan leaves as possible in order to provide the plant with as much energy producing plant material as possible. One other point. The main purpose of this SCROG is NOT for training. Hopefully I achieved this through LST and topping. But rather, to separate and support the massive buds (the optimist in me). A couple of before and after photos will hopefully show what I did.
Before - overall plant

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After clean up
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Canopy before
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Canopy after
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I don’t think I got to carried away. ??
I set the net a couple inches above the tallest plant. Its height was based on anticipated growth determined by eventual height at end of stretch compared to height when flipped to 12/12. It is a 3x3 tent, the net has 4" squares resulting in 64 squares in which to spread the buds. All of the plants have over 20 exposed bud sites so they may need to double up or be thinned out
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Nutrients and Readings.
They received their first full dose of FF Trio of nutrients today. The first feeding a week ago was 50% dose rate with no ill effects. Truthfully I was hesitant about feeding them. The soil seemed to be carrying them but I figured it was time. I have a bottle of FloraKleen at the ready. I mixed up 3 gallons of rain water
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(the terra pump makes the process of collecting, mixing and dispensing a lot easier). These are the PH and PPM numbers in and runoff. My native soil, primarily FF OF has a PH of 6.89 and PPM of 2007
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I took individual reading as I added each. I added 1/2 gallon of tap water after adding tiger bloom. The PH was lower than I wanted and PPM a little high. I considered it close enough after adding more water. Any interpretation / input as to these numbers is welcome. They looked good to me. PH out is stable with some nutrient run through given the higher PPM of the runoff being higher than native soil.
Ps they appear to like the additional light I finally put in last week.
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as well as the TerraBloom intake fan installed
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@Newbie2020 @Supajew420 @Hellraiser @Cannabian @MidwestGuy @dbrn32
Pss a few things I have been thinking about. Adding silica - thoughts / recommend? Top dressing with bone meal and or limestone or is is covered through nutrient regime and any additional would overload phosphorous and calcium (I add calmag on water only days).
Use of Fulvic / Humic acid either as a liquid concentrate or as top dressing (Humic Bliss) - again thoughts yes / no appreciated. Thanks

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I start adding silica once I am more than halfway into the stretch. Silica really does harden up plant structure and I don’t want to use it before I am finished training the plant. It’s difficult to train a plant that is too rigid without splitting nodes, etc.

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Do you have a recommendation? Liquid, powder or product you trust

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I use Bloom City Silica Boost and it has worked great for me. It’s a liquid. I add a couple milliliters per gallon once a week.

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If you are alread using a balanced nutrient regime, I would let the plant tell you if it needs more. In other words, if it aint broke dont try to fix it, thats when things go adrift. Silica is not a bad idea though.

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I start adding silica (Advanced Nutrients Rhino Skin) after I’ve got them into the screen and don’t plan on much more plant manipulation, pretty much with first bloom nutes as I don’t do much with them after starting flowering. I’m not much a screen artist though, for me it’s just something I use to separate and support the top heavy colas so I don’t have to tie them up to keep them from falling over in late flowering. I don’t mess with soil amendments, the AN nutes has everything my plants could want and need.

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That’s wild your ph dropped so much from adding grow big. After adding big bloom and grow big my ph only drops from 7.4 to 7.0. Adding tiger bloom, on the other hand, acts like I dumped a bottle of ph down in the water.

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It must because I am using rain water? The first time I did the trio PH was also lower than I wanted so I added some big bloom which brought it back up and my PPM was OK. I take it you not using RO or distilled water. Next time maybe I’ll dissolve a little limestone in the water a day or two b4 I need it.

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Based on the replies it sounds like silica should be added to the menu. Re net, same here. The past few grows I didn’t use one. This time it seems to make sense.

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Sorry for no descriptions to go with pictures above. Just wanted to see if upload works.
We always get to see buds and leaves but the underside has a lot to say. This is the underside of the plant in right corner of the scrog

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And just below the net
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2 days after the one with red circles. I did lower the net 2" inches.
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Above the net. What a pretty site! :+1:
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The smallest of the four plants is already frosting up. I almost need gloves to remove leaves and reposition buds.
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The last watering on 6/25 was full load week 3 FF Trio for flower. They took a gallon each. PH 6.18 PPM 1176. Average runoff PH 6.78 (my soil is 7.0) Needed water today. 3 qts each with CalMag and Silica each at 5 ml/gal. PH 6.21 PPM 486. Average runoff PH 6.71. PH is stable and looks good to me.
I remove a few leaves daily, check the underside and remove unwanted buds below the 4th node (there abouts). Lights 24" above tallest.
@Arrow @anon84397802 @seandog @Budz420 @Carol4486 @MadCandy @BigCountry74 @Happilyretired

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Incredible

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I am trying to track temp and humidity. Here are couple of days
Time / Temp/ RH

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Green - humidity is within target range based on temp
Blue - below target
Yellow - above target
As I move through flower definitely want to be at or error on the side of below target humidity ranges.

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Very nice… Very impressive… Just saying…:+1:

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Holy crap I have a lot to learn! So much juggling and balancing!
This will be a fascinating grow to watch - very similar to mine - but probably 3 or 4 weeks further on. I thought my girls were doing nicely until I saw your little monsters. It’s really hard to visualise my three getting to that bulk having not done it before. It amazes me how much impact the training has.

I have a lot of questions in regards to nutrients - too many to pollute this journal.

One simple question that comes to mind:
Do you tie down all of your girls early in their lives to spread them - regardless of ‘typical form’ to ready them for more lst or scrog. Or do you wait until you have topped or fimmed before you start tying them down? I haven’t trimmed mine of anything other than damaged leaves - the fan leaves are getting to be the size of my hand. Logically, I am only exposing bud sights to more direct light rather than the shaded kind.
I will put a couple of new pics on my journal soon - but you have seen what I mean - and likely see it every grow.

Watching and learning!

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This is my first run at photos. However I did harvest 4+ grows of autos. One thing to keep in mind is the difference in plant genetics between northern lights and lemon haze. My NL are ILGM fem seeds and are 90% indica and 10% sativa. Indica tend to be more compact, tighter node spacing with broader leaves.

Top, recovery and then LST, recovery, growth and top again.

I don’t really remove leaves, other than damaged / yellow ones) until I start LST. Young plants need all of their bio-mass to do what plants do. Then it is the bottom most leaves. They are in the way for LST and will be the first to die back anyway.
Thanks for the compliments. I am learning too. The forum is great help with plant issues and techniques. Some VERY accomplished growers (my bike still has training wheels on it) and some are very generous with their time and effort put into their journals. I will help when I can based on my limited experience and specific knowledge.

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Thanks for the detailed response!

Absolutely. My Lemon Haze are 100% Sativa - they stretch. I am expecting to have to be a bit heavy handed with the training - not exactly thrilled about it - but it will be needed I think. I don’t know that large buds have been very plentiful. I have only really seen a lot around the size of a Bic lighter. But that could well be because they have never been trained or encouraged to produce… Is that possible?

Is there an average time between first and second topping? Or is that too dependent on genetics and climate?

Yes - apart from cloning the tops - I expect the rest of my clones to be from low and ineffective growth. I do want to leave some of the lower growth in place when they flip - really keen to try a couple of monster clones…

The compliments are deserved mate - and yes - the knowledge level in here is quite amazing. You are still further along than I am. I will sponge up any nuggets of knowledge that I can grab!

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Depends on growth rate and the spacing you want. This is the smallest of the 4 but I can show where I topped her

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Blue 1 - apical stem topped and separated.
Red 2 - topped this stem at 2nd node. The little leaves are the beginning of the new branches. If you magnify you can see the stub of the cut stem.
Yellow - intervening node. Provides separation

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That makes a little more sense now… but raises another question:

Blue 1 - Topped and split? Is the split the result of the topping or is that another training technique?

It looks really close to the base - but that is probably the angle, because it is a topping?

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It’s like your head is going to explode aye​:exploding_head::joy: @Budz420 so much information everywhere lol
I just love @beardless! Haha his been helpful to me and my caravan :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

They are looking amazing! Woohoo mate!
They look tidy underneath :slight_smile:

@Budz420 I enjoyed watching “chef Derek butt” the last video is of his daughter :sob::sob:RIP ChefB i cried so much!
And “From seed to stoned” both on YouTube. If you want to watch some stuff about topping and stuff I have found that has help aswell