Defolition/Lollipop When Wanting To Clone?

[Joint Monster]

*Defoliation was spelled wrong in the Title hehe*

About one month from Seed. I want to do some cleaning up/ lollipoping, but I would like to take clones in the next 2-4 weeks.

I'm not sure if it would be a better idea to leave the bottom growth for future clones, or should I Lollipop now and let the girls grow upwards more, then take clones from the later growth?

They have been topped once a few days ago, they will be topped at least one more time in the next few weeks.
(And towards the end of veg I will either add a support or weave them through a scrog screen... depending on time allowance/person things as things progress.)
(And they will be going into a RDWC very soon.)

 

[BigHornBuds]

If you’re looking for clones , I’d move the light up and get them to stretch a little , then clone the bottom suckers .
When i have little suckers that I want to clone , I’ll start lollipoppen early to get it to stretch. I like air flow under the canopy, and I’m always shaping and training for what I’m looking for going into flower.


They look hungry , good time to clone , but I’d give it a couple weeks

 

[Joint Monster]

Appreciate the advice!

I'll clean them up a bit then.. gives me a good excuse to, as I've been wanting to juice some leaves! (Wish I had more to juice but hey, just trying it out for now. Will see how it goes.)

I know I keep thinking that, but I'm afraid to over-feed. They were at 1300PPM (4 days ago), then dropped down to ~750, then to ~500. So I added 1Gal of RO with half str nutes bringing her up to 1500PPM. Then she went down to 1200, then up to 1650, now she's been sitting at 1500.

...Tomorrow is res change day, so new nutes should help! I usually try to wait until res change day, but if I start to see even slight signs of leaves becoming less green, I will usually top with a little bit of nutes.

(But I guess just before a res. change would be optimal time to clone, as they get a little hungrier around that time?)

 

[BigHornBuds]

Wow, 1500 in veg , that small?
Are you sure your ppm meter is on PPM?
When was the last time u calibrated your meter?
What is your start RO ppm to start?
What food are u using?
Is your RH 30? You’ll need to address that too.
If the plant is filled with N , rooting will take a lot longer til the cut uses it up.

 

[apollo4201982]

I never feed veg plants over 600ppm.
1000 to 1200 in flower

 

[Joint Monster]

Blue Lab Guardian Meter. (PPM x700 conversion).
Calibrated monthly (or when lights start blinking.)
RO Water (Last time I checked it actually came to Zero-PPM. Before when I first got the RO filter it was like 200PPM. And I believe that tap comes at 450-600ish, I don't remember exactly right now.)

General Hydroponics (in this order) : Silica, CalMag, Micro, Grow, Bloom, Rapid Start.
Feeding according to their "Week 2 of Veg" dosage on their GH-Feeding Chart.
Measuring the dosage as if I had 15Gallon of water. The entire container size is 18G (so probably a bit less, minus the area of the net pot not filled with water.)

^In between top off with RO-water+CaMG. If PPM drops heavily then I add half str. or less nutes.
^For the most part PH stays stable and slowly climbs throughout the week, maybe from 5.2 to 5.9. (although this week I added nutes in top-off so it's been at 5.6 the entire time.)

800W LED. Vero29SE 's. Set to about 75% of full power. At about 14-20" away.

RH was 30. I fill the dehumidifier every 3-4 hours. It goes up to like 50% RH, and then as the dehumidifier gets empty (over night) it goes down to like 25%. In between I will come and foilar with plain RO Water to help with humidity, usually whenever I pass by (Once an hour, once every two or three hours). During the day, RH stays around 40-50% now.

 

[Joint Monster]

I never feed veg plants over 600ppm.
1000 to 1200 in flower

Maybe we are talking about different scale of PPM? Are you also on the EC x700 PPM? Anything under 1000 and they start to get yellow leaves and purple stems.

 

[BigHornBuds]

I never feed veg plants over 600ppm.
1000 to 1200 in flower

Growing isn’t that black & white .
There is no hard set lines like that, some feed heavier then other , and the size of the plant plays a big roll.

 

[kingtitan]

Maybe we are talking about different scale of PPM? Are you also on the EC x700 PPM? Anything under 1000 and they start to get yellow leaves and purple stems.

is that a setting on the meter? I thought blue labs were on the x500 unless you are outside of NA?

 

[Joint Monster]

I'm in NA.

It has 3 options (EC , PPM x500 , PPM x700).

People say to use Ec as it's more universal, but everyone always uses PPM when chatting so those numbers make more sense to me.

 

[kingtitan]

I'm in NA.

It has 3 options (EC , PPM x500 , PPM x700).

People say to use Ec as it's more universal, but everyone always uses PPM when chatting so those numbers make more sense to me.

EC is the universal, PPM make it easier and more precise to track, kinda like Ferenheight is more accurate than Celcius. x500 is usually the standard but I have seen x700 used as well on some nutrients.

 

[SchmoeJoe]

*Defoliation was spelled wrong in the Title hehe*

About one month from Seed. I want to do some cleaning up/ lollipoping, but I would like to take clones in the next 2-4 weeks.

I'm not sure if it would be a better idea to leave the bottom growth for future clones, or should I Lollipop now and let the girls grow upwards more, then take clones from the later growth?

They have been topped once a few days ago, they will be topped at least one more time in the next few weeks.
(And towards the end of veg I will either add a support or weave them through a scrog screen... depending on time allowance/person things as things progress.)
(And they will be going into a RDWC very soon.)

View attachment 4105592

View attachment 4105593

Upper growth makes better plants that recover from the cloning process faster.
Lower growth roots easier but doesn't make plants that are as strong, at least to start. It has to do with the distribution of hormones in the plant. Growth towards the top will be more hormonally balanced toward vegetative growth and lower growth will be more hormonally balanced towards root growth.

I wouldn't recommend defoliation. At least not yet. I'd let the lower growth develope a bit more to make sure you can get a decent number of clones from each and just use that step to clear out the lower growth.

 

[Joint Monster]

Thanks Schmoe. If I needed many clones I would have saved the growth. I just want to keep phone's alive long enough to try them. It sucks to harvest something when you don't have cuts, only to find out it was soooooo nice.

I did end up clearing lower growth out, they already bounced back and are starting to look like I didn't do any cleaning.. and I went fairly aggressive with them.


^and to clarify on the guardian meter, It's EC, TDS ECx500, PPM ECx700. I'm using the PPM ECx700.

 

[Cold$moke]

I like ppm too my brain gets it better

Take your clones from where ever you want

When they are at that stage i like to leave all the leaves on only pull when shaping later in veg

 

[Cold$moke]

I also agree that is a pretty high ppm
My plants are 3 weeks in bloom and i just took em up to 1100.


But my nutes feed chart recommend 500 ppm for week 1 which seems a little strong for me but im trying a few acording to there schedual and its starting to look over nuted lol

 

[Joint Monster]

I'm debating upping the PPM some more, but I'm not sure how high is too high. Should I just go up 100PPM at a time and give them some time to see how they react, until I think they're good?
(In an ideal healthy res > Is it better that PPM goes down, or should I increase PPM.. and it's better for PPM to stay stable and PH to rise over time?)

They were 1500PPM, next day 1100PPM, I topped up to ~1600PPM and they went down to ~1300PPM. Then topped to ~1600 again, and they are now at 1450PPM. (They also drank about 4 gallons of water in total.) PH stayed 5.6 and Temp stayed 66F.
Current: PH 5.6 / PPM 1450 / Temp 66F (19C)

Right after Lollipop:




Now:



Still looks Hungry to me a little? (Yellow tips on fan leaves, inside of leaves lighter-green-yellow.) Sitting at 1450PPM after drinking from 1600PPM twice.

 

[Cold$moke]

I dunno
They look good but a little funny

Id set your ph a little higher like 5.8 ish

That is a high feed rate but plants will acclimate and try to burn it up but you are getting near crazy town

If you wanted to test the max it can take you can bump it weekly .

I know with a highly turning rdwc set up you can actually use less nute concentrations then normal .

Theres a few good bits of info at the undercurrent website

 

[Cold$moke]

Just remember it is always easy to add more but very difficult to take away.

Toxicity take longer to work through then deficiency.

I like to grow on the light side when it comes to nutes