First bucket grow - Northern Lights - doubting my next actions..

[insr33]

Hey All

My first SpaceBucket photospheric Northern Lights grow is 3 weeks old and certain actions (LST / Topping) are needed. I have 5 full nodes and topped this morning to the 3th node. For the rest of the steps I'm not quite sure which timing to follow. My idea was to let my plant recover for a couple of days and then remove all the auxiliary buds / fan leaves below the topping (leaving the top fan leaves) afterwards I would start pulling my fan leaves to a T-shape and newly topped cola's down when sprouting upwards + new topping.
As my space is very limited I'm a bit worried to f*ck it up. Some advice / reassurance would be great. This is my setup:

Pics of the plant are from today 09/26

• Growing space: Space Bucket (made from 5gallon buckets) (I know not the best growing space for a beginner,.. )
  
  
• Growing light: 150w UFO led lamp + led strip ring 3500k
  
  
• Soil: Canna Terra Pro + Perlite (30%)
  
  
• Nutes: FloraNova Grow + Bloom
  
  
• Water: ph'd at 580 - 620
  
  
• Growing medium: root pouch 5 gal
  
  
• Fans: only using intake fan (120mm) at the moment at 1000 rpm, 1 spacer ring extra available with 120mm outtake.
  

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

how are you going to pull them when they're already touching the sides of the bucket?
why are you physically torturing your plants? are you going to buy them a corset and a bustier?....
let em grow. when you top, take the top node only. when they start to stick out of the bucket, bend them over, tie them down, super crop if you have to...
why do you want to remove all the leaves? plants kind of need those to photosynthesize....
and your plants already looks like its starting to get deficiencies...
if that's the room you have available, use it, but plants do not like being stuffed into a bucket and defoliated...i prune, sometimes heavily, if its called for, but never "defoliate"...if leaves are touching each other, i'll take one of them, if they're blocking more light than they're absorbing, i'll take them...otherwise, you're basically knocking their teeth out and making it harder for them to photosynthesize...

 

[Jypsy Dog]

Be happy with anything close to an oz from your bucket. Seen so many growers bangin their heads over those.

 

[insr33]

how are you going to pull them when they're already touching the sides of the bucket?
why are you physically torturing your plants? are you going to buy them a corset and a bustier?....
let em grow. when you top, take the top node only. when they start to stick out of the bucket, bend them over, tie them down, super crop if you have to...
why do you want to remove all the leaves? plants kind of need those to photosynthesize....
and your plants already looks like its starting to get deficiencies...
if that's the room you have available, use it, but plants do not like being stuffed into a bucket and defoliated...i prune, sometimes heavily, if its called for, but never "defoliate"...if leaves are touching each other, i'll take one of them, if they're blocking more light than they're absorbing, i'll take them...otherwise, you're basically knocking their teeth out and making it harder for them to photosynthesize...

It seemed like a fun project to do. I don't need much yield because I'm only growing for myself. Regarding defoliation: a lot of the grow instructions just leave some leaves to be sure no energy is wasted. Thx for you insights

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

adding parameters to anything increases the difficulty, and the speed at which errors manifest....
it's hard enough to grow a plant with plenty of room, light and food, the first time around. trying to do it in a bucket, while defoliating, makes it much harder than necessary. if you get anything approaching an oz, be happy, and then build a rel grow room....

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

It seemed like a fun project to do. I don't need much yield because I'm only growing for myself. Regarding defoliation: a lot of the grow instructions just leave some leaves to be sure no energy is wasted. Thx for you insights

i'm actually not trying to discourage you or be a nay sayer, hope you have good luck and the yield is way more than you expect...just sayin that it's usually a lot better idea to start out with as few limiting parameters as possible, and add them in slowly as you learn

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

there have been big debates here about defoliation, all i can tell you is my personal experience. i've done a comparison on two clones that were just about identical. the one i "defoliated" according to the best instructions i could find, did ok, it grew, and produced a fair amount. the clone i didn't defoliate, but did prune as necessary, outproduced the defoliated clone by 50%...i got 3.5 oz dry off the defoliated clone, and a little over 5 oz dry off of the pruned clone. i will admit that could have been because of my lack of expertise at defoliation, but it was enough to show me that it wasn't for me.