nat i think i will try the air-basket when i get a chance. what is the other key to cola's like that? i have seen some good veteran growers who dont grow buds that big and full. i have to pick your brain man lol.
I always grow my main plants in that manner,the airbasket makes no difference to the shape or the way that they are growing.
The airbasket has added speed of growth and because of the constant aeration and drainage i think the speedy spikes in growing that all growers see during flowering tend not to back of and just carry on consistently because of minimal soil compression and the fact that the roots always have oxygen.
The basket has seriously helped to keep the soil spongy.
I also squeeze all the pots gently around the edges about once a week to help with this problem.
Soil compression really is bad for plants.
It comes from top watering,bottom watering is one way to combat this but then you get a build up of salts in the soil and have to flush them anyway and end up with the same problem once again from flushing salts.
Hard soil that cant breathe.
I have basically given the soil an artificial lung
My last plants were grown in standard large pots and grew very big long colas as well due to me letting minimal amounts of leaf develop and trimming here and there all the way through,it is also due to using the fimming technique.
So basically the airbasket has nothing to do with structure and shape,that is achieved with all the techniques i used to grow with all the way through.
Here is the last lot before the airbasket.
As you can see they are similar in structure and you can see how the colas have developed in the same way.
This is from careful leaf trimming and fimming and not from the airbasket.