Plant Growing too Dense?

I'm about a week into flower with my 3 plants. I'll give some background if needed, if not, you can skip to the third paragraph.

It's my first grow and they're all NL/Skunk mix, from 3 different seeds (not clones). I started with just 2 plants, killed one early on (learned the hard way not to follow the instructions on the back of the nute bottle). I then germinated and started 2 more, but that's why middle plant in the pic looks bigger...it's probably 2 1/2 weeks older than the others. As you can see, I've got a DWC setup for each, and the light setup is as seen in the diagram below. They're all doing well, about a week into flowering now. I've finally got the pH, PPM thing down (I think), keeping good temps, etc., and they're really growing fast now that I've switched to 12/12. They were all topped several weeks into veg. The middle plant vegged for probably 6 weeks, and the smaller 2 for about a month before I switched over last weekend.

I'm starting to get concerned about how dense one of them is growing. They're all on the "bushy" side, but at least for 2 out of the 3 there's enough stretch to allow light/air through the plant. One of them, though, is dense as hell. I mean, it's literally node on top of node. You can see in the close-up pic the plant I'm talking about. Actually, it's now just in the last few days starting to stretch somewhat, but it's still one big clump of dense nodes. Do I have anything I need to be doing to it? Is it too dense, do I need to prune/trim, or just leave it be? Again, this is my first grow, and I'm just not what to do. Thanks.

I always hack a BUNCH of growth away from my plants when i put em into flower and then in two weeks after the stretch I clean them up a bit again.

I usually strip the bottom third of all the plants AND then go in and remove stuff if it is shady or whatnot.

any shaded stuff at the bottom will grow scraggly anyway...

tommyo3000 said:

I always hack a BUNCH of growth away from my plants when i put em into flower and then in two weeks after the stretch I clean them up a bit again.

I usually strip the bottom third of all the plants AND then go in and remove stuff if it is shady or whatnot.

any shaded stuff at the bottom will grow scraggly anyway...

Click to expand...

Thanks. The problem is that I don't even know where to begin. I know "normally" you can trim off the scraggly growth at the bottom, but when it's this short and clustered together, the "bottom" of the plant is literally only 2-3 inches from middle/upper growth. I'm going to go look at it again and see. I just need to get brave enough to do it also. I guess I'm afraid of doing more harm than good.

Just don't remove more than 1/3 of each plant in one sitting and you wont do harm.

Dont complain node after node theres gunna be bud after bud if you get the lighting right lol..peace..

What kind of lighting are you working with? As someone else said with sufficient lighting you actually want node after node.

kizzzzurt said:

What kind of lighting are you working with? As someone else said with sufficient lighting you actually want node after node.

Click to expand...

The lighting setup/arrangement is as seen in the diagram I attached in the original post. The lights themselves are..
2 - 90 Watt LED lights in the middle.
4 - 55 watt CFL @ 2700K on each corner

I knew I'd be growing in a closet and I didn't want heat to get too crazy, so that's why I started with the LEDs alone. I decided 2-3 weeks into it that the LED light alone probably wasn't ideal, so that's when I got the CFLs in each corner. The original CFLs during veg were just 23W each @ 6500K, and the ones now are twice that wattage but lower K of course. Now that they're over to 12/12, I've definitely seen a LOT of growth, not sure if it's the higher power lights, the cycle, or both. But the growth is still "bushy". I don't want plants too tall, obviously, but a little "breathing room" for that real dense one would be nice.

Yeah, I'm seeing the same kind of thing in my grow at the moment too, but it looks like it's strain-related. I have two Skunk #1 and two plants grown from bagseed, and the skunk (while still bushy) have stretched far more than the two bagseed plants. These last two have sat really low for almost entire first 3 weeks of veg and it's only now that their starting to bulk up a bit. But like you say, it's literally node upon node upon node. I'm thinking it's an indica thing as these two have very fat leaves and a gorgeous dark green collour while the skunk is a little lighter and has slightly more open leaves. Maybe the saliva in the skunk makes it more vigorous?

Either way, maybe extend the length of your veg period next time. I'm noticing that they're slowly bulking up at this late stage in the veg cycle (end of week 4).