Plants stretching to close to light

Hard to tell by the picture but the plants are less then a foot away from my light and I’m only 2 weeks into flower. Can I still bend them down a bit in week 2 without stressing them much?

Yes you can. Defoliate all that lower stuff not getting light and selectively defoliate leaves in the middle area of the canopy to increase light/airflow.

CaliRootz88 said:

Yes you can. Defoliate all that lower stuff not getting light and selectively defoliate leaves in the middle area of the canopy to increase light/airflow.

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I was told not to do any defoliation until day 21 of flower as it could cause stress and chance them to herm. They 100 percent need to be plucked though. What are your thoughts?

Coco-garden said:

I was told not to do any defoliation until day 21 of flower as it could cause stress and chance them to herm. They 100 percent need to be plucked though. What are your thoughts?

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I think you should have started training long ago.

Coco-garden said:

I was told not to do any defoliation until day 21 of flower as it could cause stress and chance them to herm. They 100 percent need to be plucked though. What are your thoughts?

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Day 21 is the only day they don't mind defoliation? Lol. Nah

Jjgrow420 said:

Day 21 is the only day they don't mind defoliation? Lol. Nah

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Agreed. I pluck here & there as I see fit in flower. I do all the stripping I’m gonna do in veg.
If I want the stretch to chill the hell out.. I may get a bit more aggressive during the first couple of weeks from flip.

Train - supercrop / LST - defol - DONE

hotrodharley said:

I think you should have started training long ago.

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I did train them and did a pretty heavy defoliation on day 1 of flip. Just under estimated the stretch is all. I did lots of LST and topping in veg plus defoliation. Just happen to stretch and be very bushy plants. Good problems to have I suppose.

Jjgrow420 said:

Day 21 is the only day they don't mind defoliation? Lol. Nah

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That’s not what I’m saying. When you flip the first few weeks if the plants get to stressed out they could herm was what I was told. They won’t die just trying to prevent them from becoming a herm. Again just something I was told.

Coco-garden said:

That’s not what I’m saying. When you flip the first few weeks if the plants get to stressed out they could herm was what I was told. They won’t die just trying to prevent them from becoming a herm. Again just something I was told.

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Yeah lots of people will say stuff that isn't true because they heard it from someone else and don't know better.

Same reason people insist on flushing before harvest, not up potting autoflowers, and many other bro science myths.

Coco-garden said:

I was told not to do any defoliation until day 21 of flower as it could cause stress and chance them to herm. They 100 percent need to be plucked though. What are your thoughts?

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You'd be surprised the amount of stress the plants go through unknowingly, temperature, humidity, etc.. Stress is good at certain points as long as it's not too extreme. I snip off all the lower stuff after moving plants into my bloom room on day 21 out of preference, sit on a rolly garage chair with no backrest and clean any branches off the bottoms that do not reach adequate light. Usually it ends up being the lower 30-40% of the canopy. Here's a pic for reference.


Any plants you haven't grown before have the potential to be herms you have to just hunt them down an thin them out of your rotation. I've been pheno hunting this entire year and through the winter and had a surprising amount of seeds herm mid bloom once buds were set. I don't think it was caused by training its just something I'm seeing more with the new "polyphenotypes" and all these super crosses.

The only way to know if the plant is going to herm is going to be by pushing it to that point and taking notes.

Those plants don't appear too close to the light, heavy debranching and defoliation can help stress the plant during the stretch phase and slow things down or sometimes I will see plants speed things up. It's all dependent on plant genetics.

Raised up the one on the left and did a heavy defoliation. The plants were 6 inches from the light so I took the in-line filter out and put it outside the tent which gave them another 6 inches or so. I have very little more room to give so hopefully this helped.

Two weeks in? I'd just cut off tops to level the canopy. Lower bud sites will not loose any growth And become mains. I butcher my plants and defoliate until week 4 of flower. Then a leaf or two only as needed. Too much bro shit out there.

Six inches will be used up soon. And I would not top at that time.

Good luck. And you won't know till you try thing.

MICHI-CAN said:

Two weeks in? I'd just cut off tops to level the canopy. Lower bud sites will not loose any growth And become mains. I butcher my plants and defoliate until week 4 of flower. Then a leaf or two only as needed. Too much bro shit out there.

Six inches will be used up soon. And I would not top at that time.

Good luck. And you won't know till you try thing.

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Thanks and yah it’s my first grow so just learning my way as I go. They are really now about 2 and a half weeks in flower so we shall see.

Coco-garden said:

View attachment 5129810
Hard to tell by the picture but the plants are less then a foot away from my light and I’m only 2 weeks into flower. Can I still bend them down a bit in week 2 without stressing them much?

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Yes

Supercrop them

twentyeight.threefive said:

Yeah lots of people will say stuff that isn't true because they heard it from someone else and don't know better.

Same reason people insist on flushing before harvest, not up potting autoflowers, and many other bro science myths.

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I have found this out the hard way. People aren't shy about sharing bad advice