one more question

[blondlebanese]

i understand that fan leaves are responsible for trichoms. does direct light on a bud enhance trichom production? why less trichoms further down the stem? would a plant standing alone under the same light have moe trichoms further down the stem? as oposed to many plants close together.

 

[Rosebud]

What kind of light are you using. ? Lights have different penetration depth. If you using LED for example, you might only get 12" of penetration. It is also a good idea to trim the plants up from the bottom so as not to have a bunch of tiny buds.

Fan leaves feed that plant.

 

[blondlebanese]

i thought trimming the bottom of the plant was a good idea too. but, was advised against it because i'm to far into flowering. the sativa still have four weeks to go. do you think trimming the under growth would do harm to the plant at this stage? i'd like to see the plant focus on the bigger upper buds. i'm useing primarily 1000w hps. with six t-5s at one end of the room over three plants. so, the light sort of mixes over these three and i think this little expiriment is paying off. just what is it that makes trimming a plant a risk? is it shock? or is it that the plant uses valuable energy to try and heal its self instead of flowering. or is it that the plant gets confused and wants to veg again? just what is the risk? i've also read that trimming to much at one time is bad.

 

[Rosebud]

The deal is when the plant is in flower and you cut off branches, the plant produces a hormone auxine that puts its energy into fixing the wound rather then stay focused on blooming. So I would say no. Don't remove if you have just a month left to go. That is what each grow is about you will learn now to remove most stuff before flipping to flower and not after 2 weeks of flowering. And your next grow will benefit.

One thing about that popcorn buds that i never hear people say is, I love those little bud to pop in a pipe. no grinding,,,, love um. I really do, i am not kidding.

your HPS should have good penetration. What color spectrum do you have in your T5's?

 

[zem]

well, there are small leaves on the buds that also help in photosynthesis, but you should look at the leaves as solar panels, the higher power panels need more surface area, to capture more light energy, so most of the photosynthesis occurs in those big fan leaves surrounding your plant's stems. also, one thing i noticed, is that buds that grow tall and closest to the light, will have their trichomes damaged from the high light intensity at this distance. it is more important to have your leaves rather than buds, under direct light.
i think that popcorn bud should avoided as much as possible, as they are consumed quickly, have little real weight in them, but I was never able yet to flower a grow with no popcorn buds at all. it is of course too late now to trim your plants.