Hacks to support overweight colas?

[majorana]

Well, two things happened in my tent in the past 48 hours:

1. The roots managed to grow into the dripper of a blumat carrot in an attempt of the plant to commit suicide. Hopefully it was thwarted in the nick of time. It wouldn't be any more than 48h, probably more like 24h, but the plant drinks so much that some smaller branches literally died. The colas look like they've lost all will to live. I only fixed this all an hour before lights went off, and decided to give the tent a 13th hour of light today.

2. Two other plants have colas that are so overweight they're collapsing. (Each plant was trained "manifolding" to have 8 colas. They're about 2' long (!) covered with thick, fat flowers.). I just learned the hard way why people use a net . I'm on day 44 of flower, and in theory should have reached 65. By the looks of it (pistils already 10% brown) I was guesstimating cropping at 58 or so. That still leaves me two weeks that I somehow need to supports the colas that are still fattening up. Any ideas how to do that? The obvious solution (tying them with a vertical rope to the top of the tent) isn't an option because they have a 1x1m frame full of LED strips above them...

[majorana]

My hack: babmboo sticks. stuck them thru the pot (probably hurting some poor roots) and tied the top part of the collapsing colas to them.

I have no idea why I ever grew ruderalis/auto strains in the past. There's simply nothing to compare with what's growing now.

[unkle_psycho]

Sounds like a good kind of a problem. What strain is it?

I usually use string or wire and attach to something. If there is nothing to attach to, I drive a nail into the wall and 'voila!'.

I was thinking about this just a couple of days ago, while rebuilding my light. Should I add some type of hooks or something to the bottom side, so i could tie buds to the lamp?

Sounds like the stick will work too, hope there won't be any moisture issues where the stick touches the plant. You might want to look in between every now and again, to see if its dry.

[Grower]

I am using sticks to support scrog nets over pots and they get moldy

[majorana]

In the 24 hours since I've noticed the major collapse it looks like one of the plants developed some moisture problem (the flowers seem "mushy"). Hopefully it will pick up. Hopefully also the bamboo sticks will survive 14 days or so. There were plastic sticks in the gardening store, but I try to avoid plastic as much as possible.

The strain is White choco haze. Its flowering time should be 9 weeks, but the guy who sold me the seeds (who happens to be responsible for the strain) told me he got it to finish in 8 weeks when using 90CRI. Looks like that will be the case for me too.

I'm already tempted to write more about this grow, but that can wait for 2-3 weeks until it's actually over. No need to jinx it

[unkle_psycho]

Do you have anything to remove moisture, besides the venting? One way to reduce moisture at lights out is to dim the lights out. And warmer temperatures increase the VPD, reducing moisture...

Last autumn I bought some plastic blobs with some salt looking chemical inside. They pulled about a liter of water each from the air. They were about 4e each, and that chemical can also be added.

[majorana]

Do you have anything to remove moisture, besides the venting? One way to reduce moisture at lights out is to dim the lights out. And warmer temperatures increase the VPD, reducing moisture...

During my first grow, when I was so clueless I didn't realize plants generate humidity, I tried those salts. I now have two dehumidifiers that generate ~25L/day. The larger one (18-20L/day) is also the noisiest component. I wish I could find a quieter one, but it seems there's no getting around the fan noise.

I also realized I'm going to run into a problem I forgot about: despite all seeds being of the same strain they're not clones, and the flowers mature slightly differently. One of the plants can be nearly a full week ahead of the others, so I'll need to figure out how to crop and dry it separately.

[unkle_psycho]

25l per day? my god. I'm feeling pretty silly with the 2l per week that 2 of those salt blobs produced. Perhaps I need to look at adult solutions too How much did such a device cost?

Personally I prefer cutting down a crop that ages differently. Even a few plants and my fingers are worn out from all the trimming. Nice to spread it out over a week... so even when growing clones, I might let some age further, and have the option of a more uplifting or tranquilizing effect.

[majorana]

The plants drink up approximately 20L/day at this point, which they later release as vapor. Being in a humid region and growing underground (literally) means it would get very humid very fast if I don't take care of it. I have a constant issue with the dehumidifier that would randomly fill up its internal rez (6L) instead of using the drainage pipe and then stop working. When that happens, about once a week, humidity skyrockets within hours. This thing is a major pain, making me go and check on it twice daily, and making me not fully recommend the Klarstein Drybest 35 (€260)

I'd love to crop a plant at a time -- trimming is my least favorite part of growing. But setting up a dedicated drying tent (it'll need its own carbon scrubber) is another expense... We'll see. This one that's ahead of them all started foxtailing a week ago, another two weeks and the foxtails will grow their own foxtails.

[Tune]

Sounds not so good the humid enviroment.
Try to get as much fresh air to the plants as possible. And extract as much as possible.

What kind of extraction do you have?

For the problem of your cola's...i too had the same issue and I tied a ropes between my LED's on to the frame so they could hold them.