Since our table relies on gravity to drain, we find ourselves lifting the table to access the reservoir… mashing our plants painfully into a screen of chicken wire.  So in the interest of practicality we cut down the screen, the plants are at an appropriate height, and since we’re about two weeks into flower, they probably won’t get too much taller.  There are new pictures of the girls in the gallery on the right, which is where I will be posting them from now on, except for the occasional diagram to explain my ramblings.

As I said in my last post, everything needs energy to live. Plants rely on photosynthesis for energy (using chlorophyll, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to create sugars). This may seem basic so far, but bear in mind that the first weeks of flowering your plant will stretch to almost double its size, leaving a large portion of the plant in the shade. These under leaves can no longer photosynthesize, and should be removed.  When the plants reach halfway to the scrog net, remove the fan leaves all the way up to the top 3 leaves before the  apical meristem (technical term for the plant’s ‘head’).

Shiver me timbers...

(the above picture was taken three days after lollipopping.)

The bottom 4 branches (the oldest 4 branches) are where a plant stores its hormones as it prepares to flower.  By removing these bottom branches, it forces all the floral hormones to the tops.  According to Jorge Cervantes, lollipopping does not decrease your harvest, you just trade in weak under buds that never saw the light of day for pretty tops.  After you remove the bottom leaves and shoots your growth will accelerate rapidly. Keep  an eye on them, at about 3/4 way to the scrog net, its time to begin flowering.  if you wait until you hit the screen, you risk turning a tidy efficient system into a tangled mess fighting for light

In early flower as the plants reach upwards, place the tops through the chicken wire.  The leaves hit the chicken wire signaling the plant to stop growing vertically, and to redirect its energy to start bringing the rest of its shoots to the scrog net 8″ from the light. With no lower branches, and all the upper branches at a uniform height with all of the plants floral hormones, you end up with a field of beautiful uniform flowers.