Two weeks have passed since the flip. Plants haven’t started flowering yet, but they’ve already shown their sex. The height distribution turned out quite interesting, almost like it was planned.
Weekly growth:
#4 – 55 cm – getting pretty close to the light already
#3 – 24 cm – perfect size for my box, exactly what I wanted
#6 – 7 cm – solid progress compared to last week
Overall everything is stable. I’m doing light defoliation, removing 2–3 leaves per day where they block light from growth tips. I’m not going for heavy defoliation — after reading and watching a lot, I’d rather keep the leaves. There’s also an opinion that around week 3 you shouldn’t remove too much anyway, and in general aggressive leaf stripping isn’t a great idea, partly because of mold risks.
Why mold? Because external humidity isn’t as important as internal humidity inside the buds. The plant constantly releases moisture through transpiration all the way until harvest. If you remove most of the leaves, where does that moisture go?
Exactly — into what’s left: buds and small inner leaves. That can create near 100% humidity inside dense flowers. You can drop RH in the room all you want, but inside the buds conditions for mold can still be ideal. Add a strong day/night temperature swing reaching the dew point, and it becomes a perfect environment for mold.
So I’ll keep most of the leaves, just thinning enough to improve light penetration both from the top and bottom, without going overboard. Gradual defoliation also causes less stress compared to doing a heavy lollipop in one go. This isn’t a commercial farm with 1000 plants — we can afford to be precise and take off a few leaves every couple of days.
Nothing more to report for now. Plants are still stretching — expecting the first “buttons” any day now.