Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Notching and Nicking - Mastering Plant Architecture

Transcript

Notching and Nicking - Mastering Plant Architecture · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
• 0:03
  If you hear any screaming, that's just my two young sons down below where I'm
• 0:08
  recording this watching gladiators, which they're getting really overexcited about.
• 0:11
  So please ignore the screaming and yeah, listen to this amazing podcast episode
• 0:17
  about notching or nicking.
• 0:20
  Now, notching or nicking is a
• 0:23
  technique that I think more hydroponic growers
• 0:26
  need to know about especially those
• 0:29
  who are growing tomatoes or those
• 0:32
  growing plants that they where plant
• 0:36
  architecture is critical and so
• 0:39
  many growers will know about taking an
• 0:42
  apical bud out off the plant to
• 0:45
  encourage side branching now with
• 0:49
  a lot of plants this is you you
• 0:52
  might not want to do that because you're really checking the growth
• 0:55
  of that plant by taking the apical bud out it could
• 0:58
  stop it growing for a week or so even though
• 1:02
  it gives you benefits of increased branching and more nodes
• 1:04
  on which you can get flowers buds and fruit to
• 1:07
  develop on however there is notching and
• 1:10
  nickies is potentially our way around this so this is
• 1:13
  particularly important for people who are growing auto flowering
• 1:16
  varieties where from seed to
• 1:19
  harvest has a set time period and you only
• 1:22
  have that amount of time to to develop a fruit
• 1:24
  and a flower so curtailing growth and development for
• 1:27
  a week or two it's you know some people just wouldn't even
• 1:30
  consider it so notching and nicking is a
• 1:33
  way to overcome this so I think this is a
• 1:37
  method more people should be using and
• 1:40
  trialing and I think it could be a big one
• 1:43
  for certainly growers of the plant that can't be.
• 1:46
  Named who are growing auto flowers or certainly
• 1:49
  want to grow increased branch plants without the disadvantage of
• 1:52
  taking that apical bud that apical meristem off now what
• 1:56
  you do is where there is a bud already developed
• 1:59
  but that's not turning into a branch it's not
• 2:03
  doing that because auxin is traveling down from
• 2:05
  that apical bud and stopping those branches from
• 2:08
  growing out the hormone signal is stopping that so when you remove the
• 2:11
  apical bud the auxin stops going down traveling
• 2:15
  down to the roots and those buds grow out because of the lack of auks in getting
• 2:19
  to them and then they can start growing now you don't need to take that apical
• 2:23
  bud off to actually stop the auks in getting to that bud all you need to do
• 2:28
  is carefully cut part of the stem out just above the.
• 2:34
  That node, that bud, and then that will stop the auxin because the vascular
• 2:41
  tissue has nowhere to grow.
• 2:42
  So the auxin will build up just above that bud.
• 2:45
  That bud will no longer be receiving auxin and it will grow out as a stem hopefully.
• 2:50
  Now it doesn't happen in all cases, but in certain plants you can do this.
• 2:54
  You can actually do the opposite as well. If you want to stop a bud from growing
• 2:57
  out, you really don't want it to grow, you can take the apical tissue out.
• 3:02
  You can cut a section of the stem out below the bud and this
• 3:05
  will cause it to the auctions to build up in the
• 3:08
  bud and stop it from growing out so notching and
• 3:11
  nicking can be used to fine
• 3:15
  tune the way a plant develops so it's
• 3:18
  some people use it it's it's it's very it's not
• 3:21
  widely known about i don't think and i
• 3:24
  think it's it could be used more certainly in
• 3:28
  indoor growing to fine tune the way you want to grow
• 3:31
  you could select different buds that
• 3:34
  you want to develop out into a branch so
• 3:37
  you rather than an apical just taking the apical bud off the
• 3:40
  other biggest disadvantage is you then have no control over which side stems
• 3:45
  grow out whereas we're notching and we're notching it just above the the bud
• 3:51
  you want to grow out then you can control that one to grow out and still allow
• 3:55
  the main apical bud to grow up.
• 3:58
  Now, you can also control which stems grow out by bending stems down.
• 4:04
  So if you bend a stem over or the main apical bud over.
• 4:08
  It will the auxin level will reduce drastically
• 4:12
  and that allows other branches to
• 4:15
  to to grow out so that's why when you train
• 4:19
  certain autoflowers and and other strains of
• 4:22
  certain plants you often bend them over and
• 4:25
  turn them to reduce the amount of auxin to allow other
• 4:29
  stems to to catch up or even
• 4:32
  for whole new stems to grow out so it's
• 4:35
  not just about opening up the canopy sometimes it's
• 4:38
  that so so if you're going to choose a stem to
• 4:41
  to grow out you want it to grow out into space you
• 4:44
  don't want it to grow out into the the inside of
• 4:47
  the plant you don't want the the inside of
• 4:50
  the canopy to become crowded you
• 4:53
  don't want branches to overlap and rub together because
• 4:56
  you'll get wounding there so you want to grow that plant
• 4:59
  out as much as possible to prevent to get airflow to prevent
• 5:02
  diseases for all of the buds to get
• 5:05
  as much light as possible so if you have.
• 5:08
  Tried notching or nicking then let me
• 5:11
  know and if you if it worked or
• 5:14
  didn't work be really interested to find out i might
• 5:17
  have a go at this on my tomatoes this year and see
• 5:20
  if i can get certain buds to grow out see if i can be
• 5:23
  a whiz i think this is like as close as to
• 5:26
  surgery as you can get as a plant scientist as you know so controlling like
• 5:31
  you know you can be like the the magician that control the shape of the plants
• 5:35
  it's almost like topiary but without the use of hard shears and things like
• 5:40
  that so hydroponics daily for today notching and nicking.