Stage - Veg Day 12 - 26 days above ground
Good Morning Fellow Growers
Today is the day I topped the plants to prepare for Quadlining. For those who are not familiar with the technique I listed a good thread four posts above this one. Since I was unmedicated during the cropping process I will take a moment to prepare for the write up.
Ok Ready!
What is Quadlining?
When we discuss quadlining we are referring to a specific technique for topping and training your plants in a way that can increase your total yield versus letting the plant grow naturally. I started topping my plants back in the late 80's. Since there was no internet at the time, I probably read about it in another Cannabis Mag that I won't mention here. Since then I have always topped my plants and usually top them twice. Every time you top the main branch the two branches at that node will start to grow to become the main branches. I think we all have done this at one time or another so I won't elaborate here. Quadlining is not really much different. You are topping the main branch above the 4th node while removing the 2 lowest sets of nonproductive branches leaving you with four main branches.
Without searching online for a lengthy definition, the purpose of quadlining is to produce 4 main branches vs. the one main branch that comes when grown naturally. In order to produce the four branches you must cut off the branches below and above the 3rd and 4th nodes. Removing these lower and upper branches forces the plant to focus all it's energy to the remaining branches (3 and 4)
1. First locate the 1st two nodes. The first node is where the first set of "serrated" leaves starts to produce branches at the base of the leaf and main stem. These branches are too low and won't get enough light to produce decent flowers and should be removed anyway.
Note: My plants have really tight short nodes. Plus I should have topped them earlier. The best time to top for quadlining is when you have a defined 6th node. I had 8 nodes. The seeds from
@Weed Seeds Express grew much faster than I anticipated. I prefer more nodal spacing than what I ended up with but when they were in seedling stage I moved them from the low LED desk lighting to the tent LED lighting a little early. The Demon LED by
@Budget LED can be reduced to 30 watts but I had the lights too close a little too intense in the early stages causing short and tight nodes. If I had to choose though I would prefer shorter nodes to longer nodes. The amount of light and distance of the light to the plant will affect the length of your nodes especially in the seedling early Veg stage. There is an advantage of a shorter node though as they will produce thicker base branches to help support the weight of the colas later in the flowering stage.
This is plant 2. I mentioned when I transplanted both plants I almost went with #3 because of better nodal spacing. As you can see it's a mess under here and hard to even see the node branches.
This picture shows node and branch location. Carefully remove the lower two leaves and branches with a sharp sterile pruning shear. Then cut the top main branch
above the 4th set of leaves and branches. Keep the branch and fan leaves of 3rd and 4th node. When cutting the top branch do not cut too close to the 4th node. Leave a stub as this will help reduce chances of infection.
They will look pretty ugly when you get done so don't freak out.
In a couple of days you won't recognize it.
That's all that's required for now. Next step will be training.
Here are #3 and 4. Still looking good. This will be the first time I am attempting quadlining so I'm a little cautious. It's one reason plants 3 and 4 are still around.
After all the cropping both 1 and 2 received 17 oz (500 ml) of solution. 3 and 4 received 5 oz (150 ml) each. Runoff for 1 and 2 from yesterday was around 950 ppms (95 above solution input of 855 ppms)
Have a great and green weekend.
