So I have have come up with a new (for me) form of training I am going to try in the next grow. I haven’t yet seen this one done.
Here’s the concept first:
Create a flat canopied and highly productive single plant out of exactly and only six branches.
What’s new about that, right? Well on first glance I’d say the same. But here’s the rub.
Up to now I have often trained individual plants with the goal of a flat top and high production. We all have pretty much, it’s what we do. But I and it seems most everyone doing it in this style do the same thing: we use both new branches off the nodes. We run one in one direction and one in the other, then repeat that as high up as we choose, right? Easy. Common.
So for this experiment what I’m going to do is take only ONE side off each node. And I’ll keep the more dominant branch in each case. I will chop the other side on each node. So I’ll have the dominant branch from node 1 going out horizontally and upwards at the same time like normal. Then at node two I’ll take THAT dominant of the pair and run it horizontally in another direction. Chop the other side of the node. And then repeat this process for nodes 3 and 4. Now I have a quad of sorts, only it’s set up so each node only has to support and feed the better of two branches. It also gets taller as the plant does. Then I top her. That gives me two more branches. THOSE two I will keep both of as they’re essentially the “mains.” But they will also go horizontal immediately. Then what I’ll have is exactly what I sought - a six branch plant that’ll be essentially round, easy to work, tallish, and the lowers will have plenty of time to catch up to the top two.
It’s not a huge difference. But it’s a significant difference. I haven’t done it this way before. Here’s my thinking:
If I were to put a plant in a 10-gallon pot of whatever medium and raise it healthy and wanted it to have six tall individual colas that were huge, we all know how to do that. Exactly as I just displayed with that final Strawberry Banana just harvested last week. She had 12. But you get it, six would have been equally simple. And only six colas from a ten if raised right would undoubtedly have gigantic colas. So in this revised model, I’m essentially taking those six huge colas, and instead of going tall I’m going out horizontal, and then we will prune what comes so as to achieve a nicely spaced canopy. Same energy and same huge colas, only each branch will in theory be the maxed version of the best that node had to offer. I believe it’s quite possible that the result will be nothing but giant cola tops in what is basically a round one-plant rotating scrog.
Does that make sense to you guys? Easy enough to follow?
More importantly, anyone have any feedback or opinions on this? Love to hear whatever you got if you’re so inclined and thanks in advance.
