Mind if I rant? I know some of you have see this one before, but I feel that it warrants a re-post.
One thing people seem to FAIL to recognize, and often quote the opposite of, revolves around one simple thing:
STRESS
All of you that are cheering, and fist pumping about not causing stress to a fragile plant such as cannabis really need to read the facts set forth in this article. Actually, plants are ENCOURAGED to grow taller/bigger/stronger when damage occurs. Some people say that this stresses the plant. OF COURSE IT DOES!! THAT'S THE POINT!! Stress is not always a bad thing, and should not necessarily be avoided.
Cannabis is in no way a fragile plant, and can endure a multitude of things before it dies. Actually, the only things that I have found that can kill this plant are these:
- Malnutrition
- Lack of light
- Dehydration
- Infestation
- Infection
All of these can be easily avoided, and thus, unless you are severing the green plant from the roots, your plant should live and thrive and flourish after whatever stress you put it through. Now I'm not saying that you should go into your grow room and beat up your plants needlessly. That would add time to your grow while the plant responds to the stress and/or heals, and would mean less harvests per year if you are growing indoors. What I am saying, however, is that when you are training, grooming, pruning your plants, you are not causing harm to them, and therefore, contrary to the naysayers of this, you are not going to kill it.
I have seen some truly miraculous things happen with these plants. Short of light deprivation, starvation, or dehydration, they will overcome anything, and survive. They will actually become STRONGER specimens because of the stress induced.
Placing a fan in your grow stresses a plant and makes stronger stems, even though most people only do it to get good air circulation. The biggest reason most people forget (or don't know) is that blowing around in the wind is what CAUSES the big strong stems that hold up those huge colas.
When you snip/clip/prune/defoliate ANY plant, the plant responds by growing new stronger growth. It's a survival response. Anyone ever heard of TRUNK PIERCING?! I used to do it all the time in my larger grows. It causes very hearty growth in the veg stage because the plant believes it is constantly under attack and therefore grows stronger and stronger.
When leaves are pulled, in order to survive, the plant grows more of them (veg stage of course) to replace what was lost. If this did not happen, eventually the same stressor, repeated would strip the plant completely, robbing the plant of its only source of energy collection from light, and it would die.
To elaborate:
In general, when lateral growth is removed, vertical growth is the response. I believe to possibly get above whatever has been biting on the sides. Think of it like this. A deer comes along and munches the sides of a plant. The plant responds by growing taller, and adding weight to stems, and putting out more leaves/growth higher up. Eventually the deer would not be able to reach the vegetation it is after and wanders off in search of something else, thus the plant survives.
Adversely, when we top a plant, it responds by growing more girth and almost doubles it's lateral growth. In the deer scenario, eventually the deer will not be able to reach the inside of the plant where there is green, and the plant survives, and then can grow taller.
I know a lot of you are thinking, "A plant doesn't just make a decision to grow a certain way," and you'd be right- yet wrong. Of course there is no higher thought, but hormonal differences in plant tips, and stems, and trunks, are what causes this, and thus the response is the same. Do you make a decision to scar over when you are cut? Poor example of course, but it does sort of prove my point here. Cells do what they're told to do by the circumstances they are presented. Cause and effect. When you work out, are you not sore the day after? Do you not grow stronger because of the torn muscle tissue regrowing and increasing to withstand that stress later? Repeated stress of this sort can cause a dramatic change in muscle tone and bulk and strength of the tissue. The same thing can be observed in plants. Supercropping, for example...
Supercropping causes the plant to form a knuckle at the bend site, and causes another, more dramatic change. We'll get to that in a second. The knuckle is the plants way of protecting that area from further, or repeated damage. By doing this the plant becomes stronger, no? I've seen plants that had to be supercropped several times and still stood straight back up. The stem after the bend site was woody, rigid, and strong enough to support the massive growth in the flowers that follows a procedure such as this.
Now, the other change is that the "auxins" that control the terminal end growth, are transported to the highest point on a plant. When supercropped, that former highest point is now bent downward. As the auxins are redistributed, they go to the highest point, and voila! Lateral stem growth doubles while the bent-over main stem is repaired and stood back up. I don't know about you, but I'll take several big kolas vs. one big kola- wouldn't you?
Think about this when talking to others about stressing a plant... Don't offer blind, and unfounded advice. Look to nature, and see the miracle that is cannabis. This is truly a plant survivor in many ways, and I've seen my fair share of plants come back from "the brink" and flourish when others have said it was too stressed to survive.
Hey Jandre! 
