Re: Stealthy 1st time indoor/outdoor hybrid grow. Mama Mia and White Panther in soil.
You've got it right, Canna. If you glance back at the pictures looking down on the plants you can see the basic strategy. The two main tops are on the right in both pictures. I'm moving the main top in one direction. Growth below the main top gets trained in the opposite direction. You can also see this in the picture of Collette's legs. FIMing the tops supposedly encourages the growth lower down. The tops all the way at the left are from the 2nd and third nodes. I pinched off those two, and a few others to double them up.
Colette
Helen
Keep in mind I don't really know what I'm doing - I'm just processing what I've read and listening to my gut...
The strong high-altitude sun is a great help. It makes the plants stretchier. Colette has been easier to train than Helen. She is just a more stretchy pheno in general. I've only irreparably damaged one branch and it was on Colette. Snapped it moving it. Applied tape and it still died...
Colette is a trooper! She got munched worse than Helen, I almost killed her removing a stubborn seed jacket when she was an infant, and broke off one of her branches! Still, she seems to be the star of the two so far. She has caught up to Helen and is getting really stinky for a plant that isn't flowering yet.
Since I'm concerned about the girls outgrowing the cabinet during stretch, I think I'm going to leave them indoors full-time for the first two weeks of 12/12. The plants don't stretch near as much under the LED as they do in the greenhouse. After that they can go back into the greenhouse to play with their friends under the blazing high-desert sun. It should help fatten the buds.
I guess my greatest fear at the moment is I've been pretty abusive with FIM, topping, and tucking. Hopefully I won't end up with a couple of she-males!