Looking healthy from here.
Pink's Perpetual Experiments
- Thread starter Pinktiger777
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #262
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
Grow Update
This grow is right back on track, just where the other grows were before the last one. I'm relieved.
Pictures:
tent.jpg
canopy 2day.jpg
across.jpg
The clone is now pushing out leaves and stems, and they look normal. You will have to look close:
clone.jpg
LST Techniques
Today I thought I would share a little of my Low Stress Training technique, or LST. This is not mine alone, as I learned it here from watching different people. This is how I do it.
First, I always FIM the third node - after two full sets of leaves have appeared on a seedling or a clone looks normal with at least two nodes. I haven't FIMMED the clone in this tent yet. But the other ones have been FIMMED. FIM is an acronymn that stands for "F*** I missed." (expletive deleted.) It means you pinch the node when it appears, but leave part of it there. It does essentially the same thing as plucking the node away, only you retain the leaves or part of them, anyway.
Next, I torture the plant. LOL. Sort of. I bend the branches away from the stem until they almost break off, but are still attached. These pictures show how they look a few days later:
LST 1.jpg
lst 2.jpg
lst 3.jpg
Why do I do this? I put my plants into a SCROG (screen of green), by putting a wire trellis over them. Then a net is positioned a few inches above that to hold the branches as they come up through the scrog. So bending the branches and positioning them where you want them to grow, under the first trellis, is the idea. I'll illustrate how I do this on this grow, so you can follow along.
In the pictures above, you can see how making the plant grow more horizontally stops each plant from assuming the normal "Christmas Tree" growth pattern. Without a main cola, you get more colas and larger ones. I position these under the wire until I filled all the space, and then I allow the plants to develop colas that go up toward the light. Once these are up about six inches and I have enough colas showing to make a good harvest, I flip the lights to 12/12. Right now they are getting six hours of darkness and 18 hours of daylight.
Once cannabis plants get going, it is hard to stop them. They have the strongest will to live of any plant I've ever grown indoors.
This grow is right back on track, just where the other grows were before the last one. I'm relieved.
Pictures:
tent.jpg
canopy 2day.jpg
across.jpg
The clone is now pushing out leaves and stems, and they look normal. You will have to look close:
clone.jpg
LST Techniques
Today I thought I would share a little of my Low Stress Training technique, or LST. This is not mine alone, as I learned it here from watching different people. This is how I do it.
First, I always FIM the third node - after two full sets of leaves have appeared on a seedling or a clone looks normal with at least two nodes. I haven't FIMMED the clone in this tent yet. But the other ones have been FIMMED. FIM is an acronymn that stands for "F*** I missed." (expletive deleted.) It means you pinch the node when it appears, but leave part of it there. It does essentially the same thing as plucking the node away, only you retain the leaves or part of them, anyway.
Next, I torture the plant. LOL. Sort of. I bend the branches away from the stem until they almost break off, but are still attached. These pictures show how they look a few days later:
LST 1.jpg
lst 2.jpg
lst 3.jpg
Why do I do this? I put my plants into a SCROG (screen of green), by putting a wire trellis over them. Then a net is positioned a few inches above that to hold the branches as they come up through the scrog. So bending the branches and positioning them where you want them to grow, under the first trellis, is the idea. I'll illustrate how I do this on this grow, so you can follow along.
In the pictures above, you can see how making the plant grow more horizontally stops each plant from assuming the normal "Christmas Tree" growth pattern. Without a main cola, you get more colas and larger ones. I position these under the wire until I filled all the space, and then I allow the plants to develop colas that go up toward the light. Once these are up about six inches and I have enough colas showing to make a good harvest, I flip the lights to 12/12. Right now they are getting six hours of darkness and 18 hours of daylight.
Once cannabis plants get going, it is hard to stop them. They have the strongest will to live of any plant I've ever grown indoors.
Nice training techniques
- Thread starter
- #264
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
Thanks, Penny! I only top the plant once. Forgot to say that. Also, I've found that torturing the plant (Ha) makes it stronger, and develops bigger and more productive colas.
I usually fim or top then just spread branches apart. Not reall big in heavy training.
- Thread starter
- #266
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
That’s about all I do. Just I have found the plant puts out more shoots when I make it think it was damaged. Sort of bdsm for the tent.
The thing I’ve found is the more branches it produces the smaller the flowers so you get a lot of smallish buds. The fewer the branches the bigger the buds are. It all seems to equalize in the end. I prefer big honkin buds myself. Lol
- Thread starter
- #268
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
What’s your opinion of trimming buds to make them bigger?
I'm glad things are back on track for you!
In terms of backbuilding (if that's what you mean by trimming buds), there doesn't seem to be a consensus that it increases harvest weight. It will make the buds prettier and rounder, but you stop all upward growth, so there is the trade off.
In terms of backbuilding (if that's what you mean by trimming buds), there doesn't seem to be a consensus that it increases harvest weight. It will make the buds prettier and rounder, but you stop all upward growth, so there is the trade off.
Yes, my understanding is commercial growers use back building to gain uniform buds. Not to increase weight.
- Thread starter
- #271
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
That’s what I was thinking, guys.
- Thread starter
- #272
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
I’m starting to get nervous after spending more than 2k on new grow space, tent, etc.
How much will your new space produce?
- Thread starter
- #274
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
TBD, but doing the math, it seems I should get a lot more from a 5 X 5 tent than a 2 X 2.5. Going from five square feet to 25 square feet, and putting 10-inch (3 gal) fabric pots in a tray, six in all, I should get five times as much? LOL. Looks like I might get a pound or so.
Am I figuring it correctly? I'm getting about 7 oz. dry out of the small tent now. So 35 oz.?
That’s very possible. You could fit more than 6x 3 gallon pots in you 5x5. Increasing yield even more. It won’t take long to make your investment back.
- Thread starter
- #276
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
I am limited to six plants, though, at a time.
I’d do 6 large plants if you have enough height.
- Thread starter
- #278
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
More LST (Low Stress Training) Techniques for Scrog
One of the blessings of 420 Magazine is the forums, where we can learn from others. When I first came here years ago, I was intrigued by the plant training techniques I found here. It was difficult, however, to find anyone doing exactly what I wanted to do. Most of what I read was, "tuck the branches under the screen." Which is good advice. But it took me awhile to figure out how to make it work. I also found out that some of the tips I got about training were not what I wanted to do.
Here I plan to lay out the techniques I use, and add some caveats about what not to do if you are training to a scrog. Also, please feel free to add any ideas or suggest changes. That's what the forums are for.
Our plants are resilient and can take a lot of abuse, which is good. However, some training techniques don't work in scrog. For example:
When the plants are small, either sprouted from seed or a clone, it is important to begin training them early. For example, while seedlings or clones are sprouting roots, you can bend the branches and encourage them not to adopt the 'Christmas Tree' appearance they want to grow into. Be gentle with the branches, but get them to adopt more of a side growth than upward growth. Here's a clone which have had the branches gently bent down. What I do is to break the inside of the stem so that it droops instead of standing up. Don't overdo the bending, but go ahead and make it pliable. I gently bend the branch back and forth until it looks like the picture below. Do this on young shoots. Not big branches, because these may snap. You don't want that.
Once the plants are potted in their proper medium and placed in a tent for vegging, you continue to bend the branches before they get up to the scrog level, to encourage growth in a more horizontal way than vertical. Illustrated below is an example of early training on plants that have not yet reached the scrog screen:
Once they approach the screen, continue to bend the branches. You want them to fill up the area of the screen, bending the plants just below it, to encourage them to grow horizontally:
Once the scrog screen is full underneath, and no more branches will fit under it, stop the bending and let the plants grow upward. You will have many tops that will grow into colas.
Once tops are up a few inches, and if you are growing photoperiod plants, switch to 12/12. The plants will need defoliating below the screen, as the last picture above shows. This is to encourage growth above the screen and will help the plants grow strong, fat colas with lots of buds.
One of the blessings of 420 Magazine is the forums, where we can learn from others. When I first came here years ago, I was intrigued by the plant training techniques I found here. It was difficult, however, to find anyone doing exactly what I wanted to do. Most of what I read was, "tuck the branches under the screen." Which is good advice. But it took me awhile to figure out how to make it work. I also found out that some of the tips I got about training were not what I wanted to do.
Here I plan to lay out the techniques I use, and add some caveats about what not to do if you are training to a scrog. Also, please feel free to add any ideas or suggest changes. That's what the forums are for.
Our plants are resilient and can take a lot of abuse, which is good. However, some training techniques don't work in scrog. For example:
- Do NOT tie the branches down with ties under the scrog. If you do, you will stunt the plant's growth considerably, because you are making the plant think it is stopped from growing up. You don't want to do that, because the upward movement of the plant is something you want to encourage, all the while "tucking" the plant under the scrog screen. This growth is essential to the overall scheme, because if the branches stop growing, your training is for naught. Tying branches works with mainlining, but not with a scrog.
- You must control the direction the plants grow in, because space is limited in the tent. If you train early and bend the branches to make them go in the direction you need them to grow in, you will have more success. So don't let the plants do their own thing - you have to train.
When the plants are small, either sprouted from seed or a clone, it is important to begin training them early. For example, while seedlings or clones are sprouting roots, you can bend the branches and encourage them not to adopt the 'Christmas Tree' appearance they want to grow into. Be gentle with the branches, but get them to adopt more of a side growth than upward growth. Here's a clone which have had the branches gently bent down. What I do is to break the inside of the stem so that it droops instead of standing up. Don't overdo the bending, but go ahead and make it pliable. I gently bend the branch back and forth until it looks like the picture below. Do this on young shoots. Not big branches, because these may snap. You don't want that.
Once the plants are potted in their proper medium and placed in a tent for vegging, you continue to bend the branches before they get up to the scrog level, to encourage growth in a more horizontal way than vertical. Illustrated below is an example of early training on plants that have not yet reached the scrog screen:
Once they approach the screen, continue to bend the branches. You want them to fill up the area of the screen, bending the plants just below it, to encourage them to grow horizontally:
Once the scrog screen is full underneath, and no more branches will fit under it, stop the bending and let the plants grow upward. You will have many tops that will grow into colas.
Once tops are up a few inches, and if you are growing photoperiod plants, switch to 12/12. The plants will need defoliating below the screen, as the last picture above shows. This is to encourage growth above the screen and will help the plants grow strong, fat colas with lots of buds.
Excellent tutorial, you need to put a link to this in your signature.
- Thread starter
- #280
Pinktiger777
Well-Known Member
I never thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion.