Limiting plant height
- Thread starter dba1954
- Start date
You can top one time on 5th or 6th node. Buy trellis net on zon for 10bucks. Once the plant grows into the trellis keep tucking in Veg until the canopy is covered the tent or 3/4s. then change timer to bloom 12/12
Im running trellis now, best thing to do is try different ways to find your groove
Im running trellis now, best thing to do is try different ways to find your groove
I like to top them and bend the branches out to the sides. Keeps the plant short while spreading out the canopy. A SCROG like Gainesville mentioned works well though. @Zephyrs has been posting some good pics of a SCROG grow.
Zephyrs
Well-Known Member
High there @dba1954! I personally like to top, supercrop, and tie down my plants. I currently have a scrog going, of a cherry 18. I topped her at about 25 days of Veg. Then I also supercropped 2 weeks later just below the 2 New Tops. Then I started tying her down to the Fence screen with those fuzzy white pipe cleaner jobbies. I let her go and kept tying down every couple days to make everything as even as possible. She is currently on day 6 of flower. Here's a couple examples! I hope it helps ya out wi your cannabis journey
horizontal pic of my screen
And a Top side shot
Here's a pic of my super cropped top Knuckle currently. This was 10 Days after topping. I then tied down the 2 New top shoots with pipe cleaner things. and spread her horizontal from there with the other branches also. i chopped all lower growth, except for the bigger fan leaves.
I think there is a variety of approaches to limit height. I grow outdoors on a balcony where I can only allow the plants to grow to no more than 2.5 feet to maintain a degree of stealth. Currently I have 3 plants trained with LST, and 1 plant hexlined, LST'd, and supercropped, all 4 are under these limits, just!.
Bounce3d
Well-Known Member
you can also try during the flower period, during stretch, have your lights off temps slightly warmer than your lights on temps +- 5deg C difference between the two
also another way i read is to keep you MH bulb in until stretch is done then switch to the HPS
all techniques to limit stretch
also another way i read is to keep you MH bulb in until stretch is done then switch to the HPS
all techniques to limit stretch
Reads like we are pretty much in the same camp as to max yield while keeping the height in consideration at all times.
Before I bought my tent I was using a cabinet for the flowering stage twhich was about 48" from floor to the top. I tried different methods for a couple years until I got used to some of the extreme conditions I was encountering. I am now using a 5X5X6.5 foot tent.
Things to keep in mind is you will have to measure and measure again. First is measure from the bottom of the lights to the ceiling of tent and subtract that from your 72 inches height. Then measure from the lights to what is the optimum distance from those same lights and the top of the canopy with buds should be at in the last couple weeks of the flowering. This gives you an idea of how much room you will have to work with.
Keep remembering to include the size of the container whether soil, soil-less or hydro. Every inch will count so keep in mind that the pot takes up some of the height. If the pot is going to sit on something to keep it off the floor those several inches have to accounted for.
Or, you can do what most of us do the first several times. We just wing it and hope we can figure it all out before the stretch phase finishes pushing the fast growing dominant tops into and through the lights. And, we find out that the side growth continues for awhile so we needed more room between our plant and the other plants or the walls of the tent.
Back to your question of "What is the best to do, Fimming or topping." I go for topping and bending over using High Stress Training methods until ready to go into flowering. Once in flowering I might continue with some HST if the stretch is more than I had thought would happen.
On a related topic is that topping does cause some short delays while the remaining and newly developing dominant tips adjust. So what we thought of as an 8 week project during the vegetating stage has now become 10 weeks or more. The lights and anything else electric continues to draw power.
The link below discusses some of the points of doing a lot of topping and some of the downsides to keep in mind. What relates to this thread starts around message #14 or 15 and continues on & off. Won't take more than an extra minute or two to read the whole thread to find out how we got to the topping part of that thread since it is somewhat related.
https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/when-does-the-flowering-period-begin.511591/
to stop/shorten up-ward growth - remove fan leaves - if you remove the lower fan leaves(bottom set) and then waite 5 days and remove the next lower set let grow again then remove the next lower set of fans .If done correctly (waiting till the lower branches grow (like candle-a-bra --alway removing the next set of lower fan leaves and waiting for growth of lateral branches before removiong the next set of fans) you are doing a scrog by just removing fan leaves the only draw-back is longer veg time 1 1/2 months at least ( hope you can understand what I'm attempting to explain) have shorten growth by at least 12 inches usng this method (natural scrog ?)
Fuzzy Duck
Well-Known Member
Ye some great suggestions mentions well done folks 
Have you grown this strain before?
If not suggest you grow it naturally then IF needed low stress training is a thing.
Probably not going to need to do much since its an auto strain they dont get that big and certainly not big enough to worry about it and getting burnt in your lights provided your lights are not right down on the plants.
I pin my lamps to the ceiling and let it grow.
Excellent points.
My lights are mounted to the ceiling or hanging by chains. I do not adjust them. The plants are moved up to an acceptable distance from the lights. As the plant grows I lower the pot down towards the floor to maintain the distance between the canopy and light.
- Thread starter
- #13
Yea ! you got it LST and if side branches give you a issue suppercrop the lateral branch stem to = out the plant's height
- Thread starter
- #15
along the same line.... roughly how old are the plants on average do you start LST. The plants are blue cheese autoflower that only grow 24-30"
here is stages of autos':
Vegation Stage -- weeks 1-3
Flower Stage _ week 4-10 (after 10 week thc amounts start to decrease - but CBD trepene's are "heavier"
- Thread starter
- #17
Zephyrs
Well-Known Member
As soon as the main stem can handle it. I starting tying down an Autoflower I grew last year at 12 days after sprouted. Just be sure to be gentle at first.
