Graytail's Cupwinners in High Brix Soil - 4x4 - 600W HPS - Perpetual (On Training)

Graytail;2204146 said:

Thanks everyone!

COorganics;2203958 said:

You do a really good job training these, GT.
Curious, is the above pic the result of topping only? I'm just wondering how YOU like to train them.

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Cool! It gives a chance to put it on paper.

As a general rule, I like to watch a complex system and look for the inflection points that will make it more efficient. That philosophy crosses a lot of genres, from process engineering to caring for plants to teaching. So I don't like the idea of heavy defol and mainlining, etc. Instead, I try to simply guide a plant in the direction I want it to go, looking for its own natural tendencies and assisting or resisting them.

I usually end up using LST. Multiple topping seems to inhibit the plants I grow, and simple topping doesn't get me the large canopy I want. So when the youngster is about a foot tall it's been growing alternate nodes for a few cycles, and I look for a place and direction I can bend the top to bring it lower than a group of side branches. Since I've done it so often now, I'll do some small cleanup like clipping off the side branch under the bend as well as that fan. I'll push any tall lower branches into the center of the plant which brings them higher. Sometimes I'll twist the bent top as it grows so each pair of side stems stay on the sides instead of top and bottom - that gets a lot of tops. I'll usually fix that bent top in place and then bend and fiddle with the other side branches several times a day as they grow from the higher allocation of growth hormone they're getting. It's foolproof - the tip that's even slightly above the others will grow fastest. Every time one branch grows taller, I'll bend the top 3 inches or so outward and down into a curl. They recover in a matter of hours, and I do it again and again until they stay there. This will often allow a secondary side branch to reach the same height as its tip, so I get mulitple equal branches from one main one. I like to grow them to about 14 inches over 60 days, and I'll usually end up with 10-15 equal apicals when I flip it. Since the growth hormones are so evenly distributed, I'll usually get less than a double in stretch.

It's low stress, but the natural growth pattern is still seriously diverted, so growth does noticeably slow. But that also makes a nice full canopy with a mature root system, and good yields for such small plants.

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