They react to the light cycle for sure. I’ve had them get droopy if I had poor drainage also. And I’ve had some that just stayed droopy all through veg until they got a bigger pot.
The Quadsquad Thread: A Community For Quadlining
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They are a special plant! Some are just more special than others 
steffgrowsweed
Well-Known Member
Good morning 
I have a question to the quadlining people. Through continuous defoliation and training, more and more really small bud sides are exposed. I have added some pink circles, to show what I mean. Will they still make it up to the canopy in the next 3 weeks, what do you think? I'm tempted to chop them off... More info here
Thank you lovely people and happy day
I have a question to the quadlining people. Through continuous defoliation and training, more and more really small bud sides are exposed. I have added some pink circles, to show what I mean. Will they still make it up to the canopy in the next 3 weeks, what do you think? I'm tempted to chop them off... More info here Thank you lovely people and happy day
Derbybud
Well-Known Member
Leave them go and address things after stretch. Then it's only the strong survive.
steffgrowsweed
Well-Known Member
Good idea, seems so obvious, but I didn't think of it
I will keep on exposing then. Good evening & thank you
Brian420pm
Well-Known Member
Hi Steff, I am interested in this exact question as well. My goal is to settle on a training method that generally fits into a 4 month cycle... 6/10 veg/flower. So far I've had two grows, and it seems that when I trained for any number of grow points above 8-10 that those branches are not sufficiently developed. I concede that maybe I need to spend more time training, pruning and canopy leveling, but like many growers I'm trying to find something that suits me.
Looking at your plant specifically, I count at least 15 grow points (black lines), not counting the areas you circled.
Once your 15 grow tips turn straight up and stretch, the areas you circled will be on the lower side of the plant and not where I would want the available energy to be spent. Those 15, once in flower, will sprout some laterals closer to the top, which you can let grow out and fill canopy holes.
With all that in mind, my inclination would be to chop them off, but I'd like to see more replies.
My next grow I'm going to try dual instead of tri or quad, with around 14 grow tips, very similar to your plant! I'll be following your journal, best to you!
My advice would be to let everything go vertical for just a bit and be observant of how much taller your 3 main ends are than the rest of the side branches. If they are quite a bit taller then I would let up on some of the restraints on the side branches to let them be as level with the ends as possible. Typically your tops will be the ends of the main branches and the ends of the side branches and the lower growth on the side branches would be removed. But first I would just let everything grow UP a little.
Bud
Well-Known Member
If left alone, from here on, I think it will hurt your yield, to much energy waisted on to many small or popcorn buds. Instead of picking the best colas and letting them grow out after the stretch.
I didn't post originally to your query because I have no experience with indoor growing, but then seeing further discussion I thought I'll chime in with my 2 cents!Good idea, seems so obvious, but I didn't think of it
With indoor growing you can vege the plant for as long as you like, so pruning is perhaps a different kettle of fish to growing outdoors. Last year I took a Fluxing approach and followed indoor directions for that, which advised pruning off various grow points, in particular the 'over and under' laterals, the advice was to leave only the 'side by side' laterals and train them out and keep removing their side growth leaving the end growth. However, because my grows were outdoors I realized too late that I didn't have the luxury of time, once the outdoor photo period triggered flowering it was too late to wait for further 'approved' lateral growth to appear and 'bulk my plant up'. This year instead of Fluxing, I Quad trained, and resolved to let all growth points grow out and see what happened. In my experience so far, most growth points exiting the stem as 'unders' fail to grow out, but yet I have found some will grow out very strongly and make a good contribution to the harvest. I have heard a lot about pruning off to 'focus the energy' elsewhere etc etc, but I am not really convinced on that, I sort of feel that the plant doesn't care, that growth points will seek to grow out towards the light, some will be weak yet some will be strong and if they're pruned off their contribution to the harvest is lost. So this year with the weak growth and even the very weak growth that withered to nothing, I haven't bothered with touching them.
Of course you are growing indoors, so unlike me you can control vegging time and thereby build the foundation that you want before switching to flowering, you can be fussy and allow only the best to grow out and switch to flowering when everything is how you want it. So I would lean towards what @Mr. Magoo and @Derbybud suggests and address things after stretch because at least then you can see more clearly which branches are growing strongly.
There are so many valid yet different approaches, it just boils down to what works best for you. This year my plants don't seem to be suffering or growing poorly from having no pruning, in fact the only cut I have made on my plants was one single topping to Quadline them, it is still several weeks to go till harvest, but I am pretty confident that this year's yield will still be decent and some of that yield will be from branches that would have been lost in pruning.
Here's 4 pics, The first is last year's 2 Fluxed girls which I pruned growth off as well as selectively pollinated a cola or two on each, and from those seeds grew the plants of this year's grow. The 2nd and 3rd pic are this years girls, and the 4th pic is a poorly focused one of the base of the WW showing how all growth whether over/under or side by side has been free to grow out. Of course I may have got a much better yield if I had pruned but my feeling is, I should still nonetheless get a bit more if anything, I hoping...
Looks like this years yield will be significantly more. I’m gonna see if I can find a post I made on another members thread recently about plant growth. I think it would be appropriate for this thread as well.I didn't post originally to your query because I have no experience with indoor growing, but then seeing further discussion I thought I'll chime in with my 2 cents!
With indoor growing you can vege the plant for as long as you like, so pruning is perhaps a different kettle of fish to growing outdoors. Last year I took a Fluxing approach and followed indoor directions for that, which advised pruning off various grow points, in particular the 'over and under' laterals, the advice was to leave only the 'side by side' laterals and train them out and keep removing their side growth leaving the end growth. However, because my grows were outdoors I realized too late that I didn't have the luxury of time, once the outdoor photo period triggered flowering it was too late to wait for further 'approved' lateral growth to appear and 'bulk my plant up'. This year instead of Fluxing, I Quad trained, and resolved to let all growth points grow out and see what happened. In my experience so far, most growth points exiting the stem as 'unders' fail to grow out, but yet I have found some will grow out very strongly and make a good contribution to the harvest. I have heard a lot about pruning off to 'focus the energy' elsewhere etc etc, but I am not really convinced on that, I sort of feel that the plant doesn't care, that growth points will seek to grow out towards the light, some will be weak yet some will be strong and if they're pruned off their contribution to the harvest is lost. So this year with the weak growth and even the very weak growth that withered to nothing, I haven't bothered with touching them.
Of course you are growing indoors, so unlike me you can control vegging time and thereby build the foundation that you want before switching to flowering, you can be fussy and allow only the best to grow out and switch to flowering when everything is how you want it. So I would lean towards what @Mr. Magoo and @Derbybud suggests and address things after stretch because at least then you can see more clearly which branches are growing strongly.
There are so many valid yet different approaches, it just boils down to what works best for you. This year my plants don't seem to be suffering or growing poorly from having no pruning, in fact the only cut I have made on my plants was one single topping to Quadline them, it is still several weeks to go till harvest, but I am pretty confident that this year's yield will still be decent and some of that yield will be from branches that would have been lost in pruning.
Here's 4 pics, The first is last year's 2 Fluxed girls which I pruned growth off as well as selectively pollinated a cola or two on each, and from those seeds grew the plants of this year's grow. The 2nd and 3rd pic are this years girls, and the 4th pic is a poorly focused one of the base of the WW showing how all growth whether over/under or side by side has been free to grow out. Of course I may have got a much better yield if I had pruned but my feeling I should get a bit more if anything, I hoping...
steffgrowsweed
Well-Known Member
Thank you everyone, very interesting & valuable information shared. Since this is only my first photoperiod grow (3rd grow in total), I'm still experimenting a lot and so far I'm impressed what all you can do to a plant, especially a photoperiod. I felt becoming a bit obsessive over the training and bending and more exposing (when to stop exposing...) every day... So atm I have decided to give her some peace and not to remove any smaller growth. I just let her grow for some days without interrupting. That might mean wasted energy, but I'm not after yield (yet), just in it for the experience I'm excited to see what she turns into. Happy day everyone
I'm excited to see what she turns into. Happy day everyone 
Dsrkmattertec54
Well-Known Member
My future line up at various stages after topping. Each plant is about 2 days behind the next. I didnt so this intentionally it's just the speed at which each strain grew at.
Cotton Candy Kush (M or F)
Putins Crack (F)
Super Silver Haze (M or F)
Blue Dream (F)
I love watching them grow after topping!
Stay medicated
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- #1,353
Blue Dream (F)
I've got a Blue Dream going in my new journal. It's a bit behind yours but will be fun to see how they compare in the end! I've grown it once and I loved it. Nice job on the early parts of quadlining!
The Blue Dream is in the top left and in a 3 gallon pot.
Dsrkmattertec54
Well-Known Member
I've got a Blue Dream going in my new journal. It's a bit behind yours but will be fun to see how they compare in the end! I've grown it once and I loved it. Nice job on the early parts of quadlining!
The Blue Dream is in the top left and in a 3 gallon pot.
Awesome!
It's a great strain to smoke, I haven't tried growing it before this but I got some seeds from a buddy and wanted to get one of these going with my other newbies.
I just transferred this one to a 3gal pot and I'm gonna flip her when she fills it out just to get another body in my flower tent for harvest in a couple months
Schnookie
Well-Known Member
Ok, my #hex is starting to take shape, I'm keeping the total height under 7 inches from the soil and I expect to up pot into the 7 gallon fabric pot this weekend. I started some lst to spread the branches out and level the canopy.
I need to go back through the rest of the journal and look at grow weeks to decide how long to keep her in veg. What do y'all usually do? Mine is at around 30 days today I think, so was originally thinking of 8 weeks total veg. This is supposed to be golden tiger, despite the indica looking growth, so flowering could take 11 to 13 weeks after flip ...
I need to go back through the rest of the journal and look at grow weeks to decide how long to keep her in veg. What do y'all usually do? Mine is at around 30 days today I think, so was originally thinking of 8 weeks total veg. This is supposed to be golden tiger, despite the indica looking growth, so flowering could take 11 to 13 weeks after flip ...
- Thread starter
- #1,356
Gorilla Glue stripped and will be topped soon to start the quadline!
1 week ago today,
and today
Week 2 of Flower
and today
Week 2 of Flower
Some more sunshine today and the girls are loving it. 
- Thread starter
- #1,359
1 week ago today,
and today
Week 2 of Flower
You guys are both doing a really great job.Some more sunshine today and the girls are loving it.
Sevintrix
420 Member
Very impressed with this tutorial/grow. So was that a photoperiod plant ?As quadlining has become bigger and bigger on these forums I have seen that anyone interested in it has been able to receive the help they need on their own journals. Recently I have decided that it would be really fun to have a quadlining thread where people can come together and share their experiences and cool pictures. Some people also don't have journals so this will help provide a home where anyone can ask any questions they want. The #Quadsquad has some of the top growers on the forums and this will be a place where people can ask questions, learn about quadlining and just have some fun with it. This thread will be anything and everything about quadlining.
First of all let me start off by saying Happy 420 to everyone here! What better day to start a thread then on the best day of the year? Second, I will give a little history about quadlining and then a quick step by step guide on how to perform quadlining and the benefits of it.
Quadlining started a couple of years ago when I was trying to come up with a training method to get a good, low, even shape to the plants without slowing them down too much. Fluxing took way too long to perform and Mainlining also took a long time in veg to accomplish. Neither seemed like good fits for what I was trying to achieve. Instead I took a combination of both training methods and made quadlining. I've always said it isn't rocket science and it isn't anything brand new but I've put them together and created a system to allow aggressive growth without slowing the plants down much at all. It redistributes energy to focus on 4 main support branches and tries not to waste energy on things that will not amount to anything in the end. It also achieves a nice, even canopy with good spacing for airflow and light to penetrate decreasing the chance of mold and problems while increasing yield. Keeping them low also allows for growing in tight spaces or with height restrictions like most indoor growing. These were all the goals I wanted to achieve and quadlining does just that.
So what do you do to quadline? In a short summary to quadline you top above the 4th node of a plant and remove nodes 1 and 2. That leaves with you 2 nodes left on the plant (nodes 3 and 4). These nodes each have 2 branches each and you take those 4 branches (2 nodes and 2 branches each) and train them to the edge of the pot creating a perfect "X" shape for all the other nodes to grow off of. These will also have the 4 main colas at the end of them (or towers as some people have dubbed it)
Where the circles are at on this photo was where the 4 nodes originally were. Just to clarify there are 2 branches that come out of each node. The bottom two nodes (4 branches) were stripped away very carefully The plant is at such a young time take extra precaution when pinching or cutting them off!
Here is a photo where I was helping someone before the nodes were pulled off. The X's show what is being removed. The line is where you top at.
This is a plant I grew where I have stripped but not yet topped.
This is the same plant but now topped.
This is the same plant a day or two later.
This is the same plant a few days after that.
At this point there has been nothing else done to plants. Most people will just top their plants and the only difference between that and this is that I strip away the bottom 2 nodes to force all the energy to grow out the 4 main branches left. To me this is a very important step. In my experiences it's been a waste of energy to let all that stuff below grow and it doesn't even produce much in the end. If you want you can also spread the tips out with your fingers a bit which is really hard to show but here is a picture anyways. This can help keep node spacing tighter and give a little more light in there when things get a little bushy and bunched up.
Here is how I spread the middle nodes out a bit. Just some light bending and spreading.
At this point I've already put the plant through enough stress that I really don't want to clip anything else off or bend anything. It's not a ton of stress but they are little so you don't want to over-do it. I always like to strip the bottom two nodes a day or two before topping to give the plant a little time to recover. Doing everything all at the same time can cause extra delay and we don't want that. Also if you are growing multiple plants then I highly recommend to do each one when they are ready and not on a planned schedule. Different genetics grow at different rates and you should always do things to your plants based on how they look and not based on a scheduled time frame. If you are growing multiple plants then rarely can you strip and top at the same time. That means they all have to be at the exact same spot and that will rarely happen, especially if they aren't all the same genetics. Also it is key to note that if you are growing in soil, this could all take a little longer to recover then if you are growing in Coco or Hydro. If someone growing in Coco has a plant that recovers quicker and is larger, well that is just the nature of growing in a hydro medium. Doing any training or topping in soil will always take a little longer to recover and usually plants just aren't as big in soil as they are in Hydro. You will still have beautiful plants but you might be wondering why they don't look as big as someone else's plants and really it's as simple as genetics or growing medium.
Next, as the plants grow larger and start to really pick up the pace in veg, I will use my fingers to bend the 4th nodes branches to let the 3rd nodes branches catch up to them. Sometimes a plant will do this naturally but there is an in between stage where plants are still to fragile to really be tied down so I just slowly bend that top node with my fingers to start getting the branches to grow horizontally. Here is also a key to note. There are certain hormones (auxins) that aid in regulating plant growth. If a branch is growing completely horizontally then it sends different hormones to that branch then if it was growing completely vertical. When you start pinning down branches you always want to keep them tied down to the point where there is a 10-20% grade to them and not completely flat. If you don't do this then the 4 main branches will slow way down with growth and the middle will explode and you want to keep everything nice and even. It is hard to recover from this once the 4 main branches really slow down.
I don't have a great picture to show this angle but you can see that the branches are not completely horizontal in this picture and do have some angling to them.
So once the plant really kicks it into aggressive veg mode then it is time to tie them down. There are numerous ways to do this but the way I do it is with metal hooks and tomato wire. Some people who use hard pots drill holes and use string. Other use those fuzzy ties. There are all sorts of ways to do it but find something that will be fairly sturdy so the plant doesn't pull them out. Training ties are no good if they can't hold the plant into place. Also try and refrain from using small metal wire or things of that nature. As the plant grows the thin, hard wires can cut into the plant and then the plant is wasting energy constantly repairing those wounds. It's also good to note that a plant will get bigger and stronger and sometimes will require multiple ties to hold down a single branch.
This is where the fluxing part of the plant comes in. Once a plant starts getting tied down then you keep all 4 branches even until they all reach the edge of the final pot. While they are aggressively growing but haven't reached the edge yet the plants will get very bushy and require some defoliation. This allow even light distribution so all the new nodes growing off the mains will start to grow. Periodically during this phase I will clip off the fan leaves the point to the center of the plant that block all the new nodes light. You can usually do them all at once and you will often pull them in sets of 4. You pull 1 fan leaf from the same spot on each of the 4 main branches.
This is an example of a leaf that will need to be pulled because it is blocking the node under it's light. The leaves that face towards the outside of the pot very rarely block anything so I don't pull them. The ones facing the middle I get rid of.
The next step that I take and you do not have to do this but on every other node on the 4 main branches I remove the bottom branch. All of the odd nodes will be nice and even and grow out the sides of the main branch when it's pinned down but all the even nodes will grow a branch on top and one on bottom. The one on bottom never catches up to the canopy and ends up being "larfy" nugs. They never get dense enough and that is due to not getting enough light penetration. So I remove the bottom branch and the fan leaf associated with it. I also remove the top fan leaf because it blocks light. In the end this really helps with spacing anyways but if you do not want to do this you do not have to.
The arrow points to the node I remove on the bottom. you can see I've already removed the fan leaf on top. I do this pretty much the whole way through veg or at least until I really start letting the plant grow vertically.
Once the plant is trained to the edge of the pot it should look something like this. In this picture the plants were not in their final homes yet so when I transplanted them into their final homes they were practically ready to be flipped. I always try to transplant earlier then this but everyone does that differently. This was just a good example of how the plants should look in terms of symmetry with the quadline. You can see that nice "X" shape that the 4 main branches make. At this point I would just start letting the plant grow vertically then I would flip to flower.
During stretch I try and keep the plant as even as possible by using the ties and doing some bending/supercropping. You can pinch the stems of branches to slow the growth down a bit. You will feel the cell walls squish in but don't do it so hard the branch falls over. Just enough to cause a little damage to have to repair so that cola slows down a bit. I keep all ties on the plant until the very end of stretch and at that point if they aren't doing anything anymore (aka when you remove them the plant doesn't move at all) I pull them off. You can keep them on for all of flower if you like but you'll find the plant has hardened and taken shape and most of the time they don't contribute to anything anymore. At this point you can do some defoliation right after stretch to open the airflow up and light penetration. During this defoliation I will remove any small or weak branches that I know won't make it to the canopy. I also lollipop each cola as the bottom stuff doesn't get much light. Then you pretty much just let them grow out the rest of the way into some big, beautiful, bushy plants.
Just flipped to 12/12.
Stretch.
Little budlets forming.
Colas stacking and major defoliation done between budlet phase and stacking phase. Usually this is where I pull the ties off and the plants just grow from here on out. Not much else can be done training wise and you want to avoid any stress in flower anyways.
View from above.
Colas.
Almost finished.
Trimmed from above.
Sideshot showing lollipopping and thickness of colas.
Really the flowering phase of quadlining is pretty boring but you get to see all the training pay off in the end. You can see in the last picture how nice a big the colas get and how even everything pretty much stays. Both of these working together is what gives a larger yield which is why most people train their plants in the first place. By doing quadlining you aren't adding more then a week extra in veg then if you would just do them normal and you don't have to worry about any height restrictions. Fans are able to blow air to all of the plant because it is nice and even. There isn't a huge, taller cola blocking the way to the others. Same thing goes for light. The 4 main branches also are very stable and will be able to support the heavier colas without them flopping over. Sometimes you have to tie a cola or two up but these plants are like rhinoceroses. Short, stocky and strong.
This thread is created to be able to ask questions or just plain showoff what your quadlined plants look like. The #Quadsqaud OGs (my top quadliners @Derbybud @DobeWan @Mr. Magoo @Dutchman1990 ) will be here to help as well and I look forward to having all people trying quadlining all in one thread finally! If you do Quadline, throw a #Quadsquad tag up in your signature. Let's see what you all are doing with this fun training method! Lastly, this would have never came to be without these great forums here at 420 Magazine so a big thank you to all the moderators and people who make this thing run. All the information I've ever used for growing has come from this site and this site only. Quadlining is a 420 Magazine original and I'm proud of that!
