How to train a single cola

[George2324]

I've recently started trying to sog and for the life of me can't figure out the best way to do this.


No matter what I do so far I end up getting a heck of a lot of side branching during the 12/12 stretch.

For a single cola sog are you supposed to prune off all side branches at the end of stretch? I feel like if I do that no buds would form from the site in the branch?

 

[Rifleman]

I've never tried a sog, but if you start them under 12/12 won't they pretty much be single colas with minimal side branches naturally?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Plants grown from seed amd left untopped and untrained tend to grow single colas but it varies by strain as some are naturally bushier. Clones grow differently and I haven't tried to force one to grow a single cola through training- but it might be fun to try.
This is a Golden Tiger plant grown from seed and put into flowering when it was a few weeks old.

 

[George2324]

I think my issue is that I'm trying a different approach.

Rather than 4 plants per square foot I'm doing 1 per square foot as is need like 200 clones otherwise.


I'm mainlining the plants to have 4 tops from a very low height. So I have a 1 plant per square foot sog with 4 tops.

I flip to flower hoping to have 4 colas of buds and instead during the stretch with every new node comes two new side branches stretching out causing a massive cluster of buds which would get minimal light.

If I want these 4 colas to stay as just 4 colas I assume then that I would have to prune all the side branches that form?

Cheers

 

[Weaselcracker]

I haven't done that but yeah I think it would work if you keep on top of the pruning, until the end of the stretch period at least. Another thought would be to try growing them untopped. You may find that a single cola in the square foot of space, with a little more space around it, grows almost as much bud as four smaller colas and with less work and time.

 

[George2324]

What's he chances of me getting 3 oz off one cola though?

Thought a 3oz cola was near enough impossible but .75 oz per cola is achievable.

I run high powered LED true equilevant of hps 20,000 lumens per square foot and 650w power draw each but a 3 oz cola I've done a lot of reading and have never heard of it.

I'm aiming for atleast 3 oz per plant really if you can tell me it's possible for a 3 oz cola I'll give it a shot.

Anyway if I keep pruning off all side branches will buds still form from the site where the branches previously were?

 

[Weaselcracker]

I can't see why it wouldn't be quite easily possible. I've seen some huge colas. Not many people seem to grow that way anymore as most plants I see are topped and trained nowadays. Here is a Critical Cheese plant I grew 12/12 from seed in a solo cup sized container.

It yielded just under 1.5 ounces. The Golden Tiger bud was quite a lot larger but I never weighed it. These plants were both put into flower very early. I usually scrog larger plants, and the Critical Cheese out yielded my scrogged plants by miles, especially when you count that it only took 101 days from seed to harvest.
It may not be very practical to try to grow large colas indoors because of their shape in relation to the lighting. They do look cool though. The GT one sagged under it's weight and I had a stick holding it up, but let it lay horizontal because it worked out better under my lights that way.

 

[George2324]

I'm growing critical mass so I expect them to get quite big but 4 oz would be insane for one cola.

I have a large sea of green going so i can't bend them over either so I'd need the buds to grow atleast 20cm down stem I think.

I guess I'll try this grow with 4 tops and see how they do and if they do well I'll try a single one at some point.


I was originally gonna try and do 12-16 tops per square foot mainlined lol.

I'll just have to see if I can keep the plants crammed in my veg room for first 2 weeks of stretch. If I can then I can prune before moving to flower room.

My veg room is nearly 6x smaller than flower room so might not be doable