A Good Way to Train

[lumbo]

I generally don’t train my plants, but if I’m not paying attention or miscalculate the flowering height growth, then I need to pull the tops over to avoid hitting the light in my cramped growroom. It happens. I do get nice secondary flower growth, but it can delay the harvest.

Anyway, my method is pretty simple. I use nylon string and a simple string cinch, along with a hook made from 12-gauge electrical wire. The hook goes around the upper stem of the plant, the string goes through a hole in the top edge of the pot, and the cinch goes on the outside, holding the tension on the string. This allows me to gradually pull the plant over, instead of trying to do it all at once, which can, and does, crimp the stem. All is not lost if you do, but again, it slows things down.

Here’s what a rigged plant looks like.

The hook.

The rig.

[LemonadeJoe]

Good trick…

I’ve had success using net with wide spacing for purposes of training and also supporting large canopy. I’m using it most of the time to fill canopy as much as possible and use lamp to 100%.

[lumbo]

No room to train in any event.

[ryasco]

I was going to make a thread but saw this. If this isn’t what you intended then i will remove it.

You can see how i super cropped all the outside branches out and the inner branches are cropped where ever there is a hole.

Here is a later photo. Two weeks i believe.

Still training.

So far i haven’t had to but i would top or LST if needed. When i finish flowering i can show you the stalk of a LSTed, super cropped and topped Orange Creamsicle. This girls mother.

[GrapeApe]

You have some great looking plants.

[ryasco]

Here is a veg

forgive the feet

after supercropping

[ryasco]

Here are the bones of the Orange Creamsicle i mentioned. You can see the LST i did along with all the cropping.

[lumbo]

Hard to get decent color under an HPS, so I diddled around with it in Photoshop. This is one of the untrained tops 5 weeks into flower. This strain (don’t know what it is), grows baseball-sized buds if you keep the flowering plants under the lights for long enough. Depends on how big the next, vegging crop is. Once they outgrow my veg chamber, it’s time to harvest and get the next grow flowering. But, so far, so good; the next grow is just getting started. I always flower for at least 8 weeks, but this strain will keep piling on the “cheese” for a lot longer. Sometimes I’ll harvest the inferior specimens to give the fat ladies more room. I never butcher the rejects in view of the survivors–bad for morale, I believe.

[lumbo]

Something went wrong with the upload (did a pdf by mistake), but here’s a jpeg of what I was talking about.

[ryasco]

Wow, very nice cola’s. Those are stacking beautiful!

[lumbo]

Thanks. The leaves frost up pretty good towards the end.

[lumbo]

Here they are at six weeks. Starting to really lay on the cheese.

[ryasco]

OOOOh! I can smell them from here. Good job. Are you having to make room or will they fit alright?

[lumbo]

They fit alright. This grow is all about main colas, so it’s pretty much a vertical grow with 13 plants. One just went hermi on me, so (s)he’s coming out tonight for an early taste. My next grow, which is 8 plants, is going to be a training experiment. The plan is to have four on each side, pulled over so that the tops are horizontal and under the light. If done right, it should yield some huge buds and similar weight to the current grow, but with less work. I’m hitting the road for a week and it’s always nice to come home and see how much they’ve grown in a week.

[ryasco]

Sounds good. It will be nice to water and feed less, right. I am astonished still when i see the growth on my plants after a few days, i couldn’t imagine a week. Are you in a legal state? Why no new seeds?

[lumbo]

I just grind the buds up for Green Dragon, so I’m not picky about taste. I’m not in a legal state. Well, we’re legal for meds, but it’s a royal, expensive pain in the ass to get certified, so I didn’t bother. My daughter lives in Cali and she has a med card (who doesn’t in Cali?), but for some reason she has trouble coming up with seeds. But I’m happy with the strain I grow and it’s very productive. Plus, I like the feminized seeds. Back in the day, I did experiment with various Nirvana strains. California Orange Bud was my favorite. Smells awesome and tastes great. I’d like to grow some blueberry at some point–get some of that heavy indica narcotic buzz going. ThaiTannic was another good one–big ass buds and a nice, smooth smoke. Nothing like the Thai Stick we used to smoke in College (those were the days; some wild weed). Gold Columbian (“lumbo”) for $40 an oz. In those days, the late '70s, seeds were part of the deal.

[ryasco]

A lot of people here in cali are going to coconut oil capsules instead of tincture. Someone mentioned here also how coconut can hold more cannabinoids. More than butter if my memory is correct. I keep tincture on hand out of habit and ease.

[lumbo]

Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to check into that. My wife is into coconut oil in various forms. No doubt healthier than all that Everclear I go through. My daughter gave us a tin of royal mints, and she’s bringing more when she comes out next week for a visit. I like them, but they creep in a weird way and the potency seems to vary from mint to mint. Sometimes it takes 2.5 hours to kick in. Sometimes half an hour.

[ryasco]

That happens a lot here. Most edible companies here don’t grow their own. They buy up all they can mix it together and make their products. It is getting more common to find sativa or indica but we are a long way from strain specefic edibles. Makes dosing a little problematic for illnesses.

[lumbo]

Here’s a few shots at 7 weeks. Still probably 2 or 3 more weeks to go.