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A Complete Guide to Topping, Training and Pruning

NoRest

Member
Great Guide!


I have supercropped for a few years and I continue to pinch and see benifits until budset approx week 4 on an 8 week strain.

also most damage is repaired by the plant in 24-48 hours so their is no need to veg for longer.


cant wait to try monstercropping I have heard of this technique but didnt fully understand till I saw the great photos in your guide

thanx again
 

Kodiak

Mad Scientist
Veteran
Those plants look great STikYFinGeRKoMA :yes: (Garden Gnome :D)

Here's the link to the video on utube.

Yeah NoRest, the plants do repair the damged tissue very fast but I thought that I would give people the heads up just in case they do slow down for a while.
 

shizbiz

Member
sick guide...i was just researching on how to top my plants.... but u opened up like a whole frikin library to me...jah bless


:thank you:
 

Airnut

Member
Hey nice guide you made, i learned some there..

On my first indoorgrow and now i realized i did some wrong - I think -

Ive got it in this way, that you could clone at anytime?
Ive just made my cuts (3 days ago) but that would be day 15 after 12/12

Will this monsterthing happen to my plants or what?

I wont mind if they do ...
 

Kodiak

Mad Scientist
Veteran
Hi Airnut.

It takes about two weeks for the plants to start flowering after you make the 12/12 switch, so your clones might root and start vegging normally since you took them so early in flowering.

Difficult to say really so you'll just have to wait and see.
 

Airnut

Member
Hi Airnut.

It takes about two weeks for the plants to start flowering after you make the 12/12 switch, so your clones might root and start vegging normally since you took them so early in flowering.

Difficult to say really so you'll just have to wait and see.
Thanks for respons m8.

Its white rhinos i cut from and it had ok clusters of hairs everywhere on it.
They began rooting this morning!!

I´ll cut some more....

Thanks again..


PS: Ill note u back if this monster, you talk about, is going to settle in my plants.
 

Zendo

Member
how to 'train' a tall plant

how to 'train' a tall plant

Hopefully posting this question in the correct thread.

I have a few plants in 3rd week of flower, under a 600W HPS. There are a few strains, and all are about the same height, within a few inches of each other, at a perfect distance from the light.

I have one plant, which has gone monster, and is over 5 feet tall, and is actually 3" taller than the light, so the top buds which are formed are ABOVE the light, which is not good. The light cannot be raised any higher, due to space issues.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with what to do with this situation to provide the most yield out of the plant. I was thinking about putting another 5 gallon bucket a few feet away with some kind of 'hoop' on it, and trying to bend it over and under the 'hoop' and hope that I don't snap anything in the process...

Anyone have any experience or input?
 

terry the trich

Active member
I have some clone plants (unknown strain) that were originally from 1 seed, and i put the plant into flowering early on to find out if it was male or female (turned out female). Then i revegged this plant, and then took cuttings (like the monster cropping method which i didnt know about until now). The first few clones were growing single leafs followed by triple leafs. Now the clones grow with normal leaves. I notice when i put them into flower, it only takes 2 or 3 days for the preflowers to show, which obviously saves growing time. Has anyone else experienced this?
Also i noticed some variation of each clone. One of the first clones was really dense with leaves and branches (although they were 1 and 3 leafed), while others were much less dense. The buds get nice and crystally, and have a sweet fruity smell and flavour.
I'm gonna try colloidal silver on this strain to get fem seeds, but is it wise to cross two clones from the same mother? So far i havent had 1 single hermaphrodite in 3 flowerings.
 

Kodiak

Mad Scientist
Veteran
Zendo, I've had the same problem before, it is not uncommon when dealing with tropical sativas. You could start bending the taller plant in order to bring it back under the light. It's not a difficult process but it might take some time, depending on how rigid the stem is. Bend a little at the time and tie down the branches. The loop might work but you could also use a scrog net. That way the buds will have something to rest of if they get heavy. Try LST'ing or Super Cropping, whichever you prefer.

Since it's only 3 weeks into flowering, your second option would be to top the plant. I can only recommend this if the plant has not had time to invest too much energy into the buds and if you think that it will respond well to the treatment (like a slow flowering sativa for example). You might have to do a little bit of both. Whatever works but proceed slowly and carefully.



I'm not surprised that you found some variation among the clones terry. Although the clones are genetically identical to each other, they are still different individuals. Physical traits can be expressed in a slightly different way depending on the interaction of an individual's genes and the developmental environment, meaning that the same plant can have several phenotypes.

I think that the reason why the clones are showing preflowers early is because they are basically mature plants. Juvenile plants grown from seed will take longer to reach sexual maturity but if the mother plant was sexually mature so are the clones because they are just as old as she is.

When it comes to making feminized seeds there are a few things to consider. First of all you should only use females that normally resist the dual-sex condition, even under stress. So the first step would be to stress-test the clones. There is no point in breeding unstable females, whether it be for normal or feminized seeds because you will end up with mostly hermaphroditic offspring in both cases. You really need to test the clones before you use the colloidal silver, or you will have no idea how stable the females really are.

Seeds are plenty but exceptional individuals are often few and far apart. Good genetics is the key.

btw, I was told that ionic silver works better than colloidal silver because the silver particles are smaller and water soluble, which means that they are absorbed more easily and probably cause less tissue damage to the plant, while still producing the same result.

When it comes to inbreeding, there are always some negative effects because the individuals involved have a high number of loci that contain homozygous rather than heterozygous alleles. In other words, there is less genetic material to work with.

A constricted (or bottlenecked) gene pool usually results in something called inbreeding depression, which gives rise to several genetic disorders. Reduced fertility, strange mutations, slower growth rate, smaller adult size, poor resistance and higher mortality rates, just to name a few. Although hermaphroditism and self-pollination is quite common among most species of plants (most dioecious plants have apparently evolved from hermaphroditic ancestors), outcrossing unrelated individuals should yield superior progeny every time. The greatest magnitude of inbreeding depression occurs when hermaphrodites self-pollinate because identical sets of dna are responsible for the recombination of genes.

The negative impact of inbreeding plants might not be as radical as in animals but personally I would not breed genetically identical or even related individuals to each other if I had other options. It is fairly easy to acquire more stock for breeding projects. It is naturally easier to isolate favorable traits by backcrossing offspring to the parents but the genetic vigor that rises from crossbreeding two unrelated individuals is in my opinion far more important than specific traits (I'm sure that some will disagree with me here).

Many strains that we have today are already so highly refined that the job is getting easier, largely thanks to the early pioneers of the trade.

The bottom line is that you will get better feminized hybrids by using two unrelated females, both of which have proven to be stable under normal conditions. You can then administer the silver water to either one or both females in order to make high quality feminized seeds.
 
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