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LST training in detail. Why bushes are better

whodi

Active member
Veteran
Yo, excellent thread.

I want to grow some trees with 8 week veg.. I have bout 7ft of height to work with.. and a 50/50 sativa/indica strain.

Should I use LST to bush them out.. or let them grow straight up.. like normal?
 

asher1er

Active member
Veteran
whodi said:
Yo, excellent thread.

I want to grow some trees with 8 week veg.. I have bout 7ft of height to work with.. and a 50/50 sativa/indica strain.

Should I use LST to bush them out.. or let them grow straight up.. like normal?


i say bush em out, unless your running vertical lighting.. im running a suppose pure sativa and with 20 ladies i filled up a 10x16 room and they are still putting on the height..check my thread if you want :joint:
 
Two Questions

Two Questions

Doing my first grow. Have a female white widow and female himalayan gold in large 5 gallon pots. At about a month vegging under 200Ws of T5s and they are doing well and about 4" tall. In a 2x4x5" cab. Likely stick with T5's for flowering (have the different warm light bulbs to use) or may use a 400W HPS (but I expect heat issues so will likely try it but stick with the T5s).

Should I FIM/top and then LST the new tops, or just go with LST?

Also, given the size of my pots, I am tempted to initially LST the plants in a circle, more or less around the inner perimiter of the pot. Does this make sense? Doesn't seem to be what most people do. First train it to the edge of the pot, then train it in a spiral around the pot. I see lots of people do lots of different LST approaches with good success, so there seems to be no one best way. I realize its all about forming more bud sites and keeping the most lights to the sites.
 

enigmatik

Member
noob33--> awesome job, bro!! I'll also be LST'n for the first time soon. any advise you could share w/a first timer???

what size pot is that?
how tall did the whole plant measure at harvest?
what was the total dry yield you got?

Thanks for sharing the pics!!!
 

noob33

Member
enigmatic:

1. that plant is still going. its at day 42 of flowering right now.
2. its a 3 gallon pot
3. as for the height of the plant.....from soil to the top, its about 12-15 inches. but thats deceiving. the main stem goes up about 3 inches, then rides horizontally for a about 10 inches, then turns up again. also, this particular plant doesnt stretch that much. depending on what youre growing, your overall height varies. if its more sativa than indica, it will stretch alot more

4. seeing as how im a first time grower myself, i dont have a TON of advice for you....but the advice i do have is sound.....

firstly, and i cant stress this enough, have PATIENCE. growing a bush like this takes a long time. you have to veg it for longer than you would with a normal plant.

keep tying that top down. its going to want to turn up every couple of days or so....just keep tying it down.

you want to maintain a horizontal main stem at all times.

when a new set of nodes grows in, you want to twist the plant so that the fan leaves are always coming out of the left and right of the main stem. this way the shoots will always grow up to the light. check out this picture. notice how the main stem is twisted all the way up? be firm when twisting....but not TOO firm. you dont want to break it



lst really is the way to go.....especially if you want to get the most out of a small light (250w in my case). i didnt cut, crush, mangle or break anything on this plant. i know alot of people like to top their plants. but i really dont see the need. i got 25 tops out of this plant (and could have got more if i vegged longer) just by bending, manipulating and tying stems.
 

doja420

Member
I agree with noob33

Here's a few of my plants. They had minimal LST. Imagine if I'd veg'd for longer than 36 days!

 
Last edited:

_Dude

Member
Very cool thread. I know it's been asked before, but I'd appreciate some more discussion on the subject of how much of a benefit LST gives growers with larger setups, like 4'x4' under a 1k. It definitely sounds like something worth doing once a perpetual grow is going, since plants take longer to flower than to veg. With an 8 week strain that's plenty of time to LST the hell out of plants during veg. I was thinking a circular pattern would be a great way to keep the plants in a larger setup uniform, but still take advantage of all the bushing LST creates.

So what's the advantage in a larger setup? I'm thinking it seems to be that the lower branches, rather than winding up trimmed, end up bearing bud just like all the rest. Is that it? Would I actually get heavier yields by doing this?
 

darrinjefferson

Active member
dude- you got the idea. think of it kinda like scrogging but no screen...just lots of tops. it allows the lower growth to grow and then they make bigger nugs. if you LST you make it so way more budsites have light, giving you way more bud.

try it out and see what ya think
its alot of fun
 

_Dude

Member
darrinjefferson said:
dude- you got the idea. think of it kinda like scrogging but no screen...just lots of tops. it allows the lower growth to grow and then they make bigger nugs. if you LST you make it so way more budsites have light, giving you way more bud.

try it out and see what ya think
its alot of fun
K thanks. :)
 
J

Joe Budden

Man I love this thread!!!

Hey folks I got a question, so any of u lst'ers listen up ya hear :laughing:
I got the following seeedlings and I want to maximise yield should I lst?

45 seedlings altogether
Pot of gold
Chronic
AK47
White widow
The Hog


What should I do guys? will lst take up more room?


Later all
JB
 

darrinjefferson

Active member
joe budden- with that many plants LST will take up alot more room. ONce ya get the males sorted out then you will be better off. You could still pull the tops over on the plants though, a little LST instead of a ton.
I find that its easier to do hardcore LST with fewer plants and more space. your room looks pretty full. but hey give it a try. ya never know.
you could also top the plants also, or do both.
good luck
 

whodi

Active member
Veteran
why not just use vertical lighting if you're worried about not getting light to budsites with 'non LST'd plants'

Sure LST keeps plants shorter.. but they also get much wider than non LST plants. Guess if you have room for width and not height.. then sure LST is nice.

Think i'll stick to vertical lightning though.
 

headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
I've found LST to be a huge help


f_wwm_5883d5c.jpg


f_speedqueenm_abfe564.jpg


f_parism_00687d9.jpg


f_overheadm_01ccb6b.jpg
 
J

Jam Master Jaco

I too lst. Waaaaay better then letting the plants just grow straight up. These pic is at about 7 weeks flower. After the first few days of stretch I bent the plant over with some wire, then I would just keep moving the wire to the top of the plant to keep it bent over until about week 3 then I let it grow straight up. I would have never gotten those lower buds to fatten up if I had not LST'd this plant.



 
C

Cozy Amnesia

DumpsterDiver said:
I've tethered down all branches perpendicular to the stem and have created a nice even canopy with about 30 or so bud sites. This is 16 days into 12/12 and she's parked 12-15 inches under a 250w HPS.


That...is...awesome! I saw a post of yours at the top of that page and I thought to myself "I wonder what weird container he's growing in to give that spherical shape to the plant..."
 

Quazi

Member
Thanks to everyone who has provided pictures of their LST process in this thread. They are amazing and incredibly useful sources of information. This thread is awesome.

However, there still seems to be a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation about LST.

If you still have questions about LST or how it works (or why it works), I've written up a guide to LST that everyone should look at before they get started.

You can find it here:
Understanding the Art of LST - Before You Look at Any Pics, Read This First

I hope it is informative for people in this thread wanting to learn how to LST and for those who currently do.

:respect:

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread!
:rasta:
 

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