Looks like a scrog without the screen. Grow it up around a vertically hung bulb and do a spiral vertical scrog. Outdoor city growers run a plant along a fence with the same results, alot of 1/4-1/2oz nugs :nod.

their is another tread with this same diagram, and pics of lst, just look up low stress test

ugk1 said:

their is another tread with this same diagram, and pics of lst, just look up low stress test

Click to expand...

?? I always thought it was Low Stress Training.

KUsocalSH said:

Ok so I went to my local cannabis guru and he explained to me a method of low stress training. I have heard of tieing down the top to expose more light to the more important parts of the plant. but he also told me you can continue to tie down the plant top as it grows so it wraps around in a circle. I found a page that has the exact method he explained. It a drawn out explanation.
http://www.indoormarijuanaseeds.com...ow-stress-training-lst-growing-marijuana.html

Check it out and if anyone is familiar with this technique. Does it work to get an all around larger yeild??

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's how I did my very first grow, as a matter of fact I think it was those diagrams that were my inspiration. You get a row of longer colas coming from the main stalk that's been circled around the pot. Lemme see if I can find some pix. It was my first grow, I think I got about 2 zips a plant, not knowing a DAMN thing about what I was doing except for growing houseplants and things like that (I treat my houseplants pretty badly).

Man, that took some searching. You should be able to see the twine and some pieces of that bonzai wire on some of these girls. Now I understand a good bit more about how to work with the canopy, but basically I think anyone can do this as long as it's not too physically challenging. I started off with something like three dozen girls, and that's a LOT of plants to have to touch to use this technique, in my opinion (especially if you have to stay bent over or can't pick them up for a bad back).

Hopefully these pix can help you see how it can be done.

Works very well! Some strains react way better than others do. I LST but only circle train the lanky ones that dont have as much branching and just wants to grow to the sky. My ECSD responds very well to circle training as my other ladies branch out more and need a little different LST. Overall yield will increase from any type of LST done properly

could be training instead of testing i smoke alot i dont remeber

SEAMAIDEN, thank you for the pictures, that helped me out to see how the cola's will look. PAULYCALI, thank you also. So the main I dea is to direct all the main branches away from the center stem so that more light can get to the most important parts of the plant more light, thus more yeild?

I would grow bagseed plants in a similar way in a very small cabinet. I would put 2 plants in a lined shoebox with soil and have the plants grow out completely horizontally for 6-7 or so nodes. Would get HUGE yields from a 4x2x3 cab with 4 bagseed plants under cfls.
Had so much fun with it too, thats how it all got started with me

KUsocalSH said:

SEAMAIDEN, thank you for the pictures, that helped me out to see how the cola's will look. PAULYCALI, thank you also. So the main I dea is to direct all the main branches away from the center stem so that more light can get to the most important parts of the plant more light, thus more yeild?

Click to expand...

Partly, yes. The main idea is to make the main stalk hug the 'ground', so to speak, and keep the colas that form from it as even as possible. This can be difficult, given the way plants grow, but it's possible. Even if you can't keep things even, it just means a staggered harvest, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I can't remember the hormone that kicks in when you're doing canopy training techniques like this, auxin I *think*, but I'm not positive. It's the plant's way of "knowing" where its parts are and those that aren't keeping up get an extra push of the hormone so they can catch up and get equal time under the sun, so to speak.

Now, in doing some research on how other crops are farmed, due to some discussions I've had with other farmers, I've come to the conclusion that Mary may be much like crops like Medjool date palms. The plant is going to produce a given weight, no matter what (assuming all else is equal, this isn't about fertilizing). But the farmer wants prime dates, so they remove fully half of the budding dates, if not more, according to spacing requirements. This is why some farms consistently produce whopper 3" long dates, and others are not producing them so consistently--culling out the fruit/flowers that are not destined to produce well.

So, what you're trying to do in this sense is increase the yield not in an overall sense, but in a sense of 'best usable'. Creating a canopy in this manner can allow that because few, if any, bud-sites are both well-exposed to light AND at approximately the same physical height so as to produce a more consistent crop. Pistil-whipping is yet another method that exercises this concept.

Does that make sense?

sea maiden---- Yes that made since. Thank you very much, and with all the info seamaiden and everyone has gave me. I have just started this method with 6 of my girls. About 16 more sprouts on the way so I will see how this turns out. Thank you everyone for your help, much appreciated!!!

That thread with those photos is a sticky in the Basic Growing Info forum. Sorry, KU, don't want to hijack your thread, but Seamaiden's response is just too intriguing.
So what do you do now if you only did that on your first grow? Just lollipop? If you do any training, when do you do it?

At that time I knew nothing about lollipopping (or pistil-whipping), was only just learning about how plants respond to different stimuli. Now, with the indoor girls I definitely select out poor bud sites. The ScroG gets done as they grow. Topping takes place on seed starts fairly early, then I watch them (5th-7th node), see how they respond.

Now what I do depends on what I want to achieve, where I'm growing, etcetera. LST takes a lot of hands-on work, better if you're only growing a few plants or have the time, no physical restrictions. ScrOG might be a better application of the same concept, although harvest is again a pain in the ass if you have more than you can handle at a given time, plus it interferes with my preferred harvest method (chop @ base, hang her high, til she's just the right 'dry', then break down from there). I'm trying my first SoG this indoor run, but didn't fill the tray so I'm going to allow more colas to develop at the top of the canopy, with as little as possible 3" below that point. It's different strains so that may make it more difficult.

I have plants back on in that location this year, hempy, and I want to keep all work with them within arm's distance, so they're staked and being readied for training (LST, just not in a circle, they've already branched heavily so the branches will be spread open in a rough X pattern). For just a few plants it's one good way of keeping things in check. With big OD girls I don't have the stature to tend to them fully if I let them go, and bushes need to be monitored and topped, FIM'd, supercropped, tied and thinned appropriately.

As for when, again depends on what's going on because I have to admit I'm not always the most tend-ful gardener. Some mothers, the ones that I mentioned are the hempy gals in that same location, have been treated in such a manner that they're going to lend themselves to LST. I have some seed starts that have gone too long for LST or topping to be viable in their case, so tying and supercropping are the alternatives.

I've just placed my first order for Hortonova, and I understand it has many, many applications, but will also change how I do certain things. So, who knows, I may change up how I do things again because my goal is to learn how the plants respond to different techniques.

One thing I have learned for certain, and that is that if I do not practice any sort of canopy control the resultant yield is, in my opinion, sub-par. I am always working to step up my game, just a personal thing I have about doing things well.

Eeehhh... have I answered your questions?

I just reread this and I don't think I answered anything except when I top. Basically, I try to do whatever it is as early as possible, no matter what the end result is I'm looking for. Always remembering that it's almost never too late to use certain techniques.

Great answer! So you would still LST and thin and pistil whip all through flowering? Do you have a cutoff point?

shady did it!

amstercal said:

Great answer! So you would still LST and thin and pistil whip all through flowering? Do you have a cutoff point?

Click to expand...

I would only thin as needed, usually once they're well into flowering there is little need to do anything more than keep things cleaned up as leaves die off, and then later on tying up the branches that need help as the buds thicken up.

As we near harvest time, I start removing more and more fan leaves because they just add weight I have to carry either up or down the stairs, or back up the hill, and everything usually stays on the plant until it's ready to be broken down for curing.

I would simply suggest one perform the tasks as long as the plant 'needs' it. LSTing stops once all vegetative growth stops. Same thing with pistil-whipping because the goal there is to limit bud sites so as to achieve best buds at those sites--if you wait too long the plant has invested its own energy into making those buds and at a certain point they're at least good for hash and shouldn't be thrown out.

I do often take cuttings later in flower as I remember, do I have a mother of this or cuts of that? You know what I mean? I'm not yet very organized.

Thanks for the response. Makes good sense. I think I get too rigid about cutting anything after the first week or second week.

Bump!
I figured we needed to bump this LST thread up...Good Info Seamaiden!

I learned alot by watching our fellow Farmer MakinGoo. :)

Making Tops :D

I have other Idea's for tieing down some trees in the works...If they work, I will post them here...lol

I did some basic LST on my first micro run...... If you have no vertical height or plant number limitations then I would not LST...... this pic is from a micro cab

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/attachments/img_20120131_082224-jpg.192560/

Great photo Dodge!

Dodge said:

I did some basic LST on my first micro run...... If you have no vertical height or plant number limitations then I would not LST......

Click to expand...

Really? I wanna know more. Can a Plant have Too Many Tops?