Help with LST & mild HST Pre-Flower

MJmadscientist · Jul 30, 2025

Hope everyone is having a good week and the weather is cooler than it is here.
I’m probably right at two weeks from seeing a white hair or two pop up. Just past experience with my location and the hours of daylight we have left.

I’ve been getting a lot of stretching for 2 weeks now but I’ve not tied my girls down in that long or maybe even a bit longer.
They are getting tall for what I ideally need to stay low key here.
Is there still plenty of time to get good node growth for nice cola sites or is 14-20 days pushing it?

I changed a lot in ways of training this season and I’m getting into uncharted territory now.
I’ve don’t this before but I’m not purposely trying to stunt them like in the past to control size. This is like lst and scrog combo without the net.
I already went after a couple of the bushy ones and bent the stems down and weighted it down temporarily with a hoop net.
The others are problems. They grew like a foot in a week to 10 days and leaves are getting dense.
They will be like 3 feet tall after flowering stretch completes if I don’t do something.
Can I snap the branches and level out my canopy right now and not fudge this up?
They are very healthy and vigorous. Lots of leaves that are dark green and they have thick stems for their height as usual

JIMKSI64 · Jul 30, 2025

When you top stems just before flower it can have negative effects and positive effects. You will get a hormone response if you top your main stem. This will increase yield.
You will be shortening the stems on secondary runs which will reduce your yield. You want to have as many stems as you can be 6 inches or more straight up and down at the top of the canopy. These build up into the long bud runs you see in grows.
Def have to have a plan and understand how moving the plant cause and effects as you grow. This just takes experience.

MJmadscientist · Jul 31, 2025

JIMKSI64 said:
When you top stems just before flower it can have negative effects and positive effects. You will get a hormone response if you top your main stem. This will increase yield.
You will be shortening the stems on secondary runs which will reduce your yield. You want to have as many stems as you can be 6 inches or more straight up and down at the top of the canopy. These build up into the long bud runs you see in grows.
Def have to have a plan and understand how moving the plant cause and effects as you grow. This just takes experience.

Yeah in the past I was pinching off nodes and multiply them that way. Now I let it get to like 4-5th node. I top it with the 2-3rd node left and bury to the second node in the pot.
I just keep adjusting and tying down as needed. With 4 main stems making a plus. Then the nodes get tied down and spread to the corners of the pot. That’s now where I let them get tall but the plan was to bring the high stems all back to horizontal and let the process restart. This would allow shorter nodes to catch up and allow maximum light in.

In the past when I purposely stunted I still had 50 plus colas that were 2-4 grams each depending on which ones.

I’m going for bigger buds but want the plant short as possible. The stink will already draw enough attention to friends who visit our yard.

You say 6 inches sticking up. Is this at flower or during pre flower? Does that count the stretch in flower?
This is all uncharted turf. The 3 that concern me the most are 7-14 inches above the horizontal main stems. How tall are they gonna get if I leave them alone?

JIMKSI64 · Jul 31, 2025

MJmadscientist said:
Yeah in the past I was pinching off nodes and multiply them that way. Now I let it get to like 4-5th node. I top it with the 2-3rd node left and bury to the second node in the pot.
I just keep adjusting and tying down as needed. With 4 main stems making a plus. Then the nodes get tied down and spread to the corners of the pot. That’s now where I let them get tall but the plan was to bring the high stems all back to horizontal and let the process restart. This would allow shorter nodes to catch up and allow maximum light in.

In the past when I purposely stunted I still had 50 plus colas that were 2-4 grams each depending on which ones.

I’m going for bigger buds but want the plant short as possible. The stink will already draw enough attention to friends who visit our yard.

You say 6 inches sticking up. Is this at flower or during pre flower? Does that count the stretch in flower?
This is all uncharted turf. The 3 that concern me the most are 7-14 inches above the horizontal main stems. How tall are they gonna get if I leave them alone?

So much of the questions is genetics. On my 3rd grow after harvest it dawned on me that I needed to start turning the tips of the stems upright and this had to be figured into the stretch training.
There is no way to do this cold with an unknown stretch for a pheno unless someone took some damn good notes for you. I have found that the largest yields are on longer bud runs of 6-10 inches. In my opinion without sidelight lighting for leds longer runs will wind up with bottom loose buds from weak light. Outdoor that is not a problem. If the stem is still being trained horizontal at the end of stretch the turn up will be small and the bud will be reduced.
I have 2 phenos under my belt with mass notes. The ability to control photo periods helps with the setup but knowing if the stretch is a weak 50% or an average double or a fantastic triple stretch can help your plan.

Here is a natural auto just starting to change color. The missile on top is 10 inches but down lower is 4 more 10 inch runs. Substantial side lighting does work but it will not be a normal part of the plan, this grow just worked out that way.

Help with LST & mild HST Pre-Flower

Help with LST & mild HST Pre-Flower

MJmadscientist

JIMKSI64

MJmadscientist

JIMKSI64

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency