40% bigger buds

Discussion in 'Advanced Growing Techniques' started by alprazolam, Dec 24, 2007.

  1. Some crazy asian said if you stress the plants to the point where they think they are going to die like a week before you harvest the buds will be 30-40% bigger

    His theroy everything in nature is hardwired to protect their young. Or future offspring. Or genetics. Or something idk im pretty high. So when the plant senses its dying because of the stress sends all of its energy into the buds.


    I dont really know know.
     
  2. Tell him to try it with his crop and get back to us.

    Also, kinda unrelated... when commercial fish farms (think fishsticks) kill the fish for processing/packaging, they make sure that the fish are absolutely unstressed. Before the norm was to cook 'em live then process them, but they found that fish that were panicked before death tasted noticably worse... So now they lower the tempurature in the fish holding tank gradually to just above freezing, which basically makes the fishies comatose before they're taken out of the water (a very stressful even for a fish) and processed.

    Also, I believe I would harbour a love too great for my plants to cause them undue stress... other than... you know, harvesting them...
     
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  3. While things are made to protect themselves and their young, I dont know about this one. The plant already does a lot for its young.

    It produces resin to protect seeds, and in dire stress conditions (which would be severe weather conditions in nature) occur and the plant hasnt been polinated, it can even hermaphrodite itself to keep the species living where as it may have died out before.

    Also, the seeds of the plant are different colours because they camoflauge themselves.

    The plant really does a lot to protect itself, but im not sure if i'd ever stress my plants out to the point of them dying. I get worried when I see anything at all wrong, I would never hurt them on purpose, besides you know, the occasional "breaking" technique.

    Sorry for the bad spelling, Kinda drunk!

    I would like to see this actually happen though, i'd like to see you make a believer out of me with it, but even then i'd never hurt my plants that much, what if i miscalculate their health and they all die?
     
  4. Depends what kind of stress you are talking about. Many growers put their plants into full-time dark for the last 48-72 hours to stimulate the plant into thinking it is the end of autumn, causing the plants to channel all remaining energy into fattening buds in a last gasp attempt to get pollinated. I do too and recommend it. But I would not otherwise flip around light schedules, trim or train the plants, etc. just to induce stress.
     
  5. "Stress" buy a kareokee machine and sing too them, that stresses me out:D
     
  6. There are a lot of growers that believe drought stress improves thc production.

    I grow aero
    and I like to reduce the spray cycle
    so that the roots are very dry before the next spray.

    This simulated drought causes stress.

    I go from 30 on, 30 off spray cycle
    to 10 on, 120 off for the last week.

    Also I use RO only for the last week(no pH adjustment)
    and add a UVb mid wave lizard light.

    Two days before the chop,
    I trim all the leaves and the buds,
    and then turn the lights off
    until I cut the main stem,
    and then hang the plant to dry for a week,
    after which it goes through a 2 month jar cure.
     
  7. Can anyone explain "Super Cropping" Iv'e read this is a form of bending a stem to stress it.This could have been what that Asain dude was talking about. Sorry the concept seemed cruel to me so i retained very little info when I read about it. I new I couldn't do that to my girls. Hard enough to chop them down. Damn I hate trimming!

    If any heavy hitters could chim in? That would be cool. :smoke:
     
  8. SUPERCROPPING

    Ah a trick of stem bending, a technique where you roll the stem in between your fingers while squeezing fairly hard, but not hard enough to break the stem, then slowly bend the stem over. The stem forms a hard elbow where it was bent and the top straightens itself out so that it can continue pointing at the Sun (grow light). The result is what is called Supercropping. The secondary buds underneath the tops get more light so thus grow larger. I do this technique to each plant quite a few times as they are growing to achieve an even canopy as I look at the plants from the top. This does not harm he plant and within a couple of day the bends are healed. Try it out its a great training technique.


    Russell.:D
     
  9. I've heard of this over at the HG420 forums. Supposedly if you stick a needle into the end of your bud in the last weeks of flowering, it will finish faster. Never heard of a 40% increase in yield, though.
     

  10. this is what i do. but, as mentioned, some folks don't agree. try both and see what works better for you.
     

  11. I just happened to stumble on this in wikipedia:
    "Some claim the famous gold color of Acapulco Gold came from a technique of "girdling" the plants, or cutting through the xylem and phloem layers of the stalk, before harvest. Many techniques such as this are used by traditional growers to shock or stress the plant during flowering, in the belief that the plants will respond to stress by producing more of the active (THC-containing) resins responsible for the plants' medicinal potency."

    When I looked up "girdling", I found it's used in other crops, this was from research into inproving macadamia yields:
    "Girdling branches caused a significant increase in nut yield per branch compared with ungirdled branches. There was a significant interaction between the girdling treatment and position, with girdled branches producing more nuts than ungirdled branches in the upper canopy. Nut retention was greatest on girdled compared with ungirdled branches from pollination until maturation and in the upper compared with the lower canopy."


    Interesting, maybe.
     
  12. amsterdamage coming through with the info references like always

    id rep that shit if i could, but it wont let me hahahah
     
  13. stressing your plants in the last weeks of flower can be done by temp dropping. This is a proving method of increasing resin production therefore increasing hardness and weight. There is a lot more varibles to this method so if anybody is interest let me know:)
     
  14. so many styles, its really personal choice. All good idea's to try however! Ty
     
  15. I have heard this as well... it is somewhat of a stress on the plant (no light = no food), but its stressing to make the bud's bigger... i guess thats trying to protect its offspring by tryin to get pollinated
     
  16. +1 rep but cant :(
    Good info, thanks
     

  17. +rep
    I have heard of supercropping as well, however the bending/elbow part is not what I have heard/read. From what I know, you simply squeze the node hard enough to feel the inner part of the plant give way a little (damage the inside only)... the extra stress in that area increases the growth. I was told it was used mainly during the end of flowering, which you would pinch near the base of the bud for an increase in resin and possibly size? I might try the bending as a training tech. as you suggested. Its like LST minus the low stress part, you just add a sharp bend for the plant instead of a slight curve :D
     
  18. #19 garretto, Feb 24, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 24, 2011
    EDIT: probably should check the last post date before I go on writing a book on a thread that is 3 years old.

    I study Viticulture and Enology (grape growing and wine making), and when growing grapes, it is important to stress them to produce flavorful berries. Grape growers cut certain clusters of grapes off to promote more enery transferred to other, more promising clusters. Even the soil is made to stress the plant by using sandy/loamy soil.

    Now, most winemakers prefer small berries because they pack a more concentrated, robust flavor, but many still want large clusters and that is achieved by limiting the number of clusters that the plant can divert energy into.

    Now I'm very new to growing cannabis (haven't yet), but if cannabis follows the same growth pattern as grapes (double-sigmoidal) then stressing may work for either increased bud size and/or potency. Just as a blind gut feeling, I am not sure if a sudden stress JUST before harvest would be detrimental or beneficial. I would assume that limiting the number of buds from the start (either during vegitative state or at the beginning of flowering) would allow more energy to be distributed to a select number or buds instead of many buds.

    As I said, I have NO experience growing cannabis but from my horticulture studies, this makes sense to me.

    A good experiment would be to have three plants under the same light, same soil, etc. The first plant would be the control in that it would grow uninhibited (or how ever the grower typically prunes). The second would inflict stress just before harvest. Finally, the third would follow a program of pruning late in the vegetative or early in the flowering stage. Then measure yield and find a reliable way to measure potency (It probably wouldn't be emperical enough, but I would volunteer to smoke some from each plant ;) ).

    Dang, I was originally going to grow just one plant...maybe it just got bumped up to three.
     
  19. i've heard of people sticking a small knife in at the bottom of the main stem but i could never stab my kids and keep them alive like that
     

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