Can environment conditions be adjusted to reduce stretching ?

Discussion in 'Growing Organic Marijuana' started by xerb, Dec 16, 2018.

  1. Trying to grow out some pure Haze seeds obtained in the early 90s. Germination rates were excellent and the plants are very vigorous. 3 weeks after breaking the surface they were 18 inches tall and 18 inches wide wide with 6 sets of huge leaves. Great so far. The first night of darkness they doubled in height - they stretched 18" in 12 hours !! All of the growth was between the internodes. The next night they added several more inches between each internode again. Within a few short days they have me totally overwhelmed.
    Not even a pre-flower and they are over 6 foot tall !! What's a guy to do?

    I will try again using a clone of these plants, if I can get a clone going without it being 3 foot tall !!

    Are there any suggestions of how to handle these monsters?
     
  2. What is your light source and how high above your plants is it? Also, what light cycle are you on? Are you growing an auto or something? Why would you expect to see preflowers after only a short time in veg?



    “Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.” — someone awesome
     
  3. Also, pics or it didn’t happen. We need to see


    “Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.” — someone awesome
     
  4. Raise your lights off temps. That's an insane amount of stretch though...
     
  5. 18" in 12 hours? Can I buy some soil off you? Must be some good stuff
     
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  6. Raising lights will cause more stretch. U shoulda pulled them down and tied down during stretch/b4. Cooler temps at night I think I read can help reduce stretch. Also first two weeks(first sign of flower switch)under 12/12 use mh bulb
     
  7. You guys are giving advice without knowing anything about what light this person is using?



    “Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.” — someone awesome
     
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  8. Oh man a Haze from the 90's! Damn where did you get your hands on those?

    As for the stretch you can start flowering from a rooted clone with no veg time at all and Scrog or train it to manage the canopy. You can still get monster plants with this method however with a 100% haze sativa so YMMV.

    Another way, and this might be controversial, but a method a recently have been toying around with successfully is to start the first two or three weeks of flower in a small container so as to restrict root growth and transplant into the final big pot you were gonna use after most of the stretch is over. This will reduce the final size of the plant drastically. IIRC when I did this I left them in 1gallon pots till day 21 or so then transplanted to my no-till 100gallon bed. They pretty much stayed the same size as they were during the final transplant.
     
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  9. True. But if lights NEEDED to be raised they would be being burnt and showing signs of light stress, Which I didn’t see mentioned. Sativas stretch like crazy. Def 90s seeds. But raising the lights “to try to Lessing stretch” is just bad advice, IMO
     
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  10. Its normal u are growing pure sativa bro....but training would have helped u out a bunch

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  11. Hey thanks for all the quick responses. I feel like a fool for trying to grow these indoors, If I'd waited until May they could have gone outdoors and gotten as big as they wanted, but I doubt they would have finished before the snows set in.

    These veg'd under a 1000 MH, when the canopy start to fill in, I move the plants apart and click on 2 more 1000 HPS. There was no tying these guys down - It was literally over night, their internodes were about 1 inch, the next morning they were 6", then 12" now 18". 6 sets of leaves separated by 18" - an overhead light won't work.
    I know it is a great loss, but I am going to have to take cuttings and then cut them down.

    The only thing I can think to do is lay them on their side and use a screen to keep them down. But even that will eat up more space than I want to devote to them. I have 3 - Northern Lights x Haze females (from the same trip) that are stretching like hell - but NOTHING like the pure Haze. I have never seen anything grow like this.

    I smoke and grow sativas. I perpetuate several land races and have for 20 years - and people complain when they get an occasional seed in my bud !! Bless those who return my seeds.

    As far as my soil, look at Bluejays No till Soil recipe - I've been using it for years.

    These seeds came from a friend I met in Amsterdam, he was a breeder for Flying Dutchman. He opened my eyes to how important your choice of male breeding stock is. Finding the right male takes even longer than finding the right female. These came from his personal collection. Stored the entire time in a box in the refrigerator, they are still viable after 25 years.

    Thanks again guys, It breaks my heart, but they are coming down.
     
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  12. Do you have space, or make space, where you can keep clones till next spring? *I* like to get at least 3 from each plant for redundancy and then thin later to the one healthiest. T12's or T8's worked well for both cloning and enough light for just maintaining them till I could get them outside.

    This was for a mother plant I kept going for 8 years, an Indica from a breeder that was perfect for me since it was short, squat, and emitted zero smell, a major factor to keep a happy wife.

    Anyway, for close to 6 years I was doing a backcross with an un named male for the first cross and then using the male from each cross thereafter back on to a clone of the original female. I wanted to get as nearly pure as I could to the original female just to have backup seeds. Of course I kept seeds from each cross.

    Disaster happened on the F6 run when Broad mites happened and I lost everything except the seeds in the fridge. Still not sure where they came from since strange plants/clones are avoided. Everything went into the burn barrel and no signs since for 2 years (knock on wood).

    Started doing sibling crosses with the F5 seeds. Figured they are close to 95% close to the original plant since it was the female in all the previous crosses. I'm on the S2 cross right now and I can pick out the males at one month or so with about 90% accuracy. They look like super healthy females and the females look like runts. The females catch up later about 6 weeks in around pre flower time and the males really start to stretch.

    Anyway, saving them long enough for a seed crop would be a good long term investment for you.

    Wet
     
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  13. I've been experimenting with a way to tighten the nodes on stretchy sativas, when the new leaves are still small in size and the tips are pointing up, i flatten them out a little bit so that they receive as much light as possible. As soon as the leaf receives full light it will send a signal to the plant to start the next node. You can google LightAddict, im not sure on wich forum he spoke of this, but he turned me on to the technique. I've been reading up on it and there is a fair amount of science to back it up...Plants are awesome
     
  14. #14 xerb, Dec 18, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2018
    Holy Moly Guys, I have never seen anything like these Haze plants - they simply wont be contained. I ended up after 1 week of 12/12 with about 24 inches between each internode.
    When in veg with 24 hours light - they were squat and bushy, at 3 weeks they looked pretty much like everything else in the veg room. I kept them vegging a bit longer than normal, as I had been told they needed a longer veg period before they would even consider flowering.

    I have cut the tops out for clones, cuts are mostly stem and no fully developed leaves. They are back under 24 hours of light, but I don't have much hope. Wish me luck.

    Even the 3 NLxH crosses are now 6 foot tall, and have substantial branching. The tops are now even with the lights (They were just over 12" tall when put in 12/12 - 26 days ago).
    This morning I put shims under these pots and have this row of plants growing with their main stems at about a 45 degree angle! I may have to give them a turn every couple days to keep them confused as to what direction is up.
    This is an early 1990ish haze hybrid - nothing like Jack Herer or SSH - these look like wild, untamed jungle sativas.
     
  15. If they are that big maybe you should try laying the over. Make a lawn of bud.

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  16. Keep your temps the same when lights off and lights on the warmer the better it reduces stretch to a minimum. Also, keep your lights as close to 6500k for tight nodes. I've kept hybrids with like 4-6 nodes and inch this way.
     
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  17. My good friend has been playing with an old school sativa for a few years now. He uses a plan like Scoobie mentioned. He uses a tiny smart pot, like half a gallon. Its filled only half full, and tied up super tight to the stalk. Picture how tree saplings come tied up in a bag (where the idea came from I think). This is used for the first 2 weeks to a month. He starts out at 12/12.
    I was very doubting of this tech, because it seems crazy to me, but it works great for him, and has for a few years.
    cheers
    os
     
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  18. Interesting. Does he place this smartpot on top of anything in particular during these two weeks (wicking media etc) or just in a tray or something? Does he transplant the whole bundle with pot after that?

    I actually got the idea from Dubi from ACE seeds. They deal with a lot of landrace sativas and i've seen him mention this tech a few times when I was reading some ACE grows on RIU.
     
  19. In my experience theres two reasons plants stretch, temperature( too hot) or not enough light. The amount of stretching your getting is most likely not genetic so I'd look at one of those causes.
     

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