I get that if you have limited space you can train plants to make better use of what space you have available, but if you have unlimited space, I don't believe that training will increase yield or quality.. Not saying I really know anything and I am not any sort of expert.. I think the plant is going to grow as good as it possibly can on it's own and any sort of stress or contorting it will slow it down.. Think of it like this.. If you started a plant too late outdoors where it would have plenty of space would you try training it or just let it grow as much as it can? If you had a massive field in full sun with no space limitation why would you train a plant? I don't see much of anything for naturally growing plants with no training. It's like nobody ever does it.. Have you ever grown a big plant without messing with it at all? I have seen plenty of plants grown with all sorts of training and pruning methods and am now seeing some of MY plants that are just natural and they are doing the best of all of mine and the growth pattern of all the bud sites coming off of my natural plants and into the light is NOT making me wish I trained it in any way.. My big natural plant has tons of colas all reaching the light very evenly and well all the way around the plant from top to bottom 360 degrees around.. The colas are light lights on an xmas tree all the way around.. every few inches across its entire canopy.. I don't see making it grow with a flat top as being any better.. The base is as big around as the flat top would have been and it has more surface area of canopy because it's a big cone instead of a flat surface.. Sure ALL the cola tops won't get sun ALL day but they all get atleast half sun and then ambient sun all day and I'm not even convinced full sun would be that much better.. the north side of the plant that gets the least sun doesn't seem to be doing noticeably worse than the south side that gets the most sun.. You would think that the darker side of the plant to the north that gets less direct sunlight would look a lot different but it does not.. I'm not here saying all of you heavy plant trainers are liars but what I am saying is.. Plant training always being the best is a myth - Change My Mind Learn me something because I am probably wrong seeing as this opinion of mine is by far the minority opinion.. They are prettier too.. <fact
Do what ya want with your plant there’s a lot of factors that go into yield. A plant is only going to produce so much no matter what ya do to it or how ya treat it. I train due to space and wattage.
If your growing outdoors in a temperate northern climate, you'll want to maximize what sun you do get. I've found that in over twenty five years, training the plant to grow horizontally both maximizes yield by turning each vertical branch into a two to three foot long solid cola, besides aiding in subterfuge. My own personal comparison is plants grown vertically don't yield anywhere near the same amount.
My plants do better with training........end of discussion. There are alot of myths out there about growing MJ......training them isn't one.......IMO
Well, My 2 biggest are right next to eachother.. I tied the biggest one down horizontally and left the 2nd biggest grow straight up.. The one I let grow straight up is now easily twice as bulky as the one I tied down, is bigger around at the base now than the tied down one is, and has probably 3 times as many colas exposed on its surface all around it than the one I tied down having only colas going straight up, stalk is twice as big around now too while it used to be the smaller of the 2.. They aren't exactly apples to apples because they are not the same genetics but this is my observation.. If they were exactly the same size around at the base, a cone simply has more surface area than a flat top.. I'm not saying any of you are wrong at all, I just want some data or first hand experience that shows training outdoors does increase yield.. Time will tell on my plants what they yield but it isn't looking like a win for my tied down plants.. Granted, I have a short growing season this far north so plants just aren't going to get ridiculously huge and unmanageably tall.. I had my seed sprouts out and in the ground before most put their clones out this year and I haven't seen a more bulky or bigger plant than my best bagseed plant this year and regularly see a set of 24 mainlined clones.. They are wanting to trade me clones of their legit genetics clones for clones of my big bagseed natural untrained plant.. What does that mean? Maybe I just hit a killer genetic in that seed.. IDK I have to wait for 4' of snow to melt and the ground to thaw in the spring while even just 50 miles south of me your ground is probably ready a month and a half earlier in the year.. I still have snow when it's 75 degrees out in the spring.. Boats in the water while their is still snow on the ground.. I don't think I have an abundance of time to be stressing them and stunting them trying to keep them short while height is not much of a concern to me anyway.. 9-10 feet high is fine with me and if anything I have more of a shortage of horizontal space than vertical space.. I'm not trying to argue, I just want a discussion so I can learn what I am obviously not understanding.. Next year I think I will do an apples to apples comparison with the same clones in the same holes and probably mainline train one and let another do whatever it does and see what happens..
You ever grow any full size plants without training? How often? It seems to me that nobody ever even tries it because the stigma of training is so great..
I don't quite know the "science" behind it.....but when you are training the plants...you aren't just training them physically......they also change "on the inside".....when you bring that top COLA down...that main branch....and it's "even" with the other branches....the plant kinda goes into "freak out" mode and sends what are called auxins (I believe) to the sites that will flower...and turn them into "main cola" size...and if you have 8 or 10 spots like that...youll have a decent harvest..... Oh, Im not an "arguer" either....discussion is GREAT!!!!! I think this is one of those times where what works great for you.....doesn't work so great for me.....and vice versa
I don't know what works best for me yet.. I need to try a bunch of different things to find the difference still, and I am planning to, but natural growing plants are going to be part of the arsenal of experimentation.. I am also currently debating wither or not I should "De-Larf" the inside of my plants right now or not.. I'm not convinced either way wither the plant material inside will act like suckers slowing the colas down, or the plant will suck the nutes/energy out of the inside plant material to boost its main colas in the end when it knows it's time to give it all it's got..
You are RIGHT where you should be asking the RIGHT questions......in my opinion.............so you are definitely on the right track as far as Im concerned!! That's EXACTLY what you have to do....play around with different ways and different things....and then you'll figure out what works best for YOU and then you'll be off to the races....
I'll know first hand how much training helps an outdoor plant. I've got unlimited space and great lighting from all angles. I'll keep you updated as they progress, I just trained them today. It does make sense that if you can remove shaded areas from the plant, it will grow better.
Talk's cheap. Pictures? It sounds like you tied the one plant down quite some time after it had already been growing vertically. This horizontal technique has been advocated in grow guides going back nearly forty years by cultivation experts like Mel Frank and Robert Connell Clark, among others. Unlike pruning, bending doesn't stress the plants at all. It serves to neutralize the plant's growth inhibiting hormones. If you do live so far north,and with a short growing season, and you mention FOUR FEET OF SNOW in Spring and probably permafrost to boot!!!?? How are you possibly starting plants in spring when ground temperatures are far too cold for roots to develop?? Let alone growing a plant that reaches nine feet in height?! What are you growing up there in that cold, sub-arctic, northern short season climate - some kind of sativa hybrid Thai strain?? Sorry, but until I see some evidence, I'm just going to have to consider your claims as pure nonsense.
I live in the red spot on this... It isn't permafrost but the ground freezes pretty good and takes a while to thaw..
Are you in the states? That's a funky map, I'm pretty sure I'm still above you, spring isn't THAT bad.
Not exactly the type of photo evidence I was looking for...although it's informative to know average snowfall amounts for the upper Michigan peninsula between 1960 and 1990 - in case I'm ever a contestant on Jeopardy! "The answer is, what is Cheboygan, for fifty, Alex." This isn't Ted Nugent, is it? Just in case, for the record, Motor City Madhouse and Free For All are pretty bitchin' tunes!
Here is some photo evidence that topping and LST is the best way to get a large yield. Opposite of what the OP states. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. I have pudding and he doesnt. These seeds were popped around January first and grown under MH lamps until the first week in may. They went in the ground in early may with supplemental CFL lights to keep them from blooming prematurely. They're on track to yield between 4-6 pounds each. I've grown untopped Christmas tree shaped plants that are 14' tall and it's hard to yield more than 2 pounds per plant that way. In past seasons I've had Trainwreck and Casey Jones (Trainwreck and Thai hybrid) that have yielded over 9 pounds per plant with topping and LST. Theory debunked.
I'd love to see some 10 foot mama jamas!! I live quite far north, and even with hard winter, spring snow, and frost, guys can get their plants in the ground mid may, and still have amazing results. We also get snowfall and sub-zero as early as early october. I never hear guys complain about the time frame to grow around here.
My shortest plants this season are a strain called Big Perm. Its OG#18 x (LA Ultra x Chem4 Alien OG) and they're decent size. About 4' tall and 4' wide but they were started in April and went into 65 gallon bags. They're not in these photos and they'll yield a couple pounds each. My biggest ladies are 10-1/2' tall right now. Super Star Dawg 2.0 (Stardawg x Super Skunk) and AK47 x (Chem4 x Skunk #1) The AK hybrids are the big ones to the right of the photos. It's hard to show scalebut the fence posts surrounding ding them are 5' tall and the pipes extending up from the fence posts are 10' tall. Tell you what though those big fuckers are hard to manage.
I couldn't imagine ever growing that size or that quantity. I just started my first grow ever this year, and I'm keeping it small for a reason. I can't imagine all the leg work, setup, tear down, trimming, measuring, mixing, that goes into a garden that size. I'm already worried I might not have comfortable space to dry and trim up the three that I have. I'm not expecting much, if I can get an ounce or two per plant I'll be happier than hell for not having a cent invested. That's the other thing, growing on that scale CANNOT be cheap running costs.