Not the usual set up! Advice please

Missevo, since you are already starting to show flowers I wouldnt top it now, Keep working on the LST and you can bend the plant all the way over in a week or two. Once you get the plant bent, you will have reduced its height by almost 50%. You can keep LST-ing other secondary branches as they stretch & keep it under control. Use a loose non-slip loop on the main branch (not a leaf node) about 1/3 of the way down from the top. Like lowd says, just don't tie it tight or it will damage the plant. Tie another piece of string all the way around the rim of the bucket; use this to fasten your LST string. Each day pull it down further.

If you go too aggressive & it breaks, no big deal. Go ahead now & pick up a roll of gauze tape at any drug store (are those legal? They sell drugs????) & save your next popsicle stick. If you don't use popsicles, good reason to start . Anyway, if it snaps, just straighten it back up, center the popsicle stick in the middle of the break as a splint, and wrap the stick & trunk with the gauze tape. The top of the plant may wilt for a couple of days but it will come back. And don't be surprised if you get an explosion of branches at the node where it broke. Search here for supercropping & you'll understand.
I had a plant once with two huge top colas, on each of the new branches from where I topped it. Was doing some rearranging and heard something crack - the plant had split down the middle about 4" or more into & down the main trunk. I wrapped it with a shoelace & the plant never missed a beat. By the time I harvested I could not pull the two apart, healed completely!!!

Right now is a good time to learn to clone, it won't hurt a thing if you have a small side branch lower on the plant. Go about 3-4 " back from the tip of the branch to make the cut, more or less. Cutting about 1/4" below a leaf node increases your chances of rooting.
There are several good cloning threads on here, if you don't find any let me know & I'll look up one of my old posts & link you to it.
You can build a mini-bubble cloner from any small plastic container, a few 2" net pots & neoprene collars, and a small aquarium pump & air stone. If you have the pump, $5 in parts will be all you need.
I much prefer rapid rooter plugs for cloning, works great & can transplant with absolutely no shock. With rooter plugs you don't need the neoprene collars. Or the bubble cloner. Just take the cutting, insert in a wet rapid rooter plug, sit it in an egg carton, put it under a 23W CFL & you're in business. When the rooter plug changes color from almost-black to a medium brown its time to water. You can visually see it getting dry, just don't let it get crusty-dry before watering the plug / clone.

I'm a little buzzed tonight, if I missed anything let me know. Otherwise let us know you you progress, & bestaluck to ya!

 

OS nice post. Just wondering, what this implies? do you LST and prune to keep it under control? What if some branches get taller than others? how does any of this affect the original apical bud?

 

From OP post, i'd definitely recommend upgrading to HID. Better penetration and bigger and tighter buds

 

cloning is pretty easy and I'm sure you will get the hang of it fast. I recommend doing lots of cuts to this end. Just take your cut - pick larger older branches from the lower half or side of the plant- dip in your root gel or honey, and place in the clone mix- which is the same as the seed mix- I use a 50/50 mix of sphagnum moss and pumice, it works fine. The new roots will grow out of the lowest node on the cutting- best clones include a 45 degree angle on the cut and a node- I water the clone mix soil, then cover with a humidity dome with the vents open. set ambient temperatures at 70-80f, and come back in a week. should be fully rooted with new growth.

 

Well if its not making them whip around I wouldn't worry about it. Is it Oscillating or just pointed at them? I run my fan and circulation pump for my DWC grow on the same timer. About once an hour for 10 mins or so my pump and fan turn on. The pump stirs my nutes and the fan helps circulate some air and move the plants around a little. The timer was like 5 bucks or something like that. When it comes to buying timers there are a couple different kinds but the two basic mechanical timers are some what different. One kind has tabs that you set on a dial that comes on and off depending on where you put the tabs. Lets say a tab at noon to come on and a tab at midnight to shut off.


The second kind has tabs that you push down. So if you want the timer to come on for lets say every hour for 5 mins or what ever one tab equals, then you push one tab down for every hour on the dial. If you were to push every tab down on this kind of timer it would run continuously.


Hope I didn't confuse you with that. These are just a couple really basic timers. You plug your cord or appliance what ever it is into the timer and plug the timer in. Set the timer to the right time and set your tabs on your given timer. The second one is the kind I use for my pump and fan it has two outlets one on each side of the timer comes in handy for 5 bucks. The timer picture that was first I use for my fan that cools my HPS light it comes on 5 mins before the light does and shuts off 5 mins or so after the light shuts down. Really simple but makes life a lot easier.

Oh yeah and I saw you were asking some questions about cloning. Well check this thread out
http://forum.grasscity.com/do-yourself/444974-lets-build-clone-machine-*step-step*.html

Personally doesnt get much easier than cloning the way Rump does it. I have just snipped and dipped the cuttings and put them right into soil that may be the easiest but Rumps just performs nicely with barely any loss. Check it out and keep in mind there are many varieties and sizes of his original diy.

 

You can clone by just doing the rooting hormone and dirt or soiless medium. I have not had the best luck using those methods. With the cloner your talking near 100 percent success rate. The cost was fairly negligible. For my cloner it cost me a grand total of like 15-20 bucks to build.

 

Good questions, Hope. (Hey, see you're no longer "in a camper"?). Sorry for the delayed reply but took the weekend off and away from GC.
I rely upon pruning / topping during vegetative growth to assure a good strong side branching structure. It is true that each cola of the two new branches can be slightly smaller than if left untopped for one cola, but not by much. For almost all strains, the sum of the two will be MUCH greater than one untopped single cola. I still end up with one of the two new top branches wanting to be dominant and out-grow the other(s); that's where I use LST to even things out.
I don't remember the scientific terminology but there's some kind of (hormonal?) thing going on that makes the tallest branch of a plant stay dominant and keep grow taller than all the others. LST-ing that branch so that it is lower than the other branches gives the other branches the dominant role & they catch up. Taken to it's physical extreme with a SCROG screen, eventually most of the branches equalize, and the yield increase is amazing (not to mention a thing of beauty to gaze upon!!!
Then there's the point of diminishing return thing; you can't keep topping & re-topping ad infinitum. Eventually every plant reaches that point where it can not generate more tops. But it's interesting to search for that number.
And then, there are a very few strains out there that resist topping and insist upon keeping one dominant branch. A good LST like what Missevo is doing is sometimes the only way to deal with that. Or cram a ton of those into a SOG grow, and curse for hours and days while you're having to trim alllllll that bud at harvest. WHOOO HOOOO!!!!!

 

Love it, working beautifully for you!!! And thanks to Lowd for taking up the slack while I goofed off for the weekend. He pretty well covered the clone basics with the link to rump's cloning thread. Plus what Hope2Toke added, you can clone directly into a good cloning mix without the plugs & collars (I can't because I'm hydro, thus the rapid rooter plugs).

 

Missevo, about the watering, ABOUT every 3-4 days is ABOUT right, but it will vary as the plant matures. You do want it do dry out between waterings; the combination of this and re-watering pulls extra oxygen into the roots & that's a good thing. The most reliable way of gauging when to water is the weight of the pot. It will be significantly lighter / easier to lift when dry. It's best to let it dry until the pot is much lighter, then give a thorough drenching with about 20% of your total volume running out the bottom

On your other beans, I would maybe wait awhile to germinate those. When your 400W HID comes in, you will need to keep it on 12/12 to bloom your one lady, and that's not what new seedlings need. Plus they will never catch up, and you'll have to keep them in veg under your LED in a second grow area until your current plant finishes. Not a bad thing, but the timing can get all out of whack without knowing when your original will finish. The ideal is to have your next round completely veg-ed and ready to switch to 12-12 as soon as your current round finishes.
That's where clones really shine. From the seed grow you will learn how long it takes to veg, and how long it takes from start of 12-12 to harvest. Armed with this knowledge you can complete your veg under your LED just in time to switch them to 12-12 while you're ready to smoke your previous one.

So many choices... yes, a little mind boggling now, but as you gain experience, these are the things that keep this hobby so interesting.
Bestaluck to ya & keep us posted how she does for you.

 

It comes down to a few different things. How much room do you have to flower? How big do you want the plant when finished? Those two are kind of the same question. You dont want the plant to overgrow your ability to provide light to it as well. I remember reading some where that a general rule of thumb is to take the height you want the plant to finish at and divide it in half. Take that number and that is when you start flowering. You have to take into account your light and distance you need to keep your plants from the light as well. Keep all the logistics in check. If your having a hard time figuring it out draw a picture so that you can visualize and dimension it.

 

Yeah she looks happy. But I don't think it's the stress, it's like you said the first time... she likes being bent over
Lowd also gave some good general advice; you can typically count on a plant doubling or tripling in height from the time you switch to 12/12 until it finishes stretching. BUT... & this is a good butt... your LST has taken care of most of that now. I would keep veg-ing until you get a good number of the old side branches going vertical; every one of those is going to maker a good top bud for you. 10 days, two weeks, maybe even three weeks. Let your bent over girl guide you. You can continue LST-ing when you switch to 12/12 and control the stretch enough to keep her out of the lights.
Glad things continue going your way, so keep us posted.

 

Sorry Missevo, closest anyone could get is 'juana, anything else would be a wild assed guess.
My WAG - the general plant structure and growth characteristics are sativa, but the leaf structure definitely indicates some indica in the woodpile as well. If it's sativa dominant the bloom time will usually be longer - some strains can go 14-15 weeks.
So many crosses out there today, it's next to impossible to find a pure landrace strain of anything anymore.
I think you should call her...
Eileen Dover