This is one of two plants( http://imgur.com/a/qn75eBO ) I have and it's my first grow and I'm using CFLs. I've been able to keep the plant in check but its getting kind of unruly, where smaller branches coming off the main branches are too tall to keep the canopy flat. I've been using wire with LST to keep the canopy flat, but now there is a wire for the main branches(of which there are 6) and then ~6 smaller ones off of each of those. How should I try to deal with this and also how does the plants size look? I'm not sure if or when I should switch to flowering. Thanks for all advice or comments on my plant!
you could try defoliating to clear some of that up. or scrog net may help pull it down kind of tight and run the limb flat against the net then tie. may level it off then itll grow through. I only try for 8 to 10 main colas train and strip. plan on it to double in size for flower so depending on your grow space height you have a good size plant may need to flip idk tho looks like a closet so you probably have enough room to veg for another few weeks
So I guess I wasn't thing about the amount of colas when training, originally I was going to manifold my plants, but read that it can be bad with CFLs. So, one plant is partially manifolded, the other is only LST. How will I know where the main colas are going to be? Should I trim off most of those secondary branches/nodes so there's the main branch then another two branching off from each of those? I'm worried I messed up the plant training at this point, I should have been trimming for 8-10 colas like you said but I kind of just let it grow besides pulling branches so it grew flat.
main colas are at the tip of each branch. you can do whatever you feel is necessary. remove several fan leaves to allow light to penetrate the lower bud sites or remove secondary bud sites all together. I strip mine then stop 2 weeks before flower them clean them up again and remove any runt bud sites I don't want that may not be getting sufficient light. its really whatever you feel comfortable with we all groom and grow differently. I start defoliation about 2 weeks after first topping and training. I will remove a couple fan leaves that are blocking my plants canopy, then I will keep most of the stem clean defoliating a little bit at a time. then a few weeks into flowering I will clean it up one more time and remove any bud site that may have regrown or not grown enough leaving 8 to ten main sites I will end up with several popcorn sites that grow after my final defoliation but theres really nothing you can do about that unless you continually defoliate daily.
Sorry if its bad to reply so late in a post, but I just wanted to follow up and get your opinion one more time since you seem very knowledgeable. Here are new pictures of my plants, which I trimmed to have 8-10 main sites, or places I want the main sites to be: . One picture is of both the plants and on the other I circled two places I had questions about. The red circled branch is pretty small as you can see, but I'd like that to be a main cola, the blue is a spot where a new cola branched out that looks heartier than the red, so should I just use that one and trim the other, or should I just wait for it to grow larger. I have other colas that are kind of small, but larger than that one. They've been in the vegetative stage for ~2 months now, so will it be fine to wait a bit longer for those to grow larger, but I'm not even sure if they will in a reasonable amount of time, or will they grow larger once switched to flowering? Thanks fir any help you can give.
main colas are the tips of a single branch that sprouts from the stalk secondary colas sprout off of the main stems sprouting from the stalk. your blue circle looks like a main cola whereas the red circle is sprouting off of the main stem sprouting off of the stalk which is a secondary cola. they look fine I would let them grow for another couple weeks maybe a month for extra growth then switch to flower. I veg for 2 months. cfls that explains the slower growth if you up your light source you will have better faster grows just an option tho if youre happy at harvest that's all that matters if you want more yield and denser buds more stronger light will be needed. no worries about the late post I would be interested in seeing the stages and outcome in updates good luck bud
Oh, ok I didn't realize that was how secondary colas were classified. I attached a better pic of my other plant which you can see I started manifolding, but stopped. I didn't know about the colas when I trimmed them so will this plant potentially yield a lot less since I have all those secondary colas? I was going to have 5 sites on each side of the plant, the main one and four secondary each. I should have just manifolded them like I was going to...
yea I hate to be the bad news bear but secondary colas have less mass as they sprout from an existing main cola. that main cola is a bit more mature, I always keep those, until about 2 weeks before flower. then any main branch/cola that's still maybe close to the plants lower canopy which is usually only one or 2 I will cut those and try to clone. keep in mind I am a clumsy mfer so don't put it past me to break a few branches during the whole process numbers may vary haha. but most of the main stems I keep through flower defoliate under them but stop that about 3 weeks before flower. I am done defoliating now, maybe a couple more fan leaves out of the group but the one circled is a main cola at the base of plants canopy its gonna go. those are 2 months old started flowering a few days ago