Sup everyone. I currently have one Blue Dream fem outdoors, in a 10 gallon fabric pot of coco/perlite. She was planted well over a month ago, but when she was a seedling a severe thunderstorm struck while I was at work. She was broken at the stem and tossed around in the wind and rain for almost 11 hours. When I got home, she looked like this. (Never mind the watermelon seedlings. You can tell which one she is) Anyway, I splinted her and set her straight, slowly starting a feeding and watching for stress. Over the course of the next couple weeks, she barely grew at all, but with my indoor girls she straightened out and started fresh. I transplanted her carefully, and as of now, she's outside and starting to finally explode. I swear she's nearly doubling in size every day. So, now that's she's on a regular feeding schedule (blend of GH Flora and CalMag) and starting to really accelerate in growth, I topped her for her first time yesterday. On the spur of the moment, I also decided just now to try my hand at some LST. I secured a clip to the side of the fabric pot, and tied her down at an angle with some twine. So what do you think, overall? How is this degree of bend, considering her size? I don't have any experience with LST before this, though I'm an old hand at topping and FIMing for my coco/perlite setup indoors. I realize she's a bit on the large size, but in my defense, she was traumatized as a seedling, and it wasn't until full aggressive recovery that I felt comfortable to start stressing her more. Also, please forgive the blurr. My Galaxy S8 is having software problems and the camera focus is starting to suffer. Thoughts?
Looks fine but I am not a fan of training outdoors unless you have her under protection from the weather.
What's wrong with training outdoor plants? In my opinion topping and LST training makes outdoor plants much stronger and resistant to severe weather. Especially if you use a trellis net and scrog technique.
Nothing wrong just personal preference, I agree training is fine if they are supported very well or out of the wind and weather.
I like using netting and fence posts. When the buds are fat they lay on the trellis during rainstorms instead of snapping or tearing the branch off the main stalks.
Very nice trees! I wish I could grow in your climate but we get so much damp weather heavy rains and storms in September that I need air flow and have to have covers on them or I would loose it all to rot. Less training means taller but not as dense which works better for my climate.
Its usually dry here from May to November. Today it's 107*. Tomorrow 107*. Pretty much 100*+ from late June through mid September. Nights are around 65*-70*.
Looks great! I'm surprised you were able to salvage it after its poor baby stem was kinked. Amazing job
Your plants look incredible! Holy f***! I've got a couple years of growing experience indoors, but I've never attempted anything like an outdoor grow before. How do you deal with humidity? I'm smack in the middle of the Great Lakes, and we're averaging 55-70% RH with heavy rain at least once a week. Often twice a week. I feel like heavy Flower is gonna result in a bunch of mold. Temperatures are a steady 80-95F during the day, 77-80 at night. I've also got a few problems with pests. Namely...caterpillars, I wanna say? This picture is a few days old, and now she's tripled in size since then. But you get the general idea.
Could be caterpillars or grasshoppers or leafhoppers. Usually the caterpillars are still at the scene of the crime and easy to find. Plus they make little black turds that fall on lower leaves but since its a low leaf it would be hard to spot their shit.
As far as humidity goes, maybe put an oscillating fan a few feet away from the plant and make a little rain canopy you can put over the plant in late bloom. Thanks for the compliment. I've been growing outdoors since 1994. I've been obsessed with growing cannabis since I was 17. I even went to Humboldt State University so I could learn from people in the industry. So much has changed since then. Back then CAMP was still flying military choppers and spraying chemicals on people's guerilla gardens. They were dropping out of choppers commando style and cutting down plants. No Mexican cartels in the hills. Just hippies and rednecks. Now the cartels run the guerilla gardens and the hippies kids are running 10,000 plant legal farms. Mind blowing.
There are still a few wild wild west areas around here though. Alder Point is off the hook. People getting shot. Same with a place called Trinity Pines. People firing automatic weapons in September and setting up armed guard posts on their property. I bet if you YouTube search "Trinity Pines weed" there are all kinds of videos. Even the Trinity County Sheriff won't go in the place around harvest time.
Here's a news broadcast from our local news station. There is also a great radio interview with Trinity County Sheriff Mark Potts that describes how crazy it is in the mountains around here. I stopped growing for a long time because it wasn't worth the risk of being shot by someone wanting to steal my plants. Shits kind of chilled out a bit in the last 2 years.
That looks good. Then when the other colas grow tie them down away from the insideI lst. This one literally to the point of whole main stem 2 inches from soil and all side shiots are shooting. Unfortunately shes growing like a bonsai aeay from her pot. Sent from my SM-S727VL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
So it's been 6 days, and she is responding well (I think) to the LST. She definitely got a lot wider, and thickened up some alternate stems. Today, I went outside and tied two more high stems down, for a total of 3 ties now. Is this (going from one sideways tie to three) going to stress her out much? How are the angles on these branches? What about my positioning on the branches? As I said before, this is literally my first LST.
Looks like you're on your way and yes you're doing it right. Nice job. I am a huge fan of LST and topping outdoors. I scrog to get as many lateral shoots across the canopy. I also lollipop slowly throughout veg. Mine are just starting to show signs of flowering now. I underestimated how tall they'd get, so I'll be putting a second level on to spread out the colas. Keep us posted on your progress!