I was wanting to know what the best way to go about shortening internodes, and lowering the heighth and increasing the width of my plants would be? Problem is, i dont watn to stunt the plant or slow down the growth in any way. Just any method that is used to induce the "Sea of Green" effect
I guess that the more the light, the closer to it, the better the chance of getting a short, wide plant. You can always, fim, top, prune, LST and whatever the hell you think of, but remember that anyhow the plant will double iits height during flowering. some smartasses around this forume go into a fight about posible benefits of one or the other. My conclusion is that they both work, but its better to stick with one or the other and not be playing with the lightning schedule. In my next grow ill be using a progesive schedule, from 24/0 to 12/12 reducing one hour of light a day... Hope helps Currently on my first grow 4x39 daylight Osram Fluoros hung up in chains, some old school twist, jeje. 4 Indicas 6 Sativas .5 g/L of "triple 17 plus" (17-17-17 N-P-K and some micrconutes) .5 g/L of "nutriflor" (15-30-15 N-P-K) 35 days 12-12
yeah id like to know about the progressive light schedule as well..obviously alters the way the plant develops?... as for keeping your plants small, id recommend the LST method and/or a SCROG
that in the very early stage the plant will have lots of energy and be forced to develop a tougher root. There is an inherent contradiction with using such a schedule and saying thats best to stick with one or the other. Electric bill will not be as high if you use 24/0 for 2 weeks, but still the plant will get a lot of light as soon as it pops. never tried it, heard of it being used, will be done like in a 2 months fro my next crop. Currently on my first grow 4x39 daylight Osram Fluoros hung up in chains, some old school twist, jeje. 4 Indicas 6 Sativas .5 g/L of "triple 17 plus" (17-17-17 N-P-K and some micrconutes) .5 g/L of "nutriflor" (15-30-15 N-P-K) 35 days 12-12
Keeping the light as close as possible will help keep height down by preventing it from stretching, but LST is about the easiest truly effective method to get your plant to grow out instead of up.
hehe....yeah, uh.... just for the record, what exactly is LST again? its probly a stupid ass question, but i dont feel dumb for asking it.... yet.. oh and i also have this plant hormone shit called "Superthrive", anyone heard of it? used it? i figure i might try it out cuz it says that it increases flowers and buds.
Lst is when you tie your plants dowm with coat hangers or paper clips then untie them once its time to flower but my question is can you keep em tied while they are flowering
Myself and plenty of others use Superthrive so I'd go for it. I've read conflicting reports on using it during flowering (supposedly giving less dense buds) but can't comment on that first hand.
A progressive light schedule is probably the best for the plants as far as stressing goes. It reduces the light schedule slowly, mimicking the conditions that would occur if the plant is grown in nature. The sun does not go from 18 hours of light per day directly to 12/12 or whatever; it reduces minutes by minutes each night. I am usually to lazy to do this but, I am about to flower some clones I have and I am knocking off 2 hours of light per night. In 3 days the plants will go from veg to flower. If you reduce one hour of light per day, they will be in the flowering schedule in 6 nights. Who knows, maybe it doesn't really make a difference but I do it anyway.
Curious, SmknVTEC, do you use different lighting for veg and flower cycles and if so, when do you switch relative to the progressive schedule? In other words, if you use MH for veg and HPS for flower and can use only one at a time, when do you switch bulbs if you are taking several days to get all the way to the flower cycle?
Usually, I use just the HPS for veg and flower but, sometimes I use the fluoros for veg and the HPS for flower. Your question is very interesting though. Thinking about what happens in nature, I would say go down progressively with the MH and then switch to HPS once on 12/12. You could also go halfway down on the MH then switch to the HPS for the second half. This would only be practical of course, if you are going down one hour per night. Again, I am not really sure if any of this is trivial when growing inside.
Thanks. True, probably is an inconsequential detail -- can't imagine the difference between really huge glazed buds vs. small-fry is a couple of nights of the "right" or "wrong" light during transition.