I really would like to grow some sativa. Either Lamb’s Breath or Purple Haze. My tent is 71" in height but light hanging eats some of that up. Add to that the height of an auto pot. My first grow I experimented with supercropping, FIM, topping, and basically using plant velcro tape to hold branches down as Wedding Cake got tall.
Question: can I do the same with a sativa? Would I want to plant say only two plants in a 3X4 floorspace to allow for sativa branches having room to be tied down and vining all over the place? Or go for 4?
I want a Gorilla expansion grow tent but we may be building a metal shop next spring and want to put in a grow room so don’t want to buy another tent if that is in the works.
Here is the grow I just harvested and you can see how I had to tie down one Wedding Cake as she just kept shooting upwards. All that arched over is one plant. And it pretty much hogged up the space in there.
Best wishes on your grow! Out of 6 planted three were purple or purple green and three were green. The three purple ones were in soft pots and not directly under the light so maybe that was why they were that color? Don’t know. The other three were in AutoPots.
I had two hermie. Our AC was out a week and couldn’t get tent less than 85 deg or house for that matter. So watch for that. And late in the game had an issue with white powdery mildew which I took care of with Neem oil and making sure the fan was aimed a little better.
So out 7 plants started (one bagseed Grape Ape that did well in spite of getting overshadowed by the Wedding Cake it made 0.875 ounce). Total for 4 Wedding Cake was 10.5 ounces. Not bad considering I was a rank newbie and made every mistake you could possibly make. I worry I harvested too early as a friend convinced me they were ready at 8 weeks. But he has grown for decades so he ought to know. I am curing the buds now. From early test got a really nice head clearing high. Just felt good. Like my brain had sludge in it and it got flushed out.
because not all plants will flip with the same timing, ie they need to reach sexual maturity before they are able to flower, and stretch is not the same for all cultivars or even phenotypes, the best course of action is to grow a seed or 2 and flip as soon as sex is determined. You can still do lst in the early flowering phase. This way you will better be able to know how much stretch that variety will do.
You can lose the light hangers and use rope ratchets straight onto the light to gain more height for the plants. Everything else has been well covered. Good luck on the grow bro
FWIW, I have an Atomical Haze from Paradise Seeds and they recommend going with 12/12 lighting right off the bat. This is supposed to be an 80% sativa. Would that light schedule work for you? Would it help keep the growth managable?
Another option is to top late, top deep and tie the main stem down to horizontal. The topping forces it to become bushy - thinking it has reached its ceiling. Because you have tied to horizontal - every bud wants to be a top. The late topping ensures more branches - that equals more bud sites. Drop a SCROG on top - and let the games begin!
It works - easily filled 3/4 of my 4x4 with 3 plants (the other 1/4 is the 3 tops cloned )
SpartanGrown (Michigan Bros Grow Show) has mentioned he tried 3 days of darkness at the flip, and that eliminated all stretch. I cannot say if this effective, and I’d be really wary of unintended consequences, but at some point I’d like to try it out.
Thank you everyone for the replies. Sorry to reply so late - our 21 mo old grandson and his 4 mo old brother have been here, we were lucky we had time to use toilet paper much less check emails, etc.
The deep topping, light schedule, and three days dark are interesting. I am pretty wild and wanton with experimentation, or was the first grow, being so new I threw caution to the wind and just tried it all as far as manipulating the crop. Like @KeystoneCops the three days of darkness is intriguing but the one thing that will make ya go “hmmmmm”.
Right now I have the auto’s going. Got the seeds from another seedbank and all I can say is that from now on getting seeds from ILGM as it has been a challenge with only 30% germination rate and the seeds were small and pale. Plus stunted with weird leaf shape. Did I mess up somewhere? Also, the 2 bottom ones up out of soil same time as the 2 larger top ones in photo) Our son says ditch those and restart but two of another strain are doing well and I am a tad stubborn and want to see how they do. Being autos I won’t get to try all the fun and crazy things with them. (Top larger ones are Lemon Haze and bottom three are Blueberry X Big Bud)
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