Okay, I’m giving this a shot, sorry if I am plunging into the forum the wrong way here.
First grow (in the last 40 years that is). Back in the 70s I had a half dozen plants in a room in my garage under some florescents that did the job, but now I’m convinced if I take my time and listen to any suggestions I get here (I Hope), I’ll put everything I ever did in the past to shame.
About 24" X 30" closet space in my basement that I have turned into a grow room
QB260 Light
ILGM White Widow Autos
FF Light Warrior for seedlings
Moved to FFOF when they went into Fabric pots
6 Seeds popped nicely in paper towels
Planted in clear Solo cups, with drain holes
Wrapped the cups in aluminum foil (after learning that clear isn’t really that good for roots)
Tried my well water and bottled spring water and couldn’t find the right PH, then found that melted snow (plenty here in Northern Michigan this winter) comes in right at 6 (+?-) using Gen-Hydro test solution
Seedlings in Solo cups were started under 23 Watt 6500K CFL curly screw-ins that I found at HD, 4 for $10.00
Transplanted into 3 gallon fabric pots (realized after they had sprouted that they should have been there from the get go) after 5 days
Now I have saved the best looking 4 of the 6
They’re 2 weeks old today, and I want to drive this in the right direction. I have room for the 4 plants (the fabric containers at least) in the space that I have, but I’m hoping that someone can tell me if I should be considering topping or fimming these girls, to get them to spread out a little. I don’t want them to get all the way to flower only to find that I’ll have one nice cola on each one, but if I had topped them at the right time, or LST even, I could have dramatically increased the yield.
I know they’ll start to flower whenever they’re ready, and I see lots of cautionary tales about slowing their veg down by stressing them too much.
Should I just do LST? And if so, is that just sort of gently bend over the main stem near the top and tie it down (using a pipe cleaner or similar) and she will develop one or more additional “branches” that will fill out horizontally, or is there another piece to it that I’m missing.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions
I grow photos but I understand that its not good to top or fimm autos. They dnt have the time to recover or even benifet much from it. Best to do low stress trainin to open them up abit, just tie dwn the branches gently to open center for more light. If u do abit of a search u will find many post on the subject.
Happy Growing
Thanks Liljoe,
Yeah, I guess I will probably just do it the safe way to keep from doing anything harmful. I guess what I am trying to figure out is, will LST cause them to “branch out”? Back in the day, we would just pinch the tops off and smoke em every few days, and of course we didn’t even have a word for it (like topping or fimming), we just wanted something to smoke and of course it turned them into little sort of round “bushes”, because everywhere we pinched a top off to smoke we got another pair of branches. And then we would eventually pinch each of those off to smoke and on and on and on.
If I just LST them, will they develop secondary branches off the main, so that they fill out some, I assume that photos and autos would behave the same in that respect? When you say tie down the branches, there’s only one branch (the main stem) at this point. Will it develop more if I tie it down a little bit horizontally, or would I have to top it to get that to happen?
From what I’m understanding LST is the best method for Autos I have a Bubblegum auto 2weeks old and just FIM it just to see what happens. I also have a Jack Herer auto but she was slow to start so just going with LST on her.
If your plants are growing good, wait until you get about 5-6 nodes then go ahead and top it. I’ve topped all my wwa and have never had a problems. Or a small stunted plant. Last wwa I grew indoor, I pull close to a lb off of it.
Welcome to the forum, lots of helpful people here. Lots of debate on this subject I know @HornHead has topped his and had great success. There are also a lot of people who will never top an auto. On auto flowering dot net there is an entire thread on how to do it and it is very popular there. I was not planning on having autos but did, long story. I only did lst early and then let them go. When I do my next autos I am debating how to grow them lst, topping, FIM, or letting them grow wild. I’ll in vote you to my journal so you can see how mine are progressing.
What kind of light are you going to use when they start to flower? You can use cfl’s but there are better choices. How big is your area?
I have a QB260 that I am planning to use through the rest of the grow.
I have decided that since I have 4 good plants growing, I will top 2 and let 2 grow Au- natural. There are tons of opinions on what to do, and probably a zillion variables, so for the sake of learning for myself I have nothing to lose by experimenting.
The 2 that I am not topping I will just LST, might let them go another few days first, to see if they develop additional branches. I’m assuming that I just gently bend over the main stalk and tie it down to keep it from growing straight up
Your QB light will do a great job. Does it have an adjustment on the power driver that you can turn down the wattage/current? If so, I have a QB by HLG and turn the intensity down to 50% in the seedling stage, then slowly turn up the wattage as she hardens off in veg.
I do know a very skilled grower who tops his auto plants, but I don’t risk that so I’ll just do LST to open up the plant to let light develop additional colas - not the one central main one that develops untrained. I hope to follow your journal to learn of your success with both methods.
Hey MT3, I don’t have a journal, I guess I don’t know how to do that, do I just post photos here every now and then?
Sorry, I’m old.
I didn’t think about the idea of turning down the intensity of the QB, I just put them under the CFL curlys, and they did great about 3 inches away. They sprouted in no time and all of a sudden I had to figure out where to go from there, LOL.
I topped two of them today, just like I did in the old days, and I’ll see where it goes over the next few days.
At this point they seem to be really happy I guess, I don’t have much first hand experience to compare to, but all things considered, it seems like no matter what I screw up, these girls just want to go.
