best way to grow

[hubblebubble]

id like to know how different growers grow there plant only experienced cultivators.

tell me if you grow from clones, seeds, if you let it grow without any pruning or if you bend etc and the benefits from doing so personally i grow from clones started in rockwool then transfered to pots and i let them do there thing but if some start to grow tall and thin ill take a clone from the central stem

[YELRAM]

why wouldent u prune your plant??? you get less bud at the end dont u

[the happy chappie]

hi, hubble/yelram

there has always been a a lot of questions about pruning, some say dont and others will say prune, it all depends what you want, if you want a lot of smaller buds and a shorter plant that allows you to grow more in a confined space then prune, if you want a stinking great big huge smelly frosty cola then dont, hehehe i know what i prefure................... peace .............. happy ............

[YELRAM]

alright man. dident know that lol thanks again

[YELRAM]

i have one more question also happy. i dont know if its tru but i heard that it is not healthy for the plant when you dont prune?!? also, what do you think is better (to prune or not to prune)? i mean in terms of getting the most bud out of your baby, and other ways that its better? thanks alot happy :)

peace~

[cannabis2]

pruning your plant would not make any difference to the plants health personally i grow from clones thin out weedy scrawny shoots to concentrate growth on the main stems

[the happy chappie]

hello yelram,
i personly dont prune unless i realy have to, normaly i get around a once on the top cola and about 1/2 ounce from the smaller lower sites if i am luckey, sometimes its a bit less around a ounce in total, trimming your plant down to size at the right time will give you a lot more budding sites but on the whole they are conciderably smaller, contrary to this all my grow this year has been cut back realy heavy and if things go well and they finish in time before jack frost sets in i shall have a wonderfull harvest one of my plants is banging on 7ft and that was cut back to about a foot tall , so a lot mate depends on your growing inviroment and the amount of light its getting, i will be starting my indoor stuff again soon, as there fitting me a new stairlift at least then i will be able to get back in my grow room, and grow me some winter stash.
peace mate.......................... happy ...............

[YELRAM]

k thanks alot for the info man

peace out always~

[NathanDigweed]

Nothing like keeping that female bush nice and trim, the same can go for your plants too

[hubblebubble]

supercropping

[hubblebubble]

on reflection this is no way to determine hw a plant should be grown each plant is different

[Ganj]

on reflection this is no way to determine hw a plant should be grown each plant is different

indeed.

[rodekyll]

I grow on a 28"x28" floorspace between the washing machine and the wall back in the laundry room. The room has a 7' ceiling, so it's short. By the time you factor in the height of the containers and the 400w mh fixture, there is only about 4' of growing height, or about 22 cubic feet of space. I believe that it is the surface area of your growing space that counts -- the part exposed to sunlight. I have about 780 square inches of surface to grow in, and I can grow 0.5g/in^2 (er -- a half gram per square inch) of BUD in this space. I can get four flower pots into the space, and therefore about four plants per crop. So I'm getting 100g/plant on the average, about 2.5 times a year. I don't know how this compares to you other folks, but without any fancy co2, hydroponics, music, or adding red lights for flowering, I think I'm doing OK.

The biggest trick to growing indoors is to find the right strain of plant for your chosen technique. All plants are different, and even identical clones will act different than their brethren down through their generations. Some plants thrive better in a small space than others. I've just found a cross (old seeds in the back of the seed stash) that's into it's 2nd generation and doing really well with the stressful method I grow by. I've been germinating seeds for about six grow cycles now, looking for the "right stuff" to continue cultivating.

What I've come up with is obviously a cross into purple haze from something. I expect my winter crop to have some purple in it due to the cool temps in the laundry room. This stuff is purple in the summer, too. It's not too leggy with it's nodes, bends nicely without breaking, kicks into flower as soon as it notices an increase in the dark period, and finishes quickly. Colas can be the size of banannas. It has a great smell on the vine, and a very hashy aftertaste. It's more of the body stone than the head stone . . . .

Why do I go on about this? It's because a good plant is hard to find. Once you've got it, you want to hang on to it as long as possible -- until you're bored with the taste or some disaster kills it off. But while you've got it, you modify your plant to your growing technique, and the plant modifies your technique to its own best benefit. Both you and the plant need to be flexible. Don't get in a dogma-bound ritual of habit and technique. Don't be afraid to try something interesting that you read or hear about. Don't be afraid to give up on a detail that isn't working for the plant. Remember -- it's supposed to be as enjoyable to gow this stuff as it is to consume it.

-- more later --

[rodekyll]

So -- to answer the specific question "how do you grow it?"

I like to use clones for all the obvious reasons. I will start a seed only when I need to. I do not keep a dedicated "mother plant" -- no room. I cut a minor, low branch from each of my growing plants just before I start increasing the dark period for flowering. These are first put into water to ensure no air has fouled up the wounded end of the cutting. Then they are dipped in ROOTONE/F (a rooting hormone) and set directly into MIRACLE GRO or BLACK GOLD potting soil in 4" pots. DON"T CHEAP OUT ON YOUR ROOTING MIX!!!! The cuttings are set at 24/0 under an 18" grow-spectrum flourescent tube that sits over a shelf behind the toilet. This isn't enough light to do much more than keep the little critters from dying, but it's plenty to get their roots going. Remember -- I cut these before I changed the light cycle on their mothers. It's still going to be a while before I can harvest, remove the crop, clean and repopulate the grow room. So I don't want these taking off too fast or they'll get out of hand.

When the clones show good leaf generation, and I can start seeing little root tendrils coming out the holes in the bottom of the pot, I move them into 12" pots. I put a couple inches of gravel in the bottom of each one and add good quality dirt. Don't discount the importance of your dirt! If you're wondering why your plants don't produce like the ones you read about and you're doing everything they say, you might want to try upgrading your soil.

Since the mother plants are still budding when I transplant, I put my four babies under a 250w mh hood next to the toilet (again, no room anywhere else) still at 24/7. Now, the plant can't really use more than 20hr light in a period, so the extra 4 hours are really wasted. Also, the plant likes a dark period, where it changes from co2 intake and o2 exhallation to o2 intake and co2 exhallation. Finally, the mh bulb likes to be rested a bit. So timing a light is better than constant light. I'm keeping it simple for this stage of growth though.

I feed them a non-organic fertilizer like MIRACID (high 2nd number). I don't use organic fertilizers. I've had too many problems with mold in my indoor garden. I underfertilize. A plant will thrive with less food than it needs. It will fry it's roots off with too much. Literally. I've washed the dirt off of root balls in the past where overfert has removed all but a few inches of major roots. You can imagine the production disaster . . . I ensure I won't overfert by putting about half into the watering container as the directions call for, and watering twice with fert, followed by a good drenching of plain water.

I water when I have to. Indoor crops are prone to bugs, mold, and malaise when the room becomes too humid or their roots become too soaked. I might water a new clone in a 4" pot once every two weeks -- no fert -- until it tells me it needs more. I might water a summer crop in 12' pots and the dark period just turned up on a daily basis. However, I won't fertilize more than twice a week. The plant will tell you when it's thirsty -- the lower leaves will droop and wilt. I watch for that behavior before I reach for the watering pot.

-- more to come --

[rodekyll]

The real "gardening" by my technique comes after the plants are moved in under the 400w mh hood in the laundry room. There I subject my little hunnies to stress and humiliation, and they reward me with enough yummy smoke to get through till the next crop comes in.

Now, 400w of mh light isn't a lot. Some folks will tell you to go with a 1kva MH or don't go at all. I've got the 1kva ballast, but I only operate it with the 400w. Why would I do that?

With the short space I grow in, I have to grow close to the light. A 1000w light will fry the plants from being too close, and will overheat the room. The effective lumens (law of inverse squares) of the 400w at 8" from the plant is close to the effective lumens of the 1000w at 18" from the plant. So for my purposes, the 400w fixture makes more sense ( or "sinse", if you prefer).

The light is suspended from a mini block-and-tackle kind of locking pully system. I can crank it up and down by pulling the rope it's on. The ballast is remote -- on the floor -- to keep that weight and heat away from the plants. The hood is a six-petal, shallow "daisy" design with a 28" diameter, so it just covers my 28" of floor space.

That's about as hi-tech as I get with the setup. I'll explain how I use it all later.

[rodekyll]

As I said earlier, I have a 28"sq surface area to grow in. That's not a lot of room. With 48' of useable height, It's short, too. But when I finish a crop, my plants are 6 feet long or more, and produce buds at about 100g/plant.

I accomplish this by growing on a series of horizontal trellises. At 24", 34" and 40" I have screwed cheap curtain rods to the walls. These are "u" sectioned rods that bend to right-angles at the ends. They come in two pieces that telescope into each other to adjust for length. By mounting them backwards on the wall, the open "slot" of the "u" channel is accessible. I have a crapload of bamboo sticks cut to length. I weave these into a horizontal grid of about 4", holding them in place with the curtain rods at the ends, and pipe cleaners to secure the intersections of the bamboo sticks. This grid gives me anchor points to spread and separate branches.

As the plants develop in their veg cycle, I prune all but the branches I want to produce bud. This may be as many as 10 major brances, or as few as two, depending on how the plant is developing. If the branch nodes are too close, I thin them, too. I want a managable mass of growth, but not chaos in my garden.

As the branches grow past the second level of curtain rods, I tie them to the grid, spacing them well. I cut off anything that is on the low side of the bent branch -- nodes, leaves, everything. I don't want to fold those things into the stuff growing below them. That causes mold due to trapped moisture, and congestion in the growing space. These plant parts don't help the growth or vigor of the plant, since they become tucked away from the light, and they aren't going to produce any significant bud. So they're expendable.

To get the branches down on the grid, I first let the plants dry out an extra day. I do my manipulations while they're a bit wilted, because the branches bend better without breaking. Some branches I will bend gently and tie by a sun leaf to the grid. Others I will "snap" or "kink" to get lying flat on the bamboo. It depends on what the branch needs.

Snapping a branch is scary when you first do it. As you bend it sharply, you can feel it snap in your fingers. This is not a bad thing. A week later the wounded point will have developed a "knuckle", and perhaps a new node will grow from that point as well. It does not damage or inhibit plant growth in any way. You don't need to snap every branch, but when you need to, be bold. The worst you will do is kill a branch while you get a "feel" for the method.

With the branches horizontal and the low-side vegetation cut off them, The remaining branches and the tip all begin growing vertical again. As the branches again pass the height of the second curtain rods, repeat the bending process, untill all the branches are evenly distributed over the surface of the grid, and are all growing at about the same height. You can get about 100 - 125 vertical branches all spaced out nicely on the grid. You can "adjust" the height of some shorter branches by loosening up the pipe cleaners holding them down. If you can't bend taller ones in anymore, feel free to prune them. The point though is that you want the top of your crop to be even and uniformly distributed over the surface of the growing area.

When a given branch is as long from tip to node as you want it, cut the end off the branch. This will force the side branches to grow better. I let my branches go clear across the trellis, then bend them left or right to continue growing. I cut the ends when they are getting out of hand and colliding too much with other branches.

My theory here is that the "growing tip" of the plant produces the most potent bud, and that the plant determines which is the "growing tip" by two things: One, by it's linear distance from the roots (overall length), and two, by it's closeness to the light source. If all of your branches end up equidistant from both the light and the roots, all will act as a growing tip. The plant responds by pumping "major bud" goodies into all the branches. Of course they can't all be of the same length and distance as everything else. But if I grow what looks from the top like a trimmed hedge or lawn, I am maximizing the branch's exposure to the light as well as their distance from the roots. That's the best I can do -- and it' certainly good enough.

When you have this hedge-looking effect as dense as you want it, and branches approaching (but not passing) the second set of curtain rods, begin increasing your dark period for "rapid growth" prior to budding. I start my plants in the grow room at 20/4. I increase the dark period to 16/6 just to get the plants growing faster. As they pass the second rods, I begin placing the bamboo sticks to form the second trellis.

I train the branches to go thru the grid at the points I choose. If I have any branches growing too fast at this point, I bend them down to let the others catch up, but I really want to keep them vertical from now on. Soon, anything below the second grid is blocked from receiving any significant light. When your "hedge" has become filled in (about two -three weeks), increase the dark period to 14/10. Buds will begin in a few days to a weeek, and from this point, veg growth has halted, and the flowering cycle is in force. The plants need less water now, and the fertilizer should be changed to drop the nitrogen ratio. I like SUPER BLOOM for this time. Don't be alarmed that what used to be two day's worth of water is now a week's worth. The plant doesn't need as much now. Don't overwater.

Finish the buds by increasing the dark period to 12/12. When they get nice and frosty, but a clear rather than mikly or brown frost, start incresing the dark period by 15-30 minutes/week. The buds will respond with final ripening when it hits the dark period it thinks is best.

[rodekyll]

I keep talking about increasing the dark period for bloom rather than decreasing the light period. This is because I believe that the plant is reponding to a longer night more than a shorter day (although both periods are important to the plant). I ran an experiment once with "ahemeral" light cycles. Hemeral = 24 hour day. Ahermeral = not 24-hour day. My experiment kept my light period at 24 hours, but increased the dark period. So instead of going 24/0, 20/4, 18/6, etc, I went 24/0, 24/4. 24/8, etc. The plants kicked into bud at about 24/8. They were confused little girls though, and after a couple of clone cycles through this experiment, I had a disproportionate number of hermies and males develop. Also, they seemed to want to continue veg growth along with the bud growth. I ended up with large, tight, over-leafy buds with poor thc development and a lot of clorophyl. They went throug the "Prepetual Motion Goodness Extractor" I described in another thread and made good hash though . . . .

[john maconha bullet]

hi there ,can you send us some ictures.thank you Maconha

[rodekyll]

Are you asking me for pictures?