LSTTT: Low Stress Twisty Tie Training

Here's a temporary DWC set up I've got going while I'm trying to get a little grow room remodeling done. I'm going to LST these and see if I can't get a bunch of bud sites to put in my stadium screen. I put them in the system 13 days ago. I can't figure out if I like topping and FIMing better than LST. These plants are from some severely abused and ignored clones. I can't believe they turned out as good as they did.

I thought some people might be interested in seeing a couple before and after tie-down pictures. I keep seeing people tying string around things to keep branches down, but I think this twisty-tie method is easier and faster. I've tried string, and tried taping it to things, but often the tape comes loose. Whenever I get a twisty tie I throw it in a drawer. They are very handy for all kinds of things, especially LST. I also bought a big roll of the stuff for $2, but can't find the damn thing now. Oh well the individual ones work just fine. If you need a piece longer than you have, you just twist two together.

You just make a little U-shape at the bottom and top of the twisty, and hook it on a branch and the lip of a pot or whatever is handy. When you want to make the branch go lower, just make the bend(s) for the U-shape a little closer to the center of the twisty. If you have to pull fairly hard on a branch, the U won't do, so you make a loop around the branch.

I'll let these recover for a couple days then pull them down a little more.

And the after pictures:

can you LST a clone right away or should you let the roots set up? kinda random but they looks like clones :rastasmoke:

I use twist ties and bamboo skewers from the Dollar store. Cheap and easy! My plants are only 6 to 12 inches high but they fill the 18 x 24 tubs. - Granny:hippy:

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Originally Posted by Hennessy1414

can you LST a clone right away or should you let the roots set up? kinda random but they looks like clones :rastasmoke:

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Any time you need to stress a plant, you should try and do it in stages. Too much at one time may just make the plant decide to give up. So taking a clone out of the cloner is one stress, and LST is another, so they should be done at different times. Also it would be pretty hard to pull the branches every which way when the plants don't have a hold of some medium with their roots. If you start with bigger than normal clones I suppose you could put them in your system, and pull the branches around at the same time, but I would not recommend it. It's even a good idea to LST in stages instead of all at once. Once they recover from being pulled apart a little, then I LST again, pulling them down farther where they will stay. From there it's pretty much training every day.

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Originally Posted by Storm Crow

I use twist ties and bamboo skewers from the Dollar store. Cheap and easy! My plants are only 6 to 12 inches high but they fill the 18 x 24 tubs. - Granny:hippy:

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Wow. Seems like a lot of foliage.

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Originally Posted by Opie Yutts

Any time you need to stress a plant, you should try and do it in stages. Too much at one time may just make the plant decide to give up. So taking a clone out of the cloner is one stress, and LST is another, so they should be done at different times. Also it would be pretty hard to pull the branches every which way when the plants don't have a hold of some medium with their roots. If you start with bigger than normal clones I suppose you could put them in your system, and pull the branches around at the same time, but I would not recommend it. It's even a good idea to LST in stages instead of all at once. Once they recover from being pulled apart a little, then I LST again, pulling them down farther where they will stay. From there it's pretty much training every day.

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when do you take clone cuttings fro ma mother plant? 2 weeks before harvest or what? :rastasmoke:

That's about right. However, my plants in the flower section are done in 2 months, while they only need 5 or 6 weeks in the veg section. To keep the SOG system going, I don't have to put rooted clones into veg as soon as I take the grown ones out. So sometimes I take cuttings a couple weeks before harvest, but sometimes I wait until after harvest by a few days. I'm allowing 2 weeks for clones to get rooted, but sometimes they are ready before that. Depends on several things, especially what part of the mother I took the cuttings from.

I just burnt holes int he sides of the bucket the plant lives in and use some soft string to tie her up, and i must say i LOVE the lst method. I cant wait for my second grow im gonna take a shot at F.I.M.ing early on and lst after the F.I.M. takes hold. Heres a the most recent picture of my girl...she really likes being tied up ^^.


edit: hmmm website or my internet doesn't seem happy about pictures right now so perhaps ill try again later.

Gundari, does the picture fit into the specifications for uploading? If you click "go advanced" then "manage attachments" a window will open where you upload your pictures, and it will tell you the limitations for uploading stuff. The picture isn't like 3 Meg or something?

aye it fits, ive put the pictures up on or two other threads. I think its my internets...they've been bitchy today.

here they are ^^

Opie,
As if Hydro didn't produce enough all alone, Your gonna supersize it with LSTing. :jointsmile:
Thats gonna be pretty wild. I can't wait to see more.

this will be an interesting grow to keep an eye on...

Opies? yea he always has kick ass grows and makes me jealous!

well....mine are 29 inches tall cuz i have insufficient lighting!!!! taller=better=i win!!! nananabooboo :p :p

makes me wonder what the collective height of mine would be by now if i hadnt lst'd it.

edit: either way...still so jealous of opie :-p

Gundari, you've got some nice looking weed there too. No need to be jealous of me. I'm just like most people. I just kinda make it up as I go along, and try to gain a little knowledge from the experiences.

Strom Crow, any chance I could get a picture showing how you use those skewers? Do you just stick em in soil and twisty branches to them?

Everyone, thanks so much for the compliments. Since there seems to be an interest, I'll try to posts some photos as the grow progresses.

aye she's not bad for a first grow, but I love looking over your grow threads. They are so cool ^^.

The "before" 2nd tie down photos first, the second two are of the same plant, which is the biggest of the bunch. The one in the upper right has already been tied down for the second time.

And the "after" 2nd tie down photos. The 3rd one is a close up of the biggest plant, which is the same plant as in the "before" close ups. A bunch of bud sites a coming. The last photo is a jerry-rigged light, of which I put one set on each side of the grow to supplement the 600W HPS. I thought it needed some blue. They are 23 W each and 5500K daylight bulbs, for a total of 400W equivalent additional. Should help. I know tinfoil sucks, but it's better than letting the bulbs stick out past the reflector, and I wasn't going to spend any more money on this grow.

As you can see I experimented with taping down branches with foil duct tape, but I have my doubts as to how well the tape will stick once it heats up in there tomorrow morning.

And does anybody know what in the world those cloud-like ghosty things are in some of my photos? I see them in some other peoples' photos too.

Well in my opinoin the anwser is obvious. Your plants are haunted, as are theirs.

i use "sturdy-twists" its the same as twist ties but comes in a 50 meter roll and only costs a couple bucks. its great for LST since you can make the ties any length and are easy to put on and remove. check my grow log to see what i mean.

those ghostly orbs are most likely dust refracting light during the camera flash or cfls, guess i been watching to much ghost hunters to know that lol.

Aww. you ruined my theory of past plants spirits protecting new plants.
Thats great lookin opie. Is that a bunch of seedlings on the side?
Also opie, Your gonna use a stadium scrog? I used that my first real grow. This time I tried flat and I can say, I see a huge difference(for the better).

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Originally Posted by Zcomp

Aww. you ruined my theory of past plants spirits protecting new plants.
Thats great lookin opie. Is that a bunch of seedlings on the side?
Also opie, Your gonna use a stadium scrog? I used that my first real grow. This time I tried flat and I can say, I see a huge difference(for the better).

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Yeah, I was hoping they were some friendly ghosts too. Yeah, going to use a stadium, since the shape of the HPS light intensity is in a ball. I've found that with a flat screen and HID lighting, the ones in the middle grow much faster, and I end up with a Christmas tree shaped grow, with the tip of the tree pointing at the light. Also with a stadium screen you get a little more surface area. (?15% more?) Why do you like a flat one better? What is the huge difference? Oh wait, if I remember correctly you are using a homemade reflector with several CFLs. I'm not sure, but I'm betting a flat screen might be better for this.

id naturally assume that past plant spirits would be upset at not having experienced pollination and having been axe-murdered by you....

Your right on that one opie. I have that huge CFL setup(though I just added some HPS). ahh thats right, the reason I stopped stadium was because the middle buds(being at the lowest elevation) would not grow large even though they were the closest to the light. Now I've done a sorta flat LST job(no screen at all). I found it too hard to keep repositioning the screen(all that bud shaking).
And I've noticed marked improvement(exact #'s coming soon) in over all bud size variation. I noticed that even though some buds were farther from the source, they grew larger in-spite of closer-but-lower buds.

All this talk of Scrog makes me want to do a Scrog on my next grow.

I'm telling you Gundari, SCROG is the way to go. Everybody should at least experiment with it once or twice to see if they can adapt it to their growing methods, and dare I say, maybe even consider rearrange their growing style to accommodate a couple screens.

Well I think I'm really digging this LST thing. I've done LST mixed with topping before, but this is my first LST only grow. Now don't hold me to this. I'm not saying that I absolutely will not do a little chopping at some point. I am not completely sure at this point, but I'm thinking that LST gets results a little faster and better than topping. It seems like as long as I keep the top of the main stem down below the others, big healthy nodes keep popping up all over the place. I recently counted at least 32 nice usable nodes on the biggest plant, and a bunch of others that will probably end up getting pinched off in the near future. Every day I have been bending fan leaves out of the way and tyeing stuff down as needed. This takes more time by far than topping, but I think it might be worth it. Still forming opinions.

I would be very appreciative of any ideas or suggestions people may have. I have never grown quite like this before. Last night while laying in bed, it struck me that I may have screwed up already. I am laying everything flat from the beginning, and getting nodes randomly popping up all over the place. The way things are going, it's going to be a jungle of stems in there. The fan leaves and branches will be trimmed off of the first 8 inches or so, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get my hands all the way to the back of the grow. I'm thinking that perhaps I should have let the plants grow vertically about 8 inches before tyeing the branches down, then I would have 9 stems to deal with instead of 100. I think I will continue to grow like this until everything is filled in nicely, then train the plants to grow up in rows of stems. Maybe I'll have 4 or 5 slots that allow me to reach all the way to the back.

Anyone? Buhler? Did I already screw myself over? Should I start the plants going vertically immediately? Should I toss that one in the lower left that isn't growing very well? And why are those sheep up in the trees?

Huh what? Oh wait a minute I just had a thought. I'm slowly seeing 2 screens merging into my grow somehow. Who brought that up? Image Reaper? Pharmacan? Sorry if props aint proper, little stoney in here at the moment. Can somebody please draw me a picture of how this can work?

Damn, this is a far cry from what I initially set out to do with this grow. I was planning on flowering almost immediately and see what would happen. I've always vegged 1 or 2 months.

Yea I've been thinking my next grow that I was going to try and mix a little bit of FIMing in with LST, and if that goes well initially (and im not able to see how it wouldn't. Just FIM them when they are about 6 nodes tall and from there start training however many top shoots i get to lay flat.) i may figure out how to fabricate some kinda screen that the pots sit in and scrog it out. My biggest hurdle to get over is that I'm growing in a rubber made setup so that could interfere with the care of the plant (since it will be difficult to move).

Look opie, The only downside to LSTing is the unlimited possibility's. I too spent many nights awake contemplating the best move! In the end, You'll be making adjustments and even pruning unnecessary nodes all the way till day 45 of flower(at which point your stems become too brittle). Don't over think this. The beautiful thing about LST is the unlimited possibility's. Stop vegging when you want to. With LSTing you could infinitely improve your arrangement. If your dead set on perfection you'll be LST'ing forever. One plant could literally be trained to your entire grow area.
Then don't forget that your girls will be multiplying in size and nodes(thanks to LSTing) through flowering.

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Originally Posted by Gundari

My biggest hurdle to get over is that I'm growing in a rubber made setup so that could interfere with the care of the plant (since it will be difficult to move).

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Why do you move it? Once my grow starts, my plants don't move, except when I'm doing scrog, from the veg chamber to the bud chamber.

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Originally Posted by Zcomp

Look opie, The only downside to LSTing is the unlimited possibility's. I too spent many nights awake contemplating the best move! In the end, You'll be making adjustments and even pruning unnecessary nodes all the way till day 45 of flower(at which point your stems become too brittle). Don't over think this. The beautiful thing about LST is the unlimited possibility's. Stop vegging when you want to. With LSTing you could infinitely improve your arrangement. If your dead set on perfection you'll be LST'ing forever. One plant could literally be trained to your entire grow area.
Then don't forget that your girls will be multiplying in size and nodes(thanks to LSTing) through flowering.

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Thanks, that helps calm me down a bit.

Well there I was getting ready to put nutrients into my reservoir. I set the 6.8 PH nutrients for soil down near the 5.5 PH nutrients for hydro. I took a PH reading of the hydro stuff just to make sure it hadn't drifted much since two days ago, then I poured myself a half gallon of it into my watering pitcher and put it in the res. Do you see where I'm going here? Then I took a bong rip. Then I poured myself a half gallon of soil nutrients and poured it in the hydro res. Then I realized what I did. In my defense, the two kitty litter buckets are almost identical, but I know, I'm such a dork.

I think everything will be OK. Just wanted to update you on the grow. It's just about finished flushing now with 3 gallons of PHd water. A full reservoir is 2 gallons for this set up. I might see a little stress because I know from experience that plants don't like PH fluctuations, even if they are within the tolerable ranges. I think 6.8 is outside of those ranges. We'll see. Please say a little prayer for my plants tonight.

Well to get a good look at the plant and train it further its worlds easier to just pull the bucket its growing it out of the bottom tub and set it up on a table. Allows me to get a good look at the plant and makes training easier.

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Originally Posted by Gundari

Well to get a good look at the plant and train it further its worlds easier to just pull the bucket its growing it out of the bottom tub and set it up on a table. Allows me to get a good look at the plant and makes training easier.

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Well having ruptured disks and all, I designed my grow so that my plants end up about chest high, so I don't have to bend over to train them. This temporary one isn't working out quite like that since it's in the wrong position, but oh well, ruptured disks need exercise too I guess. I don't like taking my plants out and setting them on anything. I guess mostly because I'm afraid of crushing roots or getting nutrient solution all over. Different tokes for different folks.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to divulge the findings on the foil duct tape experiment: As expected it was a waste of time. Once the heat got ahold of the adhesive, and my superstrong plants got to pushing on the tape, they popped right up. Lesson learned. For this particular brand and model of foil duct tape, it doesn't work real well to hold branches down if 600 watts of HPS is near by. Sorry, not digging it out at this time to tell you what kind it is, but I know there is foil duct tape that is about twice as expensive, and it's rated for hot situations. I'll bet this might work, and why didn't I buy a bunch of that instead of the cheap stuff?

Well, the last 4 out of 5 posts were started with "well", inclusive.

Who cares, you dipstick?

Huh, who said that?