LST (low stress training)

Training has been arround since Jesus grew herb... or at least Id like to think so.

Training is anymethod you use to control the growth of your plant. Topping is probably the most common form of training(for canabis). Topping is high stress training. Cutting the main grow stem off stresses the plant and causes it to redistribute its hormones to other grow tips resulting in the multi cola plants.

This method is low stress training. There is little if any recovery time because you are not damaging the budsites of your plants. When you tie the top grow tip below the rest of the plant the plant has the same reaction as topping... oh shit something is wrong effect... and the axial growth tips are redistributed. The key to LST is to create a horizontal plane of buds so that they all get the same light and grow at the same rate. You end up with a bush of many colas instead of the traditional christmas tree bud plant with one main cola.

There are many ways to LST using steaks, chicken wire screens are common, many other I probably dont know about.

This one is easy though.

First step is to get a large pot the final size you want your pot and put a bunch of screws arround the lip of the pot I used 8 screws. These are the tie points for your training

pic 1

step 2 pic 2

This next step is CRITICAL!!! I cannot stress this enough. This is the countertie. It is used so that the bottom part of your plants stem stays straight and in place. Without a countertie you are likely to uproot your plant because training usually occurs when there about a month or so old and not extremely established.

Its simple just tie a piece of twine from one of the screws arround the bottom of your plant. Make sure that your twine is tied above the first leaf pair so that it doesnt slip all the way down to the bottom of the plant.

step 3 pic 3

Thats simple right? You can see it kinda pulled my plant to one side. I dotn think thats necessary i just got a little bit carried away and tied it real tight.

The next step is to tie the main growth tip down so that the plant will release hormones that cause all the other growth tips to start functioning like the main cola.

I use a simple overhand knot and tie my twine UNDER the highest set of developed leafs. Once again you need to make sure that the knot doesnt slip off of your plant. Then i tie a slip knot arround a screw. I use slip knots so i can just tighten the string as the plant grows. You can retie it everytime but im super lazy and that wouldnt cut it.

pic 4

heres a pic that shows how the stem will bend when you train it. I tie it pretty tight and i havent broken a stem yet but if your worried about that just tie it lose at first and slowly tighten it. The plant will adapt.

pic 5

That plant sure is ugly! lol it has all kinds of mysterious spots dying on it but whatever i got a couple further along that are good so Im not concerned with it....
Speaking of plants that are further along....
This is my second oldest plant that was LST'd about 4-5 days ago. You can see along the main stem that the growth tips are starting to get real developed. I move the leaves away from these growth tips so they get a lot of light and are happy.
They will soon start growing like crazy and you will start to train them to make your plant into a full on bush.

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Yes.. this has been copy and pasted. Thanks to DUBMAN who made this tutorial on planetskunk.