Plants are HUGE - Help!

[popart]

I've got two ladies that I cloned, (Previous posts). I just got my grow tent and set it up yesterday, but I still have to hang the light and do the ventilation. The Girls are huge, they are about 5 ft tall, I'm wondering if when I tranfer them to the grow tent to flower, can I make a screen (like Hemp Goddess's scrog) and place it on top to help deter any more growth upwards?

 

[pcduck]

I think it is to late for that. Just bend them over and tie them down.

 

[StoneyBud]

I'll expand on pcduck's advice that is right on target. You've let your plants out-grow your grow area limitations. MJ plants almost always DOUBLE in height during flowering and can TRIPLE their height sometimes.

Here's a plan to resolve your problem that will cause you a LOT of heartache unless you follow it.

As soon as you've placed your plants into your flowering area, you need to *start* pulling them over. You can use any sort of weight, and tie some string to it. Then, GENTLY pull the top of a branch over until you feel a TINY BIT of resistance. IF YOU PULL TOO HARD you'll lose your branch because it'll snap off.

ONCE per/day, pull each branch over a little more. Your goal is to bend the branches back, ALMOST TO THE FLOOR AGAIN. This can be done in daily, SMALL INCREMENTS. Each day for about two weeks, you'll have to pull each branch over a little more until they are looping back towards the ground. As you turn them, you'll notice that they will adjust by again turning their tops toward the light. This is good.

Once you have them back to a MAXIMUM height that allows them to more than double without hitting your lights, take a break from turning them and watch them closely. You'll see that the uppermost part of each branch is now growing faster than any other part of the "old" tops.

This is because plants create a hormone for "top growth" that is directed ONLY to the tallest branch tips and is strongest on the tallest of all of them. That hormone makes the tallest branches grow faster than any of the others.

You can keep this hormone from selecting a single branch by keeping all of the tallest branches at the same height. This will cause the plant to evenly distribute that hormone among all of the tops, not just the one that is tallest.

BE WARNED THAT if you get in a hurry and disregard my warning to be very, very gentle while pulling these branches over, you MAY BREAK ONE or more and I promise you from experience that it will piss you off like you won't believe.

Good luck. You've now progressed a little further on your learning curve. You'll flower your next crop before it's too tall.

 

[popart]

Thanks so much -- that is great information....I will heed your advice to a T. Do you think a string with maybe a washer tied to it for weight?

 

[StoneyBud]

Thanks so much -- that is great information....I will heed your advice to a T. Do you think a string with maybe a washer tied to it for weight?

Tie a large loop in one end that can be moved on the plant without harming it.

I use fishing weights. They even have a place to tie the string. I use the three ounce ones. They work great.

Please, be very, very gentle and only move them a little each day.

 

[Rockster]

Or you could just crank them over as per the pic.

Just bend them till they kink,although it looks a little drastic they heal at the bend just fine.

I don't know how much headroom you have,as a 5 foot vegging plant in a tent is gonna run into big height problems even if you do train them.

It might be best to top the plants,remove a foot or so from total height but wouldn't recommend that without seeing the plant.

 

[Herm]

I would just cut a bunch of clones and put those in your tent but that is just me.

 

[IRISH]

by accident, i've done what Rockster suggests. a freak accident. it did great. i figured it would die in a week, and left it to it's own means. a week later, boom. it was kicking butt. so i let it go. and go it did...

this was 10 years ago. outdoors. a tree limb fell, to cause the damage.

i occasionally do this intentionally. . . if it's going to grow over my 6 foot fence, where it could possibly be noticed, she gets her head snapped. or (cranked)... ...

and , i've often done this to several branches, from the same plant. not all at once , mind you.

as Rockster says though, we'd have to see her to detail the crank further...

 

[Relentless999]

Bend the ***** but be careful not to break her

 

[StoneyBud]

Gotta tell ya...every bone in my being screams: "No, don't hurt her"

hehe

I know crushing the stems works, but it makes me hurt.

I know...boo hoo...hehe

 

[Locked]

Wow 5 feet and not even flowering yet...I wld just take clones and then veg them a bit and then flower them...I hve a good sized tent and if I put a 5 foot plant in there even bending her over it wld be a mess...

 

[Trafic]

Wow 5 feet and not even flowering yet...I wld just take clones and then veg them a bit and then flower them...I hve a good sized tent and if I put a 5 foot plant in there even bending her over it wld be a mess...

Yeah, hopefully it's a girl.

 

[White Owl]

If you bend or crank them over while they are FLOWERING,

will it slow down their growth or hinder the time schedule they are on?