Whether you’re growing indoors or outdoors, you can boost your cannabis yield by using plant training. Trained plants efficiently use grow space and don’t waste precious light.
There are many different types of plant training, including LST, defoliation, and topping (ScrOG). All of these techniques have their own effects on your cannabis yields.
Sea of Green
Sea of Green (SOG) is an indoor growing technique developed in Holland and a popular style of grow worldwide. Its main appeal is that it reduces vegetative growth time and allows you to completely fill a small space with a large harvest of flower heads in a short period.
The method involves growing many smaller plants close together and fitting them into a single grow room, rather than focusing on a few larger plants that are likely to take more time to reach their full potential. This is a highly efficient way of maximizing yields, as the many small colas that are created add up to a much higher harvest than if you were to let a few larger plants reach their peak over several months.
Although the method is incredibly efficient, it can be quite labor intensive, and you might have to spend extra time on watering if you don’t have modern irrigation technology. It also requires a high level of attention to detail and pruning, but it can pay off in terms of yield.
It’s also important to ensure optimised PPFD light levels, temperature and humidity control and careful nutrient management to produce a consistent and uniform crop of blooms. Having separate veg and bloom grow rooms can simplify this process, and a good quality strain with low leaf-to-calyx ratios should help you cut down on the amount of work required.
Despite the challenges, Sea of Green is an extremely effective method of indoor growing and is often preferred by commercial growers who want to maximize their production in the shortest possible time. The method is a little complicated to get started with, but with a little practice and patience, you can make the most of it and start reaping its rewards.
Low Stress Training
Low Stress Training (LST) is a gentle technique that helps cannabis plants gain more control over their height and shape. This method, which is used by both indoor and outdoor growers, increases yields without stressing the plant.
The main effect of LST is to flatten the canopy, allowing all lower branches and buds to receive an equal amount of light energy. The result is an optimum distribution of photosynthesis, which can increase yields significantly when done well.
This type of training is best applied when the cannabis plant is still in the vegetative phase, as it allows you to keep a firm hold on your crop without damaging or disrupting its growth. It’s important to be consistent with your training regime, too.
To start with, you’ll need to make a plan for the training process. For example, if you want to train a single stem or branch, you’ll need to determine where it will go and how to fix it.
Once you’ve got an idea of where you want to apply the training, gather your equipment and get started. You’ll need flexible ties with a wire interior and fishing weights or stakes to secure them in place.
If you’re going to train larger branches, distribute the weight amongst several ties and don’t put too much pressure on one point.
After you’ve finished tying and bending the branches, it’s important to monitor their progress. You’ll likely see a slight slowdown in growth, but this usually only lasts for a few days.
Once the plants have recovered, they’ll begin reorienting themselves toward the light and revert back to their normal apical dominance. However, you can always repeat the training process if you want to achieve further improvements in your harvest.
Topping
Cannabis plants can have a very distinctive growth pattern when left to their own devices. In most cases they grow tall and thin toward their light source, forming what is called a ‘Christmas tree’ shape.
Thankfully, there are plant training methods that can be used to control the heights of these plants. Topping, or High Stress Training (HST) is one of the most popular of these techniques and can be used by both indoor and outdoor growers.
The main benefit of Topping is the reshaping of the plant to promote bushier growth and increase yield. As well as this, topping can also help improve light distribution across more bud sites.
However, there are many factors to consider when choosing a plant training technique to suit your grow. For starters, you need to choose the right time for the technique to be applied.
For example, if you’re topping your plant during the flowering phase of its life cycle, this will put unnecessary stress on it and it may not produce as much yield as you could achieve if you waited to do it when the plant was at its healthiest.
Topping is usually performed when the plant has grown to at least three or four healthy nodes, but ideally more. Then, the plant is robust enough to withstand the stress and can recover from it quickly.
Topping is a fairly straightforward process, although it can be tricky to do effectively without good technique and equipment. You’ll need a sharp razor blade or pair of scissors; these should be disinfected and sterilised before use. You’ll also need some plant twisty ties or other securing material to hold the branches in place.
FIM
The most common type of training is “topping,” or pruning the tip of the plant’s main stem. This is a high stress training technique, or HST, that many growers use to improve their yields and control the vertical height of their cannabis plants.
Topping involves removing a small section of the top growth, usually around 75% of it, to encourage more lateral growth on the plant’s main stem. This can help control the height of the cannabis plant, as well as encouraging a larger number of buds to form on it.
However, topping has its limitations and should be done with care. It can cause damage to the main stem, so it’s important that you have a pair of pruning scissors with sharp blades.
Another type of HST that has become increasingly popular is ‘fimming,’ or pinching off a plant’s growing tip. This technique is slightly less effective at reducing stretching than topping, but it can still give rise to four or more new top colas.
Using fimming can be a good way to increase your yield and reduce the number of plants needed for cultivation, but it’s important that you perform it properly. It can also increase the risk of mold if you don’t have adequate ventilation to keep bacteria from breeding in your grow room.
Topping and fimming should be performed during the vegetative phase, before the cannabis plant begins flowering. Performing them too early (in the seedling stage) can cause shock to the plant, which can result in stunted growth or even death.
Manifolding
There are many different cannabis grow techniques that can be used to train plants and maximize their yields. The most common techniques are Low Stress Training (LST) and High Stress Training (HST).
LST is a type of plant training that involves gently bending and tying down branches to shape the plant without causing damage. This method is often used by growers who prioritize the health of their plants over the production of a high yield.
HST, on the other hand, is a more aggressive form of training that involves cutting and bending branches to manipulate the plant’s growth. It can be used to increase the size and density of a plant, but it may also cause damage.
Topping is a cannabis growing technique that over 90% of legal commercial growers use to boost their yields. This is done by removing the main growing tip of the plant and allowing all the auxins it was producing to be distributed throughout the side branches instead.
Aside from the effects that topping has on cannabis growth, it also helps to improve air circulation around the plants. This is important for reducing the risk of mold and diseases, as well as increasing the efficiency with which the plant can absorb light.
Another great benefit of topping is that it can increase the number of colas a plant produces. This is because the top colas will produce more growth hormones than the side colas, and this can help the plant to fill up the canopy with as much bud as possible.
Another type of plant training that can increase the number of colas produced by your cannabis plant is Manifolding. This is a technique that combines several different types of plant training into one. It is a good option for growers who want to make sure that their marijuana plant has plenty of bud sites but don’t necessarily have the time or money to do multiple types of training.
