Indoor Help me LST my bushy autoflowers, first time grow week4 start

[ryanisgrowing]

Hey all, I'm growing a couple GG autos in coco, they're just starting their 4th week on day 28. This is my first grow and I'm looking to LST and maybe top or fim in the future. I'm wondering if its too early or too late or perfect time to start LST? The stems are pretty strong now but still bendable(with some straining). I've done research on LST and watched videos, but most of them the plants are way taller and skinnier, Its hard for me to see where I need to start pulling down first. My plants are 6" tall. Was also wondering if someone could tell me when I should be thinking about topping or fimming? Kinda worried about doing it on my first grow but will give it a try. Will post pictures and any info you need.


Medium: Coco coir/perlite : 80/20
Light: mars hydro 600w, 19.5" above canopy.(wondering I should raise the lights)
Light cycle: 20/4
Water: RO
Nutrient line: Canna coco + calmag.(not using cannazym). Last feed at 500ppm
Temp/RH: 81f/65% avg

Please let me know if I'm missing any information. Hope I can get some help with this, thanks all

 

[bushmasterar15]

Most top or fim at the 4th-5th node. As far as LST I've been starting mine around day 20-30 depending on growth. I use clothespins.

 

[ryanisgrowing]

your plants are looking great! What causes the bottom leaves to yellow? Mine have the same. Thats a really interesting way to LST, I've never seen it before, the clothespins just weight them down? That's genius. Unfortunately mine are too compact for me to even pull a stem down without messing up the new nodes. How should I go about this, raise the light and let them stretch a little? Do you think they're ready to top or fim yet? One is recovering from a Ca deficiency, also just flushed yesterday because there was too much salt buildup.

 

[bushmasterar15]

That was from my previous grow and the yellow leaves were on a plant that was grown in a 18oz solo cup after I started giving more nutrients everything was looking better. Yes, the clothespins add weight and keeps it spread open. You might have to stack clothespins or glue on some extra weight. You can see how I clipped on more pins to add weight in the extra pics.
If you can move up your light to about 30" and let them stretch toward the light. It's hard to see the yellowing your talking about in your pics. It could be a calmag deficiency starting but if you could take some other pics in natural light.

 

[ryanisgrowing]

I’m dumb, idk why I sent pics of them in LED light, I took some natural light photos. See I planted straight into 3 gal pots after germination. Bad idea, it’s caused nothing but delay and not to mention I was literally pouring my money down the drain. Next time I’m definitely planting in solo cups till the leaves reach the rim. And dude your grows look fucking lit, if my plants turn out half as good as yours I’d be a happy man. Here’s a couple pics, I was only able to snap a couple single yellow leaves, just picture them like this but on basically all it’s first leaves on the on the bottom. Since they were so compact it was actually hard to take the shots. Oh and I had a question about the plant to the right, it’s new leaves are a lot thinner in width than the 1st plant, and they used to kind of fold a little bit when first coming out, what’s the cause of this? Sorry about some pics showing up sideways, don’t know why his happens

 

[bushmasterar15]

I’m dumb, idk why I sent pics of them in LED light, I took some natural light photos. See I planted straight into 3 gal pots after germination. Bad idea, it’s caused nothing but delay and not to mention I was literally pouring my money down the drain. Next time I’m definitely planting in solo cups till the leaves reach the rim. And dude your grows look fucking lit, if my plants turn out half as good as yours I’d be a happy man. Here’s a couple pics, I was only able to snap a couple single yellow leaves, just picture them like this but on basically all it’s first leaves on the on the bottom. Since they were so compact it was actually hard to take the shots. Oh and I had a question about the plant to the right, it’s new leaves are a lot thinner in width than the 1st plant, and they used to kind of fold a little bit when first coming out, what’s the cause of this? Sorry about some pics showing up sideways, don’t know why his happens

Thanks, but I can't take all the credit on my grows as if it wasn't for the help from members here I'd still be growing some bonsai plants. I plant direct to final pots after germination. The big thing is as they are small and just starting out you run into overwatering which can cause stunting of the plants. That's what happened my first time around. I wouldn't really worry about the first set of leaves turning yellow as the rest of the plant looks good. The leaves do have some curl to them which can be light stress as your temp seems ok. Raise your light up and give them a few days.

 

[ryanisgrowing]

Do you grow in coco or soil? I was advised against planting directly into coco after germination cause u gotta water to runoff everytime in order to flush out the salts. I treated it like soil the 2 1/2 weeks and only watered around the plant. Now when I water to runoff and check the ppm, it shoots up to 1900ppm. If I don't flush until my output values are the same as input then when the roots grow to the bottom of the pot sometime around the start of flowering I'm afraid gonna have a ton of nutrient problems. I just raised my light from 20" to 24", hopefully this will promote some stretching aswell. Thanks again for the help

 

[ryanisgrowing]

Also forgot to mention, I can't raise lights to 30", Used to be able to get it to 28in but with this new carbon filter 24-26" is the best I can do. Hope thats still okay

 

[bushmasterar15]

I'm growing in straight coco with autopots. For the first 20 days I'm handwatering and no runoff, then it get's put on the reservoir so it always has available nutrients as it needs it. I don't flush either.

 

[lunarman]

Hey all, I'm growing a couple GG autos in coco, they're just starting their 4th week on day 28. This is my first grow and I'm looking to LST and maybe top or fim in the future. I'm wondering if its too early or too late or perfect time to start LST? The stems are pretty strong now but still bendable(with some straining). I've done research on LST and watched videos, but most of them the plants are way taller and skinnier, Its hard for me to see where I need to start pulling down first. My plants are 6" tall. Was also wondering if someone could tell me when I should be thinking about topping or fimming? Kinda worried about doing it on my first grow but will give it a try. Will post pictures and any info you need.


Medium: Coco coir/perlite : 80/20
Light: mars hydro 600w, 19.5" above canopy.(wondering I should raise the lights)
Light cycle: 20/4
Water: RO
Nutrient line: Canna coco + calmag.(not using cannazym). Last feed at 500ppm
Temp/RH: 81f/65% avg

Please let me know if I'm missing any information. Hope I can get some help with this, thanks all

I strongly recommend do not top/fim. I know people say it does not matter with autos, but I've done both and there is a definite slow down when I do it. Maybe when I get more experience I'll go back to topping. But for a relative newbie growing autos, I recommend do not top. You don't even need to because LST gets you the same results anyway. So why the heck top?

At day 28 you should be OK to start LST. I recommend just doing a simple, basic bend of the main stem at this stage. That will get the lower bud sites to start to become colas and give you a more even top/canopy which means you get better and more buds. All you need to do is pull a pot up to a work bench and anchor down the main stem with a tie tied to one side of the pot. Put the tie near the base of the stem, and leave it room to expand. Then this next part is key. You don't want to split off branches when you do this. So securing a tie near the top of the main stem and bending from there where there is more flex is what you want to do. This tie would be opposite to the anchor tie.

Have a look at this guide. And in particular Idea 3. https://www.growweedeasy.com/simple-cannabis-plant-training-guide

Also check out this guide from @A-Train
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/low-stress-training-guide-descriptions-and-pictures.57314/

Once you do this LST main stem bend your are almost done. You could leave it at that and just tuck leaves every day and do the odd pruning to get rid of inside center lower larf.

I also stole @bushmasterar15 's idea of using clothes pins to bend some branches. I have plastic pins with a clip on them that I can attache lead fishing weight to.

You could also do more LST on top of the main stem bend. Like SCROGs. Or get grow thru grids like this and you can do a SCROG without using a big net in your tent. These grids let you do easy leaf tucking and some pseudo scrogging to get a nice level canopy of equal buds. you can see how some of the tops are almost horizontal in this picture because they were just bent gently and tucked under the wire of the grid.