So over the past few months I have had numerous inquiries about exactly how I do my LST, what I use, when to start.... All the key points....I know there's multiple different threads here on different styles of training but this is what has worked for me and been the most simple and least stressful on the girls. My technique can be used with plastic or if your willing to cut small holes in your fabric pot lips it can work with those as well.
Well id make a tools list for what's needed but honestly it's pretty simple, I hit the local craft store and buy myself a pack of 100 pipe cleaners. Lol. Easily reusable, cheap, safe on the girls, flexible.... And did I mention cheap and reusable? Lol one not long enough? Tie two together and undo them later! Lol.
So let's get into the guide. Should be fairly simple and quick....
First things first I suppose is when to start training. This I've found can't really be expressed by age or nodes for me but only by size of the plant. So for me the best time to start Is when I look at my plant and can see that if I bend her over from the second node from the top, she would be almost equal to where the edges of my pot would be if they were taller. Hope that makes sense.... So for a second visual on that imagine your pot only half full of dirt so your plant is basically buried in the pot.... If you can bend the top over and she could touch the imaginary sides then your golden to start training. You can start earlier but I find that to be a good point of establishment in the plants life to begin LST.
Disclaimer: if your having trouble using your imagination.... Revert to beginning of thread, smoke one and restart. Continue those steps until your imagination gets it, there won't be pictures for about a week then I'll do pics or live video training session....
Ok so now we know when.... Let's talk about how..... So you've decided she's ready.... First things first you need to decide which direction you are going to be pulling the top over, I like to get it between two nice side branches or a nice open area I bend it into. Lots of plants have a square or diamond shape so shoot for a spot on the walls of those shapes. Lol so when you pull your top over your not covering much or any under growth, as the point of LST is opening up your girls for better light penetration...
So now you've decided which way your going to train the main stalk over.... This is only done once so make sure your happy with your decision. Once you've decided, I want you to look one last time... Once you've decided which direction your training to you need to create an anchor at the base of the stalk where it meets the soil. In three gallon pots you can fold your pipe cleaner in half, place the stalk in the V and tie both looss ends off to the lip of the bucket. With the pipe cleaners you just bend them around and under the lip and they stay no problem. If using five gallon pots you will need to make a candy cane shape with your pipe cleaner, hook the base of the stalk, twist the pipe cleaner together and then attach the loose end to the edge of the pot, they are not long enough to just fold in half and reach the edge of the five gallon.
When you place your anchor make sure your applying some pressure to her when you tie off because you are going to be pulling from the top in the opposite direction and you can easily up root and damage your girls so make sure you don't just secure the stalk but put some pressure on it so when you pull over the top the plant sits right where it is before you touched it, no up rooting. The anchor step is very important.
Now that you have your anchor we are ready to go! Make a hook out of a pipe cleaner but don't leave it so rounded.... Pinch it so it's some what crimped for the stalk to sit in nicely. Go to the second node down from the top and slowly pull it over to almost a 90 degree angle and tie it off to the edge of the pot.
At this point each plant is different and situation is different. If you have some nice side branching you can tie that off as well but the main focus is getting the top tied back. The top off the cannabis plant has one goal. Be the biggest most beautiful thing and stand tall to collect male pollen. When you tie the cola back it releases hormones in the plant making it freak out and try to get other colas further up to increase chances of reproduction. So we battle.... After the first training it's basically every other day, or every third day, depending on your growth, that you will go in and pull back any tops that are trying to gain dominance. You will notice the main cola you tied down is probably standing at this point again and may have even stretched a new node in there.... Maybe she's looking like she wants to be dominant again? Well as long as a new node has formed and recovery has went good you can remove your first pipe cleaner very easily and move it up one node from the original spot and continue to keep that top trained back. I train for about two weeks and let her rip. I don't remove the pipe cleaners until harvest usually but I'm going to be removing them from now because I believe once in flower the branches are pretty stable and as I wrote this I wonder to myself if holding the branches back during flower takes away from my budding energy trying to fight the pipe cleaners? Hmmm anyway....
The goal is to keep the canopy level while also pulling the main branches out from the plant and getting them more level so the inside and small under stuff gets light and takes off
Look at your plants sideways and imagine if not only the colas but every side branch pointed up in the same direction, every bud four nodes deep on a plant can be as big as the second one down if given the right light.
Anyway to be honest I'm pretty baked and I'm sure I forgot some things so fire away on the questions guys?!! Maybe if this attracts enough attention and is helpful we can get it stickied....
Compliments of @Green Goblin on the idea of using industrial sized chip bag/paper clips to attach your pipe cleaners to the edges of your fabric pots.
Compliments of @dcat0921 on the idea of using safety pins to clip to the edge of your fabric pots and tie off to.
Thanks for participating and sharing your ideas/ method. Max rep for both of you guys
Well id make a tools list for what's needed but honestly it's pretty simple, I hit the local craft store and buy myself a pack of 100 pipe cleaners. Lol. Easily reusable, cheap, safe on the girls, flexible.... And did I mention cheap and reusable? Lol one not long enough? Tie two together and undo them later! Lol.
So let's get into the guide. Should be fairly simple and quick....
First things first I suppose is when to start training. This I've found can't really be expressed by age or nodes for me but only by size of the plant. So for me the best time to start Is when I look at my plant and can see that if I bend her over from the second node from the top, she would be almost equal to where the edges of my pot would be if they were taller. Hope that makes sense.... So for a second visual on that imagine your pot only half full of dirt so your plant is basically buried in the pot.... If you can bend the top over and she could touch the imaginary sides then your golden to start training. You can start earlier but I find that to be a good point of establishment in the plants life to begin LST.
Disclaimer: if your having trouble using your imagination.... Revert to beginning of thread, smoke one and restart. Continue those steps until your imagination gets it, there won't be pictures for about a week then I'll do pics or live video training session....
Ok so now we know when.... Let's talk about how..... So you've decided she's ready.... First things first you need to decide which direction you are going to be pulling the top over, I like to get it between two nice side branches or a nice open area I bend it into. Lots of plants have a square or diamond shape so shoot for a spot on the walls of those shapes. Lol so when you pull your top over your not covering much or any under growth, as the point of LST is opening up your girls for better light penetration...
So now you've decided which way your going to train the main stalk over.... This is only done once so make sure your happy with your decision. Once you've decided, I want you to look one last time... Once you've decided which direction your training to you need to create an anchor at the base of the stalk where it meets the soil. In three gallon pots you can fold your pipe cleaner in half, place the stalk in the V and tie both looss ends off to the lip of the bucket. With the pipe cleaners you just bend them around and under the lip and they stay no problem. If using five gallon pots you will need to make a candy cane shape with your pipe cleaner, hook the base of the stalk, twist the pipe cleaner together and then attach the loose end to the edge of the pot, they are not long enough to just fold in half and reach the edge of the five gallon.
When you place your anchor make sure your applying some pressure to her when you tie off because you are going to be pulling from the top in the opposite direction and you can easily up root and damage your girls so make sure you don't just secure the stalk but put some pressure on it so when you pull over the top the plant sits right where it is before you touched it, no up rooting. The anchor step is very important.
Now that you have your anchor we are ready to go! Make a hook out of a pipe cleaner but don't leave it so rounded.... Pinch it so it's some what crimped for the stalk to sit in nicely. Go to the second node down from the top and slowly pull it over to almost a 90 degree angle and tie it off to the edge of the pot.
At this point each plant is different and situation is different. If you have some nice side branching you can tie that off as well but the main focus is getting the top tied back. The top off the cannabis plant has one goal. Be the biggest most beautiful thing and stand tall to collect male pollen. When you tie the cola back it releases hormones in the plant making it freak out and try to get other colas further up to increase chances of reproduction. So we battle.... After the first training it's basically every other day, or every third day, depending on your growth, that you will go in and pull back any tops that are trying to gain dominance. You will notice the main cola you tied down is probably standing at this point again and may have even stretched a new node in there.... Maybe she's looking like she wants to be dominant again? Well as long as a new node has formed and recovery has went good you can remove your first pipe cleaner very easily and move it up one node from the original spot and continue to keep that top trained back. I train for about two weeks and let her rip. I don't remove the pipe cleaners until harvest usually but I'm going to be removing them from now because I believe once in flower the branches are pretty stable and as I wrote this I wonder to myself if holding the branches back during flower takes away from my budding energy trying to fight the pipe cleaners? Hmmm anyway....
The goal is to keep the canopy level while also pulling the main branches out from the plant and getting them more level so the inside and small under stuff gets light and takes off
Look at your plants sideways and imagine if not only the colas but every side branch pointed up in the same direction, every bud four nodes deep on a plant can be as big as the second one down if given the right light.
Anyway to be honest I'm pretty baked and I'm sure I forgot some things so fire away on the questions guys?!! Maybe if this attracts enough attention and is helpful we can get it stickied....
Compliments of @Green Goblin on the idea of using industrial sized chip bag/paper clips to attach your pipe cleaners to the edges of your fabric pots.
Compliments of @dcat0921 on the idea of using safety pins to clip to the edge of your fabric pots and tie off to.
Thanks for participating and sharing your ideas/ method. Max rep for both of you guys
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