Issue #118 - Sunday, July 20, 2014
Dear Fellow Grower, In today's issue... - Learn about a phase in cannabis development that catches most new growers off-guard...the Flowering Stretch!
- Make sure you have control of your grow by getting seeds with great genes and well documented growth
profiles!
- This week's Trophy Pics come from a first time grower doing an amazing job with some G13 Cheese!
Happy Growing! Nebula Haze
& Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com) "Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them." ~ John C. Maxwell
Public Service Announcement: The Flowering Stretch by Sirius Fourside |
Right around the time when kids go to junior high, short awkward teenagers go through puberty and turn into taller awkward teenagers. I'm sure you knew of at least one who grew so much, they looked almost as if someone grabbed them by their head and feet and just stretched them out. When cannabis plants start to mature, they
also go through a brief transitional period; a sort of cannabis-puberty if you will. And just as humans as undergo a burst of rapid growth, cannabis plants will also create a large portion of their final height in a short period of time. This explosion of vertical grow this commonly called the 'Flowering Stretch'. --> Get great strains from Nirvana
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What is the Flowering Stretch? The best way to give you an idea is with pictures. Here's a cool animated .gif Nebula made of one of our grows. (click to view moving picture in browser) This makes for a great example of how small or large a stretch can be. Notice that the plant on the left (818 Headband) gains only a few inches while the plant on the right almost doubles in size! And even this picture is misleading once you realize that by the end of the .gif, the plant on the left is actually an extra foot higher off the ground! In
short, the flowering stretch is potential burst of rapid growth that happens shortly after switching to the flowering phase. It can be massive, or it can be next to nothing. The important thing is to expect that it might happen and have a plan ready in case it does. Luckily, most strains you buy from a seedbank are stabilized, so it's known if the plant will stretch a lot or a little. This allows us to not only plan for a stretch, but take advantage of it when it
happens! Depending on the strain you're growing, you can expect a pretty wide range of stretching. Some strains can double their height, some can do almost nothing. If you know the name of the strain you're growing, you can get a
good idea of what might happen: - Sativas - Sativas tend to grow taller, lanky stems even when trained; inch-for-inch they tend to stretch much more than indicas.
- Strain height - Many breeders and seedbanks have the average height of their strains listed. Sometimes it's as vague as "short - medium - tall", but even that is enough to give you an idea of its growth
characteristics.
- Light type - Certain light types are more conducive to stretching than others. You can use the right light color to help control growth characteristics.
- Light distance - Plants also stretch when they're trying to get more light (like this plant to the right). As a result of this type of stretching, plants grow taller, but with fewer budsites. Most growers want to avoid
stretching caused by not enough light.
One of the main reasons it's so important to know about stretching is that it can rapidly reduce the amount of space you have in your grow tent/area. If you're growing in a space with limited height, a good stretch can make it so you no longer have room to raise your lights. This leads to light/heat stress and lost buds I personally had a
stretch where there was no longer any room to raise the lights. I used a CFL/LED combination at the time, and the LEDs absolutely cooked the buds underneath it until I got desperate and cut the stuff that was too close. I would handle that situation totally differently now, but it shows that no one is immune if they're unaware. Planning for a stretch is easy to do when you know it's a possibility. There are two things growers can do that will give a lot of control over planning for a potential stretching situation: Research your strain If you know what strain you're going to grow, you can usually find its growth characteristics online. Seedfinder.eu is a good resource of reviews on strains submitted by other growers. While it isn't necessarily 100% accurate by its nature, it should give you a good range. Knowing the strain you're growing gives you the power to decide how much stretch you'll deal with. Since stretching is often accompanied
by a 'tall' final height, you can reduce stretch by getting plants that are characterized as being 'medium' or 'short'. Plan for your lights to go higher Many stealth growers plan out every inch of height to be used so they can make their grow spaces small and sneaky. But what happens when your light can go to a maximum of 36", and your plants stretch to 32" tall?
Training will definitely help, but having your light go up a few inches would be nice at this point, wouldn't it? It's always a good practice to make sure your light can go up a bit further than you think it'll need to. Sometimes an extra 3 or 4 inches makes a world of difference. Since we know the factors that can lead to more stretching, reducing how much a plant stretches is just a matter of acting on those factors. Genes
- Indica plants tend to be shorter. If you prefer Indicas, you're in luck. If you like Sativas, you can also find many strains that have a shorter finishing height. Again, you can usually find the heights of strains at the websites of breeders and seedbanks.
Light type - Did you know that HPS (High Pressure Sodium) lights encourage stretching?
You can combat this by leaving your MH (Metal Halide) bulb in for the first 2-3 weeks of flowering, and then switch to the HPS bulb. - This also goes for CFL growers who are utilizing vegetative (6500K) and flowering (2700K) colored bulbs. You can leave the vegetative colored bulbs in for the first 2-3 weeks of flowering before switching to your flowering
bulbs.
Light Distance - Keeping your lights as close as they can comfortably be will ensure that your plants don't have to stretch to get more light. Use the 'hand test' to make sure your lights are as
close as they can be without harming your cannabis.- Hand test: Place one of your hands right over your plant with your palms facing downward. Your hands should be less than a ¼" away from the top of your plants or lightly touching the top.
- If the heat from your CFL or HPS lights is uncomfortably hot or painful to your hand, move the lights away an inch and try
again.
- This test does NOT work for LED lights.
Plant Training - Although training itself does nothing to slow down stretching, it does give growers a good way to manage it. For example, if branches are set to grow vertically by low-stress training, a stretch can actually be beneficial since so much of the plant will be receiving light. Plant training can come in the forms of low-stress training, mainlining, topping, fimming, and more. Making the Stretch
Your Friend For those with larger grow spaces, such as 7'+ tents or custom made grow spaces, stretching can actually be a part of a growing plan. Example: Let's say you're growing a cannabis strain with a predictable stretching pattern in DWC (Hydroponics). Let's also say that you have 2-3 extra feet of vertical growing space to fill in your grow tent and it's time to switch to the flowering phase. A mainlined cannabis plant would definitely take advantage of this situation; in fact, it's what I do! Mainlining creates a 'manifold', which is essentially a more efficient way for colas to grow. Once this manifold is created, the plants can grow 2-3 inches before we purposefully stretch them whilst keeping the lights close. What remains is 8 loooong colas with buds growing all the way down. In this case, we made the stretch increase our yields while
utilizing more of our grow space. With that being said, I would only advise that you purposefully stretch plants when you have intimate knowledge of their growth patterns. This doesn't mean that you have to have grown the strain before although it helps. What it does mean is that this strategy is much easier to run successfully when you do some research into the growth patterns of the strain you're planning to
cultivate. The 'Flowering Stretch' is another piece of knowledge that makes growing cannabis much more easy once you know about it. I'll leave you with a picture of when I got blindsided by a stretch and had no idea what to do (yet again). Don't let this happen to you, too! (click to view moving picture in browser)
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Nebula Haze:As an epilepsy patient, medical cannabis may have saved my life, and I'm dedicated to
showing others how easy it is to grow their own supply of cannabis at home.
It is my mission to educate and build growing resources to help both new and advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money.
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Learn which seed sources are personally recommended by Nebula Haze |
Sirius Fourside:Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a
medium(deep water culture, bubbleponics)."Growing cannabis is a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady
characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, perlite, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
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One of the biggest steps to controlling the 'Flowering Stretch' is to get good seeds! Seeds with good genes are stabilized, so we know exactly how they tend to
grow!
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Don't want stretch? Get seeds for plants that stay short!
A great example of a short plant is Aurora Indica. It has high yields, high potency, low height and is easy to grow; a stealth growers dream! Get yours today!
Purposefully stretching to fill in that grow space? Get seeds for a tall, high yielding strain!
Wonder Woman is one of the high yielding strains I've grown, and it will grow as tall as you want so be careful! In addition to it's eerily high yields, it's pungent and has remarkable potency. Get yours today!
Trophy Pictures of the Week!
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"First try at the hobby. G13 Cheese. Using LEDs
from advanced Led. Thanks for the tips. This site is great."
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Hello, I just wanted to say that I think your web site is completely, totally, 100% AWESOME. The way you have laid it all out and the information is so bountiful I can't stress enough how great I think this is. The main factor is the way you put your heart and soul into
helping others I can feel your personality in your teachings. So Thank-You very much.You will be my #1 website for growing this being my 2nd year. -frassasass
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