Trouble reading today's article? Click
here: Issue #255 - Sunday, March 5, 2017
Dear Fellow Grower,
In today's issue... - Learn how to avoid the 7 most common plant training mistakes!
- Discover who makes the best grinder to grind/chop your weed!
- Our Trophy Pic of the Week features six Gorilla Glue #4 plants right before and after harvest!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of
GrowWeedEasy.com) "It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final."
~Roger Babson
7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes by Nebula Haze |
|
|
Did you know that "training" your cannabis plants to grow many main buds sites (instead of just one) is a simple and free way to get bigger yields indoors? In fact, plant training can
increase indoor yields by 40% or more (compared to letting plants grow naturally) by forcing plants to grow only big, dense buds, without any smaller or airy ones.
In the vegetative stage,
marijuana plants are trained to grow wide and flat, like a table In the flowering stage, this shape ensures that many bud sites develop into long, thick colas by taking advantage of the fact that cannabis plants put the most energy into buds
that are both at the top of the plant and close to the grow light. Although plant training can produce impressive results, sometimes marijuana growers aren't given the right information, which can
cause unfortunate mistakes that hurt their yields!
With that in mind, I will cover the 7 most common marijuana plant training mistakes, so you get the yields results you want every time, even if it's your first time!
In our growing forum, when I asked what people's biggest
mistakes were when it came to training their cannabis plants, the most common answer was actually growers regretted not training their plants at all!
It's true that you can get great results without any plant training, but training techniques can significantly improve your yields compared to letting the plant grow into its natural shape. Plant training can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but even a little bit of effort early in your plant's life can make a big difference to your final bud
weight!
The trained plant on the right had many more main colas and produced far more bud than the untrained plant on the left, even though it took up less space 2.) Breaking a Main Stem by Accident It's important to use bending techniques from the beginning of a plant's life, because stems start getting stiff as they get
older. Starting while the plant is still young makes the whole process go much more easily!
However, even if you're careful, it can be easy to snap a stem by accident. This most often happens when trying to forcefully bend an older stem that has become thick and unyielding.
Nothing is better than bending when
stems are flexible to get your plants to grow exactly how you want, but there are a few techniques that can help you bend over stems after they've already hardened!
Prevent broken stems by bending at the newest growth if possible, where stems are more bendy
Supercropping (Advanced) - If a stem feels too stiff but it must be bent, don't force it! Use a technique called "supercropping" to soften up the inside first, so the skin doesn't break.
- Pinch the stem tightly between
your fingers at the place you want it to bend
- Start gently wiggling the stem back and forth while also trying to crush the new joint in between your fingers as hard as you can.
- Wiggle back and forth for 10+ seconds, until the stem has greatly loosened up at the place you want to bend.
- Once the stem feels loose and flexible at the joint, you're safe to bend it over and secure it in place. This works even with thicker stems if you're patient enough to wiggle for a while!
If you do end up breaking a main stem, you can often tape up the injury like a cast and the plant will heal itself over the next week or two. Remember: If you do break off a main stem early in a plant's life, it's no big deal because there are usually dozens more growth tips to take its place! And even if you break off a main
stem/cola during the flowering stage and can't tape it up in time, it can help to remember that most growers lose a cola at some point! 3.) Mistakenly Keeping Plants Too
Small A very small plant just can't make as much bud as a bigger plant, so keeping plants smaller than needed can reduce your yields. You will get the best yields by growing your plants so that they
fill up your grow space.
Since this plant was kept so small before it started flowering, it just doesn't have the size or infrastructure to support a lot of buds. There's nothing a grower can do at this point to get a plant like this to yield a lot of bud. It's important to avoid mistakenly keeping plants too small before they start making
buds!
It's important to wait until a plant is at least 3-4 weeks old before initiating the flowering stage (putting cannabis plants on a 12/12 light schedule), even if you're trying to get to harvest as fast as possible.
This is because a plant won't start flowering before about week 3-4 anyway, so giving plants a 12/12 light schedule before that time just
reduces the total amount of light they get each day, and they won't get as big as plants under 18/6 or a 24/0 schedule from seed.
3-4 Week Old Plant - Never switch to 12/12 earlier than this or plants will stay tiny, and waiting a few more weeks is probably better!
This plant was switched to flowering when it was 4 weeks old, and yielded about an ounce in one big cola. Some growers recommend you wait until 6 weeks to start flowering. One reason is because cannabis plants tend to mature the fastest if they have already started showing "pre-flowers" (tiny versions of adult
flowers) before initiating the flowering stage.
But the main reason is that letting the plants go just a little bit longer - to about week 6 - will give you plants that are significantly bigger and which can support bigger buds.
6 Week Old Plant That's Been Trained to Grow
Flat
After being switched to 12/12 immediately after the above picture, the plant turned into this, yielding about 6 ounces on the single plant. Two extra weeks in the vegetative
stage can make a huge difference in plant size! Note: These rules don't apply to auto-flowering plants, which will automatically start flowering on their own without any input from you. If you want a very small plant that yields a lot, consider auto-flowering strains: they're ready to harvest about 3 months from germination and stay small on their own! Overall, it's much better than doing 12/12 from seed.
4.) Letting Plants Get Too Big As we just covered, if you have the space/height for it, you'll get better yields/electricity by giving the plant time to get to a decent size before switching to the flowering stage.
However, if you let a
plant get too big during the vegetative stage, it may completely overgrow your space!
Look at how this plant has already grown into the grow lights in the vegetative stage! This is a problem because the lights can't be lifted up any higher in this particular grow space, and the plant is going to double in height after the switch to 12/12! This kind of crazy overgrowth can
happen before you know it if you have a fast-growing plant, so stay aware of how big your plant is getting!
If plants are allowed to get too big during the vegetative stage, you'll not only end up wasting time and electricity, you'll also find yourself with an overcrowded grow space.
Plants being too close to each other and the grow lights can also cause...
|
In order to smoke or process our buds, it's usually necessarily to break up the buds first, especially if they're really dense!
Most growers chop or grind buds so they are easier to
use!
|
When smoking, grinding help your buds go further by "aerating" the buds (make them fluffy) so they burn more efficiently. This is can make buds feel stronger (more
potent) and last longer compared to breaking it up with your fingers!
Dense buds like this are extremely difficult to break up properly with your fingers
Learn about various common grinding tools, and discover which grinder is head and shoulders above the rest!
|
Subject: Praise, praise, praise
Message: Love your articles. I feel like an expert after reading a section and the pictures
you provide certainly help. Very easy to understand. Thanks so much and please keep up the fine work :)
Sammy Snakeskins
|
|
"Six small but potent Gorilla Glue #4 plants."
~Urban 420 Farms
|
|
You Might Find the Following Links Helpful!
|
Check Out Our New Grow Forum! |
We opened a free public forum in September 2016 so growers like you can ask questions and talk with each other anonymously! If you sign up to join, please be patient because it may take us a few hours to let you in, but we'll accept you as soon as humanly possible!
Ask Questions and Get Answers From Real Growers!
|
We encourage you to forward this email to a friend in need!
Who Runs This
Newsletter? |
Nebula Haze:
I'll be honest with you, when I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my mission to make it easier for new growers to
get started as well as help advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We are updating and adding articles every single week and our goal is to eventually build a comprehensive growing resource so anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! If we all share the knowledge there's more buds in the world for everyone :) |
|
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, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
Get Your Seeds Delivered
Safely! |
|
GrowWeedEasy.com has put together a hand-picked list of all the available seed banks including what type of payment they accept and where they ship in the
world!
List of trusted seed sources:
http://www.growweedeasy.com/seeds Get Seeds!
|
Copyright (c) 2017 GrowWeedEasy.com
Disclaimer: Grow Weed Easy only recommends products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and
trust. For doing so, we may receive a commission. Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized Financial, Legal, or Medical Advice. The contributors to this magazine grow legally under their local laws but are not lawyers or medical professionals. Any decision to grow marijuana should only be
made after consulting with an experienced lawyer or other legal adviser. Any medical decisions should only be made after speaking with a doctor or other medical professional. Be safe!
How Did I Sign Up For This Newsletter?
Our records indicate that requested to be added to the GrowWeedEasy.com weekly newsletter at
.
Date:
To unsubscribe: |
|
