Magazine    GrowFAQ    StrainGuide    Forums    Pictures    Tools    myOvergrow

Forum Quickjump:
-------------------- Private Messages User Control
Panel Search Forums Forum Home -------------------- Site
Happenings--
Announcements-- Overgrow
SponsorsCultivation-- Basic Growing Information--
General Indoor Growing----
Hydroponics---- Organic
Foods-- General Outdoor
Growing-- Sick Plants &
Problems-- Step-by-Step
Tutorials---- Add Your
Tutorial-- Growroom Design &
Setup---- Lighting and
Ventilation-- Adv Tech &
Experiments-- Strains &
Hybridization---- Breeders
Lab-- Hashish &
ProcessingPhotography-- Plants & Budshots----
Growroom Pictorials---- Outdoor &
Greenhouses-- General Photo
GalleryInternational
ForumsLifestyle-- Smoker's Lounge----
Introduce Yourself---- Political Debate
& War---- High
Entertainment---- Stoner
Rambling---- Special Interest
Groups-- mota20's Medical
Club-- Activist Corner-- Security & LegalCommunity Development-- Growing
Consensus-- GrowFAQ
Contributions-- StrainGuide
Improvements-- Suggestions &
FeedbackSewage-- Recycle
Bin

SHOP SponsorsBongsAds

Home  |
Glossary of
Terms  |   Recent
FAQs  |   Highest
Rated  |   Credits  |
FAQMap  |
Contact Us

search for  in the  GrowFAQsGlossaryStrainGuideEdge ForumsMember List

advanced
search

GrowFAQ : Vegetative growth :
Training/Pruning

Smokinrav's supercropping technique

Added by:
MedMan  Last edited by:
MedMan  Viewed: 28 times

Rated by 14 users:
9.00/10

There are a few different ways of
supercropping, this is one that I find most beneficial.
An alternative name for this technique I’m going to
describe would be Tie and Train, and I find it to be a
lot like a scrog, but without the screen, and they are
similar in the way they create a mostly flat even canopy
of buds. This allows us to move the grow light closer to
the top, obviously reducing the loss of lumens through
distance. Also, this technique cuts in half the amount
of plants needed to cover a given area.

Supercropping relies on far fewer lateral buds
growing vertically and more on multiple colas in a small
space. Yield on a supercropped plant will be gathered
from the length of the stem, light size dependant. My
400 HPS that grew the plants in this thread will give me
10 to 12" of bud down the cola. Bigger lights, bigger
buds and more of them further down the stem.

There are several ways to achieve a room of
multi-cola plants forming an even canopy. The current
description in the GrowFAQ uses topping only. I agree
this is one way to the end result, but the book is still
out on if it affects yield or not. Other disadvantages
to topping are the continuation of vertical growth. 12
full inches taller than tied plants with training
techniques performed at the same time and at the same
node. Keep in mind, these plants are from seed, so
genetic vagaries are expected.

Another way is to
tie the plant’s tip to base for a week to induce lateral
growth, as I like to do, and a third way is to simply
tie the plant over 45 degrees early in the vegetative
stage of growth. I’ve only topped six and tied six (my
way) in this thread.

Once lateral growth is
achieved, and the tieing method is the only way to
nearly cease horizontal growth from the mainstem, the
branches are observed over the course of a week or so to
see which ones grow faster. These branches are gradually
tied to the outside of the planter. Smaller growing
shoots either get tied to the inside or made into clones
or discarded. Obviously, we're tieing the faster growers
to the outside so the smaller shoots can keep up with
them height wise.

12 Rosetta Stone plants
from seed at 3 weeks..

Grown in MG Prefertilized potting soil
cut with 1/2 perlite. No chemical fertilizers were added
during vegetative growth, only 1 tsp. of kelp extract
per gallon of water.

I do employ the snapping of
the hurd technique, but only to lessen the possibility
of the stem folding or snapping when the tip is tied to
base. So, pick your spot in the middle of the plant.
Using the thumb and forefinger from each hand, slightly
above and below the spot, counter-rotate your hands till
you feel a light breaking inside the stem. It may or may
not happen. If it doesn’t, don’t worry. Twist back and
forth a few times to create a general loosening in
rigidity of the plant. It should lean a bit, like this.

Take your tying material, I use a 10,000 foot
roll of twine from Wal-Mart, and circle it loosely
around the base and top of the plant. You want to pick a
top node with some decent sized leaves (1"+) on it to
prevent the plant from slipping its bond. They do try
hard to do this.

Slowly compress it down
to the shape you see here and cinch the tie. A bit of
pressure at the top of the circled stem will help
prevent folding. If the stem does fold, don’t worry. It
really doesn’t appear to make a difference in the plant,
except for the ease of tying it later. The plant WILL
recover as long as its not severed, sometimes even to
spite you, it seems.

You can see she badly
wants to turn that grow tip towards the light. The week
in tie, through hormonal responses, forces the plant to
stop primary growth from this tip and focus on growing
out all the branches at the nodes just above and below
the tie. Until it is released of course, when the
meristem once again begins to receive a share, though
not the main share anymore.

This is just
before release..

This is shortly after
release, and it has already almost resumed its vertical
stance. It’ll grow like this for a week and then we'll
begin the tying for training. See where the damage is
and look at the growth from the nodes under it compared
to the growth above it.

You can clearly see
my goal with this one..

I start with the
countertie down low. It should be opposite of the way
the stem is leaning from the tie for training. Far
enough over that it is leaning in the other direction.
Put the next tie on the stem, above where the hurd was
snapped. Pull the plant over like shown. These ties will
remain in place for the duration of the grow, and may
have to be adjusted if the plant grows too far off of
one side of the planter. Several inches of movement in
any direction from center is possible. These two ties
will also have to be watched carefully to make sure they
don’t constrict the plant as it thickens. I use the
twine because it has a lot of friction against itself
and a single 1/2 knot is all that’s needed for most
branches.

The first two ties are pictured
here..

Already adjusting to
the new shape..

Its has some ties in place
already, but when I’m done there will be a ton more. All
the flower tops you see are at different heights before
training.

This plant is several weeks
older..

After..

All tops that have been
pulled over will reorient themselves toward the light in
a matter of hours. They’ll also be at the same height.

I tied down the six topmost branches
that resulted from topping, but that only succeeded in
making the top so broad it was like an umbrella.
Eventually I had to build a platform for the tied plants
to be even.

Sexing of the
plants was certainly interesting..
The results
were:

- 2 out of 6 topped plants were female

- 5 out of 6 tied plants were female

I draw
no conclusions from this until the next time I grow
plants from seed, but the results are something to be
researched for sure. Perhaps the stress of topping has
some effect on expression? Maybe the different stress of
tying has some effect in conjunction with keeping the
main grow tip. I did end up with 7 of 12 female, so
that’s right in line with the law of averages.

After seeing them at the finish, I would have
kept only the top flowers you see here and not much
else. The topped plants wasted too much energy on
growing stem compared with the tied ones.

Here is a side by side
from a couple of weeks ago. See the difference in the
internode spacing? Some on the topped plants are 4"
apart! The tied ones clearly have nodes all the way down
the stem only an inch apart. You can also clearly see
where the topped plant was cut. Had I allowed the
branches to grow unfettered, they would easily be a foot
or more taller than the tied ones. Keep in mind these
all had their training technique performed at the same
time.

They do grow up
to be pretty similar even from seed..

My favourite
plant..

The reason for
doing all this..

An even canopy of buds just a week
from harvest. That’s it, another viable alternative for
small space and/or small light growers that want to
maximize yield.

Last modified: 20:54 - Apr 06,
2002

Login to
Rate this
FAQ

Quicklink:  http://overgrow.com/growfaq/1245

Overgrow phpFAQ v1.2 © 2000-2003
~shabang~ All Rights Reserved
faq:1245 "Smokinrav's supercropping
technique"