One of the main benefits of indoor gardening is the complete level of control you are afforded over the growing environment and the associated opportunity to closely manage and finely tailor every aspect of plant development. The vegetative stage of the plant life cycle deserves special attention in terms of the conditions you choose to create, since whatever size your plants end up reaching will largely depend on the work done during this time.
For example – if you are looking to produce a large number of small plants the aim is more often than not to keep the vegetative cycle short, thereby limiting the eventual size of the plant.
To produce massive plants and achieve huge yields, you might want to think about extending the typical vegetative cycle. For some plants this is a possibility, for others there are other steps that must be taken.
Before moving on to take a closer look at those steps, first consider why you would want to extend the vegetative cycle in the first place.
During the vegetative stage a plant is essentially preparing itself for flowering and the chance to reproduce. Indeed plants, like any other living beings, have one sole purpose for existence – survival and the continuation of the genes. The most effective method of survival is reproduction.
A plant in the vegetative cycle uses this time to develop the root system and, as growth continues, generates new flowering sites both on and away from the main stem. By making a plant develop beyond the point at which it would normally bloom, you are encouraging the entire infrastructure to become bigger and stronger for when flowering finally does commence.
Logic dictates that bigger plants will produce more fruit and seeds, as internal changes are made to make the most of the opportunity to reproduce. This is something that every grower should use to his or her advantage!
Indoor gardeners have the opportunity to tweak nature’s intention for a plant. In many cases simply maintaining an 18 hour light cycle will be enough to keep plants laying down roots and preparing points of reproduction. Using growth feed and enzyme products can provide significant aid, as can the provision of a sufficiently large pot or container for your plants. The bigger the pot, the more room the root zone has to develop unrestricted and healthy.
Whilst this approach works for some plants, there are other varieties that flower automatically upon reaching a certain stage of development. These plants present an obstacle for indoor gardeners, as the seeds natural programming kicks in due to survival instinct. Chillis are one such variety of plant, which explains why you hear of some people flowering chillies under 18 hours of light. Basically your plants tell you they need to reproduce.
This obstacle is not impossible to overcome. For the indoor gardener the plant can be kept in the vegetative stage, which in turn encourages the plant to work harder to reproduce.
By simply pinching out the flowering sites of the plant you can postpone the bloom cycle until you are ready. It does seem a drastic step, but removal of what will become the focus of all the plants energy forces them to redirect this back into vegetative growth.
To relate the procedure to a natural occurrence, think about a freak late spring hail shower. Most chilli growers know how easily the flowers drop, and it is not beyond the realms of probability that in such a hail storm a chilli plant could lose all flowers. In nature the plant then quickly adapts and works to produce more flowers for the same season.
The plant pictured is an overwintered Dorset Naga chilli plant. Vegetative growth does not seem as abundant as it maybe should be going into the second year, and whilst the foliage admittedly appears quite dense, longer and stronger stems are really what you need. Already you can see some flowers have developed but the size of the plant is not ideal and unlikely to contribute towards fantastic results, even though a little growth will still take place.
The flowers and developing flowering sites were all removed, forcing the plant back into the vegetative stage. Often indoor gardeners force flower plants, by making them flower when perhaps in nature they would not – this is essentially the reverse of that process, an often overlooked measure in the pursuit of efficiency.
After any type of pruning – whether it be for this, taking cuttings or general shaping – always give the plant a nice dose of stress relief tonic such as SuperThrive to help with recovery.
Tips for plants in the vegetative stage.
1 Use the biggest size of pot available. The more space the plant has to develop its rootzone, the more secure the set of foundations
2 Give your plants plenty of blue light – this is what they crave in the vegetative stage
3 Water little and often. Instead of saturating the media, let it become quite dry so that the roots search out water. By sticking to little and often watering you keep the rootzone active and healthy.
4 Nutrition-wise, make sure the plant has everything it needs to develop healthily. Plants in the vegetative stage require plenty of nitrogen. Watch out for signs of underfeeding, like the yellowing of leaves.
5 If a plant is going to be held in the vegetative stage for some time, pruning may be necessary. When a plant is growing too high, prune the main stem so that the plants energy is focused more on the remaining stems.
6 Be patient. Whilst extending the vegetative cycle can seem like an odd thing to do, the rewards are often amazing.
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