Low Stress Training: Are your Plants in Shape?
The shape of your plants is super important. It can turn a humble harvest into a bumper crop.
Want to get plants in shape? All it takes is a little topping, netting and bending - in that order!
Topping
What:
It’s basically removing the tip of your plant. This stops it growing tall and makes it grow bushy.
You do this in late propagation and/or early vegetative growth.
Why:
Instead of growing a tall Christmas tree, you’ll grow a shorter, wider plant with lots of branches. It's the perfect shape for growing plants under lights. You get lots of manageable sized flowers, instead of a few big ones. Overall, your yield is higher.
How:
- From cuttings, pinch the top off the plant when it has around 4 nodes
- Use your fingernails or a sharp pair of scissors
- Space branches out, so they grow away from other branches and your canopy stays flat
Netting
What:
It’s where you spread your plant's branches out under a horizontal net to create a flat, level canopy.
Why:
Plants use the light more effectively - as a result, your yield increases.
Plants are also shorter, which is great if you don’t have much headroom, and they’ll be very well supported.
How:
- Position crop support netting horizontally across your tent/room.
- Attach it to tent poles or make a wooden frame
- Move branches away from the centre of your plant and tuck under the net
- As the tips grow vertically through the net, pull the branches down and tuck through the next hole in the net
- Aim to have a one branch growing through each hole in the net
Hint
Elastic Crop Support Netting is great for grow tents, and is very easy to install.
Bending
What:
This is where you bend tall growing stems so they grow in different directions.
Why:
To direct them away from intense light, or away from another stem or flowering site.