That’s what I’m doing then. Played around with a mainline/manifold on an auto..... and not to toot my horn i swear, but I nailed the shape and symmetry and “only top colas”. It straight up worked. Just it being an auto the yield wasn’t quite there..... hang on I wanna show it off. Kinda cool.
Look at the two grows in my signature:
first has four plants in 4x4, each with 8-main manifold, pulled tops of each main out to perimeter, let 2 fastest bottom laterals grow to even top w main tops, cut other laterals off, —- > 16-20 primary colas —- > 3.8 lbs dry
Second has same number of plants in same tent, under same exact setup, including lights & process.
8-mains per plant plus 4-5 laterals and trained to bring up another 20-30 other tops...not all dry yet, but lookin like will be 75% or less of 1st grow...my conclusion is maximizing horizontal is fine, but maximizing 3d needs to be the yield target.
When tops are too close, you lose out on yield, just like if there is too much unused space; plus i suspect, a manifold is more efficient at it’s job than the tangled mess of stems on a scrogg...
As i’ve mentioned before, separate the primary benefits of a manifold (better plumbing system, spreading apical dominance/even tops) from how you train the tops. The goal is to achieve the appropriate number of tops for your lights, which balances number of tops and space between them.
Nugbuckets was all about pretty mainlined colas...that's nice for photography, but sucks for yield...part of the reason, he’s no longer here, where he started...
