Almost 6 weeks Veg only 5 inches tall, very little foliage.

My plant seems awfully short for 6 weeks of Veg. ( 5.5 weeks to be exact). I wonder if it will make it.

It's growing sideways which is odd.... Anyway, I thought I'd check with the experts here to see if this is worth continuing to flower. Should I flip 12/12 now or wait?

I boiled my soil this time, not a single fungus gnat (yet). Myccos and great white added back to hopefully get the soil living again. I dont like boiling the soil, but I hate aphids and gnats more.




12 hours later, plants are funny buggers that hate to be trained....

Ok I can see what you are doing and where you are at. I manifold almost every plant I grow so I know it when I see it.

No, not yet. Why?

You did an excellent job creating a manifold. I see 8 branches all nice, all flat.

Now...you let it grow to roughly half the height you want it to finish at. I usually go about 80 days to get to a 15 to 20" tall manifolded plant with the goal of having it double in size roughly. I usually end in 10gal pots. (Cant tell what that is)

If you let it grow from here, it will take off in a few weeks once the rootball is fully established with nice foliage above. Because you have little leaf right now, it will take 10 days or so to look really good.

Be patient, go another 2 to 5 weeks depending on the final size you want.

Its growing sideways because 1) you trained it flat and 2) it takes time and light to turn back up. Should be growing upwards within 2 days, if not, you need more light intensity.

Cc

The manifold style training technique you’re doing takes a long time to do, because you keep cutting the energy producing parts off of the plant, in favor of attaining a certain shape and number of colas/symmetry. I’d advise letting the plant recover some before flowering.

You've given her a great shape, but the defol has slowed down the growth, let her veg for a while and get some more energy producing fan leaves, then she'll explode with growth.

In 3 weeks if you stop snipping it
Your work will be rewarded

singlecoiled said:

My plant seems awfully short for 6 weeks of Veg. ( 5.5 weeks to be exact). I wonder if it will make it.

It's growing sideways which is odd.... Anyway, I thought I'd check with the experts here to see if this is worth continuing to flower. Should I flip 12/12 now or wait?

I boiled my soil this time, not a single fungus gnat (yet). Myccos and great white added back to hopefully get the soil living again. I dont like boiling the soil, but I hate aphids and gnats more.


View attachment 5231611

Click to expand...

Second what most have said here. At least it looks fairly healthy.
Also as someone asked, what size pot?

I tried to do this my first indoor grow. It's hard cutting laterals off the 8 branches that grow 2 inches overnight. I stopped to early when I ran into issues with underfeeding and too much light. My plants were too thick at the bottom. Luckily I didn't get mold. I think that this plant shaping takes practice. I think you have to develop am eye for it. Your plants look good. Let em rip.

Boiling water treatment of potting mix ends gnats and their eggs quite effectively! I've also had to go around the house and pour boiling water in all the sinks and drains for the same reason.

ComfortCreator said:

Ok I can see what you are doing and where you are at. I manifold almost every plant I grow so I know it when I see it.

No, not yet. Why?

You did an excellent job creating a manifold. I see 8 branches all nice, all flat.

Now...you let it grow to roughly half the height you want it to finish at. I usually go about 80 days to get to a 15 to 20" tall manifolded plant with the goal of having it double in size roughly. I usually end in 10gal pots. (Cant tell what that is)

If you let it grow from here, it will take off in a few weeks once the rootball is fully established with nice foliage above. Because you have little leaf right now, it will take 10 days or so to look really good.

Be patient, go another 2 to 5 weeks depending on the final size you want.

Its growing sideways because 1) you trained it flat and 2) it takes time and light to turn back up. Should be growing upwards within 2 days, if not, you need more light intensity.

Cc

Click to expand...

Thanks, you caught on quickly. I smoked a little Durban Poison before posting this and thought I was being funny (a joke) . I really need to stop trying to be funny, I'm not that good at it!

I'm stuck growing in a small space and added a 7 gallon air pot to this grow, taking away almost all of my headroom. I have less than 20 inches that she can grow before the lights get too close.... So, I'll be training everything as low as I can. Ive already flipped 12/12 and am on my second day, this might be bad but I cant afford for her to gain too much height.

Anyway thanks much for the help here, this is my first mainline and I'll be doing this for everygrow. I like the way the chutes are symetrical and the way that I can control the grow. Also, having less leaves is making my job a lot easier, my past grows were a lot of work to defoliate. This technique seems to be good reducing the amount of defoliation needed and conserving soil resources.

simpleleaf said:

Boiling water treatment of potting mix ends gnats and their eggs quite effectively! I've also had to go around the house and pour boiling water in all the sinks and drains for the same reason.

Click to expand...

Yep, I've had too many bug problems with fox farm, I boil it now. Hopefully the Mycos and great white will get the soil living again, at least thats my plan !

Herb & Suds said:

In 3 weeks if you stop snipping it
Your work will be rewarded

Click to expand...

No more toppings, I'll be going with 8 colas this grow, my previous grows had problems mid flower and I had over 25 tops going in a 3 gallon pot. I'm hoping that more soil and less tops will let the plant get through flower. I'm using a 7 gallon air pot this time.

My last three grows were simple. I bent the stem 90 degrees, topped and fimmed a few times and the plant exploded. The main chutes produced colas that weighed 2 ounces or more wet. All of the lesser stems produced much less and the bud quality was not good, I'd say half the potency of my big tops. So the idea is to have 8 big tasty tops this grow instead of 25 riff raff tops, if that makes sense.

One last thing, as a new grower I'm nervous to use nutrients. (I've been burned too many times) I've fed less than 1 tsp of Dynagrow Foliage Pro and Protekt the entire grow....Once she gets more leaves I'll feed her more.

You are not required to only have 8 mains. I keep 8 mini plants in 1, where each branch is a plant. Of course you have to prune them some but they do it to themselves mostly. You should keep and allow branches on the manifold imo. Lots more yield and the tops of the side branches will better match your tops. Get rid of anything too far down by end of week 3. In your case though you should keep everything but LST bend the 8 mains outward as they grow upward (diagonal imo). That will allow the other branches to come up the center and get lots of light and fight to be up top.

ComfortCreator said:

You are not required to only have 8 mains. I keep 8 mini plants in 1, where each branch is a plant. Of course you have to prune them some but they do it to themselves mostly. You should keep and allow branches on the manifold imo. Lots more yield and the tops of the side branches will better match your tops. Get rid of anything too far down by end of week 3. In your case though you should keep everything but LST bend the 8 mains outward as they grow upward (diagonal imo). That will allow the other branches to come up the center and get lots of light and fight to be up top.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm new and all of my previous grows left me confused. After the leaves got thick, I didnt have a clue what was going on below, it was pure chaos. I'm enjoying watching and learning how a plant grows with 8 colas only this time. I might tops again for 16 mains in my next grow, but I'm keeping this grow small and simple.

Here is an example of chaos and too many tops for a small space and pot. (my last grow)... I dont want this to happen again, it got pretty rough. So, less tops, less nutrients, and more soil this grow to see if I can avoid problems past week 5 flower.






Get rid of anything too far down by end of week 3. In your case though you should keep everything but LST bend the 8 mains outward as they grow upward (diagonal imo). That will allow the other branches to come up the center and get lots of light and fight to be up top.

Thanks, good advice. I'll be using a ring to help guide the 8 colas away from center. I'll also be chopping most of the lower growth as well, but for now I think she could use some leaves to get her roots down. I transplanted from a small 1/4 gallon pot to the final 7 gallon pot less than a week ago...

dbz said:

Second what most have said here. At least it looks fairly healthy.
Also as someone asked, what size pot?

Click to expand...

7 gallon air pot, Fox Farm Happy Frog, Perlite, worm castings, dolomite lime (very little)----

Grow Cabinet 18" x 18" x 40 " height
SF 1000 light less than 100 watts
Dyna Grow Foliage Pro, Protekt. (I may not use bloom nutrients this grow but have Dyna Grow Bloom and MagPro ready if needed)
AC afinity 4 inch fan with Carbon Filter
Temp around 72 light on, 68 light off. RH low on purpose, around 45.

Use a larger pot in between your 1/4 and 7. If you transplant around a week after topping the first time to a 1 or 2 gallon pot you will get better and faster growth. Then transplant again to your 7 and flip after a week.

ComfortCreator said:

Use a larger pot in between your 1/4 and 7. If you transplant around a week after topping the first time to a 1 or 2 gallon pot you will get better and faster growth. Then transplant again to your 7 and flip after a week.

Click to expand...

Thanks, good tip and I've already purchased a 1 gallon cloth pot for my next grow. I may move down to a 5 gallon air pot as well, the 7 gallon pot is a little too large for my space.

I was joking around a little bit with this post, my plant is small for many reasons, mainly the removal of fan leaves and stems early on. With so few leaves, the plant is coming along nice and slow. No rush here, I'm just learning and experimenting. In fact, I bet she still gets too big for my space in a few weeks, we will see...

I do manifolding too and it slows down growth. It’s just what comes with the method, you’re doing perfectly fine with your plant.

SamRD said:

I do manifolding too and it slows down growth. It’s just what comes with the method, you’re doing perfectly fine with your plant.

View attachment 5231749View attachment 5231750

Click to expand...

Nice job that looks amazing! I'd like to go this far but dont have headroom for the stretch.

How much better is the quality of your bud Mainling vs a regular grow?

singlecoiled said:

Nice job that looks amazing! I'd like to go this far but dont have headroom for the stretch.

How much better is the quality of your bud Mainling vs a regular grow?

Click to expand...

I have only ever mainlined because I have the same problem as you, lack of space both horizontally and vertically. Today was probably my last adjustment as I’ve flipped to flowering lights last night.

I make sure it’s a flat plant with no vertical grow right until I flip. The last important lesson I learned was to create enough space for each branch. Initially I would go for as many branches as possible and it would be saturated and the branches would just be going into eachother. That causes the dominant ones to overpower the smaller ones and even though some of them were the earlier, older and stronger branches they would simply be disabled and stay beneath the canopy and not give any proper bud.

More isn’t necessarily better, now I have reduced the number of branches and make sure that each has some space to develop.