Thanks man. It varies plant to plant, but a general pattern is leave it alone for a few weeks, then when there's 6 or 7 inter nodes, I'll do the one supercrop 3 or 4 internodes up, and tie the tip to the plant with dental floss, so that the top is below the bottom/first inter node of main stem. The main stem will form a kind of "S". Then the side shoots will shoot out like this. (The main stem is the slightly thicker/longer one to the right. Strain: sativa dominant Blackjack):
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Then I'll let then growout. When the side shoots have grown out and and it's a layer of leaves, I'll strip it to it's foundation, like this(strain:Sunset Sherbet):
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Now, it's like you have 20 seedlings on sticks. This is a good time to feed the shoot directly with foliar feed. The goal is to activate every shoot, all the way to the first node on the first shoot, what I call the Alpha Larf
We wont have larf, cuz it'll be activated like this(strain: Chocolate Hashberry):
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You see, we're starting to form a muscular plant. No growth sites have been removed, so they keep multiplying. This process kind of repeats. The period after the first defoliation, I call the Lush, so now you're in your first Lush. All the 20 or so growth tips should grow out fairly evenly, so it'll be bushing up like this. From here to flower it's mainly just lst/defoliation. Bending down stalks lightly, trimming away fan leaves blocking undergrowth(like that beautiful one in the middle), and, when it's a block of bust, stripping it to it's foundation and baby feeding it. As tops grow taller than the bush, I don't top them, just clip all the top leaves. This will slow the top growth and open up what's underneath, but will keep the shoot active.. Strain:Blackberry Kush):
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The Final Lush, will coincide with the onset of flower, when you strip it down and have a network of seedlings on sticks filling the space you'd like to flower... All kinds of methods, but this works well for me, and will give you the muscle hamster plants that look like budsicles sticking out of the ground you are looking for
I'm going to buy my pots and 250w mh and hps Friday with ballast. Then maybe.move my tent to better location. Check heat and possibly jump up to a CMH at 315w but a lot of them are confusing me like Phillips ones requiring another part just to run them other than the needed standard ballast. But what LST do you do? Bend and secure? Super cropping? Anything else I thought defoiliation was an advanced lst but I'm new literally like 2 weeks into reading and research.
