Is Mainlining worth it?

Ganggreen99

Active Member
They look beautiful bro.... People don't understand
Update 3-3-22 (3.5 month mainline veg, huge branches) week 1 Flower
They look beautiful bro. Check out my last ones that finished up. I love main lining! Can you please explain to me how to get a second harvest out of the plant thank you
 

Attachments

amneziaHaze

Well-Known Member
I just do LST my main top is smallest of them all.once plants realise whats the highest top she stops giving all the food to main line and redirects to side branches
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Yes it is I went back to topping and now I'm back to mainlining. How I do it now is literally let the clone grow decent size in a 2 gal then axe all but 2 symmetrical branches, usually 4-5 node sets up. Then a couple weeks later I'll do a round of chopping tops again until I get my desired branches then throw into a final pot and let rip into a net.

Topping is a good practice as its part of mainlining but certainly inferior training method. I always get higher yield and bud consistency with mainline training compared to topping and having lots of different main branches.
 

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
Personally I think manifold is a better option. Mainlining is nice but takes far too much time. Outdoors, in the free sun, mainline away but it hurts my feelings to cut away growth and pay for power etc... Plus wait extra weeks. I just let it grow up 6nodes bend over and top, allow branches to come up a bit too then top to 10-12 branches, strip off the underneath then let them come up for a week or so and flip.IMG_20220326_201931.jpg
Dont mind my pjs
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Personally I think manifold is a better option. Mainlining is nice but takes far too much time. Outdoors, in the free sun, mainline away but it hurts my feelings to cut away growth and pay for power etc... Plus wait extra weeks. I just let it grow up 6nodes bend over and top, allow branches to come up a bit too then top to 10-12 branches, strip off the underneath then let them come up for a week or so and flip.View attachment 5111618
Dont mind my pjs
I have to mainline or my plants outgrow the allocated space. I'm doing a perpetual grow with a dedicated VEG room and dedicated BLOOM room. Plants move out once large enough for nets and are allowed to stretch into netting, tuck here n there and strip the lower third of the plants.

If I can keep getting 18-21 oz per plant doing that I'll be happy. Just topping plants or doing it the easy way doesn't seem as rewarding.
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Also mainline (w/o bending) Can make for tall plants. I don't have the verticle space
This depends on how many times you top the plants. I've held plants back for a while with heavy chopping. I've taken a 4 foot tall plant and made it 1 foot in 1 snip. Cleaned up all the other branches then started topping off those branches, that plant yielded 20 oz quality smoke. Consistent cola uniformity vs topping or just bending. Mainline you are basing the entire canopy off 2 branches vs 6-8-10-20 w/e.
 

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
I have to mainline or my plants outgrow the allocated space. I'm doing a perpetual grow with a dedicated VEG room and dedicated BLOOM room. Plants move out once large enough for nets and are allowed to stretch into netting, tuck here n there and strip the lower third of the plants.

If I can keep getting 18-21 oz per plant doing that I'll be happy. Just topping plants or doing it the easy way doesn't seem as rewarding.
I always weigh in whether I'd be able to get another flower room done in the time I'm vegging 2 other runs. I'd rather get 3 runs out than 1 or 2. It still takes me time to veg but I try to keep it at a min. I also veg plants in a diff tent while the flower rooms running. Take clones week 4 flower root by week 5-6 then plant and establish for a week and start vegging for a few weeks before even getting into the main flower room. By the time it's chop o'clock the new cuts are ready to explode.
 

Rurumo

Well-Known Member
I just love the Hulk arms you get from some plants when the arms of the mainline are lined up perfectly. Lately I've topped at the 4th or 5th node and stripped the others but node 2/3 or 3/4, leaving 4 arms to build from. It's a little faster than building from a single node mainline, BUT you don't get as fat a trunk or the Hulk arms. Yields are identical no matter how I've topped/trained plants though, it doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you fill up your footprint with colas (if you are going for yield). I've always thought the main purpose of mainlining was #1. the fun of it and #2. Great pictures.
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
I just love the Hulk arms you get from some plants when the arms of the mainline are lined up perfectly. Lately I've topped at the 4th or 5th node and stripped the others but node 2/3 or 3/4, leaving 4 arms to build from. It's a little faster than building from a single node mainline, BUT you don't get as fat a trunk or the Hulk arms. Yields are identical no matter how I've topped/trained plants though, it doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you fill up your footprint with colas (if you are going for yield). I've always thought the main purpose of mainlining was #1. the fun of it and #2. Great pictures.
Great pictures of the craft. You are basically setting the plant up to be very consistent in growing the whole plant off 1 node set. Less work in the long run if you time your clean ups right. I start mainlining once they are grown into 2 gal pots then allow them to grow a bit then strip again and top once more so on. Throw it into a 10 gal and watch it throw bats.

IF you let the clone grow about a foot tall then chop it down to the 2 nodes that are best growing and most equivalent that is the best method from my own experience. Big waste of time but if you are running 10 week flowers and doing perpetual grow with a dedicated veg room it makes sense to delay the plants a bit. :grin: :grin: :grin:
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Actually, I honestly don't think the yield was related to the mainline, but my best yielding plant last grow also had the best mainline. It produced just under 1 lb, and that was due to the incredible vigor of the cross, but it did grow some nice Hulk arms. View attachment 5111632
Looks like an alien woman spreading them legz. Yeah man mainline is scary process at first but once you try it its hard to go back to just topping or letting plants grow like xmas tree.
 

Buds N Brew

Well-Known Member
With mainlining if you micro manage the plants and use stakes to keep all the branches equally spaced like a table top start to finish you can achieve record yields but it's 5 times more work than just topping them and if you don't do it right you can ruin a plant.

The plant on the left is not main-lined it's only topped whereas the plant on the right is main lined. If you notice, there isn't a huge difference other than the topped plant has less equal height branches, even with training and moderate net training. They are different strain plants but as you can see I can speak for both methods.
View attachment 5054298
View attachment 5054299
View attachment 5054301
View attachment 5054300
View attachment 5054302

The last picture, that plant yielded 36 ounces (2.2 lbs) of dry trimmed bud under a 1,000 W HPS Double-Ended Gavita. The plant was so hefty that the dual layer netting couldn't even support it with stakes as well....
@calvin.m16 What size container was that last plant grown in, and about how tall was the plant at maturity? Thanks.
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
@calvin.m16 What size container was that last plant grown in, and about how tall was the plant at maturity? Thanks.
The plant was about 6 foot tall before it flopped over due to not having a 3rd layer of netting. Pot is 20 gal with Sunshine Advanced #4 mix. I prefer mainline because it buys me time in VEG so the plants don't get too big before bloom. I've since massively reduced my pot size I'm using 10 gallon pots now with coco/perlite. I would use the bales of sunshine #4 advanced still but breaking down bales is too much for me when I could just pour the coco out of the bag premixed. So long as I can continue getting 1.8 cu/ft of coco for $10/bag I'll be happy.

p.s the pictures are my flowering area of my basement, I have another room which is LED where I veg so I can keep a perpetual garden going.
 
Top