Shorter, bushier plants.

New to this. Just completed my first grow and on to my second. First batch was under cheaper LED's. Learned a valuable lesson there. Plants were tall and thin. Any advice on training current grow to stay shorter and bush out? Current grow is under HPS lights. Thanks in advance!

Light distance is how you control how far they stretch.

Keep the light as close as you can. If you're using a sealed hood you can get it pretty close.

Awesome! I appreciate the info!

Saleen guy said:

Awesome! I appreciate the info!

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Switch to your metal halide bulb right now to veg under. It keeps them down.

I'm running metal halide right now with an open hood at about 36 inches. Just giving them about 6 ml per gallon of cyco grow a&b with about 2 ml per gallon of cal mag. They look really good headed into the end of week 2.

Saleen guy said:

I'm running metal halide right now with an open hood at about 36 inches. Just giving them about 6 ml per gallon of cyco grow a&b with about 2 ml per gallon of cal mag. They look really good headed into the end of week 2.

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Get a sealed hood and you can run the light much closer. 36 inches is much too far.

Properly ducting your lights with a exhaust fan will help a ton as well.

Thanks all for the help. Taking measures to improve things in the room. Butes sound accurate to you guys? Grow a&b and cal mag?

Put it under net. Spread it out. Keep the metal halide in there till after the stretch. Hps will cause it to stretch like mad.

I grew 2 autos...1 plant was further along and was ready for the hps...the other was not. I put the hps in there and the plant stretched 3 times higher. But should yield more...maybe...time will tell.

So if space is a problem keep that metal halide in there till after they are done stretching.

I used mh till after stretch when running hps

Saleen guy said:

New to this. Just completed my first grow and on to my second. First batch was under cheaper LED's. Learned a valuable lesson there. Plants were tall and thin. Any advice on training current grow to stay shorter and bush out? Current grow is under HPS lights. Thanks in advance!

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Tight nodal stacking is what you want and it starts in early veg. You can use panel style LEDs up to a certain point but once they get a few nodes you need more intensity. Vegging mid size plants under a metal halide or high quality LEDs can help. If you are looking to eliminate stretch altogether consider gradually reducing the hours of darkness instead of flipping right to 12/12. Start at 18/6 and go to 15/9 for a week or so. Then go to 14/10 for a week, and so on. When they are at around 13 or 14 hrs of light they should have already begun to preflower and most strains show sex. From there you can re-veg at 18/6 to monster them or flip directly to 12/12 for the duration of bloom phase. Either way you’ll end up with a much bushier plant than if you just flipped right to 12/12 from jump street.

I have just done this very thing to my plants; follow along here..

I top for 3 branch and tie them down I like that way

You guys are awesome! Thanks a ton for the help! I will implement some of these changes.

24-7 lighting in veg. Creates faster growth and tighter nodes. MH until first 3 weeks flower.

I just use 6500k HO T5's for vegging keeping the fixture just a few inches above the plants. I get really closely spaced nodes. It starts in veg. If you have a spindly plant due to lack of light or overfeed and get too much growth there isn't much you can do once they go into flower. Keep in mind that some strains are more stretchy than others. There isn't much you can do with some sativas to keep them from stretching. They're going to grow no matter what you do.

Tons of light, cold temps, topping keep em bushy; I grow 2lb plants that are 3-4ft tall. Heat and excessive lollipoping create lots of stretch

These two were vegged under a cheap blurple. The type of light doesn't matter as long as it is sufficient and the plants are properly cared for. (this "800w blurple wouldn't cover a 4x4).