Some ideas on maximizing single plant in room?

So I started growing last few years. First attempt was 3 plants with a very weak return, fast forward a bit of personal growthand time and I tried two plants last run, getting the biggest yield yet. This time I am trying a single plant, curious if I can get an even bigger yield out of this single plant with the proper care.

My main question is about fimming/topping. From my understanding these only help maximize yield by controlling a plants size to match your available space. But it is something that for instance, outdoor growers or growers less worried about running out of space wouldn't really need to do. The single strain I am growing is called "Jack-47". I have grown this multiple times and the plants have always been really short. So my idea is to NOT fim or top and just let the plant run diagonal across the square grow space with low stress training bending it across and then guide everything through trellis. My question is if people think I should still fim/top for some more concentrated colas, or just let the plant grow naturally with some low stress training to maximize space? Maybe I could do a super late top/fim after letting it grow nearly the length of my grow space first to ensure I am maximizing potential space.

Also, any other tips are welcome in regards to this single plant run. Some specs I have are 400w hid lighting (18hr/day currently metal hallide, switching to hps during flower) 3x3 grow space, trying royal gold mendo mix soil in a 7 gallon pot with fox farm trio nutes. Also, feel free to tell me I'm crazy, I read mixed reviews online about if the 7 gal was overkill even for a single plant run, but I figured id give it a try.

I posted some pictures to give an idea of what I'm going for. My idea is to just stretch that girl across diagonal and guide the colas up through the trellis.

I ve done both,topping to get 30 colas and not so much and get 15 colas.

15 was much more open allowing light to reach deeper.

Pending on strain also.

With HPS lighting for me a stadium style canopy worked well.

My suggestion:

Veg the plant for a few months of course...

A few weeks before you plan to flip, you should start "air layering" the most dominant branch that is reaching for the light. Make sure it is a big one, up to 1/3 of the entire plant if you will! Try not to top the plant too much in the beginning, just a few times, to prepare it.

No matter how big the stalk is, or if it's a 3 ft tall branch, you can clone it by air layering BTW. I know its hard to imaging rooting out a 3-4ft branch, but I've done it numerous times. Took clones as bit as some peoples plants, lol.

That is going to be your new clone, that is already huge, and ready to replace the lower half as soon as its harvested. You can even start training it before it roots out, and no need to dim the lights. It's still connected to the mother plant, unlike cuttings that would wilt under the same condition.. Loli pop it, and or tie it up like a pony tail, to let light down into the rest of the plant while it roots. Trying to create a flat canopy for scrog as soon as its removed.

In other words, let it grow first without much training, as if you are looking for a huge single cola or 2. Then you clone the entire upper 1/3rd of the plant (even if it has a 1 inch stalk!), leaving you a flat/concave area where the missing half was. Perfect to drop your scrog net right onto, Intsead of spending or shoud I say wasting time training and weaving into the net like most growers would.

Then you flip right away, and it will stretch and fill the net back in with a really even canopy. Almost like a big cup if you let it, that is uniform under an HID, giving you the best light distance and coverage possible. That is how the plants canopy comes out when you air layer the whole upper half like that. The middle fills in slower than the outer most branches\tops you didn't cut.

Then you just keep perpetually doing it over and over. Like cutting the plant in half, and keep flowering the lower half out in one area while you root out and veg the upper half in another, while also air layering the upper half of the upper half to replace it. You only need one extra veg area to both veg and propagate in with this method.

Once you get the schedule dialed in, you'll always be putting a large plant back into the flower room, ready to flip and repeat.

I have never even heard of air layering, that's pretty fascinating that it works like that. And honestly that sounds so nice. I've heard about cloning, but I have never really messed with it. I would have to setup another space and get some new equipment but that type of setup just sounds so wildly efficient. This is actually the first time I'm trying to setup the scrog net this early, I usually toss it over top and just fit branches through as I'm putting it on, I guess I had it right to begin with lol.

And so I have this straight, you don't really train in the beginning, but rather use this method late in veg to even out the canopy? I guess I assumed I would have to lean the plant across diagonally throughout veg to make full use of the space, but I probably didn't even need to do that.

FIM the plant. It's lower stress and same end result of topping plus a cpl extra colas if you do it right. Breaking the dominate stem stops hormones from focusing only on it and keeping branches small. Now everything will grow like the main stem.

Give a good 6 -8 week veg if you just wanna run one plant. As you spread out the plant leave your light alone at about 16 inches. The plant will find its own perfect heights towards the end as growth slows and settle around 12 inches from light source in my exp. With side growing higher and center being lower where light is more intense.

Yep you got it straight.

AL'ing is the most ancient technique for cloning plants and trees BTW. The most fool proof way IMO, with the best success rate. Sometimes the only one that will work with some varieties of plants or trees. Works great with cannabis, especially those finicky strains. Just don't try to take more than 50% of a plant at a time, and you should be good. Whether its one big section (half the plant), or multiple smaller clones.

Did I mention that it technically still counts as one plant until you cut them away? Kind of a grey area of law, but.. Meaning, you could time it so that you only have one mother plant, and then cut away the clones as soon as you need them. You can even leave them attached, and add more medium, and keep vegging them as long as you need. Until all your other plants are finished, then cut them away. If they raided you and you had 20 plants still connected to and growing from the one, they would have to physically cut away the plants (before they are even legally considered a plant) to try and fabricate charges against you or something. Talk to your lawyer before you take my word though, lol.


What better way to learn how to clone? You would be skipping 95% of the problems that almost all growers have dealt with, when taking tiny little cuttings that take 2 months to grow as big as your freshly cut one. And be saving money on un-needed cloning supplies and gear. All snake oil

It does take a little bit to fully root out monster AL clones before they can flower, but no where near as long as waiting for a small cutting to grow the same size. You hack time in a way, and make it so you can perpetually grow huge plants while keeping your plant count mininmal.

You really get a good root ball going quick if you plop the fresh cut AL clones into an Aero/DWC system. Either way, the bigger the clone, the more care it needs until it can grow enough roots to totally self support. I just toss bags over the huge clones for a few days to keep the humidity up, etc.

By huge I mean 3 feet tall and wide. Smaller air layers under 24 inches will take right off NP, and you could practically flip the right size ones without much delay.


The method I speak of.. I don't really know anyone else that does it exactly like I said, and came up with the idea myself while doing big single plant grows, and experimenting with ALing at the same time..

When using trellis you dont really need to be tying the plant down for lst, the screen does that for you. Drop the trellis a bit and pull it tighter, then weave branches through all the openings as it grows. Then once all the holes are filled, you can top any branches that are growing too tall so you get a nice even canopy height.