Topping vs. LST vs. Natural

I like to plant outdoors in may only go to my plants to fert or pull males. I toped some so they dont get big to hide easyer and i noticed that the plants i let grow naturaly would yeild more becuse they are bigger it all depends on the conditions you are growing in if you got a small area fim might be better if you got space i would go all natural. if you want to keep plants small and stealth go with toping.

loaded dervish said:

I like to plant outdoors in may only go to my plants to fert or pull males. I toped some so they dont get big to hide easyer and i noticed that the plants i let grow naturaly would yeild more becuse they are bigger it all depends on the conditions you are growing in if you got a small area fim might be better if you got space i would go all natural. if you want to keep plants small and stealth go with toping.

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i disagree with this for 1 main reason. If you let it grow naturally thats all good, but think about all the leaves and potential budsites that are getting blocked from not bending taller leaves out of the way. Not even LST, just moving them so lower parts of the plant get exposed is better than leaving it the way it is imo.

LST-ing so far seems to be doing me justice... they love the light and are growing incredibly fast...

I have some kandy kush should i top or lst ?

cant find the thread I was looking for on here, but I've taken this from elsewhere as it explains it fairly well...

Why LST Works
One of the #1 things you need to understand about LST: auxins.

If you don't understand them, then you are just putting strings on your plant so they look like other plants in pictures.

Auxins are plant hormones that interact with other plant hormones to form the "plant nervous system" in the most simplest terms. Auxins are used to help stimulate nearly all facets of plant growth.

Auxins are used to help promote new root growth and is often part of what is used in rooting compounds or rooting hormones that are so popular in marijuana horticulture. There has also been research (in the 50s I believe) that indicates that levels of auxins also influence the sex of a marijuana plant. Some research has also indicated that levels of auxins also play a role in the ways flowers mature on a plant.

Most of all, auxins, in marijuana plants, are known for producing adventitious buds along the stem and in the roots. Adventitious is sort of like it sounds: it's the "adventurous" part of the plant that sprouts when the plant is wounded or trained.

With LST, it is not as simple as: "Make more auxins. Plant grow big."

So why did we learn about auxins if we're not going to be making more of them? I mean, more is good when it comes to marijuana right?!

Well: no, not in this case. This part is important so pay attention: auxins are most concentrated (and synthesized) at the apical bud or the tip of the plant closest to the light. The rest of the plant has the ability to produce auxins, but the cells must be triggered to do so. Now, although auxins are hormones essential for many facets of growth, it is also an inhibiting hormone for the other buds further down the stem. This is to prevent the plant from producing buds which may compete with the apical bud.

In other words:
The plant is very happy having one bud that it tries to stretch as close as possible to its source of energy. It will do what it can to inhibit other sprouts below it from becoming that bud as it would require the plant to push those sprouts up to that level again.

If you are still a bit confused, think of images of trees and picture the growth that they have in a cone-shaped fashion. They are working to push the apical bud up to the sky.

Now that you understand what auxins are and how they are important for growth in marijuana, you can begin to understand how LST works.

How LST Works
This is where I get to those people who were saying "Topping and LST aren't even close. You're full of crap."

When you top a plant, you are removing the apical bud (the bud closest to the light) where most of the auxin is concentrated and synthesized. The plant stresses itself out (high stress training) and eventually produces new sprouts along the stem that will form new growth so that it can get a new apical bud and send it soaring towards the heavens.

LST is helping to stimulate that growth near the bottom but by tricking the plant instead of chopping it. In nature, if something happens to a plant and the bud that is closest to the light gets blocked, it will try to move around that something. If it can't, then eventually new growth will form lower along the stem to try and send a new shoot out to head towards the light.

When you LST, the reason that you are tying the tip of the plant down is so that the plant gets confused. It is used to producing the auxins in the tip of the plant close to the light. However, because the tip of the plant is pulled down to such a degree, it is not receiving light at the very tip like it used to so it sends the auxins down the stem to produce new sprouts to become new apical buds (or so the plant hopes).

This is why some people continue training as the plant gets older, but like to start when the plant is new as auxin development starts with roots and continues through all stages of the plant. Continued training of the plant is helpful because, as you can imagine, each apical tip can be brought down to promote new growth further down the stem. Every time you bring the tip down, the plant will be fooled. As new tips of the plant are reaching towards the light, pulling them back down below 90 degrees (or close to it) will make those auxins start to flow again. This can continue on and on.

ok so i didnt read everyones post, sorry guys but im fuckin tired.. but from my experience, i top and LST.. but if u cut clones in flower they reveg with a shitload of tops.. this is called monster cropping.. which is what ive done so therefore i LST then top a bunch, then LST..

I've got a comparative grow going on atm, 2 seeds failed to pop at the same time as the others but instead sprouted about 10 days later. I lst'd and fimmed all the plants that were more advanced and left the 2 weedlings to their own devices- the result so far is 2 very tall plants with fewer smaller colas than the lst'd fimmed plants that have fatter colas and generally a nicer more managable shape with stronger stems to support the buds

So i would say fimming and lst is the way forward check my current grow out on page 11 to see for yaself

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

LSTing definitely produces more shoots and growth than Natural growth, and is better than topping as there is no interruption to the flow of growth hormones.
LSTing can result in broken plants, although I would think the borken plants is not "Low Stress Training".
I have started ZSTing my plants.
What the fuck is ZSTing you may ask?
ZERO STRESS TRAINING
I attach a training frame made from galvanised wire to my pots (which are square pots) and then I lay the pots on their side and the plants bend towards the light ... then I attach them to the frame.
I exert ZERO stress on the plant and cannot break or snap the plant.
Once they are attached to the frame I can stand the pot upright (for a few days) and lay it down again later.

Have a look at the latest postings in the thread in my signature for an idea about what I am talking about.

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Cool ideal but you do realize you are training your roots to twist all around in the pot also.

look at my grow then come back and vote for topping.,,its not the best example but god damn.

very good gogrow! love the info! +rep

so I see mostly LST I am wondering now if I should have added a forth option with LST + topping but I didn't really know back then Today I will hopefully update pics of my babies, 7 days before flowering. Follow my sig in a few hours and you'll see 'em. Hell I havn't seen them in 2 days, even I am curious peace

Pics are up in my journal. Freshly LSTd, but found a male

bird mcbride said:

I can only resolve that the sex is designed into the seed. I can't speak for auto's on this subject because auto's are a cross between some plant in Siberia and a potplant.

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Actually, autoflowering plants are cannabis sativa or cannabis indica, or a hybrid, crossed with ruderalis, which is a HEMP plant. Hemp is also cannabis. And a cannabis plant is a pot plant, therefore autos are 100% cannabis. Also, they have come really far! Some auto strains have 20%+ THC levels and will knock you on your ass just as much and more than some regular strains. However, you should NEVER top an auto as their veg stage is too short for them to recover.

I know this is being posted in an old post, but hopefully it will bring the post alive again... I'm a big fan of LST'ING and 1st started Incorporating it into my grows back in the 90's.
There's many different ways growers have incorporated LST into their grows besides just bending the branches down. As well as different reasons for doing it. Outdoors for stealth reasons to keep their plants low and less detectable. Years ago I saw a plant that was LST'd outdoors that was spread out and staked inches above the ground and it looked like a giant spider. Also people have staked them out long ways on the ground with the stalk actually on the ground to the point roots grew off the stalk into the ground and all the shoots on the stalk grew straight up vertically.
In the 90's I use to go all out with my LST. I would initially tie my main top shoot completely over, allowing the auxins to force my side branches to grow. As my top shoot would turn and start growing upright again, I would bend and tie it over in the opposite direction and continue and repeat the process until my side branches caught up with it. Then I would do the same process with my side branches. Bending their .main shoot over and tying it to it's own stalk, forcing the shoots on it's branch to grow out. My plants had so many cut short pieces of pipe cleaners of over the tips of my branches that they looked like they went to the beauty salon and got a bad perm. Lol. But talk about the bushes I had with no topping at all and keeping all my main growing tops. My main stalk and branches had so many "S" turns on them they looked like springs.
Pictures here are a couple LST plants of my 1st grow in over 15 years. Branches are going to get bent back down again and going under a scrog net today or tomorrow. Plants have been stripped 3 times so far. You can see in the one picture after the strip, I not only bent the branches down, I bent them sideways as well making them encircling the outside of the bucket exposing the new shoots to the light. No topping was done at all.