Trimming a plant too much instead of 12/12 from seed to keep them small n manageable?

So I want to grow several strains under 1 lamp. From what I have studied, if I germinate them 12/12 from seed they would grow smaller and fit under the lamp.

BUT

What if instead of going 12/12 from seed I simply grow them 18/6 during veg and trim/cut them a lot? This way I could also have clones and try growing them with windowsill as well just to see how it goes. In the end I could actually have a bigger harvest combining the 2 methods.

So how much can you cut a plant to keep it small? Is it recommended?

i would be the first to say never shut the lights off in veg. as to say if your going to veg them out you might aswell leave the damn light on 24hr a day because if your not flowering than shuting the lights off is really just slowing you down. its already bin proven that weed can grow just fine under 24 hours a day of light and no darkness. and also ive done my own side by sides and ive noticed that the node spacing on the 24hr on 0 off was shorter which keeps the plant smaller! also the groath was faster. now that ive got that out of the way , i can say that if you just let the plant grow to as big as u can let it grow than chop it completly in half and start flowering , than the side branches will become the main colas and it will fit into your setup even after the stretching it may or may not do!

skoalmint614 said:

i would be the first to say never shut the lights off in veg. as to say if your going to veg them out you might aswell leave the damn light on 24hr a day because if your not flowering than shuting the lights off is really just slowing you down. its already bin proven that weed can grow just fine under 24 hours a day of light and no darkness. and also ive done my own side by sides and ive noticed that the node spacing on the 24hr on 0 off was shorter which keeps the plant smaller! also the groath was faster. now that ive got that out of the way , i can say that if you just let the plant grow to as big as u can let it grow than chop it completly in half and start flowering , than the side branches will become the main colas and it will fit into your setup even after the stretching it may or may not do!

Click to expand...

What range of gpw do you get using those techniques?

What's one lamp? A 23 watt cfl or 1000 watt hps

avillax said:

So I want to grow several strains under 1 lamp. From what I have studied, if I germinate them 12/12 from seed they would grow smaller and fit under the lamp.

BUT

What if instead of going 12/12 from seed I simply grow them 18/6 during veg and trim/cut them a lot? This way I could also have clones and try growing them with windowsill as well just to see how it goes. In the end I could actually have a bigger harvest combining the 2 methods.

So how much can you cut a plant to keep it small? Is it recommended?

Click to expand...

Lot more reading before you sprout, make sure you know as much as you can before you actually begin...

The more you cut @ a vegging plant, the bigger n bushier its gonna get..... Cut off bottom branches, it gets taller, snip the top, the bottom branches stretch n reach up, chop a stem, the next 2 lowest nodes becomes a pair of branches.....


Less veg time = smaller plant. (If in dirt, especially auto's, smaller pot = smaller plant)

How big is your grow space? Is going vertical an option? Then each plants footprint can be tiny, they can get tall as shit, just keep tying them back n letting that shit roll....

Then when harvest hits.... THEN you will have a different meaning for "trimming too much" but you wont tell us about it, cuz your hands will be so scissor sore.... Trimming just 3-5oz makes me wanna smash my head against the wall....

hard to say since ive grown anything from a micro shoe box grow all the way up to a stringy stretchy monster i let go forever in my bedroom with just ambient light from my normal house lighting. il say this much tho , in the plants that i have chopped in half the yield was noticably smaller than the plants that i left alone, not by much tho. i havent even done such a thing in a good ammount of time tho. last time i recall i had chopped a bagseed bitch in half and let her sister stay natural and this was done just to test what your asking me. and the diference was around 7g dry less off of the plant i chopped. it seems to me like the plant just made the side buds into much bigger main colas and the popcorn buds turned into side buds!

Flagg420 said:

Lot more reading before you sprout, make sure you know as much as you can before you actually begin...

The more you cut @ a vegging plant, the bigger n bushier its gonna get..... Cut off bottom branches, it gets taller, snip the top, the bottom branches stretch n reach up, chop a stem, the next 2 lowest nodes becomes a pair of branches.....


Less veg time = smaller plant. (If in dirt, especially auto's, smaller pot = smaller plant)

How big is your grow space? Is going vertical an option? Then each plants footprint can be tiny, they can get tall as shit, just keep tying them back n letting that shit roll....

Then when harvest hits.... THEN you will have a different meaning for "trimming too much" but you wont tell us about it, cuz your hands will be so scissor sore.... Trimming just 3-5oz makes me wanna smash my head against the wall....

Click to expand...

Yeah it's 3x3 feet but I have a lot of available height and can raise the lamp to 7 feet, it's a Mars Hydro 300w.

So from what you're telling me my best bet is to let them grow on small pots in soil, right?

in a 3x3? On a 300w store bought led?

Yes, small pots and blah blah, and you should get 1/4, maybe as much as a 1/2oz of fluffy lil buds from each... if you scrog....

3x3 is room for one plant to flower man... why spend 3-5months growing a plant you can smoke in a day......

Flagg420 said:

in a 3x3? On a 300w store bought led?

Yes, small pots and blah blah, and you should get 1/4, maybe as much as a 1/2oz of fluffy lil buds from each... if you scrog....

3x3 is room for one plant to flower man... why spend 3-5months growing a plant you can smoke in a day......

Click to expand...

Well my consumption is not that great and this is my first grow with autos, so first I want to see this harvest and based on that I will get another lamp.

Meanwhile I'm vegging other plants and light for vegging plants doesn't seem that necessary, if I do decide to add a new lamp by the time they start flowering the lamp will be ready.

avillax said:

So I want to grow several strains under 1 lamp.

Click to expand...

I use mars 600's for my veg, I personally wouldn't recommend doing "several" plants under a 300 maybe 3 at most. I say this because the light footprint of the LED is fairly small and wont cover your 3x3 area effectively. In veg you should be ok but in flower they will erupt and you don't want to be scrambling to keep up. You could however get away with a 300 in veg until the plants outgrow the light foot print then add one or two more for flower. In terms of trimming them up to keep them small you could look into "mainlining" kholas trimming off a majority of the off shoots and LSTing to guide the growths exactly where you want them to go. I can give you some sound advice on the LST but you will need to look more into mainlining yourself because i don't have any experience with it. This forum has quite few guides and grow journals showing how to do it though so you wont have to look to far.

Hi guys, so I've decided to just get another lamp, I'm getting the 240w mars hydro reflector series, I think this will be enough for good results.