Lst with autos?

What's the deal?

yeah i agree sounds pretty dumb to me as they have way too short of a cycle to even bother lst the thing to make any noticeable difference in growth or yield for that matter...

Check the journal. If you do it right and maximize light to as many parts of the plant it will grow as bigger and more undergrowth will become sustained stems capable of holding a a decent amount of weight compared to minimal undergrowth. The least you could do if you want to keep your main cola straight up is to restrain and upward growth by stems working their way up towards the light. The further away the top of the stem is the more of that branch receives light and grow producing arms of buds instead of 1 or 2 buds at the top of the stem.

ThatGuy113 said:

Check the journal. If you do it right and maximize light to as many parts of the plant it will grow as bigger and more undergrowth will become sustained stems capable of holding a a decent amount of weight compared to minimal undergrowth. The least you could do if you want to keep your main cola straight up is to restrain and upward growth by stems working their way up towards the light. The further away the top of the stem is the more of that branch receives light and grow producing arms of buds instead of 1 or 2 buds at the top of the stem.

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well... please dont take offense to this, but if your yield is abysmal and all you get from one plant is half an oz dry the lst probably was the main culprit or what i saw you do by scrogging... scroggin autos is just plain counter productive...

i didnt see any lst goin on in your journal but i could have missed that part... went through and just didnt see any lst just a scrog for your autos which still seems to be extremely counter productive... did you chop out the lower branches to "lolipop" them for your scrog so just only the "tops" were above the screen during the first month of growth kinda like people normally do for photoperiods or did you do what i saw on this photo on page 4 P1000048.jpg where your autos are smushed up against your screen???

if you did either of those i mentioned you just lost at least 25% of your yield right there...

you just simply cannot DO ANYTHING that will restrict growth for an auto... THAT includes REDIRECTING growth its just like i said before extremely counter productive and you will loose your ability to maximize your yields...

think about it this way... have you ever seen a photo period plant during its 4th week of flowering be thrown under a screen???

think about autos this way and you will have a better time at them... imagine you are growing a photo plant 12/12 from seed and it generally grows a bit for about 3 wks then after the first month starts flowering... that is what is kinda happening with autos regardless of light regiment...

an autos flowering period actually begins from seed even though there is no flowers present on the plant... there is essentially no real measurable vegetative growth period... so by the time it is already a month old its already around the same "maturity" as a photo plant that is on its 4th wk of flowering even though it may not "look" like a photo at 4 wks or have as big of flowers...

autos complete their cycle from preflower to finished in about half the time it takes a photo to complete its flowering cycle... so when your on 4wks of total growth from seed for your auto... think of it as 4wks into flowering for a photo...

they are roughly about the same maturity at this point now albeit there are genetic and phenotype exceptions to the flowering period based upon sativa or indica... so this happens even in autos that are sativa dominant will generally take longer to finish which is what you are seeing now with some of these "super autos" those are mostly sativa/ruderalis crosses and whaddya know they take about 4-6 wks longer on average to mature than the autos that are crossed with indicas... so just like the indica avg of 8wks the sativa avg of 12-14 wks happens with autos that are crossed with them as well


im willing to bet that a vast majority of the ones who have grown autos and have the biggest yields have never lst or scrogged... and here is why... the cropping and or redirecting of growth done for a scrog is normally and supposed to be done completely during the vegetative state of the plants lifecycle and once the plant has been trained to have all of its "tops" ABOVE the screen then it is thrown into flowering...

what you did was effectively hindered your growth of flowers and is why you got such abysmal yields... all except what you think you got lucky with the pineapple xpress only cause what you think of as 42gs dry as being a big yield when you should have gotten around 60g off of it... the pinespress autos are really big yielders to begin with...

again please take this with constructiveness and not out of negativity... your plants look nice... but could be MUCH nicer

I got an ounce and a half off of my most recent harvest of Pineapple express and it was scrogged. Also like i described above i low stress strain lower branches on autos because it you allow the undergrowth to get covered up by the main heavy cola and the abundance of leaves that grow out further and further leaving undergrowth in the shadows. I take the stems and tie the branched so they are horizontal and the end will keep growing up. I think you didn't go deep enough in my journal maybe.. Ive been averaging ounce and a half per plant since the most recent major changes to the grow room... from what i see around here harvests tend to average from under to an ounce per plant with the exception of a few people that grow some monsters. Dont think of it as stressing the plant cause your not, your simply bending branches to give max exposure for more surface area of the branches coming off. The more penetration of light you can get for an auto and the earlier you start to tuck leaves and wrap bottom branches around the plant to get the most light. Nothing extreme just gentle positioning. As long as you start early you are maximizing the potential size of the plant. That bigger size leads to thicker branches and a more powerful nutrient delivery system. If it's not your taste no big deal. I think at least their is a method behind my madness.

42 g's is pretty good for one plant but mostly the genetics of that plant are what yielded you that much...but you could have gotten a bit more closer to 2 oz...

still a good job

for the most part genetics are going to determine your avg yield... but there are other factors like container size and other factors like lighting, nutes, growing environment, atmospheric conditions like co2, etc... that will push you well past the average...

but without co2 and powerfull 2000 total watt systems i find the best thing is the space the roots have to grow... cause if the plant has a vast root system and a large enough container to spread out in then it will of course have a better system to transmit nutrients to the plant and thus give it the ability to grow like a monster

do a side by side for fun once and it gets comical and pretty amazing to boot as well but grow the same strain say your pineapple express in two or even three pot sizes...

start them all off with all having started in each container respectively... do a 1 gallon then a 3 gallon and then a 5 gallon, anything larger than 5 gal is not necessary... generally the one in the 5 gallon will yield the most...

now this is where it is essential to have a large container size... but only for autos cause ruderalis strains generally grow their root systems like a mofo for the first 3 weeks of its growth and then start to put on above ground growth in an accelerated rate...

so based upon the genetic growth pattern of root growth for autos the one with the vaster root system delivers the nutrients the most effectively and thus should be the one which gives the best yields...

now this is an almost non existent issue regarding pot size for regular photoperiod plants cause they have and can have a much longer life cycle and have a true vegetative period and you can still get a "monster" and even 3 oz off of a plant out of a tiny 1 gallon container... providing it has been able to veg long enough maybe even 4 oz...

but see there is the difference a photoperiod can have a long veg period whereas an auto doesnt have a choice its lifecycle is way too short...

i can see what you mean by arranging the lower branches to be able to get the most light exposure and that makes perfect sense... but i guess i was confused at the fact of what low stress training was being done as in the usual tying down the top of the plant to make the sides grow out more like you usually do to make a plant more bushy... i believe most if not every grower should try to get the most light possible to each part of the plant even below the canopy...

outside the sun usually does this job for ya but in an indoor environment where even the most powerful of lights cannot match the suns light radiation to the lower branches... so i def agree ya gotta do something to make your light more efficient to the plant

and the ones who grow monsters never lst or scrogged i can guarantee it

also have you ever noticed while looking at a top or any bud site for that matter the fan leaves and pointy smaller bud fan leaves will form a sort of surrounding V shape around the buds??? they do that to absorb the most light and also reflect light back to the buds to get the most light directed to the sides of the buds since outdoors the sun generally is bright enough all around to get the most light to the sides of the buds

pretty cool huh???

anyways sorry ran on there for a sec lol...

yeah i guess as long as people just try to GENTLY arrange their budsites to get the best out of their setup and get the most direct light too the budsites then that wouldnt be a bad thing...

just as long as its not like lst where you tie down the top of the plant to the side of the bucket like ppl do for the normal lstng

I guess the idea would be to let it grow into that position instead of having it grow straight up for a few weeks then bending it tremendously. I do run 5 gallon pots with the plants 18 -20 inches away from the light also using a super rich organic mix everything i need is there. Different Strokes for different folks but i know some of the main cola monsters with massive side branching had the branches grow more horizontal then up allowing more of the branch to get covered in turn tighter nodes and denser buds. I do agree though that not all autos are worth doing it to especially if they are the dwarf sized plants.

ThatGuy113 said:

I guess the idea would be to let it grow into that position instead of having it grow straight up for a few weeks then bending it tremendously. I do run 5 gallon pots with the plants 18 -20 inches away from the light also using a super rich organic mix everything i need is there. Different Strokes for different folks but i know some of the main cola monsters with massive side branching had the branches grow more horizontal then up allowing more of the branch to get covered in turn tighter nodes and denser buds. I do agree though that not all autos are worth doing it to especially if they are the dwarf sized plants.

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yeah def dwarf are what i like to call just for fun and or mainly for people with space constraints like a pc cabinent grow or something

you say you keep your light 18-20 inches from your tops??? you have a 600 watt light that seems way too far away maybe 20 inches from a cooltube in a 2 1000 watt setup but not a single 600...

cause even just in that if your set up is good and have a good grow room and all of the other factors are taken care of like nutes good soil etc...

if your light is way too far away that will decrease your yields as well because you are losing the intensity of the light at an exponential rate the further the plant is from the light source...

for a 600 watt hps id say if you can keep it constantly right at about 8-12 inches, but not for seedlings of course... but after its about a couple of weeks old you should be keeping the light no more than a foot from the tops of the plant and it should hit the sweetspot for maximizing your light energy on the plants...


so as long as temps arent an issue... and you can easily correct that with cool air being fed through the tube or cool air being pulled into the room with hot air expelled out...

A foot and a half is a very widely recommended distance. Different strokes for different folks. My nutes are all set I grow in super soil and there's nothing more i need to add but my teas, a touch of bud candy here or there and a bit of cal mag. The thread isnt about my grow though it was asking different opinions on the subject of LST we both supplied them. I've read plenty of books and taken in countless hours of information, my set up is the way it is cause that's how I have tweaked it and it works for me. I wasn't asking for constructive criticism, am I saying it will never change? no I'm not but i didn't just set up this whole thing last week. I appreciate the gesture of help but nothing your saying is news to me I've heard it all of these different takes on different grow room variables before. Once you see so many grow room setup threads its all repetitive. Good Luck with your future grows.

leave autos alone and let them grow , too short of a life cycle to be any kind of productive when you try to add stress