FidelCa$hflow
Well-Known Member
While most growers go through a natural series of common mistakes, such as over watering or overfeeding, most beginners wouldn’t even think of twisting or bending, much less bending and breaking branches on their plants. The relationship that a first-time grower has with their plant is like that of a first-born child, born to first-time parents. I had to be coaxed into topping my first serious plant by repeatedly reading the training chapter of the old grower’s guide(frank/rosenthal) until I was certain that removing material from my plant was somehow a good idea.
Then that topped plant grew over 3 meters in height by August. A huge beautiful bush which I felt confident was that way because I injured it as a baby.
Even after Frank and Rosenthal’s tricks paid dividends, it still took me years (plus a hiatus) to warm up to the idea of (not pruning)but deliberately harming my plants tissues and contorting their stems into unnatural positions in order to increase yield.
However, once I discovered how to twist a stem just right to make it snap audibly( but only inside) it was like the plant and I started a whole new journey. When i discovered how to soften a young stem to train the tip down and crease shoots without breakage I felt even more like a plant puppet master.
Then I started defoliating more aggressively and lollipopping and I realized that I had possibly replaced the old habits of overwatering and over feeding with a new vice, overtraining.
so here it is: I am a true believer in high stress training low stress training and defoliation. However we need to be honest and admit that we have little to no science to back the idea that removing leaves from a plant helps to plant produce more of the desirable part. We also have to admit that we have Little too no scientific proof that breaking branches to create knots in the stem increases yield in any way. However there is evidence that low stress training and topping can improve yield in certain conditions. In my opinion, scrogging shouldn’t be considered a training method. If you are trellising buds on the the net, you are trellising. If you are using the net the way that you are supposed to in a scrog, you are actually low stress training, and if you are snapping branches or creasing them under the net, then you are high stress training. I guess its a bit of a semantics issue. The technique of “scrogging” obviously works extremely well by guiding you to guide your plant’s growth down, filling every possible square inch with tops. However, the same result could probably be achieved with only a ruler and a level.
My purpose in all of this is to suggest that some of these terms are subject to nuance. in reality,what one person calls a “scrog”, may be a trellis, while another grower might be sticking to the true essence of the technique(compressing the growth with the aid of the net).
Kyle Kushman said that “super-cropping” is anything that one does to “increase the yield” of the plant. It took a lot of practice to snap branches without breaking the outer skin or causing the branch to sag while it recovers. And even with that skill,I’m still not sure im doing anything productive to actually increase yield. I could be stunting growth inadvertently; truth is we dunno. I say we because no one as yet has shown me scientific proof that this or the other two techniques of bending and breaking or otherwise twisting crushing the stem and creasing it, actually result in a mathematically higher amount of material or potency.
So what is super-cropping anyway? Is it all of those things, or just the ones that take bravery to execute? Why do we (many growers)do so much based on anecdotal evidence when we know the variation between two phenos can be dramatic enough to trick us into thinking we’ve created a “nutrient superhighway” by physically abusing the plant into bearing nubs? Happy growing !
Then that topped plant grew over 3 meters in height by August. A huge beautiful bush which I felt confident was that way because I injured it as a baby.
Even after Frank and Rosenthal’s tricks paid dividends, it still took me years (plus a hiatus) to warm up to the idea of (not pruning)but deliberately harming my plants tissues and contorting their stems into unnatural positions in order to increase yield.
However, once I discovered how to twist a stem just right to make it snap audibly( but only inside) it was like the plant and I started a whole new journey. When i discovered how to soften a young stem to train the tip down and crease shoots without breakage I felt even more like a plant puppet master.
Then I started defoliating more aggressively and lollipopping and I realized that I had possibly replaced the old habits of overwatering and over feeding with a new vice, overtraining.
so here it is: I am a true believer in high stress training low stress training and defoliation. However we need to be honest and admit that we have little to no science to back the idea that removing leaves from a plant helps to plant produce more of the desirable part. We also have to admit that we have Little too no scientific proof that breaking branches to create knots in the stem increases yield in any way. However there is evidence that low stress training and topping can improve yield in certain conditions. In my opinion, scrogging shouldn’t be considered a training method. If you are trellising buds on the the net, you are trellising. If you are using the net the way that you are supposed to in a scrog, you are actually low stress training, and if you are snapping branches or creasing them under the net, then you are high stress training. I guess its a bit of a semantics issue. The technique of “scrogging” obviously works extremely well by guiding you to guide your plant’s growth down, filling every possible square inch with tops. However, the same result could probably be achieved with only a ruler and a level.
My purpose in all of this is to suggest that some of these terms are subject to nuance. in reality,what one person calls a “scrog”, may be a trellis, while another grower might be sticking to the true essence of the technique(compressing the growth with the aid of the net).
Kyle Kushman said that “super-cropping” is anything that one does to “increase the yield” of the plant. It took a lot of practice to snap branches without breaking the outer skin or causing the branch to sag while it recovers. And even with that skill,I’m still not sure im doing anything productive to actually increase yield. I could be stunting growth inadvertently; truth is we dunno. I say we because no one as yet has shown me scientific proof that this or the other two techniques of bending and breaking or otherwise twisting crushing the stem and creasing it, actually result in a mathematically higher amount of material or potency.
So what is super-cropping anyway? Is it all of those things, or just the ones that take bravery to execute? Why do we (many growers)do so much based on anecdotal evidence when we know the variation between two phenos can be dramatic enough to trick us into thinking we’ve created a “nutrient superhighway” by physically abusing the plant into bearing nubs? Happy growing !
![20210529_120106_HDR[1].jpg](/data/attachments/4041/4041668-f52cc4442e0a62bc2d2a357b2d8c5fe6.jpg)
