Unofficial MNS Guide to Grooming

[barletta]

IF THE TITLE NEEDS TO BE CHANGED, LEMMIE KNOW. OR JUST CHANGE IT :^)

Well it's REALLY cold outside, so I guess I can start focusing on indoor again. A buddy asked about the difference between fimming and topping, and rather than confine my lil photo essay to that thread, I figgured I'd start a thread that anyone can add to. This thread will focus on trimming/bending/snapping/scrogging your plants.

I have 2 seedplants that are ~1 wk into flower, and I want to keep them short. I grow with 400's, so most sativa dom seedplants will get taller than I want them to unless I groom em. Ideally, I would like to keep 'colas' under 20" tall, and I'd like as few as possible (3 or 4). By only growing 3 or 4 colas (and VERY little larf) you focus the plants' energy into strictly bud production. When the larf is around, the plant is still growing leaves, strengthening stems, etc. Removing the larf also allows me to put the plants closer together, increasing my room's efficiency.

These plants are pretty much what I'm growing for:
The plant on the left was a lil more sativa dom, and the fim worked out perfectly. I wanted to keep the plants no taller than the single cola on the right. They are in 2 gallon grow bags of soil/cocomix.

This is the goal:

So here are the 2 plants that I'll be working with. One will be fimmed, and 1 will be topped. All of the seedplants will be groomed, and the cut growth shoots rooted and flipped in ~1 month. For the top/fim, the lil bit I cut I eat...

 

[barletta]

Gonna fim one first

The taller plant is going to get fimmed. Fim stands for Fuck I Missed. I guess the story goes that someone wanted to top their plant, accidentally cut a 'shoot', and had multiple tops grow (more than 2) from the cut. I really like doing this, and really don't top the plants anymore, but I did one in the next post.

Pre-FIM

I'm trying to cut the main stem of the plant as high up as possible, kinda mashing the plant around. I cut with whatever is SHARP. I never really worry about 'sterile'. I just stay away from rusty, dull cutting stuff. Takne plenty of clones with my choppers...

Mo...

 

[barletta]

Now we can top one

The idea with a top is to cut the top growth node clean off, leaving only 2 'shoots' to turn into 2 separate tops. Cut the stem and only the stem.

Before

After

I'm going to go supercrop one now, so I'll post pix in a lil bit.

 

[barletta]

Here is a supercrop. Usually I do this on seedplants that stretch more/for longer than I expected. This is either spice x ssh, or ssh f2 (like the prev. 2 plants). It is still unsexed, but is growing a lil taller than it's siblings. This crop will be almost worthless when she really starts to flower. Seedplants build big, thick stems, and repair themselves quickly. That's why I crop almost all of my 'bush' clones to get em like that. Cropping a seedplant that is less than 3wks into flower usually only gives you 2-4 days before the plant top gets back to where it was pre-crop. Enough blahblahblah...

Pre-Crop. Gonna pinch 90 deg from the direction of the fall. Ex. If I stand over the plant and want her to fall due east, I will pinch her @ due north and due south. 90 deg from the fall. If you pinch on the fall, they break easily.

The pinch. A HARD pinch as closer to the nodes as possible. The further the plant is from 4wks flower (~the end of the stretch) the more aggressive you can be. I am GENTLE cropping anything 3-4 wks in. I'll show ya why in the next post.

Now I'm gently going to lean it forward... Oops... That will heal. I would be worried bout that 1 @4wks...

Which one???

 

[barletta]

See the crack? No problem now, but mid-flower, I'd have to stake that.

Here is a plant that I cropped at 3wks and again ~4wks. The 2nd crop was just 'behind' or lower down than the first one, and was too much. I should have just put a stake in, and tied the cola down a lil.

But I have yet to really hurt a plant by cropping it. I cropped the hell outta my outdoor, and even if you break em, they come back... Doesn't hurt to have a silica source...

 

[the.toothless.herbalist]

b your the man
sweet bro

all the best yeah
happy smokin
mr toothless

 

[barletta]

Hey bro, I'll be trimming these ~8 plants quite a bit over the next few wks. No reason why I shouldn't take pix as I go, and see what I get. I'm going to trim and show all of the plants, but the previous plants will be labeled, and 'focused on'. The fimmed plant will be plant "A"; the topped plant will be plant "B", and the cropped plant will be plant "C". C officially showed today, and I'll repot into a gallon when she goes dry (~3-4 days)

I'm setting up for a clone run, so I took some clones from A + B and 2 friends (4 plants). My goal for the whole trim process is:

1. Concentrate growth on 'colas'
2. Keep colas under ~ 20"

Here they are pre-trim, all ~5-10 days since showing flowers.

Here is A.

And B.

 

[barletta]

Here they are after the trim.

And now I have 10 cuts to show ya's. Some have flowers, some don't. No problem, they will be ~48 straight hrs of light, then go into 20/4 with the rest of veg. All pix.

cont'd...

 

[barletta]

 

[barletta]

 

[SativaFan]

Good job. I see you trimmed off those shoots the right way....leaving a "stub" so it can heal away from the node itself. Makes for less chance of disease getting in the node. People should take note of that technique.

What do you make your cloning soil from?

You need to quit smoking your shit before picture taking though. Your shaking/trembling fucks up the focus

SativaFan

 

[barletta]

Yo chief. I don't like using the flash, and I don't have light bulbs of more than 18w (cfl's), so an up close pic under anything other than the sun or the CMH is tough. Could also be the 20+ cups of coffee I drink daily...

Soil is a mix of coco and pro-mix with perlite and vermiculite, and at the present, chunky coco. Hmmmm... Ok, I have a 'veg transplant' mix that is heavy with greensand, castings, crab shell, kelp. Also has rock phosphate, cottonseedmeal, and 'Espoma Bio-tone'. I give Plant success, rare earth, and diamond black, and lime non-food ingredients. I hydrate (and flush) my coco with uncut compost tea (compost pile). For seeds/clones, I use ~1/2 'veg mix', and 1/4 promix, 1/4 vermiculite, lil bit of kelp, lil bit of plant success. Water the whole thing with a 1/2 strength kelp/liquid karma ~20 min before clones, clones sit in same solution for ~10 min before I dip n stick em. Then they get sprayed with the same solution.

Biggest issues I've had with cloning are:

Keeping the soil too moist.
Packing the clones in the soil too tight when I stick em.
Clone area going 'cool'.

I have 10 there, so I'll have a % fer y'all in 2wks. Best thing that I've seen for clones/veg plants is a heated floor/heat mat. Plants root and grow roots in 1/2 the time.

 

[the.toothless.herbalist]

great stuff b

whats the gel ??? clonex ???
and do ya think that cuttings root a bit quicker when u use a foliar spary to

i've heard a little about plagron roots 2
let ya cut soak init and foliar spary with it to


any1 used it ???


all the best
happy smokin
mr toothless

 

[barletta]

3 days later...

Fim

Top

Supercrop

You can see the 'confusion' at the fim spot. The plant is stretching AND growing shoots. The topped plant smoothly transfers into 2 tops. The cropped plant firts swings the shoots up, then it both repairs the break, and stretches the shoots.

Stay tuned. :^)

EDIT - For the first time in forever, I 'previewed' before I posted this one. I STILL had to fix a pic. SSH 5 is some gooood smoke

 

[barletta]

EDIT - MrT - The gel is 'Rootech' from techniflora. It's 0.55% I3BA, and can be 'cut' for easy rooters.

A couple of new plants to confuse things.

Here is a 'mergency (left) and an EQ. The 'mergency is bieng trained for a single cola, while the EQ just had 8 cuts taken. Now she has just the 4 shoots from the bottom 2 nodes.

'mergency upclose

EQ upclose

 

[the.toothless.herbalist]

hey b
hope ur kool m8
i'm back for skool lol

so apart from the bottom shoots on the eq ( merg had none so, single cola)
i notice the stumps of the cuts r longer on the eq
or am i jus lookin into it toooo much lol

 

[kiwi]

wow you realy know your stuff.

thanks for the guide

 

[barletta]

Yeah, I try to leave some nubs, but if I know from the get go that I want a plant single cola, I pluck new growth as soon as it is big enough to pick. The EQ had long shoots to clone from, so I had the luxury of leaving long nubs.

I'll get shots of 'A, B, C' up 2moro. The supercrop (C) has just about completely straightened out, and the fim plant has yet to get some new growth going (effectively making it a sloppy top) from where I cut it.

 

[the.toothless.herbalist]

happy days b
cant wait to see m8

all the best
mr toothless

 

[barletta]

Yo kiwi! LOL, it's about volume, my man. I know very little, I tell very much, lol. There is a direct correlation between the sheer volume of one's posts/pix, and their perceived level of knowledge.. ;^)

Here are the plants that I groomed last wk.

The fim. I still don't know how many 'tops' I'll end up with.

The top. Nice and clean. Both of these (fim and top) had a HEALTHY jump in height just after the cut. I have read that the 'race for the sky' is to ensure more/heavier pollination. (in the wild...) A taller male's pollen spreads further, and a taller female will 'block' a smaller one...

The crop. Pretty much worthless due to how tall the plant was, and it's age. It straightened almost completely out. I'll crop another one in a wk or so.