Mainlined/Manifolded Plants + Perpetual Re-vegging

[ShiddyMunkie]

Hey guys,

So I'm about to start a grow but need some expert advice beyond the normal Google-Fu. I'm very interested in a perpetual setup, but only have the one tent to work with. To add to that, I live in CO and so the legal limit is 6 plants, with no more than 3 flowering at a time. These restrictions make having a LEGAL perpetual grow setup, well, challenging to say the least.

Additionally, I would like to mainline/manifold these to help control the size/shape of the plants. But then I got to thinking -- If I'm going to put in the extra time and effort to get a proper mainline going, is there someway I can harvest those plants without killing them, and be able re-use the established 8-cola configuration for a second (or third, forth, etc.) harvest? I know re-vegging is possible, but will it work on a mainlined plant if, say, I leave some extra vegetation for the post-harvest recovery? Would it be worth it?

Or, would it be better just to do a perpetual 12/12 from seed schedule where I am able to veg, clone, and flower all in the same small tent? Either way it seems that yield will be less per harvest than a non-perpetual setup, but if I am able to produce more buds overall due to less time between harvests then I would call it a success.

Set Up

• 20" x 30" x 63" grow tent (hoping to use the height to my advantage somehow)
• Soil grow
  
• 4 - 3600 lumen, 55 watt CFLs (2700k)
  
• 4 - 4000 lumen, 65 watt CFLs (6500k)
• Might add a few more clamp-on CFLs if I can fit them, space is tight!
  
• 4" ventilation system
• Super Lemon Haze and Great White Shark seeds to choose from

 

[nameno]

How experienced are you? I lean towards 12x12fs`.

 

[Mean Gene]

If youre using cfls i would advise against mainlining. You can shape the plant amd trim up to the colas but when they stretch and get big you will need lights with good penetrating power to be able to build the thick heavy colas whichcis the whole reason for doing it in the first place. Your colas will be airy and not worth the time and effort it takes to mainline the plant. If you can get your hands on a good led light i would say go for it otherwise i would do 12s and harvest more frequently. Are you going to have a mother to clone from?

 

[Mean Gene]

Oh also once harvested the plant is dead its growth cycle is complete. Cant do anything else with it if that was your question i hope i read that right.

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

nameno,
Noobish, but I've I'm hoping that my level of research and creative problem solving skills will makeup for that a little bit. I also have some friends that grow for additional advice, but I haven't been able to find adequate info online or in person in regard to this particular query. If there is no point in manifolding the plant due to using CFLs, as Mean Gene suggests, then the idea of perpetual 12/12 seems like it might be the preferable choice. One of my biggest reasons for wanting to do a reveg/reflower was to take advantage of having a pre-established manifold configuration for multiple harvests.

Mean Gene,
Yeah, I hear you about the CFLs. I opted against HIDs because of my fear of accidentally burning my house down (with using one in such a small, enclosed space). I'd like to go LED in time, but for now now this is what I have to work with. I will likely add more CFLs as money and space allows, but right now I'm at about 6,000 lumens per sqft, which is a little below the ideal 7,000 - 10,000 people suggest.

On to your next question. I don't currently have a mother to clone from, but if I were to produce one it would have to stay in the same tent as the other plants, which means being exposed to flowering photoperiods and the like. Having more than one tent and set of lights would definitely simply my problem...all in good time I suppose.

As far as revegging a previously harvested plant, from what I understand they can come back to life and can produce subsequent harvests. Here's one of the videos I came across, but there are a few more out there where people have had success (this video is an extreme case, no growth left on the plant at all).

 

[Mean Gene]

Ive seen a lot of grow guys vids i like them i hadnt seen that one. Very interesting though it looks as if only new growth will sprout and asd to size of existing stalk so would outgrow spaces and just doesnt seem practical but it is pretty amazing to see that. After all its called "weed" for a reason. Cant kill it lol

 

[nameno]

I like the super lemon haze (slh) I want to keep least 1 in the garden.all the time.I go DWC 12x12 fs,that helps me keep my
water cool & less time for something to go bad.Here's food for
thought,My best grows were when I was a noobie,before I "knew"
anything.
Sounds like you got it together,you'll do well!
Good Luck & Heavy yields to ya!!

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

It seems like there is a general consensus on how to properly regenerate your already-harvested plants. When you harvest, only remove the top 1/3 - 2/3 of the plant. The more of the plant you leave, the quicker it comes back. Some say you can remove the popcorn buds that are found on the lower part of the plant so long as you leave the leaves, others say its better to leave those popcorn buds on as it help the plant regenerate quicker. Immediately after harvesting, give the plant extra nitrogen to help prevent it from loosing the leaves it still has, and then switch you photoperiod and nutes back to vegging mode. You won't see much growth during that first week, but after that it should start vegging again. Things like single or deformed leaves, odd looking regrowth is normal for the re-veg process, especially in those first few weeks. Once the plant is back to the desired pre-flowering size, switch nutes and light back to flowering and in 7-8 week (varies per strain) harvest and repeat that whole process. I came across cases of plants the were 4 - 5 generations old, though I take what I find online with a grain of salt. Some say the yield/potency lessens with each generation, but just as many say the opposite if using the right technique.

At this point, I'm sort of torn on what to do. The speed of reharvest for regenerated plants is alluring, and attributed to there being an established root system, healthy main stalk, and preexisting vegetation to give you're plant a big head start on the next harvest. Then again, when all is said and done, still not sure if its faster/better than a 12/12 from seed with perpetual cloning going on. Might make for an interesting experiment!

 

[MonkeyGrinder]

It's not going to work. The whole point of MLing is to top your plant so it has equal branches on both sides. If you topped for 8 you'd have 4 colas on each side topped for 16 you'd have 8 on each side and so on. When your girl kicks over into full reveg mode you're going to have multiple branches fire out of the nodes that are left. Therefore no more equal sides and your hormone distribution will get pretty wonky.

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

It's true that throwing a mainlined plant back into reveg would result in additional branches being produced, but you could just trim those off. For example, suppose you top a plant to have 8 main colas. If you were to harvest the top portion of that plant just above the nodes, and throw is back into reveg, each of the 8 main branches should produce two new offshoots, resulting in 16. At that point, all you would have to do is clip one of the two new offshoots on each main branch, and you'd end up with with 8 equivalent branches again. See the attached diagram for what I mean.

 

[Gaz29]

Shiddymunkey, i ( as you know) am at the point where im about to flip my big bang 2 for 2nd time.. I topped my plant before flowering 1st time around, then i took most of nugs (abt 95% ) - i left popcorn buds, plus a few buds in the middle, which i cut through n left small bit of bud on plant.. I only fed it ( post harvest)- what i'd been feeding it before I flipped it 1st time around..
It took me roughly same amount of time to re-veg, as flowering - 8weeks.! The new growth that appears at 1st looks like single teardrop ( like rabbit ears.. ha..) , when new growth ( normal leaves will start to grow at the bottom at 1st, then when it's fully re-vegging, there's shoots galore , so once at this point you should be able to grow/train many cola's..
It's NOT that hard mate.. go for it.. I had sum seedlings start just after i harvested big-bang2. Now im a day or two from flipping.
Go for it shiddy', then if you don't like results.. hey at least you tried it..!
Good luck ..

 

[torontoke]

What about just buy another tent?
Use the small tent you have now for vegging three plants and flower three in the other tent.
Day u harvest take three big cuttings and put the veg plants in flower and rinse repeat.
Every 60-70 days u harvest three nice plants that have had a decent 2 month veg and training

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

Gaz29,
I'm definitely going to give it a try. I can fit three 5-gallon pots in my tent, but I'll probably only regenerate two of those after harvesting. With the remaining 1/3 of the tent, I'm might try to root some monster cropped clones, and pit the best one against the regens to see which method produces superior results come harvest time.

torontoke,
Unfortunately it's not just another tent that I would need, but a whole other grow setup (tent, lights, ventilation, etc, etc). I'd like to go that route in time, but for now my budget is tapped.

 

[torontoke]

In that case id max out that tent and start saving up.
Tents on ebay are 150$
Lights can be found used even on kijiji or craigslist.
Good luck either way man

 

[Gaz29]

nameno,
Noobish, but I've I'm hoping that my level of research and creative problem solving skills will makeup for that a little bit. I also have some friends that grow for additional advice, but I haven't been able to find adequate info online or in person in regard to this particular query. If there is no point in manifolding the plant due to using CFLs, as Mean Gene suggests, then the idea of perpetual 12/12 seems like it might be the preferable choice. One of my biggest reasons for wanting to do a reveg/reflower was to take advantage of having a pre-established manifold configuration for multiple harvests.

Mean Gene,
Yeah, I hear you about the CFLs. I opted against HIDs because of my fear of accidentally burning my house down (with using one in such a small, enclosed space). I'd like to go LED in time, but for now now this is what I have to work with. I will likely add more CFLs as money and space allows, but right now I'm at about 6,000 lumens per sqft, which is a little below the ideal 7,000 - 10,000 people suggest.

On to your next question. I don't currently have a mother to clone from, but if I were to produce one it would have to stay in the same tent as the other plants, which means being exposed to flowering photoperiods and the like. Having more than one tent and set of lights would definitely simply my problem...all in good time I suppose.

As far as revegging a previously harvested plant, from what I understand they can come back to life and can produce subsequent harvests. Here's one of the videos I came across, but there are a few more out there where people have had success (this video is an extreme case, no growth left on the plant at all).

Calling bullshit on that YouTube video of two plants supposedly been re-vegged from no leaves..! there is no weird new growth, plus it's fully flowered. All the kid has done is put pics of plants ( full balls n all.) at end of video, then when he stripped them bare, they were posted as 'the before'.
In short, they never did re-veg, just a creative bit of editing..! imo.

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

That's entirely possible -- I was a little baffled by how the plant could bounce back without any leaves whatsoever.

 

[Gaz29]

That's entirely possible -- I was a little baffled by how the plant could bounce back without any leaves whatsoever.

Plus the fact that there's no weird growth with shoots from bud sites, AND all leaves are normal.. kid says he only just watered them.. NEVER fed them.. ! I think it's b.s ..!

 

[ShiddyMunkie]

You know, I just watched the video again and I caught something I didn't notice the first time around. At about 1:03, he says "...Yes you can. And, actually this plant looked exactly like the other one. It was just a strait stock, had nothing on it, and boom four weeks of..."

He's talking about it like it's not even the same plant. That would explain why there was no weird regrowth, etc.