Ideas please....How to grow a nice bush from clone

[Hotwired]

Indoor using soil in 5 gal pots. Strain is Afghan Kush. I'm trying to get a nice 16" to 18" bush with lots of tops before flowering.

My bushes suck. I must not be topping them right. I see all these nice pics of these beautiful round and thick bushes with 20 tops.

Is there a certain time or node placement to top them? Maybe my clones need to be bigger? I'm using 3 node clones which are usually around 4 inches. I top them in a week after some new growth appears then top them again a week later creating 4 tops and all the side branches up.

But for some reason 2 weeks after flowering the plant looks like crap. The 4 tops will take off and the side branches never take off with them. It's like i'm wasting my time. It's a very good indica strain so I don't know what the problem can be.

Any experienced bush growers out there with some ideas?

 

[jesus420]

i'm willing to bet you don't have enough/proper light.

put those bad boys under a high powered metal halide lamp during veg and tell me they don't grow bushy. intense blue light keeps the plant short and makes big fat leaves.

 

[frmrboi]

i'm willing to bet you don't have enough/proper light....

what he said

 

[tryintogrow]

it really all depends on the strain as well, where you got ur clones from did you actually see any of them that were short and bushy?

 

[Hotwired]

i'm willing to bet you don't have enough/proper light.

put those bad boys under a high powered metal halide lamp during veg and tell me they don't grow bushy. intense blue light keeps the plant short and makes big fat leaves.

Hi and thanks for the reply. I have a 400 and a 1000 watt mh. Temps are 78 with the 400 and 82 with the 1000.

I start the clones under the 400 and change over to the 1000 after a week.

So it's not the light. It has to be either:

1) Not big enough pot for veg.

I'm using a round pot 5.5" wide by 5.5" deep. I think it's only a half gallon. They are always root bound when I transplant.

2) Not taking big enough clones.

I think I was only going 2 or 3 nodes. I did 4 node clones today. I will also get bigger pots for veg. Probably 1.5 to 2 gallons. Let's see if any of these changes helps.

what he said

Come on man!! Don't think with the crowd. Be your own man!

it really all depends on the strain as well, where you got ur clones from did you actually see any of them that were short and bushy?

Good question. I actually grew them from seed. World of Seeds Afghani Kush fems. All 20 seeds germed and grew. All became fems. Had about 5 runts but the rest were rock solid.

I kept 3 of the best looking ones for moms and grew the rest out. I averaged a little over 2 ounces a plant with the best getting 2.5 to 3.

Again lighting is perfect. 9 plants under 1000 enhanced spectrum hps. Temps are a bit high at times running 80-84 during lights on but it's worked out.

The plants seemed decently bushy from seed but grew out huge colas at the end. I've done 2 grows since using the moms and they seem to have slow growing side branches. This definitely affects the bushing out but they do have the ability to grow 4 or more nice colas but only on the top cause the sides stop growing.

But if you read what I wrote in my reply up above I may have already found out what's wrong.

I don't want to do SoG. I like working with the bushes. Less strain for an old man

Could it be my strain? If it is the wrong strain any ideas for a high potency, high yielding, fast flowering strain that likes to be bushy? Indica of course. Need to keep the plant height below 44" and yield about 3 ounces per plant.

 

[tryintogrow]

the strain changes slightly too as you clone it....i have and 8th generation of the original strain my buddy grew. every different "generation" has it own little tendencies.

 

[Hotwired]

I think I found the problem.

It seems I'm the only one on earth doing this. The lack of responses shows this to be so.

I will now test this bush making hypothesis for all mankind!!!!

 

[OregonMeds]

Pictures please... Just because you have 1kw light doesn't mean light isn't necessarily the problem though, how close do you run it to the tops and how old are your bulbs?

 

[Hotwired]

I don't got no stinking pikturs. No camera

But I do keep the 1k within 24" and the 400 within 12". All the bulbs are 3 to 6 months old. Not even at half life used yet.

Thanks for replying.

Maybe some help with my original questions. How to grow a nice bush? How big of a clone to use and when to top?

 

[bmarley043]

how often should you change your bulbs? i have a 400w hortilux

 

[Hotwired]

how often should you change your bulbs? i have a 400w hortilux

Thread stealer go away!!

 

[OregonMeds]

There is no trick, by the time you've topped a plant to get 4 cola's the lower branches should have caught up if it really is an indica. Maybe you don't have the genetics you think you do.

I'm sure you can reduce that light distance, eek every inch out you can, that will surely help but it's all about genetics in the end.

 

[selmagreen]

They say to change your hps bulbs every 12000 hours I think. I found once per 12 months if you run year round seems to be a good rule of thumb

 

[HippieMan]

Utilize the FIMMING method and try not to top.
After using the FIMM method, go ahead and use the Supercropping method on all of the new fimming shoots. This will cause a small breakage wherever you supercropped and within a few days a nice fat knot will form where it was broken, expeditionally increasing the amount of weight that branch can hold, thus increasing bud size potential.
Use as other people here have said, a blue light. Metal halide, or a high-powered LED panel with blue lights, or even one of those T8 fixtures. All in all, the Halide, T8 fixture, and LED will insure you have a nice bushy plant, in that order based on effectiveness.

 

[frmrboi]

They say to change your hps bulbs every 12000 hours I think. I found once per 12 months if you run year round seems to be a good rule of thumb

yeah, what he said

 

[xxtoadxx]

400w from clone... 20" tall.

 

[Hotwired]

There is no trick, by the time you've topped a plant to get 4 cola's the lower branches should have caught up if it really is an indica. Maybe you don't have the genetics you think you do.

I'm sure you can reduce that light distance, eek every inch out you can, that will surely help but it's all about genetics in the end.

Thanks, will do

They say to change your hps bulbs every 12000 hours I think. I found once per 12 months if you run year round seems to be a good rule of thumb

I have a lumen detector. Keeps it simple

Utilize the FIMMING method and try not to top.
After using the FIMM method, go ahead and use the Supercropping method on all of the new fimming shoots. This will cause a small breakage wherever you supercropped and within a few days a nice fat knot will form where it was broken, expeditionally increasing the amount of weight that branch can hold, thus increasing bud size potential.
Use as other people here have said, a blue light. Metal halide, or a high-powered LED panel with blue lights, or even one of those T8 fixtures. All in all, the Halide, T8 fixture, and LED will insure you have a nice bushy plant, in that order based on effectiveness.

Thanks for the tips mate

yeah, what he said

rofl

400w from clone... 20" tall.

Nice!! How big will that baby get in flower from 20"? What size pot did you use? That's my first change, and bigger clones.

+ rep for everyone but frmrboi who just quotes people

 

[xxtoadxx]

LMAO!!! +rep for you for being hilarious. shes on her....11th day of flowering now. i just counted about 23 main bud sited with a lot of lower branches stretching towards the light. I used a 1 gal then 3 gal then 6 gal, which she currently resides in, and leaving her in that til harvest. =) shes about 3 ft x 3 ft x 2.5 ft now

 

[Hotwired]

Hey thx toad!

Man she's gonna look nice. I noticed that keeping the bush under 16" right before flower is best for me. They stay around 3 feet or so when done. I just need to do a much better job of it.

When do you top your clones? Or do you use a different method?

 

[xxtoadxx]

i never topped her. i bent her down and kept bending as the lower branches reached up. just a shitload of bending. I did FIM 4 of the tops, she was my first baby so i did a lil experimenting... took a good amount of clones from her as well. i tied down half of em and left the others straight shooting.. i also topped some and FIM'd some. we'll see whats best for her breed. it was a nameless clone from the club so i might just take advantage of this if she puts out good haha and give her a name myself