Dealing With Wind Damage?

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guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
This is my first attempt at growing outdoors and I was not anticipating the wind to do so much damage during a storm, or even just the daily breeze/wind.
It has torn one of the plants at the main stem (which I've taped back together with duct tape) and as you can see in the pic it's torn and mangled a lot of branches. It has straight up knocked over the pots too which is .. disconcerting and dealt it's own damage to them as you can probably see.

I tied a long bamboo stick to each plants main stem early on and I've tied the lower branches of them down to the pots as you can see in the pic but when the plants got to a certain height there's not really anything for me to tie the middle and upper branches to other then in a few cases using duct tape to tie one branch to another (with sufficient distance between them). I will definitely be using a tomato cage or similar during my next grow, can't really put one in there now (these are some BUSHY ladies).

Does anyone have any suggestions on dealing with wind damage? I try pulling them closer to the fence and in bad storms closer to somewhere with shelter from wind but that hasn't helped much. Most of all I'm worried about them getting knocked over again, they are in 30L (~8 gallon) pots, they get decently heavy when watered, but they also need like 15L each every day of water during some of the hotter days and can dry out fast on me (like within the same day). It's coco/perlite which get's very light when dries out which is likely why they fell over. Is there any way to anchor the pots into the ground maybe?

For those curious they are in 75%/25% Canna Coco/Perlite, in 30L pots being fed GH FloraGro/Micro/Bloom + CalMag and the strains are Holy Grail Kush, Pineapple Chunk and Pink Kush from left to right. Irrelevant to my problem, but people often want to know that stuff.
 

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guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
That looks pretty good, how do you keep those poles uh .. fixed though? Like without a base it just seems like they would just move with the wind, just dragging the whole plant with it, maybe i'm just being a stoner and mis-understanding how your setup prevents the wind from just pulling all 4 poles in one direction and with it the plant.

Also are there any other suggestions anyone has on keeping the plants from blowing away (literally)?
 
That Guy Mike

That Guy Mike

Active Member
I just hammered the posts into the ground as best I could (probably only 5 or 6"), and since I'm using 30 gallon pots they're heavy enough that they don't move around. Posts were only placed to keep the plant steady in rain/high winds.
Off the top of my head - you could maybe dig holes around your pots, as close to the pot diameter as possible, so that you can recess the pots a few inches in the ground.
Another option if you have a post in the actual pot might be to anchor that to something that will keep them steady.
 
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guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
I drilled holes into the top lip of these pots and drove 4 x 6' metal stakes through each pot to anchor the pots into the ground and give some anchors to tie some branches to as you'll see in the pics I've attached.

They look better then the pics make them out to be, I am poor at photography, but the wind damage that split one of the plants main stems was actually sort of a blessing in disguise because that branch has grown out horizontally and what were once lower nodes are now getting full sunlight, I've just got to try to figure out a way to support it cuz I can't tie it up since it's growing out horizontal.

These generic plastic 17" planter pots have ended up being better then the fabric pots and air pots that I've used in the past, they have a low height (but still ~9gallon), allow me to have 16 anchor points for training and now 4 anchor points into the ground. Not bad for $10 each .. all the money I spent when starting out years ago kinda makes me laugh when the simple option was usually the best all along.

They JUST started flowering, so hopefully the next 2 months will be exciting :)
 

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ooof-da

ooof-da

Well-Known Member
It howling last night here but they’ll bounce back.

I had to concur the wind issue early in my short little growing history. Its funny cause they have a love/hate relationship with wind it seems, like it pushes them to be strong. I can’t whine cause I am in a very arid climate and come late OCT I read about all that rain & wind and bud rot happening while I have 10000 fans running for free. but I couldn’t get a clone out of the gate till I figured this out. GL!
8D5BA679-23D8-453A-B205-3A7A0E2395FB.jpeg
 
ooof-da

ooof-da

Well-Known Member
ooof-da said:
It howling last night here but they’ll bounce back.

I had to concur the wind issue early in my short little growing history. Its funny cause they have a love/hate relationship with wind it seems, like it pushes them to be strong. I can’t whine cause I am in a very arid climate and come late OCT I read about all that rain & wind and bud rot happening while I have 10000 fans running for free. but I couldn’t get a clone out of the gate till I figured this out. GL!
View attachment 5174348
Click to expand...
sativas are like…”ya whatever” :roll:. they take it better DD288924-4DB8-44C6-87FA-27F4BD7C801F.jpeg
 
ooof-da

ooof-da

Well-Known Member
guitarguy10 said:
I drilled holes into the top lip of these pots and drove 4 x 6' metal stakes through each pot to anchor the pots into the ground and give some anchors to tie some branches to as you'll see in the pics I've attached.

They look better then the pics make them out to be, I am poor at photography, but the wind damage that split one of the plants main stems was actually sort of a blessing in disguise because that branch has grown out horizontally and what were once lower nodes are now getting full sunlight, I've just got to try to figure out a way to support it cuz I can't tie it up since it's growing out horizontal.

These generic plastic 17" planter pots have ended up being better then the fabric pots and air pots that I've used in the past, they have a low height (but still ~9gallon), allow me to have 16 anchor points for training and now 4 anchor points into the ground. Not bad for $10 each .. all the money I spent when starting out years ago kinda makes me laugh when the simple option was usually the best all along.

They JUST started flowering, so hopefully the next 2 months will be exciting :)
Click to expand...
Those are monsters.
 
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mandocat

Well-Known Member
We get a lot of wind in OKlahoma, so I start with a 5 ft tall by 2 ft diameter steel remesh cage, anchored by a T post. If the plants outgrow that I hammer more T posts in the ground, as needed, and put 10 ft pieces of 1.5 inch PVC over the posts and then tie off as needed. An example.PXL_20220724_142042831.jpg
 
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guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
ooof-da said:
Those are monsters.
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Thank you (hoping you were talking to me?) :) (there are members here with way better plants then me to be fair).

Now that they've actually started flowering they look even bigger and bushier. I've grown for 2 decades inside in a very small space (a 5' tall tent) so I figured since I'm doing it outside this year (for the 1st time too) that I'll just let them go, let nature do her work with just some minor maintenance and some defoliating near flower (like just the dead undergrowth, nothing crazy), and indeed just one plant alone is too large to fit inside my tent if I tried.

Never really considered the wind though cuz I mean marihuana plants have grown outdoors naturally for like .. centuries, I just figured they would adapt and strengthen from the wind (which they have, but gusts of wind still have been strong enough to tear branches and even the main stalk on one plant, some duct tape fixed that.

I also thought that 17" wide 9 gallon (30L) pots would be more then enough but the root mass is so saturated that I can't even stick my finger into the medium (coco/perlite). So I wonder if I had used even bigger pots if they would have grown out even more. I might have to get some bigger pots next year, but I do like these ones they are very easy to use as a manifold for training. Anyways, how large is too large when it comes to pot size?

Maybe it's cuz I started them just too early, I really wasn't sure when to start so I planted them from seed on April 15 and moved them outside when I considered them healthy enough on May 12, I figured mid-may was when to put them outside? I attached a pic if you want to see them when I put them out (ignore my redneck junk backyard). Anyways they've bee\en vegging for months now, so that has probably helped them in being large,

The 3 plants are 2 Indica and 1 hybrid, no Sativas cuz I was:
1) Trying to grow shortish plants because even though it is legal to grow here I didn't know how my neighbors would react (or thieves) and wanted them below the fenceline (they are just at the top of it though now, and im not sure if they are done stretching yet, they went from no sex to covered in thick pistils in like 2 days though.
2) Indica is better for my pain condition, it helps me more to relax and sleep then sativa's generally do.

The strains if you're curious are Holy Grail Kush, Pink Kush and Pineapple Chunk (yes it's a hybrid strain I know :D)
 

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mandocat

Well-Known Member
guitarguy10 said:
Thank you (hoping you were talking to me?) :) (there are members here with way better plants then me to be fair).

Now that they've actually started flowering they look even bigger and bushier. I've grown for 2 decades inside in a very small space (a 5' tall tent) so I figured since I'm doing it outside this year (for the 1st time too) that I'll just let them go, let nature do her work with just some minor maintenance and some defoliating near flower (like just the dead undergrowth, nothing crazy), and indeed just one plant alone is too large to fit inside my tent if I tried.

Never really considered the wind though cuz I mean marihuana plants have grown outdoors naturally for like .. centuries, I just figured they would adapt and strengthen from the wind (which they have, but gusts of wind still have been strong enough to tear branches and even the main stalk on one plant, some duct tape fixed that.

I also thought that 17" wide 9 gallon (30L) pots would be more then enough but the root mass is so saturated that I can't even stick my finger into the medium (coco/perlite). So I wonder if I had used even bigger pots if they would have grown out even more. I might have to get some bigger pots next year, but I do like these ones they are very easy to use as a manifold for training. Anyways, how large is too large when it comes to pot size?

Maybe it's cuz I started them just too early, I really wasn't sure when to start so I planted them from seed on April 15 and moved them outside when I considered them healthy enough on May 12, I figured mid-may was when to put them outside? I attached a pic if you want to see them when I put them out (ignore my redneck junk backyard). Anyways they've bee\en vegging for months now, so that has probably helped them in being large,

The 3 plants are 2 Indica and 1 hybrid, no Sativas cuz I was:
1) Trying to grow shortish plants because even though it is legal to grow here I didn't know how my neighbors would react (or thieves) and wanted them below the fenceline (they are just at the top of it though now, and im not sure if they are done stretching yet, they went from no sex to covered in thick pistils in like 2 days though.
2) Indica is better for my pain condition, it helps me more to relax and sleep then sativa's generally do.

The strains if you're curious are Holy Grail Kush, Pink Kush and Pineapple Chunk (yes it's a hybrid strain I know :D)
Click to expand...
The thing that can really get you late in flower outdoors, is when you get heavy rain and wind, the flowers can break over even more quickly.
 
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