First grow! Everything look alright?

Hey guys i just recently started my first grow under a 400 watt hps lamp and it has been very exciting so far! However, i have been reading a few bits of information that presents some concerns. Until recently i was under the impression that once flowering, the plants would stop to grow tall and just fill out. So now that i veged em all the way up to the ceiling of my grow space it doesnt seem to be this way. Theyre about one week into flowering so far so im prolly gonna have to bend em down a little bit. Any special technique for doing this effectively? Im trying to upload a picture but it keeps saying "upload of file failed"...

Okay well i just added a pic in my public album so im hoping for some constructive critisism from the pros thanks yall

man.. wish i could get some feedback!

do you have any pics

yea i do but youll have to click on my profile album. for some reason it wouldnt let me upload..

you are going to have some giant girls either way. Tying them down early will help you manipulate them to grow how you want, and when they enter flowering from vege they can grow from 2-3 times the size .

woww, im lookin forward to it. just hope they dont fry from being to close to the hps light. do you think its too late to tie em down?

Mr. StankyFingas said:

woww, im lookin forward to it. just hope they dont fry from being to close to the hps light. do you think its too late to tie em down?

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No you can still tie them down. I use the same pots. You get them at Lowes??

Good to kno, thx. Yepp sure as hell did! Funny story about that actually.. I had em sittin in the shopping cart out front when i went back in to get the board i just cut and when i came back out they were gone. Somebody stole my damn pots! They ended up giving me just as many as i bought for free tho.

thats a beautiful tree but if you dont want it bushy all the way through try lollipopping

Well i just did a quick search on lollipopping and didnt find anything that really explained it so now i will ask.. "what is that?"

Ok, I looked at the monster. Good work, she looks beautiful. It is a she, correct?
I am not familiar with the term "lollipopping" either, but I would guess that it resembles a technique that I use when a plant approaches the burn zone. I simply pinch off the very top of the plant, a few inches below the "burn zone". This pruning usually causes more side branching along with a puffed appearance at the end of the pruning site where buds grow larger and fatter (resembling a lollipop?)
If you are only a week into flowering, you could still safely prune back quite a bit. I would recommend either giving it a cut a few nodes down from the top on the main stem and bending some of the side branches down to attempt to spread the plant out horizontally, or you could Low Stress Train (LST) the plant. There should be some posts explaining LST technique in detail if you search it.
If you want to take a more natural approach, you could just bend your plants over (carefully, and a little at a time) so that they have more room to stretch.
The best technique will depend on how much area you have to work with, what strain you are growing (sativa/indica), and how often you will be able to tend to your plants.

Thankyou for the compliments Yes deffinately a she. I like the idea of pruning, but if this was done does that mean i would lose the precious main colas? I was gonna try to tie em over and lst a little at a time as i am able to tend to them daily. It is becomming a bit crowded in there, i got six of em all together about the same size so i'm willing to try your topping method if you dont think it will decrease yeild substantially. Btw thanks for all information so far + rep.

If you trim off the main cola, but in exchange are able to maintain a more even and manageable canopy that spreads more horizontally. In general, it is better to strive for maximum leaf area and bud sites in the area below the light, without allowing them to reach up into areas where the light intensity would "super-saturate" their needs and cause burning.

As far as a decrease in yield from pruning, it depends on the strain, how early into flowering it is done, and the overall health of the plant. If you prune the top lightly, and then remove lower branches that you think will eventually get shaded out by the developing upper branches, the plants should fill out nicely. Don't be afraid to prune the lower branches quite heavily, since 6 plants that size will fill out quite a bit througout flowering.
Yes, any cuts you make will stunt the plant a bit, but if you do it early enough in flowering the plant should be able to make a full recovery and then some.

If you still have height issues after pruning, simply use the bending methods to distribute the branches and bud sites under the light.
I assume you've found some materials on it, but familiarizing yourself with SOG (Sea Of Green) and ScrOG (Screen Of Green) through the forums will help give you a better understanding of what to aim for in pruning and training your plants.

Mr. StankyFingas said:

Well i just did a quick search on lollipopping and didnt find anything that really explained it so now i will ask.. "what is that?"

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All you need to do to lollipop a plant is just remove the lower branches that have very small growth. In order to force the plant to focus on the bigger kholas and buds.

Yeah thats going to be one big plant you got there. hope she gives you big colas too.

Good luck mate!

I appreciate all the useful information but im afraid i might have to apply it to my next grow because now that im 2 weeks into flowering im afraid it would stunt the plants a little too much :/. Oh well i dont mind popcorn buds on a first grow. This ones just mostly for learning purposes.

Well i took more pictures for my album and ive also included one here so you can see how close they are getting to that 400 watt... I hear youre generally supposed to maintain about 13 in. between light and plants and theyre deffinatly a lot closer than that.

yeah it definitly doesn't look like you got to much more room.
yeah it doubles once you start flowering, so good luck

Thx man, imma try bendin em

Just jumped onto your thread. Cool stuff. Check your PM's the info is in there.