Good idea or bad idea?

Assuming that in nature if the apical tip is in the shadow of another plant, building w/e - the growth hormones will be sent to new dominant growth tips. This is the case with lst, topping, pinching etc, etc. When trying to induce pre-flowers it is common to cover a single branch and this will have the effect of creating a dark period for that single branch. I'm wondering if you simply cover or add a light filter over just the growing tip and not the whole branch leaving all the under growth under light will this have the same effect as lst and topping without having to remove a tip or deal with lst? I'm trying this with one of my plants (28 days) who has not shown sex yet so as to control for whether or not it will affect sexing on particular branches. Any ideas? Anyone ever tried this or heard of something similar? Thanks.

Try it and let us know.

No it wont work. You cant just flower a branch on a plant while the rest of it veges.

*BUDS said:

No it wont work. You cant just flower a branch on a plant while the rest of it veges.

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are you sure about that?

I imagine the stress caused to the plan will fuck it up? Trying to send both veg and flowering chemicals from the roots upwards, surely if anything is going to cause hermi tendencies, its loads of stress?

Why would you compromise yield on the largest cola in hopes of regaining the loss in the side branches? Topping is a guaranteed method...
JD

I was thinking along with wizard, if it did anything, I'd think hermies would be the result.

I doubt it though, all the fem seed breeders would be doing it. No stress, no silver, ... too easy.

Then there's the thing covering the branch, I'm 100% sure the humidity on that branch would stay near 100%, and the temps inside a bag (which would probably be black to combat the light), would certainly kill it off.

Allenhaze wrote: Assuming that in nature if the apical tip is in the shadow of another plant, building w/e - the growth hormones will be sent to new dominant growth tips.

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You know Allen that your post and question is rather confusing judging by the responses. I assumed you want to hormonally mimic topping by light blocking the apical meristem. And my response was to just top it.

This above quote you made starts with the word "assuming"...so you don't know that to be true? Shading the top vs cutting it of or retraining it so it's no longer the top are two different things and just by shading the meristem...doesn't make the plant forget it's there. Seems to me that the whole conjecture here is flawed. So I'm going to answer your question like this: Bad idea.
JD

I'm going to try it and re post. Cervantes, Rosenthal, Riley, etc every grow bible that I've read (and own) explains that MANY growers cover a single branch to simulate a flowering light cycle on just that branch, it is commonly used to sex a plant early; I have read this can indeed be stressful. It has been done, I'm going to presume over thousand times - in the context of sexing. I'm not going to be covering the whole branch though. JUST THE TOP. Leaving all the undergrowth in the light. I'm trying it because I am not content with a simple grow.
Wish me luck!

When you are lsting a plant the plant knows the dominant tips are still there it's just in it's best interest - through millions of years of natural selection - to send GH elsewhere in an effort to get light for PhotoS. They're still green aren't they? Is seedling stretch not an expression of the plant compensating for lack of light? I appreciate your responses guys. Take it easy Rep +.

AllenHaze said:

I'm going to try it and re post. Cervantes, Rosenthal, Riley, etc every grow bible that I've read (and own) explains that MANY growers cover a single branch to simulate a flowering light cycle on just that branch, it is commonly used to sex a plant early; I have read this can indeed be stressful. It has been done, I'm going to presume over thousand times - in the context of sexing. I'm not going to be covering the whole branch though. JUST THE TOP. Leaving all the undergrowth in the light. I'm trying it because I am not content with a simple grow.
Wish me luck!

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I always encourage growers to experiment. Do it and share the info.

In this particular situation I believe you are complicating something simple. You want to sex your plant.... right? Why not take a cutting from the lower unimportant growth, clone it, and flower it?

Ideally all growers should take a cutting as soon as possible, Clone it, and sex it. It will save you time and resources.

Thanks, I'm trying to encourage growth in the lower nodes by capping the dominant tops instead of simply lst-ing or topping.
I'm hoping that since I'm not covering the whole branch, and blocking light by up to 90% for just the dominant tops (apical tips) the plant will feel like the dominant tops are not getting enough light and will redirect GH to the lower branches. In theory it seems to make sense. We'll see.

I'll throw in my two cents: my recently cropped og kush had something kind of similar happen-- the bottom branches (more like little twigs, I should've lollipopped her a little higher) were co pletely shaded bc the top of the plant was so bushy. It developed pistils at the same time all over, but the bottoms wound up producing more pistils at a faster rate. I'm not sure if its bc it was shaded or what.

It was weird, seeing the bottom develop first. But before long, the top buds were much more solid and the bottom was a bunch of loose, floppy calyxes. At the end of the day, only the parts of the plants that are receiving light can photosynthesize sugars and starches. If there is a part of the plant not receiving light, then the rest of the plant that is will be producing sugars and starches for it.

I'm studying a lot about grams per watt, big plants vs. Small plants, getting better yield, etc. And at the end of the day, watts=weight but only if you have enough plant under the lights to photosynthesize it all.

Still, I would play around with it, I love experiments and there are a lot of people on here who will try and make you feel dumb and inexperienced for doing them, but the lessons you can learn from those expirements can be invaluable. Remember, you're not wasting plants, you're just expiditing your mistakes so you can learn from them quicker.

Thanks for that Thor. All my plants ended up being males last time around, but i stead of killing them and starting over I started some seedlings in another box and continued growing the males. It's not every day that a grower get's to raise a male and it is an awesome learning experience. Contrary to popular belief, you can get high from smoking male plants, I smoked the leaves but smelled them first after they had dried, the ones that smelled like good stuff were smoked and the ones that smelled green were fed to my dog. I've read in a few different grow bibles that if you start seedlings with springtime DL hours (12-14 a day) it stimulates the plants to mature faster. I've even read you can put them in extended dark periods longer than 10 or 12 hours and they will show their sex even quicker- maybe this is what happened with your OG? One of my plants showed her preflowers in 25 days from sprout on a 14/10 cycle. I'm going to try 12/12 next time.

Hah, yeah there you go. Only in growing weed is it a good idea to "practice on the males" lol. That is, unless of course you have females around . I've never smoked the males, but I had a redneck friend who would smoke the shit out of that pollen, lol.

But yeah man, you'll come to learn that basically the more you read and do research, you'll just about see every tip or trick in the book, and then you'll start to see every one of them contradicted by someone else. That might be true about the seedlings with 12 hours of light/dark--i try to mimic mother nature to the best of my ability, but I haven't tried that one yet. But you'll hear just about everything from different people, about what works and what doesn't. Just keep trucking along and eventually you'll find what works best for you.

And remember, if you're gonna do an experiment, have a control. And it helps to experiment on bagseed only, unless you don't care possibly wasting paid seeds.but yeah, if you're going to try the seedling thing, I would start like 4 seedlings under 16/8 and 4 under 12/12. Do more than 1 bc seedlings grow faster and slower than other seeds of the same strain, right beside them in the same environment. Having a bunch of multiples will give you a better idea of what (if any) correlations are taking place.

I've spent a collective of days reading online sources or reading one of the many grow bibles that are available. Research is key, I agree. Only if I hear something from several different sources for example, will I take it into consideration and even then not 100% seriously. "Believe none of what you hear, half of what yousee all the time." I've been told I'm too inquisitive for my own good. I too have been trying to mimic mother nature to the best of my abilities. It seems to have worked so far for her.

AllenHaze said:

Thanks for that Thor. All my plants ended up being males last time around, but i stead of killing them and starting over I started some seedlings in another box and continued growing the males. It's not every day that a grower get's to raise a male and it is an awesome learning experience. Contrary to popular belief, you can get high from smoking male plants, I smoked the leaves but smelled them first after they had dried, the ones that smelled like good stuff were smoked and the ones that smelled green were fed to my dog. I've read in a few different grow bibles that if you start seedlings with springtime DL hours (12-14 a day) it stimulates the plants to mature faster. I've even read you can put them in extended dark periods longer than 10 or 12 hours and they will show their sex even quicker- maybe this is what happened with your OG? One of my plants showed her preflowers in 25 days from sprout on a 14/10 cycle. I'm going to try 12/12 next time.

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I think it I important to grow a few males, and study them. A good male can make your herb better. Breeding is something you will definitely enjoy.

Here is a cool little side note. I once grafted a female cutting onto a male stock. It is called a rootstock graft. The male stock and root system serves as the females new system. The graft took me about 2 weeks. The plant did end up bigger than a traditional clone.

There were no problems of any sort. No hermaphroditism, no male pollen sacks. Do some research on grafting, its neat stuff.

Hmm,,,to make that work you would have to prevent the light from contact with that area for 12 hrs of the day,,,longer might hurry the result some.....BUT.....the point I'm making is that if the "area" of the plant gets light contact of even small amounts outside of the 12 hrs of light "on",,,,it would fail back to veg....

As far as hormones of both Veg and Flower coursing through the plant at the same time.....Sort of.....If a whole "branch" was used, that branch is controlled by specific roots (each branch is connected to it's own root cluster) and that in it's self would "limit" the exposure of the rest of the plant from the flowering hormones from the effected branch....

Will this work,,,,,sure! But I don't really understand why you want to do it this way...Given time you'll be able to spot the guy's with out much trouble.

Why in the world do you want to increase the lower branching health? To produce more product??

LOLLYPOP and SUPERCROP or learn SCROG....By boosting the bottom end and keeping all those "popcorn bud" internodes your going to take away from your main Kolas!!!!

Farmer's Hat said:

I think it I important to grow a few males, and study them. A good male can make your herb better. Breeding is something you will definitely enjoy.

Here is a cool little side note. I once grafted a female cutting onto a male stock. It is called a rootstock graft. The male stock and root system serves as the females new system. The graft took me about 2 weeks. The plant did end up bigger than a traditional clone.

There were no problems of any sort. No hermaphroditism, no male pollen sacks. Do some research on grafting, its neat stuff.

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Very interesting. I have read a bit into that but only what Jorge C had to say about it in his grow bible which wasn't really much at all.

Dr. Who said:

Hmm,,,to make that work you would have to prevent the light from contact with that area for 12 hrs of the day,,,longer might hurry the result some.....BUT.....the point I'm making is that if the "area" of the plant gets light contact of even small amounts outside of the 12 hrs of light "on",,,,it would fail back to veg....

As far as hormones of both Veg and Flower coursing through the plant at the same time.....Sort of.....If a whole "branch" was used, that branch is controlled by specific roots (each branch is connected to it's own root cluster) and that in it's self would "limit" the exposure of the rest of the plant from the flowering hormones from the effected branch....

Will this work,,,,,sure! But I don't really understand why you want to do it this way...Given time you'll be able to spot the guy's with out much trouble.

Why in the world do you want to increase the lower branching health? To produce more product??

LOLLYPOP and SUPERCROP or learn SCROG....By boosting the bottom end and keeping all those "popcorn bud" internodes your going to take away from your main Kolas!!!!

Click to expand...

I'm not trying to sex. I'm trying an alternative means of redirecting GH to "submissive" nodes instead of topping or lsting etc etc. Just messing around. Thanks.