Keeping 'em Short. indoor florescent grow

so im starting a new grow with one of those zip up tents and florescent grow lights and im just wondering what the different ways to keep a plant short are. i was going to order some lowrider strains from a seed bank but id like a yield closer to that of a normal crop. i know the plant doesnt grow tall if you dont adjust the bulbs everyday so it has something to grow towards but im not sure how that will affect the proper maturation process. if anyone has any insight or questions so i can make what im asking more clear let me know. ill start putting up pictures soon. super excited to get underway!!
thanks
tyler

First of all what fluorescents are you using?

Household cfl?
T5?
T8?
T12?
T5HO?


J

Keep bulbs very close. LST the shit out of her. Get as many tops as possible started at low height. I haveone with about 15 tops a month or so into flower. She's only about 20-24" tall, done stretching, and filling out with bud. She's under LED but that doesn't matter.

Ya, i agree with GrowinDad, you just want to top it as much as you can or keep bending/supercropping the tops. You can use a trellis netting to help keep it lower and maintain a level canopy. The idea is to clean out the bottom growth once you have a solid canopy and the bottom isn't going to receive much light anyways (SCROG). Good luck man.

Or you simply flip them when they are really small and just do many more of them than you might envision, in smaller pots. (SOG)

im probably going to end up using a few house hold bulbs when they are flowering but for the first few weeks ive got this
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001UV6P9I/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

GrowinDad said:

Keep bulbs very close. LST the shit out of her. Get as many tops as possible started at low height. I haveone with about 15 tops a month or so into flower. She's only about 20-24" tall, done stretching, and filling out with bud. She's under LED but that doesn't matter.

Click to expand...

thats exactly what i was thinking other than tie downs and netting and such. thanks very much for the info u guys. big help.
ill keep u updated and if you have any more advice ill soak it up like fresh roots . burn one for me

GrowinDad said:

Keep bulbs very close. LST the shit out of her. Get as many tops as possible started at low height. I haveone with about 15 tops a month or so into flower. She's only about 20-24" tall, done stretching, and filling out with bud. She's under LED but that doesn't matter.

Click to expand...

heres my next question,
hydro or soil medium? ive done soil before so i know how it works but hydro sounds interesting but ive heard good and bad about it. should i stick with good soil or should i try a hydro setup?

One thing i find helps keep 'em short is fan training too. From seedling stage onwards, have an oscillating desk fan make them sway a fair bit each pass (not enough to snap or totally bend them tho! start fan far away & move closer throughout grow when needed to maintain same sway).

The effort they would normally put into stretching will thus be redirected to make their main stems sturdier & stronger to resist wind, and some may show slight increase in root mass to provide more anchorage too. And a sturdier plant generally has its overall robustness & healthiness boosted too. (plus any fan obviously ensures fresh airflow is always available for photosynthesis too!)

The only thing is this only normally works for about 1st month of veg, after which a desk fan just ruffles the leaves abit & is good for airflow only!

Otherwise, lights close with CFL's is deffo No.1 tip for shortness for sure!

Agree on fan. I grow soil with a drip watering system. Here's my set up (you can see my journal for how CFL grows went) with my soil, nutes, etc.

https://www.rollitup.org/blogs/blog27658-video-my-set-up.html

Ok so here are the first few pics i have. not really sure what week im on, maybe the third, but its a low key grow so i dont mind. just the one but as soon as i get my own place, the seeds shall start sprouting often.
theres some yellow on the primary leaves and the second set because of lack of air flow in the drawer but my tent should be here next week so im not too concerned.

If I am in a hurry I LST ... note the holes around the side of the pot.. twist ties or pipe cleaners with a bit of bending and pinching over here and there.

so my tent finally came and ive got everything set up. pretty happy with it so far

Right on.. looks good.. maybe could go a bit (lot) closer to the light, with that bulb you can probably get it within 3 inches without any worries.. keeps em shorter that way.. but ya, looks great. Good luck~!

ill move it closer but the tent is 5ft tall so i dont mind a whole lot if it stretches out a bit.

333maxwell said:

If I am in a hurry I LST ... note the holes around the side of the pot.. twist ties or pipe cleaners with a bit of bending and pinching over here and there.

Click to expand...

thats one plant? what week did u start the lst? u mind explaining it a bit more because that looks fantastic!

Ya.. one plant.. I start LSTing from clone or seed, the second it has enough of a root to support the first bend.. roughly 7 days after I have it first established in soil.

I establish a height I want the plant to flower at (about 6-8 inches, and I tie down every shoot that pops up past that.. Look at the ties on this picture

That was a hardy growing G-13 that I HAD to keep low as she is a tall one by nature. This is only a 1 gallon pot, if I untied her and stretched her up, she would be over 4 foot tall, but instead it is less than 10 inches.

As you bend grass tops over, it encourages side shoots to grow.. Highest branch on the plant takes over and tries and become the main one, over and over and over. It is doing much the same thing as topping (causing the two side shoots to become primary tops) without losing the main top to do it.. and then there are tops of tops.. heh.. you get the idea.

google and look on this site for LST and super crop.. as you can see in my case I have reduced the task to poking holes around the pot and using pipe cleaners or twist ties.. Likewise if you are not in that big of hurry, you can super crop by just bending the darn tops over manually by hand (just don'[t break em all the way off) and keep em low that way.. I actually use a combination of both when I start getting lots of side shoots right before flower.. I just bend em over..

Hope that stokes some ideas of your own.. peace~!..

Your method, will depend on exactly how you are set up... I have a giant bloom box, that, I converted from a bunk bed set. Slats in the bottom and top, allow air to flow. I have 3 feet of space in my bloom box. There is about 2 feet free below it. And 3 feet free on top... Which, I use to form an air pillow. Enclosing the top, then placing a box fan with a carbon filter, right on the edge of the top air pillow. this basicly stops the smell for the most part, (and my strains reek like nothing else, very stinky plants)... Here's a picture of 1/3 the size I can grow in my box with training methods... this one still has a lot of white hairs, I'm thinking 2 more weeks before harvest. My guess is this one will produce about 14 grams... If I grew this one to it's full size that my 3 feet flower space would allow, it would be roughly 3 times larger. So, the yield would probably be 3 times larger also. I can fit about 30 of these in my grow box (you do the math) ...

You can see a 25 Cent piece, in my hand for a size comparison. I'm using fairly low power fluroscents. I have a combination of different lights. 2 shop lights one with standard white brites, the other with T8 bulbs which are a bit brighter, but not much. I also have three 200 watt fluro bulbs, and several very low power LEDs, around the sides, which are about 1 and 1/2 watts each... If you add them up, they don't equal what a 1000 watt HID is. I figure it's about 75% of the HID... So if you did the math in my previous post, my upward yield on this is 45 ounces... Now I know you going to say that's impossible... but if you get the right plants growing the right way. You can beat HIDs, as impossible as that sounds... And oh yea, the pot is way better too... I've been a dealer of HID and bubbler bud (which we created by the way, The Bubbler!)... And the fluroscent product blows away HID's ....

wow that looks amazing! i was talking to one of my friends and he doesnt believe you can flower with cfls but from what ive seen, do it right and the bud will be tight.
thanks for all the help guys, seeing ur projects just makes me more excited for mine. ill keep u updated

rth420 said:

ill move it closer but the tent is 5ft tall so i dont mind a whole lot if it stretches out a bit.

Click to expand...

You want the light close so the node spacing will be closer... With light where it is, your next node might be 4-5" away and defeat what you want, a short bushy plant... I grow under CFL's in veg, and the lights surround the plants from different angles... You want the spacing as close as possible with a height limiter... more nodes closer together = more bud... it's that simple... Good Luck man !