Low Stress Training (LST) Guide

nickelz419 said:

Just switched my veg to lst today. My 12-12 is full of 2 1/2 ft ers. I wont have room for theese vegers for 3-4 weeks at which i will need to convert my 12-12..... i was wondering if thats too long? And will i have problems When i move them? I also topped them a couple times a week or so ago. What should i expect?

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AlanRickman said:

Howdy y'all. Got an odd question. I've been doing LST pretty heavily on a round of new starts in a friendly soil mix, and they have just not been looking too healthy (necrosis, cholrosis, and inhibited growth rates; pics in my grow journal). I use paper clips to hold down the shoots; I stick em right in the soil. After noticing these trained ladies weren't doing too well, I had a hard time settling on a diagnosis because I've only watered them with distilled water (due to the fact I've had problems with liquid nutrients in the past, I am trying to straight baby these) so I'm not sure what could be wrong this soon.

Then today I noticed something, 3/4 of my veg is LST and 1/4 is in a scrog. The scrog is shooting up like a champion, while the paper-clipped plants (all different strains) are falling behind. The paper clips are seemingly the only difference between the healthy and unhealthy veg plants. I thought this was far off until I read that "Aluminum toxicity is one of the major factors that limit plant growth and development in many acid soils" according to the Journal of the Polish Biochemical Society (Acta Biochimica Polonica).

Could the aluminum content of 5~8 paper clips be transferred into the soil (5 gal) in a quantity significant enough to poison a plant as resilient as cannabis?

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dr green dre said:

i couldn't answer that ? but if it was mine i would just take out the clips just to see how they do without them .. how tight are those clips on the branches? Lst does have a impact on growth especially if your doing it hard from young ,if you have the same in strain next to the lst'd ones the scrog would look like its healthier imo.. it'll be harder to work out if its all different strains as some could just be slow veggers.. tap water works well for me,i guess it depends on your area so i've never ran distilled or R.O .. try a tonic like superthrive on the stressed plants might help out .. Do you use any rooting products? whats the soil food level?

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Rollbluntz said:

Hey everyone. I have explained to many people about the method of Low Stress Training, and more than one have told me that I should start a guide. So, here it is.

To start, let me explain just what low stress training is. In the thread I will refer to it as (LST). All a training is, is making your plant do something you want.The best part about LST, is the key "Low Stress". It doesn't stress your plant nearly as bad as other training methods exe. Topping. All LST involves doing is the tieing or staking down of a plants top/uppermost growth shoots in order to get more top growths. This bends the plant over and spreads the light to the undermost parts of your plants. When you do this, it makes the undergrowth bush out as well. However, spreading the light isn't what makes your plant bush out.

Auxins
I can not stress enough the importance of this word. Auxins, as defined in the science world are a type of plant growth hormone. In marijuana, they are the most import hormone when it comes to vegetative growth. In an untrained, regular marijuana plant, the auxins are most heavily distributed to the top/uppermost growth. The plant identifies this growth as its top and strives to grow it up towards the light more than the other lower growths. This is where LST comes into play. When you bend a plants top growth over, the plant identifies that it's top growth is no longer growing up, and it works to gain a new top growth. In essence, the auxins spread throughout your whole plant and this creates new growth along your nodes that have the potential to be equal to a "top bud or cola". Here is an example on the growth a plant recieves from the auxins being redistributed via. LST.

View attachment 1171750View attachment 1171753View attachment 1171793View attachment 1171800View attachment 1171819
Please take note at the new growth between the nodes. This is the work of the auxins. Also, take a look in the last picture as to where the original "top growth" is, and where the new top growth is. The plant created new ones. When flowering, this will give you more top buds, but less smaller popcorn buds that formed along the bottom of a regular grown plant. This particular LST grow was done with a smaller plant, but you can do it with large plants.

Now, let's take a look at the reasons why we LST.

1. Space- Many of times growers do not have the space to allow their plant to grow through the vegetative and flowering phase straight up (PC grows, attic grows, box grows). This is where LST comes into play. By tieing/staking down your plant, instead of growing vertically your plant grows horizontally, allowing your plant to still develop to maturity without growing up against your lights..

2. Light- As a plant grows upward towards the light, you constantly have to move your lighting fixture up to keep from burning your plant. As your light gets higher up, it gets further away from your bottom nodes and leaves. This can cause for more scraggly buds and leaves on the bottom of your plant, and put a dent in your harvest. This is especially true when you have lower powered lights(t5, CFLs, etc.)However, if you LST your plant sort of grows horizontally, allowing all of your budsites that grow up to be more exposed to the light. You will still have upward growth, just not as much depending on how long you let your new growth shoots grow before flowering, or LSTing the new growth down.

3. Stealth- Many of times those outdoor plants you have growing by the fence in the backyard just get too tall. What to do? Instead of growing up, just grow horizontally. This can keep those pesky neighbors from knowing that you have more than tomatoes growing in the yard.

Last but not least, let's learn how to LST. LST can be done in many fashions. I will first explain how to do it the way I prefer (with a few pictures) and the others I will give a lowdown on how to do them, but no pictures so bare with me.

The Closehanger​

For this method, all you need is a closehanger, wirecutters, some string or wire, and a piece of ducttape. This is for younger and smaller plants.

Step 1: Cut your closehanger into straight pieces (8-12 inches depending on how tall your plant is). You want the top of the closehanger to be anywhere from 4-6 inches below the top of your plant.

Step 2: Put a Crook or a bend in the end of the closehanger piece. This allows you to put the 2nd node down from the top of your plant under it.

Step 3: This is called the countertie, and is probably one of the most important steps. Take your string or wire and make you a piece long enough to reach from the base of your plant to the edge of your pot. Tie your string or wrap your wire about 3 inches up the base of your plant and run it to the edge of the pot. Don't pull on the plant, just make sure it isn't loose. Tape the other end of the wire/string to your pot. This gives a counter resistance to your LST so that your plant doesn't get uprooted on the stake down.

Step 4: Place your closehanger in the dirt of your pot, with the crooked end up.

Step 5: GENTLY bend your plants top over and place it under the closehanger.
View attachment 1171859
Step 6: As your original top growth, and new top shoots begin to grow up, you can continue to stake them down and get lots of new growth. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with the bushiness and amount of top shoots that are on your plant. At this point you may let your plant grow as tall as you want or just switch to 12/12. I reccomend for indoor growers with limited space, as soon as you have the amount of top shoots you want that you switch to 12/12 as the plant will bush out incredibly if you continue to veg.

That is just the way I do LST. I'm not saying it's the best way, or it's the most effective. It's all a matter of personal preference. There are many other ways to do this including.

1. Screw and string Method- This simply involves screwing screws into the lip of your pot all the way around (8-12 of them). You then tie your plants top down to the screw nearest it with string. As new top growths emerge, keep tieing them down to screws around the pot.

2. Weighting- All you need to do here, is get some sort of a weight (Fishing weights, clips, or anything your plant can't lift). You then tie a string to this weight, and tie it to your top node. It pulls it down, and as new top growths appear tie them down with more weights until you have the desired amount of new upper growths.

3.Object Tieing- For bigger outdoor or indoor plants, you can find some sort of an object that the plant can't move, and tie your shoots down to it. I have a friend who uses a ladder that he uses as his weight and just ties plants down onto it. They are huge plants though.

As you can see, there are tons of ways to LST. When it comes to Low Stress Training, there really is no wrong way. Just tie your plant down, spread the auxins, and watch the new growth.

I really hope this helps people better understand LST and get a better feel of what to do when it comes to training their plant.

Thanks a ton for reading my thread.
Rollbluntz

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HappyGrowing86 said:

Your not the first person to say i might have OCD when it comes to my plants. First pot is a gallon and a half or something like that. final pots are 5 gallon buckets.

these pics just show three diff grows and how i changed the number of heads on the plants and what not.

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