"Traditional" LST vs Main-Lining: Plant vs. Plant Showdown!

Greetings Plant Lovers,

No real update, just a quick photo dump. Below is a pic of each of the 8 main colas on the main-lined plant.

And here's a pic of each of the seven main colas on the LST plant. Plus a random close-up of one of the buds.



We're getting close. Three or four weeks if not less. Guessing once drying and curing is done each plant will yield about 3oz. This is when it starts getting hard to stay patient! Wish me luck with that!

Good stuff brother!
I like the drip system. It's always nice coming up with something that makes life easier.
Excited to see the harvest results. Do you think the mainlined plant will yield enough extra buds to justify the extra recovery time?

Waiks said:

Good stuff brother!
I like the drip system. It's always nice coming up with something that makes life easier.
Excited to see the harvest results. Do you think the mainlined plant will yield enough extra buds to justify the extra recovery time?

Click to expand...

Hey Waiks. Thanks for stopping by! Yeah, that drip system has made this grow a lot less of a hassle. Watering by hand while trying to avoid disturbing the soil too much and also making sure the pot gets evenly watered all around was getting old. Going forward, any grow I do will have some sort of drip system, especially since it's so easy to set up.

As for yield, I think the two plants will yield about the same for this grow. But that's only because I'm treating the two plant EXACTLY the same in terms of feeding. I think the nutes for the LST plant are perfect, but the main-line plant probably should have been fed more aggressively.

To answer your question, I think a main-lined plant, if given the proper amount of nutes and attention, would produce a bigger yield than a plant given only LST. In fact, my next grow will be a northern lights x big bud and I'm only gonna grow one plant in a 7gal pot. I'll veg that beast for 6 or 7 week, do 4 rounds of topping to get 16 main colas, and swing for the fences!

Greetings Plant Lovers,

Here's a quick photo update. These were taken while the lights were off. The LST looks to have about two weeks left, and the main-lined probably has 3 or 4 to go. Swapped out the 3000k over head bulbs for 10000k "finishing" bulbs. I'll leave those in for the rest of the grow. Supposedly the 10000k helps with trichome development. I've still got the 3000k and 2700k "supplemental" lights along the sides.

Both ladies are getting frosty, but the LST is winning. Also, unless the main-line kicks things into another gear it looks like the LST may win the yield battle as well.

The ladies during lights out.


Some pics of the main-line's buds.


Pics of the LST's buds.


The showdown continues...

great side by side of 2 beautiful plants -- all caveats considered
I like your theory as to the mainlined one tapering off for underfeeding too, yeah there are signs that speak for that.
Looking forward to seeing how this drama ends!

I'm mainlining as well

calliandra said:

great side by side of 2 beautiful plants -- all caveats considered
I like your theory as to the mainlined one tapering off for underfeeding too, yeah there are signs that speak for that.
Looking forward to seeing how this drama ends!

Click to expand...

Thanks for stopping by Calliandra! Yeah, I'm real happy with how the ladies are turning out. If nothing else, this grow has convinced me that main-lining is a viable option. With a little practice, main-lining should produce some monster plants.

Here's a couple pics with the lights on as well as some close ups of the trichomes.



What are the trichomes telling you guys? Getting close? Another month? Opinions welcome...

g'day Gr8,

plants are awsum, 2 - 3 weeks till harvest and which method do u like best?
it looks like main lining is bigger plant with larger buds from those gr8 pics.
thx for interesting thread

For newbie's main line will kick ass if done right every time,
main-line is a simple way to lst and keep the canopy level, trim the fan leaves without knowning and only having a few strong shoots
I do a very similar thing with my plants but have more control over the canopy shape and size


so the reason why the mainline looks better than the lst, you have half the shoots, )
lots of wasted energy going on shoots that are getting little to no light

main line have got a few strong shoots, evenly spaced, no weak lower shoots and this will always give you the best results

also the canopy get good air flow, light penetration and with less leaves it helps to reduce humidity

I'm vegging mine a little longer so I will have a small amount of pruning , going 20-24 inches above soil

verticalgrow said:

g'day Gr8,

plants are awsum, 2 - 3 weeks till harvest and which method do u like best?
it looks like main lining is bigger plant with larger buds from those gr8 pics.
thx for interesting thread

Click to expand...

Sup Vertical. Thanks for stopping by! I had more fun with the main-line grow. It's cool to keep topping and training the plant to get that even, uniform look. And it keeps the main buds all about the same height, good for getting the most out of your lights. But it's gonna take a few more grows to master that technique.
If you're willing to spend a few extra weeks in veg and are willing to keep up with the plant's appetite, you'll probably enjoy main-lining. If you're more hands off, and just want to get some good smoke without all the fuss, a simple LST grow will do the trick.
As far as final yield for this grow, it's still too close to call between the two so stay tuned.

Purpsmagurps said:

I'm vegging mine a little longer so I will have a small amount of pruning , going 20-24 inches above soil

Click to expand...

Hey Purps. How many weeks of veg do you plan on doing? Be sure you have enough room for the stretch when you switch to flower. If you're doing a lot of training during veg it keeps the plant artificially short, leading to a dramatic stretch. A common rule is the plant will more than double in height during stretch, but that really applies to "untrained" plants. It's actually much more when doing aggressive training. I've found the plant's final height will be about two times it's width when flipped to flower. For instance, due to all the training my main-lined plant was only 7" tall when flipped to 12/12, but it was about 16" wide. Today, 9 weeks into flower, the plant is a little over 32" tall.

I have 80 inches of space, I can put my lights within a foot of the roof, I plan on jamming it in there lol. Led + hid cool tube wont burn that much

Purpsmagurps said:

I have 80 inches of space, I can put my lights within a foot of the roof, I plan on jamming it in there lol. Led + hid cool tube wont burn that much

Click to expand...

Hey Purps. Sounds like you have a plan and lots of headroom for the stretch. Go big or go home, right! LOL. Be sure to keep us posted on how the grow goes.

For those keeping track, here's a quick photo update. These were taken during lights out. I'll try to post some trichome pics later to get everyone's thoughts. The LST might get the chop around this time next week with the Main-Line getting the ax a week or two later. The ladies got their last feeding with nutes last week. They are only getting water from here on out.



My current stash is getting low, so I'm looking real hard at these ladies. What do you guys think? Time to start sharpening the ax?

Nice test.

Plants look like they still could use quite a while don't they? Guess you should check the trichomes, but going by pistils I'd say you could go on for a week or even more.

Update!

Gave the ladies their first feeding just now, 1/3 tsp/gal cal mag and 1 1/4 tsp/gal of age old fish and seaweed. going to tie down tomorrow. one of my Purple kush plants is alternating at the first node a little bit so I decided I'm going to keep the bottom nodes and go 8 tops from 2 nodes. the deficiencies stopped in the white cookies thank god.

Purple Kush

White cookies



Purple kush LST


Purple Kush

wietefras said:

Nice test.

Plants look like they still could use quite a while don't they? Guess you should check the trichomes, but going by pistils I'd say you could go on for a week or even more.

Click to expand...

Thanks Wietefras. I have to agree, they can use one or two more weeks. That said, I don't think I'll be able to hold out for more than a week. Stash is getting low and drying/curing is gonna take at least two weeks.

Quick update and photo dump. The main-line has hit what I call "critical mass". That's when the plant can no longer support the buds without some serious help. You'll see in the pics that the buds are starting to lean all over. This leads to an important observation, main-lined plants, like most other growing techniques, require some sort of support to aid and promote growth. The LST plant has been growing through a plant support since flipping to flower. The main-line didn't get supports added until mid-way through flower, and I did a half-ass job at it. So that's likely another reason the main-line didn't reach it's full growth potential. The energy it used trying to keep itself upright could have been used to fatten up the buds. That's likely why the LST's buds are SO FAT

Anywho, here's some pics... The close ups bud pics are from the main-line.

And here are some trichomes pics. Don't know which pics are from which plant, but they both are at about the same point in development.



My guess is that in two or three more weeks they would be at peak ripeness. But, due other factors the girls are coming down next week. And yes, they are both coming down at the same time so we'll have the fresh yield results in a week with the dried and cured yield two weeks after that. The showdown continues, but the finish line is near...

Heh, I know the feeling.

I often even put wet plant matter in my vaporizer. For instance the little tops left over after a pruning session. I dry it in the vaporizer at a lower temperature. When dry I grind it up and enjoy.