Need Advice. Plant is too tall!

Hey guys-

I thought I could do it! I thought I could accommodate my plant's growth in flowering but it's getting too tall for the space. I got 2 Full Moon Sativas that are 25 days into flowering. This is a long flowering strain, 60-90 days. The ladies are about 5ft. One of them has slowed to a nice height while the other is pushing on like there is no tomorrow. Its been 1/3 of their full flowering time so I thought they would slow and stop vertically growing. Nope. I only have about 8" left above my light. So my question is, what do I do? I have never lst'ed or super cropped.

The way I see it is:

1. , I LST it by tying it down slightly.
2. I super crop it at the level of the other plant and bring my light down. What effect will this have?
3. I can tie it to the side which will essentially let it grow past my light. Probably a bad idea.
4. I can risk another couple days and see what happens but this thing has been growing an inch a day. Not sure I will win this one.

Pictures below. The shorter plant in the foreground is obviously the one that slowed. In general this plant has been slower to flower, slower to grow. The taller one in the back is extremely aggressive and the light is getting to it, leaves are starting to yellow at the top. But she is still happy overall.
I would love to preserve her natural cola but understand if I have to sacrifice.

Any and all advice will be extremely appreciated.

These are the plants 2 weeks ago.


This is the comparison between the two. As you can see the taller plant is reaching for the 600W HPS. Bad!


8in left above light....

Just pinch the stem between your index finger and thumb, squeeze and bend slowly. If the stalk is soft and hollow, it will reach a point where it folds. If it does that, just leave it. It will probably try to turn up again, just continue forcing it down. The pinch should give you a feeling for whether it's hollow. If it's solid and hard, you may need to pull it down in steps. Maybe tie it down.

If it breaks, then you didn't do LST, you did just supercropping. Tape it with some electical tape and leave it alone. It will heal, form a big knuckle around where it broke. You'd be surprised how these plants will heal. I had one break so bad it was held only by a small layer of outer skin. I taped it thinking just the movement of taping was tearing the remaining connection. It healed.

Some of the biggest buds I've gotten were from broken stems like that. So, don't worry. It's one of those things you'll never know how to do without starting to do it, making a few mistakes and learning from them. But, the big thing to learn is that you shouldn't feel bad when one snaps. Just ape it and you'll be amazed how it rebounds.

It's probably better to LST earlier in flower, not let it go so vertical so late into flower. The parts you need to bend may be hard now, you'll have to take it in steps, tie it down. (Poke a hole in the lip of your container, tie electrical wire through the hole, and around the stem you want to pull down.).

az2000 said:

Just pinch the stem between your index finger and thumb, squeeze and bend slowly.

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i do this with those pesky stretchers, works great!

without reading the book u posted, all u can do is crop or lst and hold her down. you should have anticipated this earlier, lol, all u can do

Thanks guys. Appreciate the advice. I think that I may opt for the super crop option and take her down to the other plant's level. This way the other one will catch up!

Yeah I should have anticipated this but I thought I could get away with it since it was so close to that 1/3 flowering time and should have slowed. Overall this is my first indoor grow, first hydro grow, first Sativa grow. A lot of firsts on this one so at this point I don't mind learning from this mistake.

Thanks again.

Well, the plant has been successfully supercropped. Everything went well. Amazing how much more light can now penetrate down!

That's an amazing looking plant. Very cool. Yea, I train the crap out of my plants. They don't mind at all. Top, LST, Supercrop, scrog.. If she continues to grow taller just tie it down. You'll get better light exposure any way.

Thanks! Appreciate it. Yeah after super cropping her the light exposure improved vastly! I was a bit worried I would snap the stem because it was so thick even at the top. But with a bit of pinching back and forth it bent 90 degrees no problem!

I am new to super cropping. Will the cola on the bent stem continue growing or will the plant redistribute it's energy to other sites?

nice thick plant

TheObserver said:

I am new to super cropping. Will the cola on the bent stem continue growing or will the plant redistribute it's energy to other sites?

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It will continue growing. It will probably be one of your bigger colas. Something about how those wounds heal leads to more growth. Maybe the stem thickens and can carry more (whatever, hormones, food, etc.).

Some growers mangle their plants (supercrop). It seems wrong to me. But, my few LST overdoses (snapped, became a supercrop) indicate the manglers are onto something. I think you'll be surprised how yours turns out.

90 degree bend on my clones. saved me a good 6 inches.

Weed is a masochist plant. She loves the pain and torture. lol

Well it would only be fair to update with pics.
New canopy and one of the ladies has a haircut. Still feel bad but it's for the best.

If you can, take a picture of that stem in 10-14 days. That would be informative for someone finding this thread in the future.

Don't hesitate to bend those other shoots to create even light. How big is that grow space? How many watts? Is it getting enough light down low, the corners? Seems like you could use some sidelighting. But, photos of grow lights are deceptive due to the contrast. Maybe it's not as dark as it looks.

Will do. I am interested to see how it does.

The grow space is not huge, roughly 34" x 56" X 78" as you can see the 2 plants are pushing all limits of this space. The light is a 600W HPS cooled (was MH in veg). The pictures are not accurate as there is some light going all the way to the bottom. With that said it's pretty shady down there and I could use some side lighting. They are 25 days in flowering.

You're doing 45w/sq ft. I've never used HPS, but I believe that's on the low side for flowering. Do you have anything you can sidelight with? Home Depot sells 18w Cree LED PAR38 spots and floods for $25. If you added three on each end you'd be at 54w/sq ft. That would be closer to where I think HPS is supposed to be(?). The difference between spots and floods is how far you have to have the bulb for coverage. I'd think spots in the corners (illuminating the long edge) and a flood at each end pointing down. (If you're interested I can measure the optimum distance of each light . I'm thinking it's 10" for the flood, 20-24" for the spot.).

I like to use the Cree 9.5w lightbulbs in clamp-on reflectors. More coverage from more sources of light. But, that can be a lot of work (and expense) setting up that many sockets.

I like sidelighting. Turns air buds into real buds.

Well, I definitely did not return in time with that picture of the stem. Mainly because the plant grew so much in the following 10 days that I couldn't get to that area to take a picture. But what happened truly blew my mind so I thought I would share.

After super cropping one of my ladies I wasn't sure what to expect. Some people swear by this while others say it's a gimmick. Myself being new to this I favored on the side of au naturel. But there is definitely something surprising here that I witnessed first hand. My plant's growth and size exploded! The super cropped branch did not do much of anything at first, as it was healing. However, all other branches exploded in growth and created a nice, new canopy.I couldn't check in on my super cropped branch because of how quickly the surrounding branches began to take over the vertical space. I wasn't sure what to make of it until one day I come home and saw that one cola was once again towering over the others. I assumed it was a growth burst from another branch. Nope. It was the super cropped branch! It came all the way back to vertical twice as big, twice as vicious.

I have 2 plants, same strain, same exact conditions. I guess you can argue the genetics may be different but I have to say it.... the super cropped plant blows the other one out of the water. The other plant has one nice cola with the other branches being pretty unimpressive (comparatively). Let's clarify, I'm not saying you should supercrop your plants but I will be doing some more studying and testing.

AZ2000 thanks for the advice. I was not able to implement your advice 100% for this grow. Ran out of space to work with. These SAtivas are huge! They are now pushing 6'. I will never veg this long again. I did install a nice big plant fluorescent side light. Not sure how much it's helping, it's the wrong spectrum but it's all I had.

All the best

Oh and I am on day 56 of flowering. Still another 20-30 days to go.

All ways tie the plant top too one side of the light with out any beakage,