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Hey Lido
The best layout for yield is to have all of the buds as close to the light as possible; to get periods of intense light then periods of less light.
Either have lights all around a tall plant or make your tall plants short. Same result, intense light on all buds during some periods.
Short clones or low stress training are the easiest methods - Sea Of Green and Screen Of Green are the most known methods.
I use a single topping and a low stress training method that ties the stem around a bucket rim, very simple - pictorial below. I have an 8' by 3' grow cage with a light mover and a 600 watt HPS. I can squeeze 12 five gallon buckets in my cage; currently I'm yielding a bit better than 3 litres per bucket with medium yield strains; 4 week cured bud, mostly 60 to 75 grams per litre. I do a few other simple steps that are outlined in my threads, it takes about an hour to train a CCOB plant and I spend about 15 minutes a day at maintenance work for the entire garden, veg and flower. I believe that I can up my yield to 4 litres per bucket with a few other improvements and reduce my wattage to 300 with a custom LED and Elliptical Trough Reflector. Easy setup to duplicate and easy results to match.
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"How do you grow Kali Mist so short?, I only have 3 feet of height to work with, can I do the same????"
Yes you can do the same, very easy but you may snap a stem here and there. Just Low Stress Training (Alpha-bending the stem-omega)
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"If I were to grow 9 plants of Kali Mist 3 feet tall each, how much died herb would be produced as an estimate in your experience?"
If you were to grow my style you could get 1-4 liters of cured bud per plant, depending on your experience and set up. I've measured a liter of bud to vary between 40 grams and 110 grams, even for bud from the same plant - depending on the area of the plant harvested. You will need between 18" x 18" and 24" x 24" for each plant (I use 18" x 30"). I get very high gram per watt yield because of a light mover, root branching, other things.
Interestingly the heaviest liter of bud I had was some stringy sativa like buds I got from a Kali Mist in DWC, they reminded me of a stringy White Widow I had a few years ago. I thought they'd weigh next to nothing, really surprising. In Pro Mix the buds are more compact, in hydro harder and crustier, the buds seem more spread out like the stem of the bud grew and sepeated the nodes.
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Crop Circle Of Bud
I do CCOB, like an inefficient scrog without the screen but the plants are movable. I top my plants once; veg each side of the stem to 22" in a 6" pot; transplant to a 5 gallon pot on an angle; bend the stems around the bucket rim. The branches grow up and the stem acts like a hydro tube feeding each small cola.
The stems virtually stop growing when they're bent horizontal, so I have to veg the plants so they will bend all the way around the 38" bucket rim. A single 38" stem is thicker and harder to train; two 22" stems crossed at the bottom and following the natural curve of a topped plant will train much quicker and easier.
This is a 1 stem Kali Mist at 35" and a 2 stem Flo (18" & 19"). The stem is much thicker and more difficult to bend and train. We need to get the stem around the 38" of the bucket rim to get as many branches as possible, so two thinner, shorter stems are much easier. The stems virtually stop growth and stretch when bent horizontal, many more branches than a vertical plant of the same stem length. The Flo trained in about 15 minutes and the Kali Mist took days.
Flo - Kali Mist
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This Bubblegum's stems weren't crossed and took over a week to train. If crossed I could have done it in a few hours.
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Flo
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Kali Mist
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A Flo (left) and a Bubblegum. The Flo has another week or three, the Bubblegum should harvest in the next week. The Flo is a knarly plant, twisty leaves, small hard buds. This is my second time around for the Flo, the last hermied and I burnt it with Dutch Passion Penetrator. The smoke was so beautiful I had to run it again, this time just a few pre flower pods and bananas on the lower nodes. I picked them off and the plant has been perfect since.
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The
Bubblegum (right) is going to be my best producer ever, of Bubblegum. I should get 12+ cups of cured bud.
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The single stem
Kali Mist from above on the left; on the right a Kali Mist grown with 4" of height above the bucket rim.
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"What do you mean when you say the stems are crossed?"
Bend them so the stem on your left goes to your right and the stem on your right goes to your left - they'll circle the bucket rim in different directions. The two stems of a single topped plant develop a bowed leg stance and the natural curve circles the bucket easiest if we cross the stems and go the other way - otherwise we have to bend against an already developed curve.
Here's a series of pictures for crossing the stems. The plant is re-potted from 6" pots to 5 gallon buckets - at an angle - to make bending around the rim quicker and easier.
The bucket is a DIY air pruning bucket from a thread linked below. Works fantastic.
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"How long due i keep it died down?"
It takes about 2 weeks for the bend to become permanent but the plants will pull towards the light as soon as they're untied. Bend to the position you want and leave them tied down for the whole grow.
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"I also havent watered today, am planning on watering tomorrow, there not going to crack on me will they?"
No, they'll be fine. Stems are easier to bend when the plant needs watering but I bend when the root ball is saturated or dry. Patience and things will be fine. Watering after bending is no problem at all.
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"i have 4 plants tied down and now the side shoots are becoming plants of there own ... once i tie down the plant do i also tie down the side shoots the grow upwards to get in more light maybe?"
When you bend the top cola of the plant below a node, the branches on the highest node becomes the meristem - the main colas that the plant focuses energy for growth. If you bend the stem horizontal the energy is spread over all of the branches, the tallest getting the most and growing fastest.
Think of the stem as a hydro tube feeding the branches, and the branches each as a small plant. I keep my stems horizontal for the whole grow but will only tie down some of the branches if they stick up over the canopy, extra long branches usually at the base of the plant. As long as the branch is getting light and it's not shading other branches or is too close to the light, it's fine.
Over the first week the side branches will reach up to the light and grow as small colas. Help separate them, arrange for space and light, air flow. I use a tomato cage with almost all my new plants, a couple dozen 24" colas in 3 or 4 square feet.
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"Does toping a plant just mean cutting the top and then two stems will grow?"
Yes, exactly. Cut, as Moe from The Simpsons would say, "Between the leaf holes!".
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https://www.rollitup.org/seed-strain-reviews/211186-pics-my-garden-ssd-km.html
https://www.rollitup.org/smoke-reports/244210-kali-mist-serious-seeds-3.html
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/303229-diy-air-pruning-pot-experiment.html
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) Under a 600w HPS light. My growing space is 4ft long, 2 ft deep and about 6ft tall. I'll be growing in Biobizz all organic soil in 3 gallon pots.
