Girls WAY to tall right before 12/12..what to do?

[sniffs]

Hey guys

I have a 4 girls that I have let get TOO tall and I NEED to switch to 12/12 tomorrow and if I do that without some sort of High stress training(doing HST cause I need to do it quick and cant wait to tie down for LST plus their too strong for that now). I'd say they are about 3 1/2 ft. tall. I had some complications the last month and had to keep vegging them out and couldn't train them due to tons of RL stuff going on.

I just cut clones off of them the other night and I'm wondering if it will be worth it to flower them or just scrap them and wait for the clones?(Their really beautiful and healthy and it would kill me to scrap them, but I will if theres no way I can do something to cut atleast a foot 1/2 off their height). The strains are Kushberry and BerryPurple. My 2 BerryPurple's are kinda tied down right now, but not really and if I un-tied them they would go right back up to their normal height. I thought of topping them,but then I thought theres no way I could do that because if I did that and then switched to 12/12 tomorrow or the next day they would be way to stressed and probably hermi. So anybody else have any other suggestions? I've also heard of supercropping but don't know much about it, is it where you take the stem and just pretty much bend it in half and let it heal up? That could be a definite possibility and would probably take less time to heal then topping correct?

Heres some pics that were taken a week or so ago:








Well guys I wanna hear your ideas' and responses'! I'm sure some of you have been in this position at some point before, so if you have let me know what you did! Thanks in advance for your feedback guys and keep it green

Over and out,
Sniffs

 

[DocLeaf]

bend the tops down (maybe with yo-yos

 

[buzzed day]

first more details.whatis your light size and growing area.are those the only plants you going to run for the next 10 wks. or until done? do you know the sex?best bet without those details i would say srog them,i have some on my thread plus if your short of money you can build your own with coat hangers and string.look it up in the grow room desing in forums.also if those seeds are half way decent genetics [not prone to hermie]then you should be able to cut them down and not cause them to hermie,mayby give them a day then 12 and 12.best i can think of,hope it helps.peace

 

[killa-bud]

just super crop,they recover fast from it,just go to where you wanna bend it,squeez till you feel a "pop" then do the same on the other side(on the other side of the bend,so it could go ether way) and thats it,in a couple of hours they'll be lookin up like nothing happen,and they will be shorter

 

[FreezerBoy]

My girls laughed in my face after super cropping. They straightened out by morning as though it never happened. You may want to secure the branches after folding or scrogging.

 

[Greyskull]

you don't want to just give them a major haircut (and maybe 1 day recovery but not required) and flip the lights? Not gonna hermie. some folks chop clones off of plants 1 week into flower with no probs to the donor. YOU WILL BE FINE.

That seems to be the easiest & fastest way to get the girls into flower and not waste the veg time spent.

That said I have killed or gifted many full grown bushes/plants for similiar reasons... especially genes I haven't flowered before. It takes a tough grower to just cut it but sometimes a growers gotta do what a growers got to do.

Good luck

edit: bad spelling errors

 

[stihgnobevoli]

just cut the main stem above the node you want them to stop growing. problem solved.

 

[xchaoticmetalx]

My girls laughed in my face after super cropping. They straightened out by morning as though it never happened. You may want to secure the branches after folding or scrogging.

If you don't supercrop correctly the plants will shoot right back up. This just means it was done wrong though. A correct supercrop will stay bent and have a big U turn when it catches back up to the height it used to be, causing all the side branches to form there own top colas.

I would def say either supercrop like halfway down the stalk, or top it back to the height ya want. You shouldnt have any problem herming as long as ya give a couple days to heal after the top/supercrop.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Possible, or maybe it's a strain thing. I can't imagine crushing them with more force than I did. They fell over by themselves and I thought they were dead.

As to topping, that just pisses them off. They'll grow bigger and faster than ever. By achieving horizontal stems (through cropping, LST or ScROG) overall growth remains the same but, spread out horizontally it doesn't threaten your lights.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

just cut the main stem above the node you want them to stop growing. problem solved.

Exactly!

If you're looking at an overcrowded garden WHACK WHACK WHACK!

Unless you have serious ventilation you're going to run into humidity issues and heat issues.

If you can't bend it in half with supercropping, Hack it off. (Remember it's going to get 2-3 times bigger in the next few weeks again anyway!)

 

[smokeymacpot]

cut the tops off and make clones or throw them. or bend the tops over.

 

[thetokemaster]

chain the bitch

chain the bitch

The BEST method and most flexible, is to have 12 and 18 inch lengths of stainless chain. Place them on your branches strategically to bend them in the right spot, and you get a bush like this..........BTW this kinky biatch white russian from serious seeds yielded me 7 oz's off a plant grown in a 5 gallon bubbler under 1 k hps.......as you can see kinky chains keep em short but give you flexibility

 

[MidLifeCrisis]

LOL...That pitbull needs a chain on her!!! K+

 

[MidLifeCrisis]

Not 4 days ago I had to tell a buddy to tear down all eight of his plants 3 weeks into flower because of limited height and no room for them to go anywhere...we had bent, tied down and still...it was too late...A valuable lesson indeed. Replaced with clones the next day...so not a total loss...but definitely a setback for this first timer...It broke my heart and ruined my night having to tell him he'd be better off chopping 'em down and starting w/clones...They had stretched beyond the point of saving.

Sniffs...You can literally snap those tops and put some kind of brace on 'em and be fine providing a little bit of good karma. I've snapped 'em and used duct tape and cardboard strips, or chopsticks even...with no residual effects on the plants... Just make sure they're @ a solid 90 degrees when secure...

 

[theHIGHlander]

put your plants on there side (you know lying along the floor,all buds site will turn towards the light within a day or 2)

there is no way in the world i would throw a plant that was to big, (thats never an option),,top, supercrop, lst, bend, do everything you can but dont throw her thats bad Karma

keep it green

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

good luck with that shit, for real!

 

[Herbsman_OS]

When I supercrop, to prevent the branches from going back to their original position, I'll use mini bungee cords and hook the top stem and let the cord hang. This allows the branch/stem that you just supercropped to stay bent longer. Sometimes, at least in my experience, and depending on the strain, you'll have to supercrop the supercropped branch. In addition, I'll also use my mini bungee cord to pull back the supercropped branch and attach it to my trellis/stake/or another plant's stalk or branch. It depends on how your environment is set up, but sometimes you have to make like McGyver while tending to your garden.

--Herbsman_OS

 

[MidLifeCrisis]

dont throw her thats bad Karma

keep it green

Can't put a hydro plant on its side...he's lucky I had clones going...that's good karma

 

[FirstTracks]

Can't put a hydro plant on its side...he's lucky I had clones going...that's good karma

not arguing the good/bad karma point.

Just wanted to say, you CAN put some hydro plants on their side. If its a plant in a netpot in a bubbler, you can pull up one side of the netpot to tilt the plant 45* or so. Same thing with a mediumless swc or dwc setup. I'm thinking standalone rockwooblocks on a dripper system could be tilted too.

 

[MidLifeCrisis]

No worries FT...You really had to see it to believe it. This system would not allow to be tilted without 40 gallons of water spilling out, and the plants were way too lanky and stretched past the lights...with very few nodes to allow any bud formation below the lamp. He may have been able to get an ounce per plant...but in my years of growing...it was past the point of no return and clones were readily available for him at no cost what so ever...