Methods for tying large plants down outdoors?

[BotanicalBill]

Hey there, I was wondering if anyone would care to share their techniques for tying down large plants horizontally outdoors.. My buddy is going to do it this year and was asking me for advice so I figured I'd throw it out there.. Having no experience myself, the best idea I could come up that was easy to setup and could handle a large plant would be using some say 6 foot tall, by say 8 foot long cattle panel/concrete wire similar to this

http://www.fyall.net/greenhouse-03(cuttingpanels).jpg

Lay that down next to the plant, and that gives you quite a bit of space to tie one end to whatever square you wish and the other and to the branch of your choice.. That stuff is also pretty heavy so you're not going to get the plant pulling it out of the ground.

So by just laying down one 6x8 panel you would have 48 square feet of space to train to.. This doesn't have to be 100% stealth or anything in his case but for those where it would be an issue it would seem that it could be relatively easily concealed as well since it's essentially flat to the ground..

Anyway, was just wondering if anyone else had any other ideas to share that would be even easier, or thoughts on why the panel idea would not work well.

Thanks much

BB

 

[theHIGHlander]

ive seen a few outdoor grows/pics where people use tent pegs,,,,bend the plant over & peg it to the ground

ps. i think the holes are to big on that screen in the pic + it might crush a small plant,,,what about chicken wire?

keep it green
highlander

 

[BotanicalBill]

highlander, the wire doesn't go over the branches, wire/ribbon/rope would be tied to the wire then to the branch. the wire is just serving as an anchor.. pegs I think are probably the most common method if I were to guess, and my thinking with the wire was you don't have to carry around a bunch of pegs since you have a bunch of 'pegs' covering that 6x8 area with the added bonus there is nothing to "pull out" of the ground if some heavy winds come that would want to yank them all out.. With that same wind idea in mind, however, having them not being able to be pulled out at all would potentially cost some valuable branches to break if the wind was strong enough.. But I think it's a chance my friend would be willing to take given the convenience of just laying out one panel per plant and being done with with it.


Thanks a lot for your reply

BB

 

[humboldtlocal]

Bill, you have the right idea. I grew like this for years. we call it "tie down" around here. Your fencing will work also chicken wire, dear fencing, cattle fencing. The last time I did it I used the plastic deer fencing that comes on a roll and is 7.5' tall. Lay that down on the ground and stake it down. Cut a hole in the middle where your plant will go. When you plant your plant lay the stem right down on the ground on top of the fencing. Use the green plastic ribbon/tape to tie the main stalk to the wire. You want to use this tape for all of your first ties as it will stretch and break as your stem grows and won't choke off the stem. As branches start to lift up just tie them back down to the fence with the tape/ribbon. Once you get your plant spread out nicely you can switch to "s" hooks. We used to make these by bending 3" pieces of wire into an s shape. It was very time consuming because in one season a 3-5 lb plant would require hundreds of these. We finally figured out that we could buy paper clips from office depot or staples and bend them into the same shape. Use these s hooks to hook all of your branches down to the fencing. You want to tie a branch down when it is about 8-12" off the ground. Keep a lot of Doc Farwells Seal and Heal around to glue broken branches because you will get some. You want to stop tying down before your plant goes into bud otherwise you will end up just having to undo your last bunch of branches you tied. With this technique we would have 5 lb plants that were spread out 8'x8' and only about three feet tall. All colas. If you want to take it to the next level of stealth add plastic flowers on bamboo stakes stuck in the plant. We used to hide all our plants in the garden like this and planted next to some beds of amaranth, marigolds, zinnias, sun flowers, and cosmos you could not see them at all. I had experienced growers who had never seen this technique walk into my garden and stand next to my biggest plant and say "wheres all the herb?" This is a technique that was developed here in Humboldt in the 80's after CAMP started so people could grow some full sun buds in their yards without the helicopters seeing it. Done correctly you would never know they are there.

 

[BotanicalBill]

humboldt thanks a ton, that's what I had in mind and I'm glad you mentioned the tape part because with the short time I had to consider it I hadn't thought of the fact that the plant would stretch enough to strangle the stem.. I've seen twist-ties cut into MUCH smaller indoor plant stems more times than I care to admit.

I only have one quick question regarding your explanation and that's regarding the initial laying down of the plant.. You mention to lay the main stem right on the fencing to start, but these plants will be 3' tall to begin. Are you laying the plant at a slight angle to get the tip pointing at a more horizontal angle to start or were you starting with smaller plants where it wasn't an issue to do? Either way I'm sure it will get figured out on-site but if ya browse this thread again i'd love to know that answer on the initial planting angle.

Thanks very much

BB

 

[D.S. Toker. MD]

plant the plants on a lean BB, leaning toward the direction that youre eventually going to pin it down. Something that i do in addition is to prune all lateral branches and secondary branching that is directed toward the " back" of the plant or that side that will eventually be on the ground side of the plant. If this pruning is complete by july 15, it is very beneficial. It doesnt effect yeild at all as the reamining branches take up the growth and explode.\

good luck.

 

[humboldtlocal]

Like DS said, plant the plant at an angle but if you think the main stem will break when you tie it down to the wire you can plant it laying right on the fencing. I actually don't prune off any branches. My hole is cut right in the center of the fencing. I tie the lower branches going in the opposite direction of the top of the plant to fill out the whole piece of fence. After a few week you can't even tell where the top of the plant would be. With this technique you don't pinch or top anything.

 

[chefboy6969]

i just got myself HUGE tomato cages, not sure how big they are,, i have to go check,,but they are bigger than any other ones u can get, i had to go to a special gardening supply place...they are approx 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide

should be a breeze tieing down my plants this year

Chefboy

 

[BotanicalBill]

DS, Humboldt, thanks again both of you. HL I was kinda wondering how you made the plants go in both directions when you originally mentioned cutting the hole and putting the plant in between it.. Doing the lower branches explained that.. We'll probably try a combination of them since we have plenty to mess with and see what works.. These will be in 100 gallon holes so they should end up pretty good size to practice this technique. I just called my friend who originally asked and told him and he's beyond stoked knowing he won't have 8-10 feet trees sticking out of his field but won't be sacrificing yield.. He may not realize the extra effort involved in making it happen yet but I think the peace of mind will be worth it..

chefboy, are these tomato cages types you can lay down flat that you are going to do this technique with?

BB

 

[chefboy6969]

BotanicalBill, these are round and are galvanized steel like normal round tomato cages but much taller and wider,than the normal ones

 

[beer batter]

i put a pole or steake it about 4in from the joint where the branches meet the stalk, where they could snap like a chicken wing if pulled too far and not supporten or held in place. with a final set further alont the branch to hold it down/over where i like, if they do snap they can be tied back and splinted with another pole/steak put in but then your limited to how far you can pull it after the repair.

 

[aceofspades]

Awesome Ideas guys, I am about to til my garden next week and I am thinking about tying it down to keep it low and out of sight amongst my peppers and tomatoes. Humboldt, the idea about disguising the plant with plastic flowers is awesome, I wonder if I could just hang some red balls from it and pass them off as tomatoes? ahahahah Great ideas guys!

Ace

 

[sackoweed]

there is a guy here neon green i believe he burys a part of the plant then lets it grow and burys another part of it.. At first i thought how crazy but it worked awesome nice bushy plants that can be kept short if necessary.. check his thread out its from '09.. other than that i use outside id use bailing wire.. peace n pufs.

sackO

 

[BotanicalBill]

Thanks, sack, I'll check out that post after I post this.. So I've been tying down using the green stretch tape but it seems that once a week so far the biggest branches are completely snapping the tape and popping back up.. The thinner branches are sticking around.. Anyway, I was wondering what other options I may have to the green tape? The paper clip idea of HLs I believe i'll use later in the game when they're not growing with such robustness.. The only thing i can think of right now is using some brown twine and tying at least the thickest main stems down with a knot in the twine. I could leave a little slack to let the plants grow into.. We considered the green twisty-tie stuff that is my go-to training material indoors but I'm pretty sure at the rate these things are growing the tie will cut right into the stem as it stretches.... I've seen it happen a lot indoors but it's not nearly as severe since there's not nearly as much growth on past indoor scenarios.. Anyway, I was just curious if anyone else has experience with the stretch tape snapping quite frequently..

Thanks

BB

 

[lollygagger]

i sometimes use 2 or 3 wraps around with the green tape to double or triple its strength, while still tying it loosley and leaving room for the branch to grow. if you dont actually make your knot around the branch, but tie the tape to itself, the loop will just expand as the branch grows. ive never had it cut in or girdle the branch/trunk.

 

[BotanicalBill]

Thanks lolly.. I haven't tried 2-3 wraps yet.. My cutting into the branch was just referring to the twisty-tie stuff like what comes on bread wrappers.. I haven't had any issues with the stretch tape at all, it's just breaking completely.. the more I thought about it last night I may pick up some large zip-ties as well and use those on the thickest branches and put them on loosely. We have access to the site regularly so we can monitor the stretching and cut them off/apply new ones as needed on the biggest of branches.. Since they are much thicker/wider than the twisty-ties the digging into the branches shouldn't be an issue, and since they are many times stronger than the stretch tape I think it may be a good solution for the main stalk.. As long as the main stalk stays down the smaller stems don't seem to have an issue with the stretch tape at all so I'll give the combination a shot and see how that goes..

Thanks again, and I'm certainly open to any other suggestions..

BB

 

[argoagro]

Thanks for the recomendation on NeonGreen a good read for sure allthough I kinda just browsed it for now. One of my gardening books talks about this as a technique for cloning in the propagation section. Anyways I like how he used lead weights, I might have to give that a try as sticks are no longer working on some plants that I have been training &/or fiming at least once a week to keep them low, I've now moved on to rocks but come July I was foreseeing the need for boulders, lol. I lolled at the 2nd or third post guy was calling him an idiot, lol, people sometimes forget cannabis is a plant that can be grown phenomenally with conventional gardening techniques.