Do I need to encourage stretch?

[Stonetech]

I'm now growing vertical witht the same strain I used to grow horizontal. Before I switched I would veg to 12" then they would stretch to about 3'. Now with vert they only stretch a couple inches and I feel its hurting my yield.

Before I used to raise the light an extra 6-8" to get the colas to stretch towards the light, will this still work with vert? It just looks wrong to have the light above the canopy to me.

Thanks.

 

[303hydro]

I know nothing about vertical but if I want a girl to get a little taller than usual I try to feed a heavy shot my grow nutes, or even just a high does of N & P (such as seabird guano) right after I switch to 12/12 on indicas. If its super stout you could even keep the grow nutes going for the next feeding as well. Just my personal experience, I am not an expert on anything.

 

[303hydro]

and by the way congrats on your first post in 2 years?

Crazy.

 

[Lazyman]

Yes, short indicas are not ideal, you want to prune so the girls are narrow, tall as can be, and packed around and under lights. I put short plants between bulbs and under themso they catch up. Pick strains thatstretch a lot and feed them grow nutes pretty heavily until week 4-5. Some of my best strains doubleor triple in height in stretch. Longer veg time will always help yields, i flip mine when they areat least 2 feet tall, then prune up the bottoms and prune the sides so they dont get much wider than their pots. good luck man!

 

[Stonetech]

and by the way congrats on your first post in 2 years?

Crazy.

Yeah, I know. I made a mistake when I registered and as a result wasn't able to post, only view threads. It feels great to finally be able to participate. Thanks.

 

[Stonetech]

Hey Lazyman, thanks for stoppin by. Yeah yer right about my strain, Indica dominant for sure (Northern Lights x Blueberry). Not very well suited for vert at all.

Problem is I've got som OG Kush seedlings up on deck which I thought would stretch alot more and they're lookin pretty much the same, short and compact. I've tried longer veg, grow nutes.

Can't help but think it has something to do with light positioning. Maybe the OGK isn't sativa enough, a friend gave me the seeds so I'm not sure about the genes, but I thought it was at least 40%. Here's a pic of one of the seedlings, pretty squat.

I realize that they're too many variables for you guys to tell me where I'm going wrong exactly, I was just wondering if any vert growers were raising they're lights in order to stimulate stretch. Its hard to tell what level the light is at from most photos.

Anyways I'm goin out of town for a few days and I think I'm just gonna raise the light and see what happens. Here's a pic of the position, only about an inch higher than the tallest plant.

 

[187020]

teabagging the weedhole

teabagging the weedhole

mine hang low...

 

[187020]

46 days indica

46 days indica

she's kinda leggy for a fat chick...

 

[Stonetech]

So it just depends on the strain. I'm gonna go lower my light back down when lights come on again.

 

[AOD2012]

she's kinda leggy for a fat chick...

are those jizz stains on that brick wall?

 

[DHF]

It`s definitely strain dependent ST , but the plants can be manipulated to a point.........Back when I ran krusty buckets , the rule of thumb on light positioning on 50/50 sat/ind hybrids was tip of bulb at top of plants till end of stretch , and then drop the bare bulbs down till the top/end of the socket was at plant height....simple...babyshit...but...

Indica dominant plants don`t stretch well with bare bulbs , they bush out sideways and hurt potential yields from literally no vertical growth , and need increased vegtimes to be all they can be yieldwise.....

Guaranteed your og seedlings aren`t sat dominant or they`d be stretching more with elongated internodal spacing.....seen too many og plants with lotta stem between nugz cuz it`s the nature of the plants growth structure.....yours look more squat and indica structured.....

Good luck.....DHF.........

 

[compost]

Try to keep the lights near the top of the canopy so the plants want to stretch up and not sideways. I thought my plants weren't stretching much my first few runs. I realized in time they were just moving a different way.

 

[gardenbug]

If you need more stretch put the bottom of the light at the top of the plants for veg and the first week or so of flower. It still won't be as much stretch as a horizontal setup but it does help.

Indicas do well in vertical when ran with lots of plants on shelves or when vegged a long time. If you veg an indica up to more than 4ft tall and then flip, it can yield great. You get the benefit of dense heavy indica flowers all the way up the plant instead of spaced out every 6 inches like a sativa would have. I think the trick to getting low plant count vertical setups to yield massive numbers is an indica dominant strain vegged for a long time. This really only works out when you have separate veg and flower rooms.

One of the benefits to vertical is limited stretch.
Vertical takes a plant that would triple in height normally but when ran vertical it might not even double in height. They grow outwards more than they normally would. If you have a sativa dominant hybrid, this works out well.

 

[Stonetech]

Thanks for all the responses. I've decided to redesign my grow space as a result. The new design will be much wider, as wide as it is tall, giving my indicas more room to do what they do naturally.