[DoDad]

I'm not an expert grower and just grow for my own medical needs, but I found if I super cropped I could increase my yield while keeping my plants low and the canopy even.


I SC a little differently than others. I take needle nose pliers and squeeze the stems until they fall over. I do this in veg and flower.


Several things happen that are good for your plants when you super crop and really too many to mention in this post. I would urge you to read up on super cropping and see if some the advantages make sense for your style of growing.


Here are some basics I found on another site.


This technique essentially allows you to take the auxins (or growth hormones) and detour them from growing tips to other areas where they can maximize growth. This is a technique that can be performed on virtually every plant (excluding autos) and you can actually do it multiple times during the vegetative process. This allows the nutrients to work double duty, producing much heavier yields in areas that wouldn’t have been particularly productive. The plants themselves tend to look bushier and more robust as a result of super cropping.


Super cropping isn’t like pure pruning where you actually snip off some of the plant. Instead, it’s more like putting the plant through a little bit of stress to get it to increase yields. The basic crux behind super cropping is that you are trying to increase the number of “tops.” You want to push the lower growth higher and wider so that it will flower.


Here are some of my before and after shots. Hope this helps.

[DoDad]

Updated photos.

The top canopy is dense with leaves and buds. The bottom of the tent is dark.

I just did a loose count and I have about 40 tops per square foot all close to the lights. This isn't counting the flowers growing further down the stem. The 40 number are just the top colas.

[SuperSativa]

Nice work DoDad... They're looking very full and healthy!!! Thanks for all your feedback on my thread and for sending me the link to your thread. Is that 4 plants I see there? I'm looking forward to getting into SC'ing in the future but I didn't want to mess with things too much on my 1st run. I'm going to follow your advice and make sure I'm well read on the topic before I give it a shot. Maybe on my next run.

[DoDad]

Originally Posted by SuperSativa

Is that 4 plants I see there?

It's 8 plants in a tent 1.5'x3'x5'. I grow my whole tent like it's one organism. I tangle them when I'm super cropping and when they grow, they hold each other up. No need for screen or stakes in my tent.

[mjlifestyle]

Very nice pics, DoDad! With such a dense canopy you clearly don't need any kind of support (yet )

I'll second that by saying supercropping is way easier than it sounds or looks, simply because you can't really mess things up if you are a bit gentle with your plants. I say that as a first time supercropper - I was kinda nervous on my first attempt, but now, looking at my before and after shots, it just seems such a natural thing to do (odd, isn't it?) in order to expose more growth shoots or buds to the light. Now I'm waiting for the girls to grow a bit more before I do one more session.

I do have one question for you - how far into flowering do you do this? I'm just about to flip them and I know it's still ok to do it in the first 2 weeks when they're still growing and stretching, but is it safe to do it after that, in case it's needed? I'm growing long flowering sativas, so it might get crowded in my tent later on.

[DoDad]

Originally Posted by mjlifestyle

how far into flowering do you do this?

I supercrop every time I need to all the way through the grow up until the day I chop. I know some say not to do it after they flower but that has never stopped me and I have never had any issues.

True, it gets dense on top and there is no light underneath but that is not where the main colas are growing. I'm growing the flowers that grow on top and whatever flowers grow below are just bonus buds.

40 tops in one square foot is a lot of tops per foot and should produce in excess of 180 colas in my 4.5 sq feet. IMO that is a very productive way to grow a lot of flowers in a very small space.

It gets kinda crazy looking towards the end in my tent. The tent is overgrown with tangled fat flowers growing in all directions.

I power crop my clones, then super crop in veg and flower. The growth is wild.

[SuperSativa]

Good question mjlifestyle. I was wondering the same thing. I'm on week 3 and I'm curious if SC will help still or is it too late in the game?

[DoDad]

Originally Posted by SuperSativa

Good question mjlifestyle. I was wondering the same thing. I'm on week 3 and I'm curious if SC will help still or is it too late in the game?

I might do one plant and see how they react. Use needle nose pliers and squeeze hard enough until you see juice coming out of the stem. When you let go, the stem will fall over but still be attached.

What happens is that the plant will send more auxins to the OTHER flowers than they normally would receive. In Cannabis most of the energy goes into producing one top cola. When you lower the main cola, the plant makes the other tops the "top" cola. You still keep your main cola, but now you grow new "top" colas all along the stem rather than just one.

[Mikell]

Supercropping is the practice of damaging the stem without collapsing. Breaking is just that. The same(ish) end but distinct from each other. Light HST vs. Hard HST.

Breaking is closer to topping, and some strains flail from too much damage. Keeping notes helps a frick of a lot.

I try not to get too hung up on word use, but it does make for clarity if we're all working from the same glossary. Kind of like nutrients, EC and that clusterfuck of inaccurate measurements known as ppm or "blot per gallon/litre/bucket/etc".

Lower buds blocked by dense canopy aren't extras, they're suckers to be removed pre and/or post flip. Not really a yield increaser as much as redirecting energy.

[DoDad]

This guy here has some info on the various methods including the one we are discussing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeDFQXGkQX4

BTW, I meant to say I monster crop my clones, not power crop my clones. I take my clones from flowering mothers and reveg them, then flip them when they are ready. The guy in this video talks about monster cropping and their benefits.