Purposefully looking to limit outdoor yield (!)

I’ve got a question about purposefully trying to keep my outdoor plants from becoming monsters. Yes, it’s counterintuitive at first. But I have no need for the amount of bud I can get off of even one outdoor plant here in NorCal. So in the end, what it means is that I’m laden with caring for the extra growth, dealing with the extra harvest, cleaning and drying the buds, jarring them, etc., and potentially never doing anything with it.

Given that, and given the fact that I’d like to have multiple strains available for variety purposes, I plan to grow my six legal plants this year but would like to significantly limit their production to “reasonable” amounts. What are my options? Here are the ones I’ve considered:

Start later to shorten veg time. This seems like the most obvious and straightforward, and is probably imperative in conjunction with any other method.

Mainline or manifold to keep most growth on a handful of colas. More manageable harvest though yield may still be high.

Aggressively prune and train. This would be to get to the same result as the previous point.

Other thoughts? The goal is not just to limit yield, but also to simplify harvest, drying, etc.

You might as well go with Autos if you are trying to lessen your yield, they will be ready in about 3 months, so if needed you could squeeze 2 grows in spring/summer, I would say an Avg of 1-3 oz a plant…

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Well, I’ve already got a supply of photo seeds. So I’m trying to work with that.

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Train them to be short. Scrog, top, fim, LST, supercrop. All are good options to keep them short

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You can also keep them dark before they would naturally get triggered into flower too! Cover them for 12 hours a day when you want to start flower. You can build something on top so the cover doesn’t go directly on them.

In your case, I like the idea of starting late. Every day in growth is another day something can go wrong. Pests, disease, you name it. Also, growing in pots will limit plant size too. Maybe a 5 gallon pot.

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That or grow autos! 90 day wonders!

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I’ll probably lean towards starting later as well. It’s probably the least amount of work.

Another option would be to grow them in smaller fabric pots. The pot size will kind of limit plant size some, and the fabric usually self prunes. It will help keep them from getting root bound.

Hi @nostril. I’m also in norcal and wanting to limit plant size on my outdoor grow. I’m planting one photo and plan to top, scrog etc to control height. Also planting a couple auto’s . Just the 3 plants total.

Any extra harvest, I can always give away…no problem :grin:

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