I have read enough material on various sites to get myself thoroughly confused. My next grow is a White Widow Auto flower in my small 2x2 tent. Growing space allows for one nice plant meaning I wont have room to grow 2 plants and train one plant and not the other for comparison reasons. I need to have a direction in mind and stick with that with one plant.
Readings on autos typically state that each strain grows differently and needs to be treated accordingly. Discussions are some strains do well with one tall central pineapple style cola and don’t want to be bent to create an even canopy. This makes sense, but since I have never grown an auto, I need to ask those who have.
For experienced WW-A growers, will this strain respond well to LST tying and bending to the side to allow balanced bud canopy growth. Or should I leave as is to let the plant form a central cola. I had always felt my yields would increase with a balanced canopy, but again, the readings have lead me to think I may decrease yields if the plant doesn’t like this training.
Any advice is helpful, and specifically for the WW-A from ILGM, should I LST by slight bending - or leave to form a natural central cola?
I’m fortunate that I have a tall tent albeit only 2x2 floor space. With that said, if you see no real issue doing some light LST bending and tying with a White Widow plant, I think I’ll try that. Just wanted to make sure the WW-A was NOT a strain that would present problems going the LST route.
***BTW, Matt, I want this grow to learn to do LST anyway.
I’ve grown a handful of WWA and I think you’ll enjoy LST. It’s an easy way to increase yields and bud density and IMO needs to be done using the QBs to get the light to the middle/lower of the plant to make the colas dense most of the way down. Single cola plants are better suited for a SOG in my humble opinion
Thanks for the input, Matt. My current tent is awesome and I have a 135W HLG QB LED which I am super happy with. That’s the tent/light I’ll do this training LST plant in.
I already have my new light- a 360w QB HLG LED with an XL 3rd panel layout to offer a balanced light in my new Gorilla 2x4. The tent is on backorder for the second time, and I decided to go ahead and use the small tent for this single WW-A grow. I’ll now learn SCROG when I get the new tent in (finally) and try to learn that training method next.
Side note: The QB light as you mentioned penetrates DEEP into the canopy, and I have 12" long colas going wayyy down deep. These lights are phenomenal as you can see the cola development from this WW-P grown w/o canopy training.
It took almost a full month to get mine in from Growers Lights as they are highly in demand. Now that I have used a HLG QB light, I see why the wait is almost a month.
I had ww but they grew too tall instead of having a even canopy it wanted to grow like a tree.Just wondering if it’s your light or nutrients that’s giving your plant even canopy growth ?
Or it could be the characteristics of the particular WW strain from ILGM. I did an all natural grow with no topping, LST or any type of canopy manipulation. The only thing I did was lollypop trim the underside for good airflow.
Light is a Quantum Board LED from HLG, and if I had to guess at the even canopy, I’d give the light credit. @dbrn32 can “shed more light” on this subject than I can, but I have heard the QB LED is noted for deep canopy light penetration. If this is correct, deep light penetration should provide a good amount of light to balance the plant’s canopy growth. Unfortunately this is the light I started with and have no other light to compare.
I used Fox Farm Nutes and Ocean Forest soil, but seriously doubt that did much to create an even canopy.
Low levels of light intensity or improper light spectrum can cause plant to stretch for sure. I’d say your results are in line with a combination of good equipment, solid grow plan, and proper execution. All of which ultimately point back to you putting in time one way or another.
