How early can i super crop

If the site has a gray hue and looks damaged, put the tape back on until you see the protective knot. As long as your plant has the tape in place, it will continue to use water and nutrients as usual. If you see some branches trying to straighten, tie them down LST style.

The result is more branches and buds, not to mention a bushier plant. Super cropping is especially useful when trying to grow in a small space — or in secret! One of the great things about super cropping is that you can complete the process relatively quickly. However, unlike other HST methods, you require patience. With super cropping, you need to wait until the fourth week of vegetative growth. It works best on weed that has developed a little and plants that are at least 30cm tall.

You have a relatively short window to begin. Once your plants make the transition to the blooming stage, they undergo hormonal changes, and super cropping loses its effectiveness. When you super crop on time, the plant gets confused because its auxin distribution becomes manipulated.

When this happens, it is unsure which branch is the main stem. Its shoots also grow too rigid to bend for super cropping. Attempting to complete the process at this stage will only result in broken branches. Unlike LST, autoflowering strains are not ideal for super cropping.

While the technique is quick and easy to apply, your plants require a long vegetative cycle for full effectiveness. Ideally, the method will have an additional weeks of vegetative growth to look forward to. Different strains have varying structural strength and tolerances. You will find that some plants break easily, while others bend perfectly with little damage. On the plus side, cannabis is a robust plant, and it heals extremely quickly.

If you crack or break a branch, stay calm. If you break a branch and the bud is hanging upside down, create a splint, or use wide tape to ensure it goes back into the right place. At first, you will need to use plant ties or an alternative to ensure the branches remain where you want them to.

In this case, tie branches on the trunk side of the scar rather than the bud side. Eventually, when you get more accustomed to the process, you will not need to tie down the branches because you have bent them correctly.

When you super crop your cannabis plants, you potentially increase its resin production. The result is weed with a higher level of THC. There are certainly a few downsides, and it is something novices should avoid.

It is a reasonably quick HST method that you can use weeks into the vegetative stage. If you aim to keep your plants compact, avoid starting the process until they are at least 12 inches tall.

Once your plants enter the flowering stage, it is time to stop super cropping. This is because the side branches no longer grow vertically. You can try super cropping in the bloom phase, but only if your sole goal is increased resin production. WayofLeaf use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Did they do the same as well?.. I actually pinch, twist and bend for super cropping, less snapping this way. What you are doing is some stress training, where the plant is responding to the conditions it is sensing.

If a branch is bent, the plant sends extra energy to the area to increase healing. This is the result of what you are seeing. Can you use this to increase yield? The tried and true methods we are all aware of include super crop, topping, fimming, scrog and lollipopping. I second the Motion …. Visit Grobo. When should I Super crop? Share Your Grow. What does the stretch has stopped mean exactly?

There are several reasons to supercrop cannabis plants. The primary application is to manage the growth of the canopy especially during the stretch. Plants that are topped or trained to have multiple colas often benefit from supercropping to keep the canopy a uniform distance from the light. You can also use supercropping to maneuver plants to fill areas where light maybe going underutilized.

In addition, during vegetative growth, supercropping is useful to create structures such as mainlines and manifolds. Most growers turn to supercropping for the first time when they have individual stalks which rise higher than the rest of their canopy.

The taller stalks can also shade out the lower growth and stunt its development. In the process, supercropping creates sections of horizontal stem which often provide additional growth points for stalks and buds. You may be nervous that pinching and folding your plant will lead to a reduction in the yield, but this is far from the case. Many growers believe that supercropping produces even larger buds as the plant responds to the trauma.

While there is a lack of scientific support for a hormonal benefit from supercropping, there is sufficient evidence to say that, when done properly, it does not reduce yields. Supercropping may help you to produce larger yields by allowing you to manage the canopy and effectively spread out the plant. This increases the exposure and surface area of light to these branches. This not only helps improve the quantity of yield but also the quality.

This is because light projects over the flower sites more evenly, creating long and uniform bud growth over the entire length of the branches. The goal of any indoor cannabis plant training strategy should be an even uniform canopy. This allows the most efficient use of light energy, which maximizes the yield potential of your grow. Supercropping is an indispensable tool to help growers take control of plant shape and cultivate even canopies.

You can supercrop at any point when the plant is still growing vertically. After you pinch and fold the stalk down, it will bend back around to face the light. However, if the plant is no longer growing vertically then it will not turn around and it will not be well positioned to receive the light.

However, I have had success supercropping much earlier and later than that. I have supercropped right at the end of the stretch such that the tops just barely turned back around pointing upwards. This produced many sections of horizontal stem near the canopy and the bud sites all along them grew very well.

Supercropping may sound scarier, but it is actually the less risky option. Furthermore, the supercrop points become points of structural strength that help solidify the mainline structure where the whole plant is grown from one node. By the time the plants are flowering they look like they have biceps!

See our series of articles on mainlining and manifolding and learn why we think they are the best ways to train cannabis plants.

There are two basic steps to supercrop cannabis plants. First you need to pinch, and then you need to fold. The pinch should be hard and the fold should be gentle! Once they are folded perpendicular, use a soft-tie which encircles the stalk to both hold up and restrain down the stalk. You can bring colas down as little as an inch or as much as inches.

What determines this is the distance between the supercrop and the tie down. When the plant recovers within 12 hours it will wrap around whatever tie down you put in place. The location of the tie down will determine the new location of the cola.

The purpose of pinching the plant is to make the stalk soft and pliable so that the outer skin is not broken during the fold.

However, it is not uncommon for the skin to split open at the fold anyway. This is not a problem, but should be treated. Whenever the outer skin of your plant opens it is best to wrap the injury to prevent air intrusion. Grafting tape is the recommended solution for this problem. Grafting tape is not a sticky tape. It resembles plastic kitchen wrap and clings to itself rather than sticks to the plant. Many growers and some amateur online guides suggest using duct tape, electrical tape, or other sticky tapes for these injuries.

However, we strongly advise against using any sticky tape on plant injuries as they can cause more damage than they cure.

Grafting tape is the professional horticultural solution to this problem and it is absolutely the right tool for the job. Wrap the injury in grafting tape to create an air-tight seal. The grafting tape will expand to accommodate plant growth, but should be removed after days. If you suffer a plant injury and do not have grafting tape on hand then you can cut a strip of plastic kitchen wrap to serve the same function.

Do you still have questions or want to talk about your grow?