I’m posting the following journey undertaken by my friend Theodore Complete on their behalf.

Week 8 - Training

Day 50

When plants grow beyond seedling they can be super resilient, and that resiliency is useful in training because you can basically make them bend and form to whatever shape you want. I’ve never trained cannabis but I’ve trained various other plants and shrubs, and the principle is the same - bend them or pull them just enough not to break the stem and it will conform to growing in that direction. The reason this is done in cannabis is to force growth more horizontally which creates more growth sites in the flowering phase.

I may have waited too long to do this on this grow but it’s worth a shot. After I topped and bent it yesterday I took a look and it seems like its making the best of the new situation.

I’m curious to see how this reacts to the stress, and it will likely need a few more days of growth before further adjustments. I think I would be more cavalier with the training if I had more than one plant to work with.

Day 51

I trimmed some of the growth that was blocked by shade and tied it a bit more. I didn’t take a photo because I forgot to take my camera into the basement and didn’t bother going back.

Day 52

So here’s what this looks like at the moment:

Seems to be alright, I gave it a drink and let it relax into the new position.

Day 53

Just took a photo and otherwise ignored it. I may need to repot it to center the mass, but I’m not going to rush at this point.

Day 54

I trimmed and tied down more - I’m going to repot in a few days to center the plant more. I’m not sure if the level of defoliation is too much but it felt right, now I’ll let it try to grow into the contorted mess I left it. It’s taking more water now too and I’ve been increasing the frequency.

Day 55

When I check this morning I found the plant praying to the sun gods.

My light levels may be falling behind the demand curve. I can’t have it lacking for photons, so after a quick trip to the hardware store and some wiring I added a new ring

I mixed LED bulbs I had at home already I found 4 x 5000 k ‘cool white’ bulbs, 2 pulling 15 watts, 1 x pulling 10 watts, and 1 x pulling 8 watt, so a 48 W addition to the ~60 watt UFO. These aren’t directed right at the plant, but the ~20000 lux reading at the canopy doubled from the addition. I’ll have to see how it responds and how the heat levels are affected. Some of the blue and red led light is blocked but the powerful center led is still going. I may swap warmer spectrum lights when it’s in flower since I have some led bulbs laying around.

Day 56

All seems well. I saw a bit of a temp climb so I’ve just opted to leave the fans on low full time with the light. I sprayed a bit of nutrient juice but then really looked at the bottom leaves.. they’re pretty deep green, which may mean too much nitrogen. I’ll just give it water without nutrients for a week or so to see if that changes things. I’m really going to keep an eye on what blasting all this extra light will do.

I remember my high school chemistry teacher used to chastise me for this sort of reckless variable management. Some things never change I guess.

Updated cost list below - I didn’t count stuff I already had like pieces of wire, bulbs, etc. Basically added another bucket and the sockets.