The Main-Lining Thread

Hello all.
Unfortunately I started mainlining my current crop before finding this website and thread (first ever attempt). Problem is, after reading the first 88 pages, I think I have chosen a bad strain to begin with (super silver haze, a sativa). I'm getting the impression these are more suited to scrog (never attempted). They all have 8 tops now and was thinking of switching soon but now I'm not sure which route to take. Any advice would be very helpful.
Cheers

here's my second go at mainlining.

Just hit 28 days in veg and growing out 4 nodes.


here is the structure of my first plant.

tick tack toe said:

here is the structure of my first plant.
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Nice manifold !

I don't have a scale but I stuffed three jars full.

I need some help guys. What should I do. When I was trying to train one branch broke off. Should I break an arm off the other side to keep them even?

I have only 3 weeks of veg left (so it can be picked before christmas and some dry by NY).... what is my best option?

tick tack toe said:

I need some help guys. What should I do. When I was trying to train one branch broke off. Should I break an arm off the other side to keep them even?

I have only 3 weeks of veg left (so it can be picked before christmas and some dry by NY).... what is my best option?

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Fkn let it go dude. Why would you break another off just because it will be uneven? Common sense says....

Let her be. Treat her nice. And she'll give you 6 bigger colas =)

I just keep going. It was one of my best mainliners!

My mainlined blue mystic has been curing for over two weeks now and I guess it looks right? @SamsonsRiddle , it may just be me, but this stuff turned out to be exceptionally strong. Three small pipe hits and I am out of my mind.



I also just started an afghan kush, hoping it's a bit more mellow than the blue mystic.

citeh said:

My mainlined blue mystic has been curing for over two weeks now and I guess it looks right? @SamsonsRiddle , it may just be me, but this stuff turned out to be exceptionally strong. Three small pipe hits and I am out of my mind.

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I also just started an afghan kush, hoping it's a bit more mellow than the blue mystic.

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It looks lovely, and i'm glad you liked it. I've experienced that there are more than one phenotype to this strain and obviously i got a loser. i was so proud of such a successful grow - but after 1 hour the buzz was gone. I cured 6 weeks in at 62% and sampled at 4 weeks, but same buzz and similar taste either way. Hopefully you took clones? lol

citeh said:

My mainlined blue mystic has been curing for over two weeks now and I guess it looks right? @SamsonsRiddle , it may just be me, but this stuff turned out to be exceptionally strong. Three small pipe hits and I am out of my mind.

View attachment 3516510 View attachment 3516511

I also just started an afghan kush, hoping it's a bit more mellow than the blue mystic.

View attachment 3516514 View attachment 3516515

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Those are some good looking nugs, man. Wish I could take three pipe hits and be out of there

Bridafly said:

Hello all.
(super silver haze, a sativa). I'm getting the impression these are more suited to scrog (never attempted). They all have 8 tops now and was thinking of switching soon but now I'm not sure which route to take. Any advice would be very helpful.
Cheers

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How many plants are we talking about here?
Also how big of a scrog are you considering?
The light you're working with? If you're not rocking a HPS I would suggest a scrog. If you are then use a MH light for the total duration of stretch.
You can easily start training those branches under a net though.
If you're hellbent on mainlining then I suggest looking/asking around about the stretch of your particular SSH. Be sure to mention the breeder as well. My Critical/Super Silver Hazes from Delicious mainlined like a dream. They didn't stretch as bad as I thought. But they're not as Sativa> as yours I'm thinking. Controlling that stretch and making an all around even canopy will be the biggest issue. If they're going to stretch like no ones business then MLing will produce some pretty lackluster results. Not to mention you'll have to contend with not breaking branches when maintaining your plants.

Just my 002.
Tick tack toe. You should've waited till you grew out the 6th node before you mainlined..for two important reasons..
First is so you develop a larger and thicker root mass. The plants will respond better and grow at a faster rate if you wait until the 6th node appears.
Second, you can get a good clone right off the terminal shoot if you top for the 1st time after you get the 6th growing. You can later take two more from the bottom before you transplant into a bigger pot.
Also guys if you are mainlining to get the "most" out of your plant, you are really doing yourself a disservice by not growing with LEDs..
I get ZERO stretch growing properly under leds.. And I'm not talking about fullspectrum.that is all garbage. Just two colours are needed.. 660nm and 460nm. Blue on the sides and red on the top. You can control how each node grows up or out by manipulating the two colours.

here is some of what i'm talking about.. These WW's sprouted 3 weeks ago. It was hard to take a picture holding the measuring tape up, but this little lady measured just over 4" high and 7" wide! so it literally has no stretch and I can control the internode spacing.

Noob here....quick question about main-lining. Would you discourage trying this method using cfl's?? My nephew is growing for the first time and i saw this method and thought it makes alot of sense. He's growing in a 2x2x3 tent, 3 gal pot using coco coir and pearlite with fox farm nutes... He's at the point where he should make his first cut for his manifold, but i wanted to see what ya'll thought

nugbuckets said:

I am getting a lot of requests to put a formal "main-lining" thread together to make it easier for ya'll to access, and reference....so here goes......

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nugbuckets said:

"Main-Lining"

definition. a form of training and managing canopy for cannabis.....to build a "hub" off of a single node creating a "manifold" for equal energy distribution from the root mass to the growing tops.


....it really is that simple....i am sure it has been done before, and a lot of folks do it, and probably even has a name, but I just call it "main-lining".....my theory being, on a plant from seed, if all branches came off of the same node on the trunk, they should all get the same amount of hormones and nutrients ...or energy, from the root mass.....like building a "hub"........make sense? I am all about an even canopy, of very similar sized stems, and colas.....like green lady soldiers lined up ready to kick ass and take names......no weak ones, no runts, no spindly ones.....just all solid and consistant......

.......so if they all come off the main stem, like spokes on a wheel, they should all be pretty much the same.....right?

....i started growing in a closet.....it was a 32" by 32" by 48" (tall)......and i was determined not to out grow my space.....i would grow 4 plants in 3 gal. nursery pots under a single 400 watt HPS......i learned very quickly that if i wanted to end up with something smokable, i had to learn bonzai techniques in a hurry to manage my heights......so i started in with LST (low stress training), and managed a very, very modest harvest my first few attempts.......as each run progressed, i would find myself getting really anal about properly managing my 32" x32" canopy where i would jam up to 48 colas in my tiny space, and strive to make the canopy as flat as possible......


…...... i began to reap some pretty respectable harvests.......of course i would be topping the main, and spreading out the footprint of each plant, but my finished colas were not very consistant overall as far as size and weight were concerned.....and i would still end up with a fair amount of "larfy" popcorn bud from the understory, which was undesirable for me because i, and my newly found patients, were primarily flower smokers........so i dug deeper........and soon found myself in a slighty larger grow space, in a completely legal situation, allowing me to openly work on my developing theories.........



........my next grow i topped the main, and left two nodes off the main trunk, built my bonzai type structure, managed my canopy really well, but still noticed a huge difference in the energy output of the colas originating from the upper and lower node, even though they were separated by a mere inch on the trunk.....they were similar, but still varied quite a bit.......i did however end up with a decent canopy, and harvest.....i was getting closer......

.....then it hit me, that single inch on the trunk separating the two nodes was the key.....so my next grow, i decided to build the entire structure off of a single node....
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I've often done this, or should I say "topped and LST'd" my plants like this - and it works very nicely! Well explained, for people not having tried it out. Not sure about mainlining, since well umm.. it makes me think of my past too much, lol, and that wasn't a pleasant time, trust me. There's a reason I didn't grow for 8 years.

tomuch said:

I'd say go for it/this.

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Thanks...i'll try to keep an update on here...

CFLs work great!

Mohican said:

CFLs work great!

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They sure do. My current grow was vegged with a 250W CFL (E40 socket; 50% non-functional, read: broken) It was also 2700K , but still gave great results when close to the canopy, for a month and a half. Great results. Also started flowering with it until it broke - hours maxed out - and switched to that 400W HPS AGRO. So, I'd definitely use CFL's, esp. like 1-2 250W's with higher color temp/spectrum for vegging, then using the HPS only if necessary since it's supposed to be good for vegging too (some new Philips bulb apparently), and HPS obviously for flowering.

My timer just flipped on my plants (8am here), so I'll be taking pictures (Day 18 of Flowering) in an hour, and post them in an appropriate area.