I looked around and I've seen similar threads elsewhere but didn't see one here so I figured I might as well start one to cover the various ways to get shorter internodes. With indoor growing it's particularly important to keep plants bushier, and that means doing all the things necessary to either keep the internodes short, or bending them so that the longer internodes aren't pointing straight up.
There's plenty of stuff on LST, ScroG, and so on, so I'll leave that alone. Instead, I want to focus on indirect (no cutting or bending) ways to make the plant want to be short rather than forced to be short.
Happier plants are better, right? That's my theory anyway.
Now I can't claim all this knowledge as my own. I learned it, but I learned it from various places. There's a video put out recently by Erik Biksa (he writes for magazines and just knows a heck of a lot more than I ever will) that really sums all this up nicely if you want to watch rather than read:
YouTube - thicker stems, shorter internodes hs 31
So, without further ado, "Things that make Internodes Shorter"
Silicon: Plants like to use silicon to make themselves stronger. If they spend more time doing that because there's extra silicon around, they spend less energy getting crazy tall. I'm not sure if this has a real strong effect on internode length, but it doesn't hurt and thicker is universally better so you might as well. I use Barricade by Advanced Nutrients for this, mostly at Erik's recommendation.
Sugars: According to him, Sweet Leaf also helps stems get thicker. I've always either used it at the end and didn't notice much, or with Barricade so I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes. It does make a huge difference if you use it as soon as you kick into flowering. See in order to induce flowering we cut back on Nitrogen almost completely. This causes stress because the plant thinks "crap, now I'm not getting any Nitrogen, which I need to grow big and strong, so I'd better do as much of that as I can in case I need to be taller than my neighbors later on."
Plants are always needing to compete for light in nature, so they're programmed to always try to win that fight. (The ones who don't win, don't reproduce as often and went extinct.) When we cut back the N, we make our plants want to grow taller - just in case they need it later. The flowering stretch. Sweet Leaf has a lot of the kinds of sugars that plants can use for energy, so early applications lessen the stress caused by low Nitrogen. The plant still flowers because there isn't as much N, but it doesn't flip out as much and get tall. (There's still a stretch, just not as much - try it side-by-side sometime. Cool effect.)
Bud Blood: I don't know the why on this one. It just works. Every plant I've ever given Bud Blood has ended up shorter and bushier than crops that didn't get it.
Plus you get flowers sooner, denser and bigger. It's a permanent part of my schedule now.
Blue Light: Some growers couldn't even tell you why they like to run their MH with the HPS for the first few weeks - someone suggested it to someone, who suggested it to someone... and so on. They just like the results. Here's why.
We all know that bluer light is for veg and redder light is for flowering. The stronger your blue lights the shorter and denser your plants grow, right? Well this works equally well in flowering, but you don't necessarily want your plants wasting energy later on on growing nice, lush leaves. But early on, during the flowering stretch, you don't want all your internodes going crazy. So you keep the blue light on for a few weeks and your plant makes the transition with less stress, less stretch, and thus shorter, tighter internodes.
Nature doesn't click the sun over to red light on a certain day.
Temperature: I've read this a bunch of places and it's definitely true. If you keep your day and night temps closer together you keep your internodes closer together. I'm not 100% sure on this, but it makes sense that it would be a stress thing again. If the plant thinks the weather is reliable, there's no rush to get really tall. Thus shorter internodes.
Humidity: Again, no idea why here, but drier nights gives shorter internodes.
Wind: I'm guessing on this, but if you get good airflow blowing across the tops of the plants they tend to stay shorter. Probably because in nature there isn't a lot of wind if you're the shorter plant in your neighborhood. So if you're in the wind you're the tall kid and you don't need to get taller to get more light, right? That's what I'm guessing. Whatever the case, it works.
Touch: Not that we need an excuse to touch our plants, but here's one anyway. Plants have a cool thing called "Thigmotropism". Basically it means they respond to touch. Ever wonder how ivy knows to climb up a wall or those vining plants with tendrils know how to curl them around stuff to hold on? It's the thigmotropism. When the plant's cells register a touch, they release chemicals in response to tell the plant what to do. Some plants grow towards things, others grow away from things - some even fold their leaves up and droop if touched!
Brush your hands across the tops of your plants regularly (like once or twice a day or something) and it will encourage them to not grow as fast vertically.
Cool eh?
There's plenty of stuff on LST, ScroG, and so on, so I'll leave that alone. Instead, I want to focus on indirect (no cutting or bending) ways to make the plant want to be short rather than forced to be short.
Happier plants are better, right? That's my theory anyway.
Now I can't claim all this knowledge as my own. I learned it, but I learned it from various places. There's a video put out recently by Erik Biksa (he writes for magazines and just knows a heck of a lot more than I ever will) that really sums all this up nicely if you want to watch rather than read:
YouTube - thicker stems, shorter internodes hs 31
So, without further ado, "Things that make Internodes Shorter"
Silicon: Plants like to use silicon to make themselves stronger. If they spend more time doing that because there's extra silicon around, they spend less energy getting crazy tall. I'm not sure if this has a real strong effect on internode length, but it doesn't hurt and thicker is universally better so you might as well. I use Barricade by Advanced Nutrients for this, mostly at Erik's recommendation.
Sugars: According to him, Sweet Leaf also helps stems get thicker. I've always either used it at the end and didn't notice much, or with Barricade so I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes. It does make a huge difference if you use it as soon as you kick into flowering. See in order to induce flowering we cut back on Nitrogen almost completely. This causes stress because the plant thinks "crap, now I'm not getting any Nitrogen, which I need to grow big and strong, so I'd better do as much of that as I can in case I need to be taller than my neighbors later on."
Plants are always needing to compete for light in nature, so they're programmed to always try to win that fight. (The ones who don't win, don't reproduce as often and went extinct.) When we cut back the N, we make our plants want to grow taller - just in case they need it later. The flowering stretch. Sweet Leaf has a lot of the kinds of sugars that plants can use for energy, so early applications lessen the stress caused by low Nitrogen. The plant still flowers because there isn't as much N, but it doesn't flip out as much and get tall. (There's still a stretch, just not as much - try it side-by-side sometime. Cool effect.)
Bud Blood: I don't know the why on this one. It just works. Every plant I've ever given Bud Blood has ended up shorter and bushier than crops that didn't get it.
Plus you get flowers sooner, denser and bigger. It's a permanent part of my schedule now.
Blue Light: Some growers couldn't even tell you why they like to run their MH with the HPS for the first few weeks - someone suggested it to someone, who suggested it to someone... and so on. They just like the results. Here's why.
We all know that bluer light is for veg and redder light is for flowering. The stronger your blue lights the shorter and denser your plants grow, right? Well this works equally well in flowering, but you don't necessarily want your plants wasting energy later on on growing nice, lush leaves. But early on, during the flowering stretch, you don't want all your internodes going crazy. So you keep the blue light on for a few weeks and your plant makes the transition with less stress, less stretch, and thus shorter, tighter internodes.
Nature doesn't click the sun over to red light on a certain day.
Temperature: I've read this a bunch of places and it's definitely true. If you keep your day and night temps closer together you keep your internodes closer together. I'm not 100% sure on this, but it makes sense that it would be a stress thing again. If the plant thinks the weather is reliable, there's no rush to get really tall. Thus shorter internodes.
Humidity: Again, no idea why here, but drier nights gives shorter internodes.
Wind: I'm guessing on this, but if you get good airflow blowing across the tops of the plants they tend to stay shorter. Probably because in nature there isn't a lot of wind if you're the shorter plant in your neighborhood. So if you're in the wind you're the tall kid and you don't need to get taller to get more light, right? That's what I'm guessing. Whatever the case, it works.
Touch: Not that we need an excuse to touch our plants, but here's one anyway. Plants have a cool thing called "Thigmotropism". Basically it means they respond to touch. Ever wonder how ivy knows to climb up a wall or those vining plants with tendrils know how to curl them around stuff to hold on? It's the thigmotropism. When the plant's cells register a touch, they release chemicals in response to tell the plant what to do. Some plants grow towards things, others grow away from things - some even fold their leaves up and droop if touched!
Brush your hands across the tops of your plants regularly (like once or twice a day or something) and it will encourage them to not grow as fast vertically.
Cool eh?
