# Zen and the Art of Growing - LST Bonsai Technique



## cannatricks (Jan 5, 2012)

So I have pulled some of my old experience growing bonsai's and used it towards my crop. I have set up a system which is working well for me, and I thought I would share from my tree experience, maybe something to help the weed experience. I've kept bonsai's alive for over 5 years, and although I don't want to 'dwarf' my plant, there is some cross-over as to how you can create different plants (that may increase yields, depending on the strain)

1. *Bonsai styling by pruning*. An occasional thorough styling as well as regular maintenance pruning is essential to create and maintain a miniature tree. When shaping a tree, deciding on which branches fit the design and which ones need to be removed can be very tricky. Take the trees basic shape as given (do not try to make overly radical changes) and decide what should be the trees front. From this position on start thinking about which branches need to be pruned in order to improve the trees overall design. After having styled the tree, regular pruning is crucial in forcing the tree to grow a dense foliage and branch structure, while remaining its shape.

2. *Bonsai training by wiring*. Like pruning, wiring is an essential technique to style Bonsai trees. By wrapping copper-wire around the trees branches you are able to set the shape and angle of the branches. When wiring a tree, start with its main branches. Thick branches need thick wiring; as a rule of thumb use wire of about 1/3 to 1/4 the thickness of the branch. Try to wire two branches of equal thickness with one piece of wire. It is important to maintain an edge of about 45° when wrapping wire around the branches, providing some room for growth.
http://www.bonsaiempire.com/train/blog

I start my plants in LST at about 2-3 weeks after clones have been replanted. I always pull off the bottom 2-4 nodes to allow airflow underneath my foliage. Then I secure all of the branches so that the tops are all around the same level. I pull the main cola down slightly below the other colas. This completely stops the plant from making large fan leaves, you will see almost instantly that the new leaves will be half the size of a plant that is not pulled down. I also remove any huge fan leaves at this point. Most of these have grown at the nodes which are going to be my new cola's and don't need a fan leaf on the bottom. Pruning this way will miniaturize the leaves and add more density to the smaller leaves. 













Am I stunting the growth and adding a longer veg time....? a bit, but I haven't noticed much difference, and for the added benefit it is worthwhile. I'm not telling you to remove all your fan leaves, just the ones that are very large, usually only 5-10 leaves.

Successfully Miniaturization of your leaves adds this main benefit; when your plant begins to grow much bigger during the stretch cycle, large fan leaves are not crowding out the bud sites. I rarely have leaves any bigger then my palm, and those are very easy to tuck. Additionally there are a lot more leaves. All this leaf mass makes it easier to prune away the excess without damaging the plant, because it has more vegetation mass overall. This also makes the eventual Bonsai training style much easier. 

You can see the difference in leaf size, these are the same cloned mother, one is in a SOG style, the other is with bonsai LST.












So Into flower after you have your plant where you are ready for the stretch, height doesn't matter much here, with this LST technique you can move each cola individually where you want it to go. After a couple weeks in flower your girls should be about done with the major stretch cycle, and the main stems you have tied down should be well hardened. I remove all of the ties at this point, clean out any sucker buds I missed, and clear out any foliage that is messing with the airflow under the canopy. (again, this is not to say butcher your plant. Take 2 branches a day and clean off the suckers, you shouldn't make more then a few snips every day) 

Now to start the bonsai training. In trees we use copper wire (trees don't like copper much and will grow away from it) however I don't want a bunch of bare metal pushing against my frail little stems, this would probably garrote the stems over time, and cause some serious problems. Luckly I found this awesome green foam wrapped wire. They sell it at most garden stores, even kmart usually has some in their gardening department. I love this stuff, it's reusable, easy to form, and causes no stress to the plants because they are so soft and springy. 

I now take all of my new shoots that are getting tall and pull them down and secure them to the hardened stem, rather then the sides. It's really easy to make a (____) shape and pull to branches closer together, this keeps under the canopy open for watering and makes it easier to reach in and adjust your ties as needed. At this point you are just trying to even out the canopy as much as possible, so that every individual bud is at the same position horizontally. 












Over the next few weeks your buds will grow, generally quite packed above the tie downs, and more sparse behind the ties (hopefully you''ve pulled off most of those sucker buds!) At about 5-6 weeks (for me on a 9-10 week flower time) I pull each S shaped branch (Take off all the ties on your plant at this point) and Carefully pull the branches straight, then with lengths of the coated wire wrap the each stem of up to the cola. Now that I have a spiral wire going all the way around the branch I bend it down so that now not only the branches, but the buds themselves are sitting horizontally. I will pull off any additional large fan leaves at this point (usually all the large leaves have died at this point, and doesn't even need to be done.)












Over the course of your flowering, the wire will pretty much disappear into your bud mass, but you can twist and bend each branch with little effort and they stay where you bend them. You can flip the buds from one side to the other weekly to encourage the bottoms of the cola's to grow, and you will never have another fallen cola if your wire starts at the base stem and goes to the tip. When harvesting I leave the wire on through the drying process and pull them out to be reused after I take down the buds off the branches for drying.

That's it! If all went well you should have a plant that is much like a pose-able action figure. You can bend and pull and really train them where you want to go I've increased my yields exponentially like this, just having full control, and so easy to get in there and do more training. It may seem like a bit of work at first, but you realize that the time spent screwing with the tie downs all throughout the grow takes way more time and effort then just doing this from the beginning.

















Cheers,
CannaTricks


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## nick17gar (Jan 6, 2012)

awesome post man, im trying the same thing out now, got some bonsai wires, im really happy with how its looking (even tho its in veg still).


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## rbico (Jan 6, 2012)

these look great, but I am having a hard time telling the difference between a standard lst and this, other they say not to untie colas in 12/12 for a standard lst.


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## cannatricks (Jan 6, 2012)

The only real difference is the stem wrapping. I put in the other stuff to make it flow. You can normally LST all the way until the stems harden and then wrap the stems in wire for flexability of the colas. Essentially I start at the base of the branch and wrap around my Main stem, then wire a sprial all the way to the cola kink. (I don't know about you, but in my LST's my tip colas always grow straight up, leading to an 'L' shape. so you have a long branch stretched and a cola on the tip.) This way I can straighten out the cola and pull it apart slightly. This allows way more light to the secondary buds of my main cola. I leave them like this for a week and then pull the entire plant, branch by branch, over on itself to finish the other side. 

Rather then the tie downs of regular LST you are not pulling the branches down, but rather pulling the branches straight so that you can position them for best lighting.






In this pic you can see a colas getting pulled apart and straightened. The wire is pretty hidden on a couple of them, but on the second one from the left you can see the wire wrapping the stem, and you'll see the cola that was origionally an 'L' is now a straight line and the interior buds of the cola can begin to swell. I've always thought this would work wonders on a vertical LST, but it works great for my set up because I have a perpetual that is 'very' crowded. It allows me to literally pull branches away from one side of the pot (anywhere I want, and not dependant on how I can tie them to the pot (I can make 'S' shapes, and circles if I want).

My problem with all the LST stuff I've seen (and done) was that the pot really denotes where you can pull your cola's down to. with this I can keep my plants contained where I need to. It's really simple, just hadn't seen people doing it, and it's really helped me fit more plants in my room, with a higher yield.

BTW. on my plants above I didn't take off enough suckers. I wish I would have pulled off a few more small buds because they have just become little nug monsters.


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## Snafu1236 (Jan 8, 2012)

Good information here, thanks for the informative post.


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## FarmerJJ (Jan 8, 2012)

Thanks for the valuable info


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## mwine87 (Jan 8, 2012)

I think this is pretty sweet. Very Nice. +Rep.


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## cannatricks (Jan 9, 2012)

Thanks guys, I'm excited to see what some other people do with this. I've got a test in now for this technique vs. SOG we will see what comes up the winner on yield.


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## rbico (Jan 10, 2012)

cannatricks said:


> The only real difference is the stem wrapping. I put in the other stuff to make it flow. You can normally LST all the way until the stems harden and then wrap the stems in wire for flexability of the colas. Essentially I start at the base of the branch and wrap around my Main stem, then wire a sprial all the way to the cola kink. (I don't know about you, but in my LST's my tip colas always grow straight up, leading to an 'L' shape. so you have a long branch stretched and a cola on the tip.) This way I can straighten out the cola and pull it apart slightly. This allows way more light to the secondary buds of my main cola. I leave them like this for a week and then pull the entire plant, branch by branch, over on itself to finish the other side.
> 
> Rather then the tie downs of regular LST you are not pulling the branches down, but rather pulling the branches straight so that you can position them for best lighting.
> 
> ...


I get it now; train the buds horizontally. I grew WAY too many pants for my small room and my LST experiment and ran out of horizontal room quickly. I am doing about half as many plants this time and I will try your technique (or a variation). it makes sense.


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## cannatricks (Jan 10, 2012)

Just put in the Bonsai LST for this girl today. Thought I would show the difference, and then show final harvest pics later 

Before


After


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## Izoc666 (Jan 10, 2012)

gotta love the bosnai...someday i will give bosnai a try. Your lst techique is really awesome ! and nice flower with your ladies in the pictures 

+rep for ya

happy growing and peace

666


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## bootywarrior (Mar 31, 2012)

this is quite awesome +rep


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## cpt420 (Oct 5, 2012)

This is a really sweet technique i may have to give it a try, also, how do you identify suckers? I know how to get tomato suckers lol, is it similar to them?


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## EJM (Oct 24, 2012)

This is some really great info!!! Not sure how I missed it on my snooping around the forums, but glad that it was pointed out to me. Got lots of copper wire, and several other options. Think I'll just experiment and see what happens. Again great info, I'm going to be putting it into practice tonight...


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