Low Stress Training (LST) Guide

warren kirk

Active Member
very nice!!
I did this outside on my girl and well....... see for urself what the benefit is:bigjoint:......this is a PPP outdoor, with Foxfarm trio nutes, snowstorm, and gravity and mollasses during the flush now......I tied it down all year long and now that it is flowering, im impressed with outdoor LST growing......Heres some porn for ur thread man :)

Oh did i mention this is 1 clone....:-P
+rep for you sir :clap:
How long take the widest plant to get weres she @.
 

littlejacob

Well-Known Member
Bonjour
French lst...
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And scrog lst...
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First was an amherst sd in 3gl who was with 4 other plants in a 3.5x3.5x4.5 under 200w of cxb3590 3500ºK 36V CD (4x50w)
The other was with 8 other plants...it is a cheese i guess...in 3gl under a 600hps in a 4x4x7!
I hate to cut my plants...only before bloom to take cuts...but there is other way than topping!
I pinch a lot and i twist the main branch to have all the "stairs" grow on the sides...it is easy after 4/5 pair of leaves...i just pinch a bit and put one leave behind and one in front of the other to keep the twist and because of the light it will solder like this...and then do the same with the next...
CU
 

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3rdworldgrower

Well-Known Member
am i doing this right, its my first time? i see most plants not quite get to the edge when they are first tied down, did i tie to far down, the leaves are touching the soil and the sides of the pot... i haven't seen much on doing LST wrong so i thought i would ask!

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littlejacob

Well-Known Member
Bonjour
You should try to pinch a tiny bit the main branch between each pair of leaves and twist it a bit to have all the pair of leaves growing on the sides!
If you don't do that you will have a pair who is going to grow on the side...good...but the other pair will grow one on the top and one under the main branch...no good...this one will grow slower and you will cut it
Plus I will add a screen for a real scrog...not a net...a screen to attach the plant and use all the space you have! ...
CU
 
Hey fellow growers. My first grow has afforded me the opportunity for my first chance to clone. I pulled these two clones in the 15-gal tan smart-pots about 6 weeks ago. THC Bomb (pic 2) and Amherst Sour Diesel (pic 1).

I haven't topped them a single time. From the very beginning when it was just two fan leaves and a single top I have kept them sideways. Each time it grows taller, it gets staked down and adjusted for growth. They were transplanted to the 15 gallon last week with a custom mix and have been growing steadily. Again, this is entirely LST.

The little 8-top in a 5-gallon (pic 3) is my attempt at main-lining some Crystal Meth bagseed and mixing it with heavy LST training to produce 8 monster tops.

I'm waiting another 2 more weeks to FIM all of the main tops to get the absolutely insane number of lower tops a chance to get bigger. Every top you see on the lush green Sour D (pic 1) has about 5x as many in the next level of the canopy that you can't see.
1SourD.jpg 1THCBomb.JPG Christy.jpg
 

Dan can grow

Well-Known Member
I used LST on her after I fimmed the third node. After her fourth week in flower I untied her. This pic was taken right after I trimmed her up to harvest. Tie those girls down they love it. Great guide!
 

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littlejacob

Well-Known Member
Bonjour
If you do lst for long enough it will change to no stress training...lol!
This is THE grow tech imo!
It allows you to save weeks of vegg for the same results
CU
 

Quintessence

Active Member
It's my first grow and things are heating up in the tent..I went with LST and I think it's worked out pretty well. The Gorilla Glue (bottom right) was a clone i bent over almost to the edge of the smart pot and it just shot out like crazy. The same with Sout Tanige on the left, although the top was lost in an accident.. I've had a couple accidents along the way actually but a little aloe and tape seem to have done wonders for healing. In my experience with other types of gardening, when you cut a weed back it usually grows back twice as strong, it seems cannabis is no exception to that rule. :) Here are my girls at 6 weeks of veg. The back 2 are Dr. Who and they were from seed. I've been squeezing stems (fattening them up) and I just put this screen in to organize my canopy and keep the Gorilla Glue #4 on the front right from stretching so fast. I honestly don't know how I feel about the screen. I'm not sure whether I need it or if I'm over complicating things.The front two were from clones and they are 32 inches tall. The back two are up on crates and they are 17 inches (even with the canopy) Anyone got any advice? Time to flower?

veg week 6.jpg
 

BusyBee75

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone. I have explained to many people about the method of Low Stress Training, and more than one have told me that I should start a guide. So, here it is.

To start, let me explain just what low stress training is. In the thread I will refer to it as (LST). All a training is, is making your plant do something you want.The best part about LST, is the key "Low Stress". It doesn't stress your plant nearly as bad as other training methods exe. Topping. All LST involves doing is the tieing or staking down of a plants top/uppermost growth shoots in order to get more top growths. This bends the plant over and spreads the light to the undermost parts of your plants. When you do this, it makes the undergrowth bush out as well. However, spreading the light isn't what makes your plant bush out.

Auxins
I can not stress enough the importance of this word. Auxins, as defined in the science world are a type of plant growth hormone. In marijuana, they are the most import hormone when it comes to vegetative growth. In an untrained, regular marijuana plant, the auxins are most heavily distributed to the top/uppermost growth. The plant identifies this growth as its top and strives to grow it up towards the light more than the other lower growths. This is where LST comes into play. When you bend a plants top growth over, the plant identifies that it's top growth is no longer growing up, and it works to gain a new top growth. In essence, the auxins spread throughout your whole plant and this creates new growth along your nodes that have the potential to be equal to a "top bud or cola". Here is an example on the growth a plant recieves from the auxins being redistributed via. LST.

View attachment 1171750View attachment 1171753View attachment 1171793View attachment 1171800View attachment 1171819
Please take note at the new growth between the nodes. This is the work of the auxins. Also, take a look in the last picture as to where the original "top growth" is, and where the new top growth is. The plant created new ones. When flowering, this will give you more top buds, but less smaller popcorn buds that formed along the bottom of a regular grown plant. This particular LST grow was done with a smaller plant, but you can do it with large plants.


Now, let's take a look at the reasons why we LST.

1. Space- Many of times growers do not have the space to allow their plant to grow through the vegetative and flowering phase straight up (PC grows, attic grows, box grows). This is where LST comes into play. By tieing/staking down your plant, instead of growing vertically your plant grows horizontally, allowing your plant to still develop to maturity without growing up against your lights..

2. Light- As a plant grows upward towards the light, you constantly have to move your lighting fixture up to keep from burning your plant. As your light gets higher up, it gets further away from your bottom nodes and leaves. This can cause for more scraggly buds and leaves on the bottom of your plant, and put a dent in your harvest. This is especially true when you have lower powered lights(t5, CFLs, etc.)However, if you LST your plant sort of grows horizontally, allowing all of your budsites that grow up to be more exposed to the light. You will still have upward growth, just not as much depending on how long you let your new growth shoots grow before flowering, or LSTing the new growth down.

3. Stealth- Many of times those outdoor plants you have growing by the fence in the backyard just get too tall. What to do? Instead of growing up, just grow horizontally. This can keep those pesky neighbors from knowing that you have more than tomatoes growing in the yard.

Last but not least, let's learn how to LST. LST can be done in many fashions. I will first explain how to do it the way I prefer (with a few pictures) and the others I will give a lowdown on how to do them, but no pictures so bare with me.

The Closehanger
For this method, all you need is a closehanger, wirecutters, some string or wire, and a piece of ducttape. This is for younger and smaller plants.

Step 1: Cut your closehanger into straight pieces (8-12 inches depending on how tall your plant is). You want the top of the closehanger to be anywhere from 4-6 inches below the top of your plant.

Step 2: Put a Crook or a bend in the end of the closehanger piece. This allows you to put the 2nd node down from the top of your plant under it.

Step 3: This is called the countertie, and is probably one of the most important steps. Take your string or wire and make you a piece long enough to reach from the base of your plant to the edge of your pot. Tie your string or wrap your wire about 3 inches up the base of your plant and run it to the edge of the pot. Don't pull on the plant, just make sure it isn't loose. Tape the other end of the wire/string to your pot. This gives a counter resistance to your LST so that your plant doesn't get uprooted on the stake down.

Step 4: Place your closehanger in the dirt of your pot, with the crooked end up.

Step 5: GENTLY bend your plants top over and place it under the closehanger.
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Step 6: As your original top growth, and new top shoots begin to grow up, you can continue to stake them down and get lots of new growth. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with the bushiness and amount of top shoots that are on your plant. At this point you may let your plant grow as tall as you want or just switch to 12/12. I reccomend for indoor growers with limited space, as soon as you have the amount of top shoots you want that you switch to 12/12 as the plant will bush out incredibly if you continue to veg.

That is just the way I do LST. I'm not saying it's the best way, or it's the most effective. It's all a matter of personal preference. There are many other ways to do this including.

1. Screw and string Method- This simply involves screwing screws into the lip of your pot all the way around (8-12 of them). You then tie your plants top down to the screw nearest it with string. As new top growths emerge, keep tieing them down to screws around the pot.

2. Weighting- All you need to do here, is get some sort of a weight (Fishing weights, clips, or anything your plant can't lift). You then tie a string to this weight, and tie it to your top node. It pulls it down, and as new top growths appear tie them down with more weights until you have the desired amount of new upper growths.

3.Object Tieing- For bigger outdoor or indoor plants, you can find some sort of an object that the plant can't move, and tie your shoots down to it. I have a friend who uses a ladder that he uses as his weight and just ties plants down onto it. They are huge plants though.

As you can see, there are tons of ways to LST. When it comes to Low Stress Training, there really is no wrong way. Just tie your plant down, spread the auxins, and watch the new growth.

I really hope this helps people better understand LST and get a better feel of what to do when it comes to training their plant.

Thanks a ton for reading my thread.
:peace:Rollbluntz:peace:
I have never grown a plant out that I hadn't LST. I consider myself a master. Here are a few current plants. Chemdawg, Berry white, lemon kush(heart plant) chronic x n.l., and the rest are autos and clones of these four big ones. I always top my plants very first true leaves. The serated ones, not round ones obviously, they do all the work for a slow start above, but bellow it's rooting deep and before I know it, it's a bush I'm tying down with twist ties that unroll and snip to whatever size needed. Puncture holes around lip of pot, and bend till tense and wrap a loose loop around stem firmly connected to pot. All I've ever used. IMAG1921.jpg IMAG1842.jpg IMAG1846.jpg IMAG1910.jpg IMAG1847.jpg IMAG1841.jpg IMAG1816.jpg IMAG1934.jpg IMAG1913.jpg
hey rollbluntz. when you LST do you ever top the main cola?
Top your plant as young as possible, to avoid any stress that might Herm out your plant. I've NEVER had a regular seed plant Herm on me after topping, because I take off the very first set of true leaves, not the round seed leaf. It splits in two off rip, two plants in one. Bury right on to split. Then ONLY LST after that. Check it out.IMAG1921.jpg IMAG1842.jpg IMAG1846.jpg IMAG1910.jpg IMAG1847.jpg IMAG1841.jpg IMAG1816.jpg IMAG1934.jpg IMAG1913.jpg IMAG0509.jpgstart.
 

BusyBee75

Well-Known Member
Hey brother, the first looks good so far. Don't get too crazy if you're a beginner, only because if it's a bit of a pain to keep in line now, imagine 5-6 weeks into flower. I've made this mistake before, and ended up having to cut branches to save others from crowding. Could have taken them and used as clones earlier, and flower them right along the mom, get like a zip dried apiece, only in like one gallon square pots,
 

Resinhound

Well-Known Member
Hey fellow growers. My first grow has afforded me the opportunity for my first chance to clone. I pulled these two clones in the 15-gal tan smart-pots about 6 weeks ago. THC Bomb (pic 2) and Amherst Sour Diesel (pic 1).

I haven't topped them a single time. From the very beginning when it was just two fan leaves and a single top I have kept them sideways. Each time it grows taller, it gets staked down and adjusted for growth. They were transplanted to the 15 gallon last week with a custom mix and have been growing steadily. Again, this is entirely LST.

The little 8-top in a 5-gallon (pic 3) is my attempt at main-lining some Crystal Meth bagseed and mixing it with heavy LST training to produce 8 monster tops.

I'm waiting another 2 more weeks to FIM all of the main tops to get the absolutely insane number of lower tops a chance to get bigger. Every top you see on the lush green Sour D (pic 1) has about 5x as many in the next level of the canopy that you can't see.
View attachment 3623146 View attachment 3623147 View attachment 3623148
Great looking plant.
 
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