Need some Advice on my strechy strains! (Pics Included)

Hey There Everyone I was hoping someone can give me some advice on my strechy strains. Heres the setup
3ft by 3ft Growtent 6ft tall
400w mh/hps
Cooltube
6inch inline fan
Small clip fan for inside the tent
Hortimix nutes A&B + Bloombooster
50/50 Coco/perlite
10L pots
4 plants all bagseeds (wainting for new seeds)
Temps stay at a comfortable 71f to 75f

Im veged these for approximately 55 days from seedling before the flip il include pics of before and after the flip im now on day 21 after the flip and the strech has slowed down budlets are forming nicely. What i want to know is did i veg these for too long or wil my light have enough penetration to reach lower budsites. I lst'd them and toped them 2 times each plant has about 8-9
Big branches that reched the top. Also im very careful of removing the undergrowth so would a bit more lolipoping be a good thing. I also know that these are definitely going to get top heavy so any advice about that would also be appreciated.
Heres some pics any advice or tips would be great!

The chosen females fast growers nice thick leafs also Lst'd them with some garden wire. This is also when i changed the bulb to hps and started flowering.


Here's a side view


And here they are after 21 days of flowering.



As you can see the canopy stayed pretty even for 4 diferent strains there is 2 plants at the back that streched the most and some of there branches realy streched i cant bend them down or tie them up so i dont know what to do about them?

Heres a pic of the canopy from the top


This last pic was before the strech stoped just to give you a idea of how thick the canopy is also if there someone with experience in defoliation
Ife read good and bad about it ive seen pics of good about it whats your opinion for this grow. Thanks sory for the 1000 questions just trying to better my growing and learning.

dont worry about light and lower bud sights. This will be a star garden and yield. I would either leave them be or lollipop them up some to get some underbrush air flow. awesome!!!

The problem is that your light was too high from the get go. I notice it's chained to the top of the tent. That's a bad move. It should be on adjustable cables. Your light should never be more than about 12" to 18" above the canopy of the plants.

So from the time they're seedlings, that lamp should have been towards the bottom of the tent just 12 to 18" above the top of the seedlings. As the plant grows up to get within about a foot of the lamp, you move the lamp up again to get the gap back to 12" to 18".

The reason they stretched is because the light was so far away they were quite literally racing up to it to get more light. Had the light been lower at the right levels the entire grow, they wouldn't have done that.

Option B to all of that: get a more powerful lamp. Any time you're going to run a fixed position lamp, it's GOT to be no less than 600 watts as far as MH/HPS goes. 1000 is preferable. Then the stretch isn't nearly as bad.

TacoMac said:

The problem is that your light was too high from the get go. I notice it's chained to the top of the tent. That's a bad move. It should be on adjustable cables. Your light should never be more than about 12" to 18" above the canopy of the plants.

So from the time they're seedlings, that lamp should have been towards the bottom of the tent just 12 to 18" above the top of the seedlings. As the plant grows up to get within about a foot of the lamp, you move the lamp up again to get the gap back to 12" to 18".

The reason they stretched is because the light was so far away they were quite literally racing up to it to get more light. Had the light been lower at the right levels the entire grow, they wouldn't have done that.

Option B to all of that: get a more powerful lamp. Any time you're going to run a fixed position lamp, it's GOT to be no less than 600 watts as far as MH/HPS goes. 1000 is preferable. Then the stretch isn't nearly as bad.

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I get that...but did you ever notice the commercial growers have lights way up high?

Did you notice commercial growers run lamps 3 to 5 times more powerful than yours?

Thanks guys for the reply's so fast! Thanks chemphlegm i hope they bud up nicely! Tacomac i agree with you i have been moving my light those chains are just the last links there were more links in the chain i kept the light at the 18" range most of the time but i do agree that i could have droped the light a litte bit more this was my first time with hps/mh and you know how the guys rave about temps so i was just careful but i can touch that cooltube no prop so next round il lower the light more. At this moment the light hangs at about 15" from the tops nearest to the light right underneath the lamp the tops in the back is right next to the lamp cant lower it more or the tops next to the lamp wont get light should i just keep it there?

What's the night time temperatures?


I don't think it was light distance. I think it was the Mexican bag seeds.

VkingBud said:

Thanks guys for the reply's so fast! Thanks chemphlegm i hope they bud up nicely! Tacomac i agree with you i have been moving my light those chains are just the last links there were more links in the chain i kept the light at the 18" range most of the time but i do agree that i could have droped the light a litte bit more this was my first time with hps/mh and you know how the guys rave about temps so i was just careful but i can touch that cooltube no prop so next round il lower the light more. At this moment the light hangs at about 15" from the tops nearest to the light right underneath the lamp the tops in the back is right next to the lamp cant lower it more or the tops next to the lamp wont get light should i just keep it there?

Click to expand...

I would just leave it where it is for now. You might try bending those taller stalks in the back over a bit so they can get more light, but don't do it at the expense of any of the other stalks. Wait for those central stalks to get closer to the lamp then move it up a bit more.

Cul thanks Tacomac! Wil do! As for the mexican bagseeds Southcross im a bit too far from mexico but Swaziland is just around the coner hahaha. Most of what i smoke comes from there and its pretty decent stuff. But i get it get good genitics that you know what your growing. My seeds are on the way. Thanks.

O sory Southcross my nightime temps and daytime temps are very much the same can that have an effect on the strech my lights are on during night and daytime temps here arent verry cold.

No idea how to stop plants from stretching once they get all lanky but if you want to eliminate most of the stretch for your next set of plants just lower the amount of light more gradually in the weeks before you get to bloom phase.
Stretching occurs because plants never evolved to go from 18/6 right into 12/12; in nature there's no "flip" to bloom phase. The sun gradually reduces hours of daylight throughout the summer from the solstice up to harvest season. You can mimic the Suns natural light cycle by reducing the hours of light by let's say an hour per week.
Start out in regular veg hours of 18/6 then reduce by an hour by setting your timer to 17/7 for a week. Then again to 16/8 the next week. Then to 15/9 for another week. You can go another week to 14/10 and even to 13/11 if you want but just know many strains will begin throwing out pistils at these light timer settings. This also helps to add a few g per cola because you get a nice tightly "stacked" bud structure in later stages of bloom.
It is true that stretching can occur if your light is too weak or too far away from your plants but if that was the case here your plants would have gotten all stretched out during veg phase. Stretch has more to do with how abruptly your plants are triggered into flowering than anything else and it is a strain characteristic. Some strains(sativa doms) stretch out more than others.