Problem with stretching

Hello, I have 6 autos 5/6 weeks old
they grew without any problems, but unfortunately they must had to spend 2 weeks outside

Yesterday they came back into the grow box and I noticed that they stretched out terribly.
I know it's normal during this phase of their lives.
but this time the distances between the nodes are quite large (I think it is due to too little light access)
apart from that, they look very healthy

My question is, if the rest of the cultivation goes smoothly, will they produce nice buds? Will I be left with long stems and small "balls" at the ends?

best regards

They will be fine I would suggest training for an even canopy. Lots of ways to go, I like to scrog . Last photo looks like it is showing signs of heat/light stress (curling/tacoing on the serrated edges of the leaves) find the right light distance and try your best to train the canopy even and you'll get some nugs.

They will produce fine. Stretch is normal but you can control it and also train the plant to be less 'reachy'. Look into topping and creating a more flat canopy, it will benefit you in having less stretchy plants overall and also managing stretchy genetics by using topping technique. Here's a fun video on it.

calvin.m16 said:

They will produce fine. Stretch is normal but you can control it and also train the plant to be less 'reachy'. Look into topping and creating a more flat canopy, it will benefit you in having less stretchy plants overall and also managing stretchy genetics by using topping technique. Here's a fun video on it.

View attachment 5386082

Click to expand...

topping at this stage of development? I've had a few weeds before but I've never done anything like this , preflowers have already shown, is it too late for this treatment?

LEMONlemon123 said:

topping at this stage of development? I've had a few weeds before but I've never done anything like this , preflowers have already shown, is it too late for this treatment?

Click to expand...

Long as its at least a week before flip you can top it its in veg some top early some wait till later its ok long as u let it recover before it flips

Hi. Some strains are just prone to long internodal spacing and the stretch look. My best advise isto give them plenty of light to reduce this as much as possible, - achieve this with an LED , this way they don't give out too much heat so you can position the lights real close to the plants , hence them not needing to stretch for light! Here's something i saw i thought was wicked and I think is ideal for this situation, ps you can get these anywhere like temu or ebay:
Give Seedlings Light As Soon as they Hatch
Compact Growth No Stretching
Your seedlings will begin reaching for the light as soon as they emerge. So give them plenty of it right from the start. Our LED grow lights is positioned to be closer to the seedlings without causing heat stress, promoting compact sturdy growith with no stretching or lankyness.

hope that helps

LEMONlemon123 said:

Hello, I have 6 autos 5/6 weeks old
they grew without any problems, but unfortunately they must had to spend 2 weeks outside

Yesterday they came back into the grow box and I noticed that they stretched out terribly.
I know it's normal during this phase of their lives.
but this time the distances between the nodes are quite large (I think it is due to too little light access)
apart from that, they look very healthy

My question is, if the rest of the cultivation goes smoothly, will they produce nice buds? Will I be left with long stems and small "balls" at the ends?

best regards

Click to expand...

"Stacking" buds will tend to be increased by high light levels (shorter internodal space) and by using a light that has an elevated percentage of blue light. Lights that have a lot of blue in the spectrum (the Vipar XS1500 Pro, an MH light, or a veg light) will tend to produce plants that are short, compact, with short internodal space. Plants that get a lot of light will tend to have more branches and a lot of small leaves, as well as limited internodal space. The plants in the photos appear to have significant internodal space, limited branching, and fewer and larger leaves and those are characteristics of plants that have not received a lot of light.

But that's all in the rear view mirror.

The best that you can do now, and for all of your plants in the future, is to get as much light on the plants as they can use.

The "light saturation point" for cannabis been taken to be 800-1000µmol but a couple of sets of research indicate that you're about half way there at the 800-1k level. I've been using "high light" (85± mols for autos and photos in veg and 43± mols in flower) for a couple of years but the attached "Frontiers" paper, a few years old, and the recent video by Mitch Westmoreland (Future Cannabis Project on YouTube), reveal that they've been able to get cannabis to grow in ambient CO2 at 1800 (Frontiers) and >2000µmol (Westmoreland). That blew me away because plants in my very stable hydro setup max out at just under 1200µmol (per my Apogee).

All in all, get as much light as your plants can handle (get at least a light meter - Photone may be accurate or not but it's hard to know for sure) and you'll get a larger, higher quality (ratio of flower to above ground mass) than you will at lower light levels.