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So here's a growoff I'm doing between to plants of the same strain to see what sort of difference in yield I will get. Both are Mephisto Sour Crack. I chose this strain because it's a relatively small, very fast growing strain, that is an F7, so it's phenos should be pretty stable. They are next to each other, positioned equal distance from lights, fed and watered at the same time, and have been kept in as close to identical conditions as possible.
However, one plant will get constant LST and tucking to create an even canopy, and the other will be an all natural grow. I may tuck a couple leaves to expose bud sites but nothing else. The purpose of this experiment is to see if it is worthwhile to use LST on a plant that is this small and quick. Yields will speak louder than anecdotes.
Grow Details -
Great Lakes Water Only Soil.
Six gallon Hydrofarm pots.
Extreme Gardening Mykos.
GH Bio Roots until flowers show.
GH Maxibloom at .75tsp/gallon during feeds starting at the beginning of flower.
190w cree cobs at 3500k. (Three cobs)
This diary will be primarily images apart from the last week or so of the grow.
As LST hasn't happened yet there's not much to say for this week. But hey, I'll fill in this space a bit more so I can get that green smiley face I have a pathological need to receive. :-D
LST is about to begin at the end of this week. Both plants are nearly identical, which helps with the experiment a lot. A consistent strain will make this whole thing a worthwhile endeavor.
LST Started on day 21. In effects were almost immediate and drastic. The LST plant spread right out and immediately started bulking up like mad, and the Natural Sour Crack grew sideways and took up just as much space, only with one obvious top, which is, of course, the expected outcome.
As LST has progresses, the plants have started to look completely different. LST SC is low and filling the top of the pot. Natural SC is shooting up and spreading out in every direction. One this is sure, all things being equal, if space is an issue, LST is completely worthwhile with Sour Crack.
It's obvious at this point that LST is a more efficient use of space, and will increase the overall yield. All of the LST plant colas and larger and bulkier than the natural plant.
One thing is for sure, no matter what happens with the yield, both plants are getting frosty! LST looks like a miniature cabbage patch she is so dense with foliage. Natural is spread far and wide, and her top cola's time so close to the light is making it a bit pale. Small sacrifice for consistency.
As we get toward the end, the race is evening out a bit. Pretty sure that the LST plant will have a good amount more bulk in the end, but the natural plant is really putting buds onto her main. It the end, if there are similar results in yield, it may be worth it to save the effort and just let these girls grow naturally. Save myself many hours of work. I think my decision trigger will be a 10% difference in yield. If the LST gets 10% more, LST will be my future standard for Sour Crack.
As other plants in the tent have been harvested, I had the chance to move both LST vs. Natural plants out from under the blurple and over to the big Cree Cob setup for the finish. The blurple has done remarkably well, but getting them under the 190w of 3500k for this final week will be a major push. As time passes the blurple will be removed from the tent in favor of something more awesome, but she actually did well enough. I do not hate blurples.
Another interesting tidbit, LST Plant is maturing much more quickly than Natural Plant. Her buds are more fully formed and her pistils are all turning orange. Natural Plant has nothing but white pistils, still. Phenome? Hormonal due to LST vs. Not? I don't know the answer. However, under the bigger lights, the last two days have caused Natural Girl to push a little more energy into her rather anemic side colas. Good!
EDIT: Day #63 - Rounding out week nine! Gonna give them a couple more days. Will probably chop the LST girl Tuesday and give Natural girl an extra 24 hours for a chop on Wednesday, just because her secondary colas are anemic looking. Her main budsite, however, is a gigantic mountain of donkey dick, compared to anything else I've grown, so that big old cola will be where more than half of her yield will come from I think.
Chopped the LST girl today. Day 64. She was well ripe and I could have probably chopped her four or five days ago, but I wasn't in a hurry. I also wet trimmed her, something that I haven't done before. It looks like she may deliver close to 2.5oz! My projections have been *Fairly* close. Could be as low as 2oz, but I'm pretty sure it's over that. So that is good news.
Tomorrow I chop Natural Girl, and we'll see what her wet weight is. I wish her luck! I have a feeling that she will come in at a lower wet weight, if only because she'll have a lot more popcorn nugs. LST girl had almost zero popcorn. We'll see.
Edit: Natural Girl got the chop, Day 65! So... It was a complete wash! Sour Crack is such a small plant that under the same conditions, yields are identical when comparing LST vs. A natural grow.
LST Girl, trimmed, Wet - 275.77 Grams
Natural Girl, trimmed, Wet - 276.98 Grams
A difference of 1.21 wet grams, which is negligible.
My verdict - All things being equal, the only advantage of doing LST on a Mephisto Sour Crack is the reduction in size and flatness of canopy. The yields came out the same between the LST plant and the Natural plant to within 1.2 wet grams of bud, and the advantage was actually in favor of the natural girl.
In addition, the natural girl left behind quite a bit more popcorn on her lower branches. I actually put her back into the tent, with maybe ten thin, scraggly, but popcorn encrusted stems sticking out of the dirt, just to see if they bulk up at all before she dies of old age, or sap loss from the chop. Just for giggles, of course.
THE VERDICT - If you have good enough lights, say, what I have, which is 3x Cree Cob 3590's pulling 190w, it doesn't matter whether you run Mephisto Sour Crack LST vs. Natural. It will get enough light to support similar yields.
ADDENDUM, Fifteen days later! - So when I harvested these two girls, I tried a tiny experiment. The LST girl had about ten, four to eight inch or so popcorn stems left, hanging forlornly off the the main stem. Seemed like a bit of a waste, so I fed the pot and threw it back into the grow. I figured "Hey, if she still has a little pep in her, and hasn't started dying, what could be the harm?
Nothing. Nothing could be the harm. Fifteen days later, I harvested her again. She didn't grow new large fan leaves, but she PILED ON crow's feet, stretched her tiny stems, and bulked up her little popcorns into genuine buds! Not only that, she grew about fifteen more stems full of little buds.
And that is how I managed to get four ounces from a single Sour Crack.
From what I understand, stress tends to cause quicker flowering, so essentially you're reducing vegetation and flowering time and extent. I've got 21+ week plants that are barely flowering, natural, outdoors. And then I've got some of the more stressed plants that feel the need to defend themselves a bit more vigorously. Some of the, seemingly, slower or weak flowering plants are huge now and are starting to bulk up rather well compared to some of the earlier flowering plants. Personally, I'd rather them adapt to non-forced conditions, for genetic and suitability reasons. But hey, I'm a newbie and mostly observing rather than screwing around.
@Hexus, yeah I've been taking a similar approach with nutrients in that as soon as you notice a little bit of burn but it otherwise looks good, you're probably near ideal levels (unless it progresses).
I can't honestly say though, and since I'm growing outdoors (random bag seeds) in rather varied, though mostly exceedingly hot conditions with some pests now and then, strain variation, it's kinda tricky to know if it's actual nutrient deficiency.
It's also quite intensive managing the watering with the pot plants, like I can only water them so often and it's a fine line between watering enough and having a fungus gnat infestation (which I've had and certainly set back some of the plants) and possibly resulting mold, which also shows as nutrient deficiency (since it essentially is). Especially when you get like a week of raining. And then that also flushes the soil to some extent, draining a lot of the nutrients which means I have to use more. Annoying.
My pot plants aren't terrible, fairly anemic (no topping/fimming/mainlining/etc), though they do seem quite potent and some are really developing nicely now and they might do well with revegging, since they're clearly quite tough. They do take their time, but tentatively speaking, I think it pays off, relatively. What initially looked like weaker plants with apparent signs of nutrient deficiency are pretty much overshadowing the more impressive looking ones at an earlier stage. Like at no stage didn't they show purple stems and such, but they're doing really well now. I guess that's just due to it being random, older seeds and related to environmental suitability and varying genetics, where some (local adaptations) are better than others.
Ones in straight soil (heavy clay with some ammendment) though? I dunno, some are almost 4m tall plants, barely flowering, with about 60cm space around it, and not only catching up but surpassing the more "cosmetically" appealing plants. I'm even worried about the one plant breaking due to weight.
https://growdiaries.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/static/post/photo/19262/917998_african-bagseedscustomsativa.jpg
Amazingly, I didn't get a single autoflower from my random seeds (likely due to them being older local/landrace, free of ruderalis seeds).
*Sidenote, in that picture, on the left there's a huge datura some birds dropped off (which I quite enjoy smoking with weed) and the bottom left corner near that pole, there's a cutting from one of the flowering pot plants (which happened to use no rooting hormone, had incredibly harsh conditions, straight sunlight mostly, etc) and it is growing incredibly well compared to the parent. In short, I don't like pots (especially those I'm using) much.
@Hexus,It seems like you've pretty much mastered the Sour Crack strain. I like the LST plant the buds are nice and dense. The plant is putting it's energy into budding not growing.
@@@Ssomeguy, Word. These girls are 55-65 days from seed and pretty much done. They are lightning quick. Low stress training is about all they can handle, just because they can't afford three days of shock and recovery. 3 days lost is 5% yield with these Sour Cracks. They typically yield around 30-60 grams if you're good to them. Some people get 3 out of them but usually not in soil.
What they do give you, though, is 19-20% THC content buds, 30-60 grams, in 60 days, out of a plant that doesn't get much taller than 20 inches without LST. So the ideal way to grow these girls is a bunch of 'em in small pots, with a good, simple nutrient regimen. SOG, Scrog, or hand bending LST.
For instance, in this experiment, the LST plant is actually about 10-15% amber already. I could chop her with no anxiety tomorrow. I'd like to let her go to day 65 or so, just to max out her bulk, but my grows have tended to hit the finish line a couple days earlier than breeder spec. Dunno if that's just from blasting them 24/7 with good light or not being afraid to hit them a tiny bit hard on the nutes.
I'm usually backing down on Maxibloom when some bottom leaves get a little toasted. Not afraid to chop off some popcorn either. Most of them look like they've been lollipopped by their final week or so, but I haven't done a systematic defoliation on them. Just cleaning up dead and dying leaves from the bottom and running nutes a *little* bit hot. For autoflowers that's .75tsp of Maxibloom with every watering and some Mammoth P. If I get burned tips up top I feed plain PHed water for the next feed, then go back to nutes the feed after that.
So far it *seems* to be working. :-D
@CovikLaFlaire, They weren't. One gave up a solid 70 grams (The LSTed one) , and the other ended up having two harvests, several weeks apart. Harvested a solid two 2.5 ounces off of the non-LST plant, (Also 70ish grams) and there were about fifteen four or five inch popcorn stems on the bottom. I threw her back into the grow and a couple weeks later those tops managed to give up an additional 1.4ish ounces. Look through the final harvest post for pics marked "Post harvest" for the second harvest I pulled out of the non-lst.
Awesome diary and a fantastic test! You’re descriptions are so well worded and very informative. Thanks for sharing. I have a little test project I’m going to try on my diary after the three I have going right now.
@Momgrowsthechronic, They re Cree Cobs (Three) running at 190w, and also in the tent was a blurple from Amazon that ran at 125w. (Real watts for both)
These two plants were under the blurple for about 35 days of their grow, and went over to the COB side at the same time for the finish, as older plants were harvested.
Great experiment with the sour crack natural vs lst. After seeing ur results, I won’t bother investing much time in trying to bend these ladies to my will. I’ll simply let them grow wild and free and they should produce a decent amount of high quality herb no matter what! Nice grow, beautiful plants, well done!
Hexus
