You know the ones - those seedlings growing the long thin blades? Uh oh. You're in for a ride - several long months of nursing a finicky, fluffy plant through bloom, probably ending in an ugly mess. You try topping. All you get is a wider mess. You try LST - same result. The damn thing keeps growing while it blooms! It overtakes the entire space. And then it fades. It fades and it looks unhappy,stays unhappy, and you just grit your teeth and hope the smoke will be good when that day finally comes.
Well, I think I may have a solution. Upcan during bloom.
If you flip them in small pots, they'll stretch less. Then, when the stretch has slowed, you can upcan them into much bigger pots. This accomplishes two things. It controls height without disturbing the growth habit, and it provides new fuel at the point where the plant needs it for bud production.
I just got a 6 ounce harvest from a 5 foot sativa grown untopped and unmolested, in its natural growth habit. The strain would have been well over 15 feet outside. I started it in a cup, vegged it 35 days, and upcanned into a 6 gallon pot. It took another 45 days under 11/13 to grow pistils, and then continued to stretch as it bloomed until it hit 5 feet. At that point I upcanned it again, into a 15 gallon bin.
That gave the plant just enough soil to hit my room height, and then it got all the new soil it needed to grow nice thick buds.
Here's how it finished. Ima try that trick again next time.
