When we grow indoors we will always have some constraints. Not everybody has enough space to grow weed at home. But it is easy to control height of marijuana plants. Take this as a training tutorial to look at techniques that help control growth—there are so many ways to do this that you’ll probably start your own style at some point. Plants can, in away, be customized by choosing the exact shape and size that you want. Just check out our marijuana plant training guide for complete instructions.
1. Set-up-Choosea proper setup (pot size, grow light, strain) to create the right-sized plants – 3 Ways to Control Height of Your Marijuana Plants
Pot size: Using a smaller pot for baby plants can keep them at a smaller size because it restricts root growth. Of course plants will keep growing larger when you feed them and water them but a smaller pot will reduce their size. For instance, if you put the same seeds in two separate grow pots (one 1-gallon & one 3-gallon) and keep them under the same conditions. The plants in 1-gallon grow pots will be smaller than the ones in 3-gallon. (3 Ways to Control Height of Marijuana Plants)
Grow lights: Choosing the right grow light will help keep your plants shorter. Let’s look at a few:
Best: LEDs and MH (metal halide) are the best choice to keep plants short.
Okay: Fluorescent grow lights like T5s or CFLs should be close enough to plants to make the lights work effectively; this will also help with stretching.
Worst: HPS and CMH/LEC grow lights will make the plants grow taller during the vegetative stage.
Grow a Short Strain: Different type of strains are different, even in the same condition, some strains will stay short, others will grow tall. Usually, autoflowering strains grow shorter.
2. Plant Training-When learning how to control the height of marijuana plants, make sure to train your plants properly – 3 Ways to Control Height of Your Marijuana Plants
Topping: Trim your plants by removing the tops and encourage a more bushy, wider canopy.
Bend over the tall branches and tie them down: Bend over any branches or stems try to encourage a Sea of Green technique. Gently bend branches downwards and then tie them so they spread outwards rather than straight up.
Try to maintain a flat, wide shape Keep the shape of plants wide: the wider the plants, the less chance the plant will grow vertically because all parts of the plants will face the same distance from the grow light. (3 Ways to Control Height of Marijuana Plants)
3. Flowering Stretch-Understand how the height of plants is affected during the flowering stage. Let’s go through this guide quickly. Soon you’ll be able to grow plants of different sizes – 3 Ways to Control Height of Your Marijuana Plants
During the flowering stage the height of cannabis plants will usually double. This process is called the “flowering stretch.” A common mistake many cannabis growers make is to forget the final height stretch so they end up with enormous plants after the vegetative stage. Calculate the final height of your plants you would like, and make the plan in advance.
3 Ways to Control Height of Marijuana Plants
Here are some ways you could prepare in advance to control the height of marijuana plants before flowering stretch stage. After starting the flowering stage, the plants will get significantly taller. So, initiate the flowering stage at half your final desired size. This depends on the strain of course—strains listed as “tall” may become triple the size during vegetative.
–When plants are young, training them to grow multiple branches rather than a single tall stalk will help and will reduce height during flowering. This way branch height will spread out between multiple branches toward to the ceiling, not putting all the height focus on one main stem.
–Defoliation during the flowering stage: Remove leaves, bend thick stems and branches, prevent the grow of plants upwards.
Here are some real-life examples of flowering stretch to give you an idea of what to expect. I wish I could have known these various ways of controlling height when I first started growing—it would have saved me a lot of time.
Summary – 3 Ways to Control Height of Your Marijuana Plants
Now we know all 3 things we could do to control the height of marijuana plants—remember, first, choose the right pot size. Try it out! Let us know how it goes and good luck! Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more useful info!
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