The definitive overview on various Marijuana growing training methods - Topping, Fimming, Super Cropping, Monster Cropping, SCROG / SOG and more.

The following free Cannabis growing eBook is a definitive overview on various well known Marijuana growing training methods. It discusses Topping, Fimming, Super Cropping, Monster Cropping, SCROG / SOG and other popular Marijuana growing methods.

Marijuana is a very flexible plant. It has the ability to quickly adapt to it's immediate environment. Over the years - various methods have been discovered on the most effective ways of training your Marijuana plants to help grow the way you want them to.

The idea behind training your growing marijuana plants is to make them suit your own available growing area. By doing this, you force the plants into growing the way you need them to - in order to maximize on the use of your grow space and also on your yield potential.

Download the free Cannabis growing eBook. It's a well-written definitive collection of the most effective Marijuana growing methods used worldwide.  

Topics Include: Topping, Fimming, Super Cropping, Monster Cropping, Pruning, SCROG, SOG, Pruning, Low-Stress Training, High-Stress Training.

[ Download the Free Cannabis Growers eBook - Grow Training Methods 101 ]

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Cannabis Topping vs Fimming - Which method should you use? Answered!

Cannabis growers training - Topping vs Fimming - Which method should you use? 

In this article - we'll cover two of the most popular forms of training methods used for growing your marijuana plant. Maximize on your harvest potential.

Training your plants will allow you to control the height and canopy of your Cannabis grow. Allowing you to grow in almost any environment. It's all about making the most of what you have available at your current disposal.

The two most popular techniques to train your plants are:

TOPPING

The image above shows a TOPPED Cannabis main stem - 2 secondary shoots will grow directly below the cut as a result.

To top a Cannabis plant. You simple cut the main stem at the very top (hence the name topping).

You can top a plant above its 2nd - 5th node depending upon your growing space and how many  colas you want to end up with.

TOPPING forces the plant to spread its growth hormones downwards - encouraging new shoots to form as well as bushier growth. The traditional vertical growth (christmas tree shape) of Cannabis isn't efficient use of indoor space due to limited height availability. Outdoors, height isn't so much of an issue. TOPPING helps you keep your cannabis plants nice and low. Those growing with limited vertical space favor this method as it's simple to perform and the results are extremely predictable.

When topping Marijuana, you will lose your main central cola but you will be compensated with multiple smaller colas (which can usually yield more).

Benefits of TOPPING include; Height management, Canopy control, Easier to SCROG / SOG, Reduced mold risk with certain dense bud strains, increases yield with many strains. 

FIMMING

The above image shows the difference between the areas to cut for FIMMING vs TOPPING

FIMMING is a technique that was derived from TOPPING. FIM stands for Fuck I Missed.

The technique is said to have come about from someone screwing up a topping attempt and found out that this technique actually produces more shoots and is a suitable alternative to topping when you have less plants to fill out a bigger/wider area.

FIMMING is unpredictable in exactly how many shoots it will produce. Sometimes it's 4... and sometimes it's much more!

To FIM a plant. You need to take off about 60-70% of the main top growth and leaving 30% of the main top stem intact. This allows the plant to develop new shoots from the FIMMED location.

If you miss a FIM (FIMA?) you will end up essentially topping your plant.

I recommend FIMMING if you wish to fill a wide area - for instance like a single plant in the decently sized flowering tent or if you're going to grow using the SCROG (Screen of Green) method.

Benefits of FIMMING include; Produces more shoots than topping, Height management, Canopy control, Easier to SCROG / SOG, Reduced mold risk with certain dense bud strains, increases yield with some strains, Better than TOPPING for single plants that are to fill a tent on their own.

Summary

The best method to choose for you, would depend upon your personal growing area. If you had multiple marijuana plants to fill a relatively small area - my recommendation would be to top them above the 2nd or 3rd node and then when they recover; start thinking about additional training such as using the SCROG technique for better canopy control.

If you had 1 or 2 plants to fill a decently sized area. I would recommend you FIM instead as this will help you to maximize the use of your grow space and final yield result.

For a more in-depth look at these Marijuana training methods and more. 
Check out this free comprehensive eBook on Cannabis training methods & more  

[ Download Free Cannabis Grow Training Methods eBook ]

What are the best types of Hydroponic and indoor Cannabis grow lights? Answered!

What are the best types of Hydroponic and indoor Cannabis grow lights? Answered!

In this article. We'll be covering the most effective types of grow lighting to use for growing your Cannabis & Marijuana plants indoors. Whether your growing method is Hydroponics, Soil or Soil-less. The lighting requirements are the same.

Cannabis is a very easy to grow plant. Provided you give the plants what they need in terms of PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) and with the appropriate amount of intensity & penetration for your personal grow area.

Before we go into the various types of effective indoor grow lighting. It's important for us to understand PAR and the proper spectrum of lighting that Cannabis needs, in order to grow and thrive.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) - is the spectral range of solar radiation from 400nm (nanometers) to 730nm. It is required by Cannabis and most plants in the process of photosynthesis. The human eye can detect most of the PAR range however some UV and Far Red bands are invisible to us but are still very present.

Cannabis plants contain lots of Chlorophyll - which is a plant pigment that effectively makes use of red / blue light the most.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation

Effects of PAR on Cannabis plants

Now that we can see the type of lighting that Cannabis needs to grow well. Finding suitable lighting for our set up becomes much easier.

Grow lighting that is made up with mostly BLUE lighting will encourage dense foliage growth.
Enhancing the cannabis vegetative stage.

Grow lighting that is made up with mostly ORANGE/RED lighting will help with stem/flower (bud) development. Enhancing the flowering stage.

It is therefore recommended that seedlings and young cannabis plants but put under lighting that is mostly BLUE for the initial veg phase and then switch over to lighting mostly predominant in RED for flowering. This is the general rule of thumb.

BEST TYPES OF INDOOR GROW LIGHTING (HYDROPONICS, SOIL, SOIL-LESS)

I have tried many different types of indoor grow lighting setups that include; CFL, HID and the more modern LED. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. It's important to consider how much grow area you need to illuminate for before deciding on which grow light is the most suitable for your needs (If you haven't already seen the article on how long to veg cannabis seedlings then be sure to read up on it)

For growing seedlings and small marijuana plants/clones. CFL is usually more than suitable. CFL color temps that are the best to use for this purpose are 5000 K (natural white) to 6500 K (cool white) It's also possible to use LED lights to veg cannabis so long as it contains mostly BLUE light (420nm-460nm) and lastly, if you're planning on vegging for 5+ weeks HID - (MH - Metal Halide) is also a recommended option.

For flowering cannabis plants. I prefer using LED grow lights. The buds produced using HPS grow lighting are more fluffier than buds grown with LED lighting. I have noticed that LED grown buds are a lot more dense/compact in structure. LED lighting will usually be targeting the correct spectrums necessary for excellent growth. These spectrums are all necessary in developing the full range of cannabis terpenoids which are what's responsible for the unique smell and taste amongst  different marijuana strains.

The main benefits of using LED over HID are: Quality LED grow light panels offer excellent PAR for your plants (light quality) compared to inefficient HID lights,  Reduced electrical running costs for LED compared to HID, Reduced need for climate control with LED due to less heat compared to HID.
The only draw back of LED is the initial setup cost but the overall cost of those panels are recuperated through each successful harvest and reduces over time. Keep in mind that LED panels shouldn't need to be replaced like HID bulbs do, every few harvests.

LED & HID (HPS) grow lighting are both capable of producing high-grade quality buds. If you're after efficiency however, growing cannabis using LED lighting is definitely the most modern way to grow cannabis!

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Blue Dream (Day 62) - Grown using LED lighting

Think Different (Auto) - Grown using HPS lighting

5 Cannabis flowering and bud booster additives that actually work!

Cannabis growers will often use a diverse range of fertilizers and additives during the flowering phase of their grow cycles in an attempt to enhance their overall yield.
In this article, we will cover a few different types of additives that will be beneficial to you, in helping you to maximize on your overall harvest potential. These additives will work well for you whether you're growing in Soil or Hydroponics.

It's important to keep in mind that Cannabis is a very hardy plant and will grow well without the use of these additives. The following products I have personally used myself and can attest to their efficacy with regards to seeing a good ROI / final yield.

These recommendations are based upon my own experience. I will only comment on products/brands that I have personally used before. Knowing full well that there are other brands out there in the market place that may achieve the same results (however, since I have not used the other brands I am unable to comment on them personally)

HERE ARE MY OWN TOP 5 FLOWERING / BUD BOOSTERS

Advanced Nutrients Piranha - Helps establish a symbiotic secondary root system

Mycorrhizal Fungi  - Mycorrhizal fungi are fungal organisms capable of establishing a symbiotic relationship with your plants' root system. Once applied - they will begin to colonize the root zone forming a secondary root system. So long as your plant stays alive and continues to provide carbon/sugar to the fungii, they will thrive and continue to multiply. In return for the carbon/sugar that the plants give to the fungii - the Mycorrhizal fungii will help to transport nutrients and water to your cannabis plants helping them grow faster.

Some benefits of using Mychorrizal Fungi include; better drought tolerance, increased nutrient/water uptake, enhances root mass, reduces the need to overfert, competes with other bad fungi, improved plant health and vigor, greatly enhanced yield.

To use Mychorrizal fungi effectively. Apply the fungi to your seedlings at an early age as it can take up to 2 weeks for them to sufficiently colonise the root zone. Only one application is usually required.

Trichoderma and other beneficials help to fight off pathogens. Keeping your plants disease free.

Beneficial Bacteria/Fungi - Beneficial bacteria can help to keep your root zone healthy and disease free. They will usually compete with pathogenic fungi/bacteria to do so.

Common beneficial bacteria strains include; Trichoderma/Harzianum, Streptomyces, Bacillus, Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacteria.

Similar to Mycorrhizal fungi - beneficial bacteria should be innoculated when the seedlings are young. This will help to protect your cannabis plants as well as indirectly improving growth/yield over the course of your grow.

Fulvic Acid - offers better nutrient uptake and overall plant health

Fulvic / Humic Acid - Fulvic / Humic acids can help our plants better uptake nutrients. People growing using Soil/Hydroponic setups can benefit greatly from including Humic/Fulvic acid into their feeding regime. These acids have ability to chelate minerals and nutrients making them highly bio-available to the plant. Shuttling nutrients through the root zone with ease. It can also help  stimulate chlorophyll synthesis and is an overall good additive for general plant health. Beneficial microbes love this stuff as it stimulates their colony production. Can be used with both Synthetic or Organic fertilizers. Use it through out your grow cycle (cut it out about 3 weeks from harvest).

General rule of thumb when using Fulvic/Humic acid. Wherever possible - try to find the Soluble stuff.

If you're using Hydroponic systems - go with Fulvic Acid.

If you're grow is Soil based - use Humic Acid.

Nitrozime - includes powerful natural growth hormones / micro nutrients

Nitrozime - Nitrozime is a potent additive that's harvested from Northern Atlantic ocean seaweed called; Ascophyllum Nodosum. Nitrozime contains many natural plant growth hormones (Cytokinins, Auxins, Enzymes, Giberellins, Ethylenes and various other micro nutrients). These growth hormones can assist in all stages of the growth process from rooting all the way to flowering and will promote whatever form of growth the plant is currently undergoing (so time applications wisely!).

Nitrozime is useful to add as a growth tonic as well as a stress-relief product for your plants. Some stress factors where I've found Nitrozime helpful with is during any form of Training, Cutting etc.
I've noticed that Nitrozime helps make your plants grow much more vigorously, which in turn increases your final yield.

I highly recommend Nitrozime and add it weekly to my feeding regime (I'll even give it to young seedlings but just keep an eye on the PPM - be gentle with seedlings). I recommend cutting it out about 3-4 weeks into flowering.

Floralicious Plus is a broad spectrum bio stimulant

Floralicious Plus - Floralicious Plus is a vegan bio plant stimulator nutrient additive. It has been formulated to be utilized in both the vegetative and regenerative, or the flowering, stages of growth.

Floralicious Plus stimulates microbial activity in the plant’s root zone. This metabolic fuel solution is packed with powerful vitamins, complex plant sugars, protein building amino acids, seaweed extracts, carbon building blocks & aromatic oils all in a fulvic acid base.

Basically an all-in-one tonic. I highly recommend this product!

How long should you veg cannabis seedlings for? Answered!

How long should you veg cannabis seedlings for? Answered!

A young cannabis seedling sprouts above ground!

Cannabis is a relatively short growth cycle plant that you can harvest in little time. The age old question of how long you should veg cannabis for, will really depend upon the following 7 key factors:

1. Grow space
2. Grow Lighting
3. Ventilation
4. Medium/Grow method
5. Timing
6. Genetics
7. Training

Let's take a look at each of these factors in more detail, so we can determine what role they will each play during our Cannabis growing cycle. 

1) Grow space

When determining veg times. We need to consider our total grow space (which is our effective usable growing area). Think in terms of available ground grow space and also what's usable in vertical height.

A lot of new growers make the mistake of vegging cannabis for too long and not taking into account the vertical space they have available within their setup, run out of room and then suffer from poor yields when harvest time comes around. It's important to take into account the bloom stretch phase (after flipping to 12/12) will be adding additional height to the finished plant.  When considering how long to veg for, the stretch phase will also need to be factored in. After the 12/12 stretch phase completes itself (2-3 weeks after flipping the lights) Cannabis Indica dominant plants will usually double in size, while Cannabis Sativa dominant plants can triple in size, or more!

If you only have a small grow area (horizontal and vertical space) you will want to minimise on your vegging time (or going with a SOG/Sea of Green style of grow). Micro grows should need little to no veg times.

The more grow space you have available. The longer you should veg for, to maximise on your yield. There's a delicate balance and you will find it with practice. Spend some time understanding your favorite strains and how they react to different growing conditions and variables (temp/humidity, training, feeding)


2) Grow Lighting
On top of the grow space considerations. Cannabis growers need to also take into account what type of lighting they will be using for their veg phase. CFL (Compact Flourescent Light) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights are typically preferred for cannabis vegetative growth due to small cannabis seedlings not requiring the intensity that HID lighting provides upon first sprouting out of the medium. CFL and LED offer good veg growth when utilising more of the BLUE spectrum of light - which small cannabis seedlings and plants favour.

For CFL lighting - you want to look for 5000K to 6500K colour temperatures as they're perfect to veg cannabis seedlings with.
For LED lighting - you can use more 330nm / 360nm diodes for veg growth to be efficient.

The general rule of thumb for cannabis seedlings and young plants is that using more appropriate BLUE in the lighting will encourage more foliage veg growth. Try to avoid using too much ORANGE/RED or else you will get lanky/stretchy seedlings that can become unruly/weak later on in their grow cycle.

NB: If you haven't already - you can also check out our article on the best types of hydroponic and indoor cannabis grow lighting to use to use for your indoor grow.


3) Ventilation
Cannabis seedlings require fresh CO2 and O2 for good growth. Take into account your ventilation when considering your veg times as the more fresh co2/oxygen circulating in your growing area will mean much better growth (which can reduce overall veg times).

Even if you have great growing lights. If your ventilation is not up to par and you don't supplement with additional co2 - you will see much slower growth, when compared to a setup with sufficient fresh air flow. Having poor ventilation may increase your overall cannabis veg time.


4) Medium / Grow Method
Consider which medium you will use as it will have a dramatic effect on your overall veg/grow time.
Hydroponic based systems tend to grow the fastest as the cannabis plants' roots will always have constant access to fresh oxygen which means more explosive growth.

Soil based grows are often the slowest to veg/grow and can often take the longest time.

Soil-less systems like Coco offer a great compromise between the speed of hydroponic growth and soil based growth due to allowing more oxygen to the roots.


5) Timing
How much time do you have? Are you in a position where you have a limited amount of time and you need to harvest by X date or are you in a position where time doesn't really matter much?

Your own personal timing/future schedule will play a role in deciding how long you should veg for. The general rule of thumb is that the longer you veg for (provided you have the root space available) the more your overall yield will be.


6) Genetics
Some plants just take a little longer to grow than others due to their unique genetic makeup. This is one of the reasons why quality stable genetics are so important when growing cannabis to ensure a good crop and smoke-worthy harvest.


7) Training
If you intend to train your cannabis plant through the use of TOPPING or FIMMING techniques (or any other training method for that matter).
Then, this will also add on to your vegetative time as the plants goes through the recovery process - growth slows down until the hormones are able to be redistributed from within the plants.

People that use the SCROG technique (SCReen Of Green) usually add on to their veg times due to the extensive training that the technique requires. Usually though, the high yields of the SCROG method can more then make up for the lengthened vegging time.

SUMMARY

Provided you have ample time and space - you should allow your cannabis plants to reach sexual maturity on their own, naturally. This usually happens during 4+ weeks of veg growth. It's easy to spot when your cannabis plants are sexually mature enough because they will start to develop pre-flowers during the vegetative phase (even with 18+ hours of light)

However, failing that. Most strains are mature enough to be put into flowering within a few weeks of true vegetative growth. There is no veg time that is set in solid stone and a lot of growers will recommend between 3-6 weeks of veg growth for cannabis seedlings depending upon your variables.

Taking into account all the above factors will give you a rough guideline on how long you should veg your cannabis plants for, to maximize on your overall harvest. Good luck and happy growing!


The following image depicts 2 sexually mature cannabis plants. Which will help you with identifying the gender of your plants. 

The plant on the left is Female and has female pre flowers (Female plants will produce flowers/buds). 
The plant on the right is Male and has male pre flowers (Male plants are only good for breeding but otherwise useless. If you spot them, pull them out ASAP as they won't produce any buds).

Sexually mature cannabis - Pre flowers (FEMALE preflowers on the left - MALE preflowers on the right)

Starting with quality feminized marijuana genetics will help to save on valuable grow time. You will have females to play with (buds!) and not have to deal with the pesky male marijuana plants.

Click Here to Buy Quality Feminized Cannabis Seeds (Discreet Worldwide Shipping)

7 Cool Facts About Marijuana

Here's 7 cool facts about Marijuana that you may not have known about.

1) Marijuana / Cannabis plants contain 70+ compounds called Cannabinoids.
The most popular and well known cannabinoid is THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol)

THC is one of the primary psychoactive cannabinoids responsible for making us feel 'high'.

2) Our body produces a neurotransmitter similar to THC, called Anandamide (N-arachidonoylethanolamine). Anandamide is considered to be an endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter. It's name was derived from the Sanskrit word; Ananda - which means 'Bliss/Joy'.

3) It's impossible to OD (Overdose) on Marijuana.

4) In August 13, 1941. A talented auto engineer; by the name of Henry Ford released to the public his awesome invention for the world to see. A car that was constructed from a blend of hemp and soybeans that was also able to run off hemp derived bio-fuel. The car was able to withstand impact 10x stronger than the industry standard metals being used at the time.

The idea would never take off due to the eventual banning of hemp as well as smear campaigns launched by people with interests in the petroleum industry.

5) Marijuana / Cannabis seeds can be made into oil for food, supplements, cosmetic products, lubrication, bio fuels and a whole range of other useful things.

6) Hemp fabric is more versatile than cotton. It can be up to 4x warmer, more water absorbent, 3x the strength (tensile) and is a lot more durable than cotton is.

7) Cannabis is safer than both; alcohol and tobacco but remains illegal in many parts of the world.

Some countries have made Marijuana legal only on a medical basis due to it's versatile ability to treat numerous conditions and diseases (Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, Auto immune disorders, all types of Cancer, Chronic pain, PTSD, Drug withdrawals/cessation and many more!)

Marijuana - Can't we all just get a bong?