First time out door grower

[Joker]

Outdoor growing is a crap shoot unless you are able to tend the plants regularly. There are alot of people that will steal your plants or just turn you in. Be careful.

[dontknownuttin]

Buy a tent and sleep better at night.

[Joker]

A couple years ago here the sheriff busted a big outdoor grow, there were half dozen Mexicans living in the woods with the plants. Now that is scary because I have little doubt that if an innocent hunter stumbled into that they would likely end up in a shallow grave.

[desertdan]

Depends om the plant. Some are fine just pruned but on others you will want to LST . Depends on the strain and the shape and size of the plant. Big plants certainly need some kind of traning, trellesing and pruning. Outdoor grows don't need as much attention as indoor. Only grow out doors in a suitable location private, hidden and away from people.Were I grow no stranger has set foot on the property in 25 years. I sleep well. I tried gorilla grows several times. not worth the trouble. If you have a secure place to grow there is nothing that can replace real sunshine and you don't have to grow frankenweed in a Matrix.The yield can be amazing! I am here to help if you need it. I get started again in Feb. with auto flower. Good luck.

[Rooster]

Koro1973 keep us posted bro. Hopefully this will be the start of a beautiful thing

South Sierra Dude Only three ounces?!?!?! Bro, if I had three ounces of FREE bud, I would be in heaven. What was the biggest lesson you took from your first outdoor grow?

[South Sierra Dude]

That anything is possible. I grew 3 ounces of medical quality canibis first try. You guys rock.

[Rooster]

Joker You're absolutely right about people turning folks in for growin outdoors. I think as long as i keep it down to just a few plants, no one will really notice


desertdan Which is your preferred LST method? The strand the I got is a bubba kush hyrbid.

[gbauto]

Welcome, Rooster. As other have said, outdoors can be a crap shoot-weather, disease, pests and biggest-security. I also live in a non legal state and prefer to grow indoors even though I live pretty far out in the sticks. I did have an impromptu grow out in my old garden patch this summer that started out as some clones for a friends grow. Just to let you know-cannabis can get really LARGE outdoors so even if there isn't a security problem you will get copious amount of bud from a single plant. I gave my friend the results of the 10' tall beast and she drove away with a 33 gal bag full.

[Rooster]

So I should probably train the plants to grow out and not up, right?

[Xaliuz]

33 galons of weed?

[Koro1973]

Hows it mate...just an update for ya on my plants that im doing outdoor...i havent done anything to these ones that arw outside at all...just water and tjeybhave just had their 3rd feed of growzilla liquid nutrients . ..

[Rooster]

Your plant is beautiful!!! Do you plan on using any training methods??

[DrPhoton]

I grow outdoors. Manage to grow some 10 foot monsters (over 2m). Last year i did untrained, they grew tall. This year i tried some topping and LST. A good majority of training techniques are for indoor use only and serve no purpose outside. The ones i would think have benefit outdoors are LST, Fim/top, and supercropping.
Supercropping and LST is beneficial anywhere.
Fimming and topping done right, i believe produces better overall growth and bud developement when done right.
The best method of all is multiple fimmings and trellacing. You get very short internode lengths while still maintaining single apical dominance that produces short wide and tall bush like monsters.
You want to at least top or fim once imo, keeping a single tall stem to me appears to produce lanky and thin buds. At least in my experience. I think by topping or fimming you redistribute energy and growth more uniformly.

[DrPhoton]

It all depends. You can train your plant to have as many branches you want, topping or fimming as many as you like (obviously doing it too much will produce less as it has to recover too many times). But if you do not supply exactly what the plant needs you can get poor quality buds or even less yeild. So you must train to what enviroment and conditions you are providing. If you top or fim quite a few times but do not allow sufficient enviroment and nutrient conditions, the plant could produce poor quality low yeild produce. Where as if you topped less the plant could grow better quality buds as its enviroment conditons suits its structure better, not trying to acheive something it clearly couldnt from the start.
I hope that makes sense..
Where i said some of the biggest plants iv seen were fimmed multiple times and trellaced, i would only attempt that with the very best conditions. Such as super high quality organic soil, which is not easy or quick. Massive grow space with lots of root growth area and good drainage. Early indoor preperation by vegging the plant indoors for a couple of months before planting outdoors just after 12 hour shift.
Etc etc.

I would start off with topping at 4th or 5th node, after that i would trellace and top or fim maybe once or twice after that. If you get massive sized buds you can safely say for next time you could fim or top for more ideal sized buds to prevent mold.
At the end of the day your total yeild all depends on the enviroment and nutrients supplied. But the yeild can be compromised if you train the buds too big or too small.

[Rooster]

I think I'm tracking you so far. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying not to go overboard with altering the plants structure if the plants environment doesn't require such shaping. If that IS what you're saying, then that makes complete sense.

My plants are all going to be outdoors in an area that gets 10-12 hrs of sunlight a day, so I'm not exactly sure on how that would play into everything. Guess I'm going to have to keep on researching. As far as my medium goes, I plan on using pre-made super soil (Kind Soil) in conjunction with regular soil and perlite. As for what i'm going to grow my crops in, I think I'm going to invest in some breathable fabric pots for better airflow to the roots.

Lol, so these are my "Planned" Conditions. Tell me what you're thinking.

[DrPhoton]

Yes thats pretty much it. A good deal of people will say that outdoors doesnt require any training other than LST. Mostly id agree with that. The yeild would be mostly no different either way as light is effeciently delivered to the plant without such limitations of indoor artificial lighting. LST aids in providing light to as much photovoltaic panels as possible. But the shape of the overall plant is not of concern like with indoors.
Like i said however, i like to top at least once because i feel the plant creates a more uniform growth and distribution of nutrients and does not neglect other bud growth for the main cola. Topping or fimming beyond that i feel is only helpful in the control of bud size. If you grow a plant that gets massive nugs you may want to top more to reduce the size and prevent bud rot or mold that could potentially ruin the crop. Or if you topped too much and your buds are too small, you might want to do less next time. But the take home measage of all this is that the overall yeild really depends on the enviroment and provisions.

Your soil ideas seem good, i must confess i have not a great experience with custom soils. Although i compost, i still use a premade solution because with the size i grow they require lots of soil (two plants over 100 gallons or 400 litres)
But your on the right track. Soil needs to have good airflow and drainage but still retain enough water for more than a day. Perlite and coco coir seem to be popular mediums today. Perlite is used in soil mixes (including soilless mediums) to improve aeration and modify the soil substructure, keeping it loose, well-draining and defying compaction. Combining this with other mediums such as coco coir, loam, peat moss etc enabes a pot to hold just enough water and oxygen for optimal growth.
I wish i could do that.

[desertdan]

I like to pull the branches as close to parallel the ground as much as possible. Be very careful doing this. slow slow and patient maybe bend a little per day till you get the hang of it. I like to use steel rebar as stakes. 1/8 paracord for ties. Some branches can be 4feet + in length. I am going out to the ranch tomorrow and I will take some photos of equip I use. Sorry none of my photos from last season are clear enough to learn anything. I will try lst on a stock next season. So far I have only done branches. Some of my best buds were lst and it greatly increases yield.

[Rooster]

You know thats funny, I tried using some LST with some of my house hold plants, and bending those stems was a challenge. I snapped almost all of them. When you say bend slowly, are you referring to supercropping or just LST

[Koro1973]

Topping mainly..but will see how we go...top a few and leave a few to do their thing so I can get a comparison

[Jibblerjoe]

My outdoor Lst, for security.

[Green75]

Yes..turning it to mush if you will...

[Rooster]

got ya. So bending and NOT snapping. I think I may have misinterpreted the process while reading some of these LST excerpts. Does it matter If I bend towards the main stem or away from the main stem?

[Green75]

Does not matter...but be mindful...go a direction where it can stay forever and not over the top of something else...

[St.buds]

My good friend only does outdoor I only do indoor but we have talked alot about all kinds of stuff and green is right I've seen huge plants from toping and fiming in his garden I've even seen a plant that was so big bout 8 feet just unroot itself and fall over from its own weight of nugs

[Jibblerjoe]

We had 1 that looked like a Xmas tree, it spilt down the middle almost to the ground. 1 side still standing the other laid over on ground. Bout 4 wk from harvest. We duck taped trunk back together, plant made it too harvest, was one of the 3rd largest plant that season.

[Green75]

have you guys ever heard of a light bomb or a co2 bomb for outdoor grows....check into it...pretty cool

[Rooster]

I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.

[Karlee]

Welcome Rooster

I fricken love that rooster pic! You don't see that everyday! Greens advice is sound!

[Rooster]

Right on. I appreciate all of the positive energy and feedback

[Karlee]

Glad you found us, we all love to grow -

[Rooster]

Hopefully I can say the same thing at the end of my harvest.